Apartheid at the Young Filmmakers Exhibition (video)

Note: Before the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo I had written this text about the talks on migration between Cuba and the United States. I had decided not to publish it because too many horrible things have happened. However, during the Young Filmmakers Exhibition – where several people were prevented from entering – one of those rallying (quite misinformed, of course) brought the subject to light, so I decided to bring out my text as well. I am also posting the video taken by someone, without my knowledge, when I was being refused entry to the Exhibition.

Silliness and Slobber

I find no better adjectives for the Foreign Ministry (MINREX) statements about the talks on immigration held between government officials of Havana and the United States. The note in the newspaper Granma, full of disinformation of course, says nothing about agreements made or not made. The words “civilized, spirit of cooperation and dialog” are repeated over and over. But sadly, I see not a single allusion to something concrete… How did you leave it gentlemen? You met, talked, made a tremendous spiritual connection, etc. etc., and then, what’s new? Did something happen, did you move some pawn? Sign some agreement? Apparently not.

Not to touch on a nerve, but the note makes an informative 360 degree turn and begins to talk about the meeting that, the following day, the members of the United States government held with some representatives from civil society and the Cuban opposition. Excuse me, Foreign Ministry, but what do I care about what the delegation did the day after the meetings? The news, frankly, seems more worthy of the magazine HOLA than a communication from MINREX.

If, in the first place, those dissidents who so offend the Cuban government had been invited to the meeting – sadly civil rights depend on issues of emigration – and if they had participated in the official talks, surely today the news would be more realistic and the agreements or disagreements would have first and last names.

The fact that the Cuban government is not capable of undertaking a coherent and mature dialog that endorses normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, does not then give it the right to be gossiping about and meddling in the lives of others to justify the unjustifiable: its ineffective management.