We were few and labored…

What you see here was once the seal of the centrifuge of our washing machine. A frightening little sound every time we turned it on that announced it was already signing the song of the peanut seller, until more than a month ago it told us, gentlemen I’m retiring, and it expired along with the motor damp underneath.

Between naiveté and hope I went in vain to the State repair workshop and collided there with the predictable evidence: in the intricacies of the black market — virtually the only one available for these purposes — this piece of rubber would cost between 20 and 25 CUC, that it at least 500 Cuban pesos, plus the usual labor cost, without which we would have to wash our clothes by hand.

This happened exactly when our ministry decided to start “paying” doctors 2.00 Cuban pesos an hour for each night shift from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, which is 24 Cuban pesos per night shift — and so with an average of five night shifts a month this comes to 120 Cuban pesos, or the equivalent of some $5.00 U.S. now added to our monthly salaries for this work.

The incontrovertible evidence strikes us in the face again: while we public health professionals devote ourselves to our work, we continue to be the last link in the food chain; the pittance added to our salary today proves it. Other sectors triple or quadruple the pay, however mine, which for more than a decade has been the greatest source of hard currency entering the country (in exchange for doctors on “medical missions” abroad in countries like Venezuela), is kept destitute, in practice and deliberately.

Luckily selfless helping hands took on our repair, and although we always have to buy the part, having had to pay the full price for the disaster would have tripled our cost.

However, this still meant paying an entire month’s salary. While this is happening our minister determines that we do not deserve more than 2 Cuban pesos per hour for night duty, which destroys our health. They definitely do not respect us.

By: Jeovany Jimenez Vega.

29 May 2013

Caracas in a Photofinish Final / Jeovany Vega

I confess that I, like many, was surprised how hard-fought the fight was. Fewer than 300,000 votes difference, and both candidates with more than 7 million votes, is virtually a dead heat that calls for a deep reflection: how is it possible that after all these missions implemented by the Government of Hugo Chavez even half of Venezuelans voted for the alternative, Capriles? Could Venezuelans be so ungrateful? Or is what is hidden behind this shift a part of history that always escapes whenever you look through a single prism?

As I said in my second to last post, almost every reference on the subject has brought me colleagues who are returning from Venezuela, workers who left under conditions that I refrain from judging so as not to stoke the demons. But the truth is that now we get indisputable evidence: half of the electorate voted for the project that advocates reversing more than a decade of Bolivarian Revolution and choosing to return to the previous scheme.

I know well, from my own experience, that the ocean waves tend to distort the reality emitted by the antennas; so it is that hundreds of millions of earthlings still have a distorted sense of the Cuban reality, for example, and by analogy the same thing could happen in this case.

I speculate on the possibility that behind Hugo Chavez’s discourse, however sincere, is sheltering this opportunistic element that never fails in these situations: a whole caste of officials who in the name of the movement have filled their pockets and positioning themselves just to see how much they can benefit themselves, something that could be seen every day by this whole mass of people who voted on both sides, and that is not transmitted, presumably, on Telesur.

But personally, my sixth sense makes me doubt the alternative, Capriles; I simply do not see that he has the charisma to lead a nation. With the entire economic livelihood of the oligarchy there to count on for logistical support, I suspect that the money has been their only currency. It puts me in the dilemma of choosing, never having opted for someone so devoid of magnetism.

Although to offer an opinion from more than six hundred miles of stormy Caribbean away implies a margin for error, “especially when dealing with such complex realities,” this is something that I assume mine isn’t more than one opinion among millions.

I hope that whatever path this sister nation takes, whatever it is, includes the most absolute political and economic independence and the greatest justice and social inclusion possible, and that it all comes through paths of peace because it is this and no other dream that I desire for my own people. But as I see things now, the government of Nicolas Maduro will have to walk a very fine line if he wants to continue his ambitious social project, because it’s absolutely certain that, from inside and outside the country, powerful and dark shady deals are going to be working against him.

23 April 2013

The Dream, the Forest and the New Wolf

by Jeovany Jimenez Vega

“…because, although a nation may collapse, its mountains remain. And with the mountains there remains man’s eternal responsibility to preserve what is essentially his, which is his soul. And with that responsibility there remains the possibility of yearning and striving and the satisfaction that comes with doing it.” Hanama Tasaki

Fifty years ago the triumph of the Revolution was a paradigm for an era about to begin. The serious social problems that it sought to stamp out and the head-on antagonism towards the U.S. government marked its early years with a tense and radical tone. The justice of that struggle, the immense jubilation of a sea of people celebrating victory and later developments such as the literacy campaign, the invasion at Bay of Pigs and the October missile crisis would confer glory on its charismatic bearded leaders. It was a romantic image that resonated with every leftist movement throughout the world. At the time, as so often happens in similarly fervent eras, it seemed that anything was possible.

As one might imagine, to bring these dreams to life, a different type of man was needed. He had to possess his species’ highest virtues, be capable of making huge sacrifices while losing nothing. He had to be someone trustworthy, who acted in accordance with his principles to the point of being willing to die for them. There was an urge to forge an altruistic being, indifferent to the miseries of the past and without the slightest trace of selfishness. There was a need for a man aware of his moment in time and of the legacy he should leave. He aspired to be the perfect being “outlined in the speeches of Che Guevara” and was called upon to be the model for an idealized future. In other words, he was the dream of the New Man.

But that vision did not lead to a smooth road towards the promised land. While large estates, foreign holdings and properties belonging to the wealthy were nationalized in the early years, with the onset of the “revolutionary offensive” of 1968 such government measures were redirected against the very Cubans who had so fervently supported the Revolution less than a decade earlier. They often found themselves stripped of their small family businesses, whether they were simple little neighborhood stores, humble produce stalls, or tiny shoeshine stands. These misguided and extreme measures were followed by decades of economic stagnation and a flourishing bureaucracy that did nothing but demonstrate how inappropriate it was to adopt a carbon copy of the Soviet model.

The passage of time also saw an absence of civil guarantees, the lack of a separation of powers and an ethical impoverishment brought on by a press subjugated by censorship, all of which created an atmosphere of social hypocrisy that could only grow exponentially. The initial promise of plurality was necessary to motivate the people to wage war against tyranny of Batista’ as well as against assassins the likes of Ventura Novo and Cañizares, of Pilar García and Rolando Masferrer. It ultimately degenerated into a civil and spiritual poverty that today we recognize with embarrassment.

Now, fifty-four years later, I ask myself what remains of that dream. What of the utopia of the New Man have young people today inherited? The fantasy died in the cradle and in its place arose someone capable of the full range of hypocrisy, someone who runs from truth like vermin from light.

In he shadow of fear was engendered a lazy and selfish being, unable to put himself forward civilly with principles, unable to concern himself with anything that doesn’t have to do only with him. Insensible to the pain of others inadvertently powerless to go further, beyond the boundaries of his little plot, and in his Kafkaesque insect dimension, vegetates in his own harvest of misery without ever uncovering the great common parcel.

I don’t want to say that my inquisitive mind or judgement are infallible, nor do I want to wipe the slate clean, but it greatly distresses me that the behaviors that should be dark exceptions are the shameful norm: I look with sadness at the minimum level of spirituality of this youth, focused on fashion and reggaeton but too uneducated and superficial to notice major issues.

Elevated concepts like nation, commitment, duty or sacrifice are as alien to the average youth of today as the concepts of quantum physics. And it’s not that it’s wrong to live intensely, to wear the latest fashions and dance to the point of delirium, “because youth only comes around once and as beautiful as it is, it is fleeting,” but there should be, along with joy, depth… isn’t this Guevara?

The mega-experiment of the schools in the countryside had everything to do in such moral devastation, which for decades kept several generations of Cubans away from their families in the most critical phase of their adolescence, while their personalities crystallized.

In the classrooms of these boarding schools there was a climate of adequate teaching, “high quality in many cases,” while in the dorms many times the prison code prevailed: good had to adapt itself to sign of evil, and never vice versa, if you wanted to survive; their that young person in the making could descend to the most obscene unscrupulousness.

To this must be added the unfathomable crisis of values that came with the decade of the ’90s. The profound deterioration of people’s living standards prompted a mass exodus of teachers from the National Education System with its logical consequences, and meanwhile in the streets the law of the jungle was definitely enthroned.

Then libretazo of the 2000s “with its never achieved its Comprehensive General Teachers, its video-conferences and massive graduations of emerging, and volatile, teachers,” struck the final blow. The sad result we are touching today; it is my generation and my daughter’s generation that is the product of those years: the insensitivity, the worst education, the most arid vulgarity are the norm and, after so much time, have reached epidemic proportions. In short, we have created a Frankenstein and today we do not know what to do with it.

But I maintain the stubborn hope that not all is lost. Against such desolation I offer in opposition Jose Marti’s unshakable faith in human improvement. I have a living certainty that my people will draw, from the illustrious examples of their history, the strength necessary to rise from its ruins; so that the New Man we dreamed of one day, and whom I resist considering an impossible chimera, is finally born as the “son of universal values, not of political indoctrination” for the ultimate good of the fatherland.

We do not need the man of prefabricated harangues: essentially we need to rescue this man from the moral abyss dug by simulation and lies. We urgently need a Revolution of the soul.

“What can we count on…?!” the myopic skeptics scream. And the response worthy is what Agramonte shouted that shook the insurgent swamp: “The shame, we can count on that, the shame all Cubans deserve!”

25 March 2013

Requiem

By Jeovany Jimenez Vega

With the attempted coup of April 2002, the Venezuelan oligarchy tried to remove from power and/or murder Commander Hugo Chavez, leader of the nascent Bolivarian Revolution. There were moments of intense drama: the uncertainty of the early hours of his ouster and then the tsunami of people, the fiery waves that came down from the hills to restore their elected president to Miraflores Palace, a display of pure courage. That was an impressive and spontaneous reaction; since then the world was certain that something was brewing in Venezuela, something more important than simple ascent of a leader: this was a people with real aspirations, who performed an incredibly brave act of atonement for their true leader.

Parallel events, like the Llaguno Bridge Massacre, widely manipulated by the pro-coup media — “snipers who smashed the skulls of Venezuelans on both sides so as not to arouse suspicions when it came time to accuse the Chavistas,” they reported — and others like the siege of the Cuban embassy, the violent closure ot the official TV channel, and the precipitous recognition by various nations of the “transition government” that lasted no longer than an ice cube in the sun, largely defined Latin American during the following decade and are now Histroy, like it or not by the detractors of Hugo Chavez.

I have never visited Venezuela, so I can not offer an opinion with complete certainty about a reality that I never experienced. Many of my references have come to me from Cuban doctors, nurses or technicians who served there during different stages and I who told me  about an excessive social violence, “the painful legacy of past decades,” with youth organized crime, with trigger-happy almost-kids perpetrating crimes in cold blood; they tell me of constant political tensions, the rising scarcities of life, and the opportunistic showing its face on both sides of the conflict.

If there is anything I am aware of, it’s that for the government of Hugo Chávez nothing was exactly easy. But I’m convinced that “I could be wrong about all that,” that in the Venezuelan case the scarcities referred to are greatly speculative, driven by wealthy opponents, because I can’t understand how this could be in such a rich country, with the largest recognized oil reserves in the world.

But one cannot ignore the fact that this oligarchy still retains enough economic power to sabotage, should it decide to do so, precisely because the Government of Hugo Chavez “in addition to its socialist project, but different from the Cuban experience,” respected private property in Venezuela, giving the State control over the most strategic sectors.

Recently we Cubans watched how Maduro delivered his first speech as President, “in which he immediately called elections” under the same roof with known pro-capitalists opponents who listened with respect and were treated with respect, and, through Telesur, the station that could be called the Chavista “official” TV, we watched Capriles deliever his clumsy speech quite naturally before this and other media of the press; a lesson in tolerance we need to learn.

With regards to the elections of this coming April 14, I have few doubts. With hisspeech to the country, Capriles simply dug his own grave. The opposition leader gave a masterclass in political stupidity, in how to incisively attack not only the institutions, but the human sensibility of people still in deep mourning, with a tirade that left a bad taste in the face of elections too close to allow times to make amends.

I am convinced that this slip will cost Capriles tens or hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of votes. I predict that this election, with the emotional component in his favor, will be won by Maduro by a margin greater than the last one won by Chavez.

To his credit, the commander left a legacy of millions of literate, owners of new homes, through missions like Robinson, Barrio Adentro, Habitat and Great Housing Mission, among others who completed a total of 21 and who sought, above all, to humanize the life of ordinary Venezuelans.

Commander Chavez died after a long battle during which he never lied to his people about his health. With Honorary Doctorates from 10 universities, the “José Martí” International Award of UNESCO, and he earned dozens of international awards, honors and medals, he died convinced of the justness of his struggle, that neoliberal capitalism is guilty of the serious problems in Latin America, of the great hoax and lying to the third world by global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. He died believing that Bolivar gave us a saving proposal two centuries ago, and therefore embraced that dream until his last breath.

The media of humanity honored him, including the UN General Assembly, the OAS and virtually all regional bodies. Fifty heads of state and government, as well as hundreds of world personalities attended his funeral and left an undeniable mark on the new dynamics of North-South relations. All this convinces me that Hugo Chavez will not belong to us but to history, and maybe not today but tomorrow, History will issue the final verdict.

1 March 2013

Reading Agenda Item 1

Perhaps the concern I feel over the recent visit of Russian President Dimitri A. Medvedev to Cuba is due to my natural incompetence in economic matters, but in truth reading the first item on his agenda leaves little room for doubt. The Russian Prime Minister clearly establishes as the primary purpose of his visit, to establish a “Convention on the regularization of the debt of the Republic of Cuba to the Russian Federation for credits granted in the period of the former USSR.”

It couldn’t have been stated more clearly if it were etched in stone. Any malcontent could get the impression that Comrade Medvedev came to hand us the bill for everything having to do with Russian for the three decades of “cooperation” during the Soviet era. However much this issue is decorated or obscured with the other nine points which are of little importance, that time of Russian dreams has been left definitively in the past by this generation of Russian politicians and they’re giving us a clear and concise message: the seem disposed to collect everything they are owed, down to the last centavo.

I recently reflected on the post-war period and how much a society can progress through an opportune focusing of its efforts. A little more than a decade after the Second World War, Europe was completely changed. Cities flattened by Nazi bombs were rebuilt in the carefree abandon of the ‘60s, and the same thing happened in Japan, once it was stripped of it military ballast. The world watched how, despite the nuclear aftermath, the land of the rising sun rebuilt at a dizzying speed and became a world economic power. A similar evolution occurred in Germany, with all its cities bombed by the RAF, including Berlin having been attacked by the artillery of the Red Army.

However, after three decades of broad Soviet economic protection — equivalent to a Marshall Plan designed especially for us — left us unable to take flight. The fact is, we have given history an eloquent example of how to waste such an opportunity.

But, as it was in the past it continues to be today, and Moscow doesn’t believe in tears. Now Comrade Mededev arrives, at this time and with that message, which could not come at a more inopportune time, no matter how one depreciates the amount for the differences in the value of the old ruble and the agreement to pay in a decade.

Watching the press conference I saw something — arrogance? — in the gestures of the Russian, and something else — worry? — on the face of our President Raul. To tell the truth, I don’t know where we are going to get everything we would need to pay back for thirty years of resources wasted by the handful — I wonder if this would be possible — because at that time no one knew — not the KGB, nor the CIA, not even God — that there would be glasnost, or perestroika, and that someone would one day postulate, for good or ill, the apparent end of history.

9 March 2013

Peggy Picket: The Pathways of Pain

At the gates of heaven there is supposed to be the one who separates and in the agony decides who stays, but everyone retraces at the end their own path to the common pain, everyone weaves their own purgatory. “Peggy Picket sees the face of God,” by Roland Schimmelpfenning was the heartrending offering last week by La Compañía del Cuartel  at the Brecht Cultural Center in Vedado. The play leads us to a sensitive and controversial theme: how much frustration or personal fulfillment results for a Cuban doctor from working on a collaborative project abroad, versus submerging himself in the everyday here in Cuba.

A dilemma contained in the compelling performance of the young cast, that managed to address a complex and painful reality, which hit close to home for this viewer because of his own status as a Cuban doctor, and friend to some of those who returned from their own Peggy Picket adventures, and so many others who never returned.

All I wanted to saw was there, everything detailed: peering into the unknown, to another dimension of human tragedy; knowing oneself a vehicle of an alien message, moving the pieces at whim of foreign exchange; the grinding poverty that compels one to leave because no one lives on bread alone, because dreams also count and because love isn’t enough; that tearing sacrifice of a couple or a family destroyed in the making; finding yourself besmirched by someone, they told you, who would be like your brother, finding that “…we are not always welcome here, no”… in short, that Peggy Picket… Shows us the dark and human side of the Cuban medical missions, their unconfessed edge, to those who return with a veil of silence drawn in a look.

It proposes an approach to one of the most controversial nerve centers of the reality in my profession: the way going on one of these work missions can affect the life of a professional Cuban who, at least up to the time this work was written, was not allowed to leave the country except under the conditions demanded by the authorities, and never by choice; that once there had to — and still has to — face living in extreme conditions, exposed to risks in unimaginable countries, that come from nature or the hostilities and ingratitude of men, all knowing that they will receive a tiny percent of the money that will be exchanged between the countries, and meanwhile remaining far from their family and all they left behind.

But today, while I applaud La Compañía del Cuartel, I abstain from making a moral judgment; nothing is further from my mind than to launch attacks capable of hurting feelings. It would be very difficult for me to sincerely say what I think without some colleague thinking I’m referring to them. At my age I have learned to be slow to comment on realities I haven’t experienced; at this point I try, above all, not to judge. For thus reason, I decided to let you draw your own conclusions. And Carol and Martin already know their reasons for leaving; Liz and Frank already know why they chose to stay. Better that everyone be left alone with his own conscience.

Jeovany Jimenez Vega

February 4 2013

Rage in the Time of Cholera*

By Jeovany Jimenez Vega

Cholera – also referred to as Asian morbus because of repeated and deadly worldwide pandemics originating in India and China – is the result of colonization of the digestive tract by the Vibrio cholerae bacillus, “a bacteria of the Spirillaceae family, very sensitive to heat and acids, which quickly kill it.” It was discovered in 1893 by R. Kock, who also discovered the tuberculosis bacillus in 1882. It is treated as a very infectious contagious disease and is transmitted orally through drinking water, foodstuffs contaminated with fecal matter and vomit from an infected person or a carrier. On rare occasions it can be transmitted through urine, as well as through contact with objects such as glasses, dishes or tableware used by an infected person.

The illness has a very short incubation period “that can last between two to three hours, but which generally varies from ten hours to three days” during which time the infected individual shows no symptoms. One should always bear in mind that cholera can be asymptomatic (which is the case in the so-called asymptomatic carriers of the bacteria) as well as the fact that in a significant number of cases – the majority of cases according to some writers – one does not see the typically severe symptoms, but rather a common and easily diagnosed form of diarrhea. After the incubation period comes the stage during with the patient becomes truly ill. A patient can develop one of five different clinical forms of the disease.

It was just a matter of time before cholera reached Cuba. Large numbers of tourists, foreign students and personnel from Cuba’s Medical Mission and other areas of collaboration in countries affected by the epidemic have for years provided a potential gateway for infectious diseases to enter the country. On this occasion it began in Santiago de Cuba and in recent months has spread to the west of the country, including the capital, in the form of outbreaks that have been quickly treated with varying degrees of success, but which for now have not reached epidemic levels.

The epidemiological situation in the Cuban capital is not homogeneous. Some some urban areas are more affected more than others. But it would be extremely irresponsible to speculate here about figures about which I am not completely certain. Similarly, it would not be prudent or ethical to try to minimize the threat facing the country, even if we are not now facing an epidemiological explosive situation. I am certain, however, that health authorities are making great efforts to resolve the situation and do not doubt that the issue is being treated as high priority by governmental officials. Threatening these efforts are irregularities in drinking water supplies, the unfortunate condition of the distribution network, and the deterioration of drainage systems and sewer lines in many locations throughout the country, “whose repair depends on multi-million dollar investments over the medium and long-term.” Further complicating matters is the lack of awareness among certain segments of the population of the risks posed by a disease that has been unknown in Cuba since the end of the 19th century.  

This is a problem that must be assessed appropriately, one that should not be underestimated “since we are facing a potentially lethal disease that throughout history has amply demonstrated its toll in lives lost.” We should not, however, overestimate it either. I have every confidence in the competence of my colleagues to adequately treat each case. Cuban society should make use of its full organizational capabilities to eradicate this scourge and thus avoid its becoming a full-blown epidemic. The Cuban public health system is prepared to achieve this aim. Without being gratuitously over-confident, I am convinced that within a few months the situation will be under control.

Cuban doctors are quite sensitive to this danger and are trained to deal with it. The fact that our government is in debt to us, that it pays us a “salary” that is laughable, forcing us to live in an absurd state of insolvency, that it still pays scant attention to the medical sector, that the old anger over my pending vindication still persists – all this is, as we say, wheat from another sack. This is not the post that I intended to write, but in spite of everything it seems rage is still my most conspicuous vocation.

*Translator’s note: The title – a reference to the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez – is both a joke and a pun. Also, in Spanish the word cólera can refer either to cholera, or can mean rage or anger, as the word choler does in English.

February 15 2013

Waiting Patiently for What Never Comes

By  Jeovany Jimenez Vega

The last time I was in the farmers’ market, a couple of days ago, I saw  various things on offer which I don’t recall seeing since I was a kid. It was in the mid-80’s that this market – at least in Artemisa, where I live – had its “golden age”. But the economic strategists disrupted the prosperity of the most entrepreneurial and consistent producers and they stopped right then and there, so that the ability to largely meet public demand which was the case a few years previously, was, at the beginning of the following decade, past history.

During the years following that brief period, the farming sector saw itself, most of the time, prevented from expanding its production as a result of laws which already effectively limited its productivity and threatened the results of its hard work. Up to the present day laws remain in force which give the Prosecutor’s Officethe power to confiscate, without much ado, the estimated gains of a producer who is doing too well – and it is obvious what effect this has had on the enthusiasm of those who find themselves at the wrong end of this process.

Several attempts to sort this out were tried by the state — the “Food Plan” of the ’90’s included — among which the wobbly Credit and Services Cooperatives stood out — including their “stronger” variant — which never managed to guarantee a constant, stable supply for the people, as normally they were unprofitable and unviable, falling most of the time into net losses.

Along with the mismanagement of these organisations throughout the country, there also existed another enormous obstacle to produce arriving on the Cuban table: the proven inefficiency  and irresponsibility of the state supply company.

The Cuban state monopolised the process of supply in a single company, and in its war against intermediaries eliminated the entire chain for transporting the harvest, leaving this activity almost exclusively in the hands of an entity which, citing lack of fuel, tires, transmissions, or whatever consumables, year after year, has left thousands and thousands of tons of food to rot in the fields.

Inevitably this had profound consequences: the markets continued to be without supplies and with prices going through the roof, production was depressed and plates waited anxiously for food which never arrived.

Now it is not about again taking on the intermediary that transports commodities from the field — because that is just one more activity, that all the producers cannot take on because their activities are so time-consuming.

In order to combat speculation they should create mechanisms that regulate, dynamically and realistically, price policies.  But before that the Cuban state has a serious account pending with its people:  first of all it should lead by example and adjust its irrational and hostile pricing policy perpetuated in the retail trade and not empty our pockets on collection days.

I have here an excellent first step to take in order to try to normalize everything!  Only as the prices imposed by the State stop being scandalous will the peasant have an incentive to lower prices, as scandalous as those, at his stand at the market.

But apparently Raul Castro’s policy, slightly more pragmatic, has already yielded some fruit with regard to the food supply, although it has not happened with all due haste.  As I am not an authorized voice, it would be worth listening to the producers’ criteria on this matter, but, judging at first glance, the circumstances today seem different, although the situation is not the same across the country and not all townships have the “privilege” of Artemisa — I have confirmed the great affluence of the regulars from the municipalities surrounding my town’s market.

To the extent that we move away from the capital, the more we look to the east, the more obvious is the deterioration in the quality of life and the greater the decline in agricultural products.

I think everything here is above all a matter of focus, the way to meet our demands could be much shorter than supposed as the example of China demonstrates: from the time Deng Xiaoping determined that the ability to hunt mice was more important than the color of the cat,very few years elapsed before there were tangible results in food production.

The same thing happened in Vietnam — looking at production schemes similar to ours — they substantially increased production when they opened the doors to the small family business.

Ah! But something happens in such cases which is fundamentally different from what happens in ours: Vietnamese producers can go abroad when they need to buy their own supplies and a Chinese businessman may, no one should be shocked by that, amass a personal fortune if he does it by legal means.

And that is what it’s about: it would be much better for the Cuban state, rather than trying to supply all our products, something that has not achieved, so it has had to authorize them to be imported directly as needed, when it has the means to do so, it would be much better to accept that “… to get rich is a duty, whenever it is done by lawful means …” Those are the words of José Julián Martí, not mine, and consistent with his thinking we should reshape our thinking so that we will no longer see all the fruit we cultivated for years with our own hands evaporate overnight.

Translated by GH

January 30 2013

Open the Wall!

By:  Jeovany Jimenez Vega

The implementation, as of this January 14th, of the Cuban political migratory reforms has generated hope unprecedented in more than 50 years for a people who suffered already for too long family separation and the grief of terrible deaths at sea.  It is supposed that from this day forward that monster of the “white card” — the equivalent of the sacrosanct Exit Permit — ceased to exist and with it also the execrable figure of the “permanent exit” with which every Cuban who decided to leave his country for a specified time was banished against his will and which implied the automatic “outlawing” (that is seizure) of all he left behind, really serious things if you look at them from the correct perspective.

If I have had until now a rather skeptical position with relation to all this, no one should blame me; you have to keep in mind my condition as a Cuban doctor who lives inside of Cuba subordinated to a Minister who, as of 1999, decided that none of the professionals subordinated to him would leave his country, not even temporarily for vacation, until no fewer than five years passed after having solicited the “liberation” from his minister*.

Now it is said that the phantom ministerial resolution that made this extreme measure available has been overturned, which many digital sites and foreign press outlets have echoed, as have alternative Cuban media, but the truth is that my minister and my government have made no public declaration that officially confirms it, hence the issue unleashes the usual wave of speculation and rumors.

Personally I think that the Cuban authorities could have reasoned as follows: if the new Migratory Law, in Articles 24 and 25, by means of subsection f, establishes plainly that it does not permit professionals to travel freely “. . .by virtue of the rules directed to preserve the qualified work force. . .” then why keep in force that resolution designed exclusively for the personnel subordinated to the Minister of Public Health?  Why keep two tools when one is sufficient?  After all, in practical terms, something that before only affected professionals in my sector now is made to extend to the rest of the country’s professionals and technicians.

But not to be too intransigent I will hope that the time will come when someone says the last word. I hope that from today on no Cuban will be deprived of his right to travel; that no Cuban will be held against his will, on some pretext, by some bureaucrat; that no one will be authorized to come and go from his country on conditions. For now, forgive me, gentlemen, I reserve the benefit of the doubt. I have never before wanted so intensely to be mistaken.

*Translator’s note: Prior to the so-called “migratory form” that just went into effect, EVERY doctor who asked to leave Cuba had to wait at least five years from the time of making the request before he or she could leave (if they were allowed to leave at all). Doctors on missions in foreign countries have had their passports held so they could not leave from those countries.

Translated by mlk

January 23 2013

Dreams of Peace

I offer my open hands to a friend from childhood, a friend I knew when the fair only offered pale convulsed dreams. It was around this time that my friend insisted on weaving hopes against the prevailing winds that announced storms gathering at the end of the street, the wind that in his rise seemed dotted with vivid chaotic colors, beautiful shades that fled the rotting trash coming to live in the plaza. In my dreams — I distinctly remember — my friend rose to an immense height and there, higher than the pigeons fly, recorded his remote signs in the heavens. Then the plaza was flooded with that smell of new dreams.

Today I confide to his warm hands what tenderness, from the low pressure system, my hands saved; my hands sore and tired from the stories my friend told me. He did not say, in those days — forgetting that a child believes everything he hears — that the light, like the truth, has dangers if you take it by force, and this boy was in pursuit of the light and now, for wanting to touch the sun both hands are burned.

But although the wounds put an end to innocence, not to guilt. In face that boy still wonders if he would scare the butterflies, if those paper boats would capsize, if those kites that flew so high would sink under the torrential downpours; although he knows well that today they would bathe in the light of sunsets very different and disparate, and therefore, more human and sublime.

When the evening comes I go to clean the plaza and throw a tricolor line that divides it into two perfect halves. The surprise upsets the pigeons and the rest of the creatures and I note to my dear friend that, in addition to pigeons, the plaza is home to and shelters sparrows, turtledoves, canaries, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, swallows and goldfinches, delicate creations, all from God, who having been born in the same village have the same right to fly, the space and the sun and what they most ask for a little more light, some little corner of peace to ease their life, which is so ethereal and fleeting like the dreams.

I hope my friend understands that this is the most beautiful flock of birds that nest on this infinite island: that with freedom they have enough.

Jeovany Jimenez Vega

January 17 2013