Confusion

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

The subject of Cuba makes people prickly and leads to heated arguments where you don’t even know what you said or what the other person replied. I had an historic one recently where one of my best friends ended up shouting “Communist!” What provoked him of course was the laughter of those present, and in my case a bit of sadness, about the absurdity of the current situation. In the end we came to agreement on most points and on any mystery we didn’t manage to understand.

So, people walk around here – and I include myself in this – wearing their emotions on their sleeves, with uncontrollable pain and zero rationality. A debate among friends is entertaining but when you look out the window you see that the level of confusion is sky-high.

The disinformation and abuse of polarized political subjects in the press and on television has led to miscommunication in personal relationships; parents who don’t talk with their children, “politics” as a taboo subject at the family table, the disguised discontent of daily life.

We have a government so paternal that in order to control our movements and our freedom of expression it has even reached inside our feelings, to prevent our dialogs, to use civil confusion as a weapon, with the sole objective of maintaining its power.