The One Who Understands Nothing is Me

"Don't believe, don't fear, don't beg."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The last days have been dizzying, torn between joy and uncertainty. I didn’t say goodbye to Pablo Pacheco because he sneaked out of the country, I haven’t been able to talk with Pedro Argüelle and I still have my eyes fixed on the image of Fariñas, frozen in the moment when the grimace on his face proved that to take a sip of liquid was, for him, Pure Misery.

I felt a little disconnected, running here and there, from Pinar del Rio to Santa Clara, finding out about everything going on through a flow of text messages that we managed to keep going between some friends. I have seen many people with the faith that one day we will live in a free country, I was struck by the network of solidarity outside Coco’s hospital, a score of his loyal friends and colleagues desperately watching the ups and downs of his health, turning to the clueless, like me, who arrived three hours before the visit, bringing everything they have, and that is: almost nothing. I sincerely regret that not a single journalist has taken the trouble, until now, to talk with these people who for four months, silently, have cared for the life of the freest man in Cuba.

It is sometimes unsettling to see so much courage and the kindness in people, like the mother of Fariñas, and so much indolence and hypocrisy in articles like this*. There are times when it is preferable not to connect to the Internet.

It bothers me deeply, horribly, to see the sleight of hand that has been shown to the voices of civil society in pursuit of a policy so opportunistic towards those who live in my country today: the release of the innocents. At what point in history was the dialog between the Church and the Cuban government, and with Moratinos left as mediator? When will the prisoners who want to live in Cuba be released? Why, in an international airport, don’t “free people” board the plane like the rest of the passengers? If they can come to Cuba whenever they want, why couldn’t they say goodbye to their friends today, or stop and have a cup of coffee at home before leaving the island?

Today for the first time I saw José Luis García Paneque’s face in a photo on the Internet, my feelings are indescribable, this post would become absurd if I indulged all my questions. I hate to say this, but so far only one word describes the achievement of this unique dialog that excludes the protagonists and victims of one of the two parties: Exile.

When at least one of the ex-prisoners of conscience released in Madrid puts his feet on Cuban soil again, when Pedro Argüelles, Eduardo Díaz and Regis Iglesias are in their homes, when the laypersons Dagoberto Valdes and Osvaldo Payá are invited to the negotiations between the government and the Catholic Church, and can express their opinions on equal terms, then we will be engaged in DIALOGUE; until that time we are only talking about concessions, convenience and emergency exits.

* Translator’s note: The link is to an article, in Spanish, titled, “Dissident Cubans in Spain Face an Uncertain Future”

Juan Juan Almeida, Today at 23rd and L

Do you want to know what else Hugo Pavón devotes himself to? Look here.

Request from Guillermo Fariñas Hernández to the Newspaper Granma

Imagen: La redención de Horus, por Luís Trápaga

Taken from the blog Hunger Strike

Request from Guillermo Fariñas Hernández with regards to the interview by Deisy Francis Mexidor, of the newspaper Granma, Saturday, July 3, 2010, with the Chief of Intensive Care at the University of Arnaldo Milián Castro Hospital.

The request was dictated by phone by Guillermo Fariñas to Licet Zamora Carrandi

The journalist Deisy Francis Mexidor intentionally omitted to detail the entire medical team attending Guillermo Fariñas Hernández. It includes: Dr. Armando Caballero López head of Intensive Care and Specialist in the Second Degree, Dr. Elias Becker Garcia, Second Degree Specialist in Nutrition Parenteral, Dr. Luis Alberto Pérez Santos, Second Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Mauro López Ortega, Second Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Mario Rodríguez Domínguez, Second Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Rodolfo Delgado Martínez, Dr. Israel Serra Machado, Dr. Ernesto Fernandez Aspiolea, First Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Marcos Castro Alonso, First Degree Specialist in Intensive Care, Dr. Yoniel Rivero Lóbrega , Third Year Resident in Critical Care and Dr . Cartaya Carlos Herrera, who is not part of the medical team because he is fulfilling a mission to Venezuela but on a visit to Cuba he has attended, every morning, the discussions of the medical team with respect to the progress of Guillermo Fariñas, because of his years of experience with the various strikes previously carried out.

Professor Armando Caballero made a slight error because I entered weighing 53 kilograms on March 11, and on occasion have been as high as 69.75 kilograms. All this has been thanks to the nutritionist Dr. Elias Becker, which makes us certain that Orlando Zapata Tamayo was assassinated because had he been given the medical attention that the newspaper Granma reports that I have been given, at this time he would not be deceased.

She omitted explaining the reason for my fast and suggested in the newspaper that it is a suicide and it was not explained to the readers that Guillermo Fariñas has been on a hunger strike since last February 24, demanding parole for 25 of the political prisoners in Cuban prisons as prisoners of conscience because they are in poor health.

I believe that because of my serious condition they have used the humanitarianism of the doctors to prepare the international media for my future death. I am aware of my upcoming death and consider it an honor to try to save the lived of the 25 political prisoners of conscience which our country needs as leaders. The only ones responsible for my future death are the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro. I trust in the medical and paramedic team treating me. That is why I have rejected the various offers that have been made to me to go to other countries. I want to die in my country under the noses of the dictators with their guns, rifles, canons and bombs. I have only the moral standing of a member of the ordinary people, misled and subjugated for 51 years by those who have weapons, violence, totalitarian laws and misgovernment from above.

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández

A Little Vacation Time

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

I'm going to take a few days off, I will still post but not as often. I need to rest a little, my body and mind are begging me. But don't worry, I'm fine.

Cold Water and Eternal Debt

Photo: Truck with old refrigerators in my neighborhood.

Amelia is about 50 and lives alone, her husband died in the war in Angola and since then she’s received a miserable pension through the Veteran’s Association. As she doesn’t work for the State, tough she is still of working age, several times they’ve tried to take from her the pittance of 200 Cuban pesos she receives as “financial aid.”

Since she exchanged her refrigerator for a more energy efficient one, her life has been complicated: she has cold water but owes the state 2,000 pesos in thirty monthly payments, plus late fees, which she hasn’t been able to pay. For some months an “inspector” has visited her house weekly, to tell her of the really bad things that are going to happen in her case. It all started with a fine, which exceeded the unpayable debt itself. As that didn’t work, it moved on to the blackmail of threatening to remove the refrigerator, and finally the threat of a trial.

Amelia knows she can’t raise this sum, and her inspector, gaining confidence as she looked him in the eye, confessed to her that he has not been able to meet his own commitment to pay for his refrigerator, either.

In a bizarre “Year of the Energy Revolution,” an epithet that was written below the date on every official document and on school blackboards during all of 2006, Fidel Castro decided to update our home appliances. The energy itself never came, but our lightbulbs, fans and refrigerators were exchanged for new ones, along with promises that we would pay for them on the installment plan.

Some years later, a rather high percentage of Cubans owe thousands of pesos to the State, Cuban Communist Party meetings demand of their militants that they “ensure compliance with the commitments in their nuclei and their neighborhoods,” and, incidentally, “set an example by settling their own debts.” But after 50 years -- Party member or not -- the common denominator of the average Cuban is insolvency. This bankruptcy of the family economy is the result of government mismanagement, which now demands that we pay what we have never earned.

The Limits of Cynicism

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

One of the characteristics of the rational being is to recognize his own limits, as well as others which -- for logical reasons -- must be adhered to so that coexistence works as harmoniously as possible. Some sectors of my society, however, break the boundaries of human cynicism on a daily basis, and at the forefront of this movement we find, without a doubt, official journalism and its famous National Television News (NTV).

One of the latest changes made by our appointed president was the modification of the retirement law: overnight -- without shouts, without rejoicing, without protest and without labor unions furiously demanding explanations -- Cubans were warned that our right to retire would be extended from age 60 to age 65 for men, and from age 55 to age 60 for women. So, without further ado, the “working masses” of the socialist paradise were forced to swallow this bitter pill from the abusive state and extend their working lives by five years.

But for some, no humiliation is too much; yesterday on NTV they aired a small report about the “tens of thousands of demonstrators” in France, who took to the street to protest the government’s intention to impose a law that is similar, though it adds only months of extra work.

The soft voice of reporter entertained us over screen shots of a Parisian street filled with strikers. “French workers,” she said, “are protesting the government’s intention to increase the retirement age by two years."

How far do the distant horizons of official cynicism reach? Is it an act of State vs. People sadism, or simply the laziness of the powers-that-be who forget to sweeten the pills of their subjects. Does the Party Central Committee want to demonstrate their impunity relative to the workers? Could it be considered an irony planned by the boys of the Department of Revolutionary Orientation, who don’t want to retire five years later, and so they slip the information in between the lines to raise everyone’s temper?

I don’t know what the correct hypothesis is, but whatever it is, it’s nothing more than a cruel sarcasm aimed at us: for fifty years we have not protested to our working rights.

In the Hospital

Marta is tired of hospitals. She, like most of her fellow citizens, has had bad luck with the public health service. One of the pillars of the Revolution in which she was born, it seems to her more and more like a building completely worm eaten to a miraculous static, one pillar short of destruction.

A few weeks ago she was caring for a relative in Calixto García hospital. Among other vicissitudes, the blood serum her patient needed was bought on the black market, most of the medicines were “resolved” and the treatment had to be supervised by her own relatives. By sheer effort they managed to remind the nurse of the exact time of each treatment, the name of each pill and they themselves undertook the measures needed to avoid bedsores.

As there was rarely water, they brought buckets; as there was no way to heat the water for a bath, they bought a heater; as it was too hot in the room they asked to borrow a fan. They brought everything: the soap, blankets, food, a chair for the visitors, cream, alcohol, vitamins and cotton.

The only problem that remained unresolved was the obstruction in the bathroom; but the fact that the toilet always had stinking reddish-green water and the tap on the sink wouldn’t stop running, could be considered minor in view of all the layers of grime everywhere, the destruction of the windows and the wires hanging from the false ceiling.

Marta told me she ended her stay exhausted; all she asks of heaven is that she dies of a heart attack in her own house, without having to enjoy the comforts of the Cuban public health system.

Father's Day

The first time I heard talk of the Ladies in White was on a Father’s Day. The Ciro and Claudio Fuentes made a documentary about the Cuban opposition, as a counterpart to three days of a fictional soap opera about the dissidents, which had been airing on the show The Roundtable.

I will never forget the contrast between the interviews in the documentary, and the manipulated images from Cuban television. A friend of mine always says that common sense is what allows us not to believe something that only shows one side, and I answer him: Exactly, I live in a foolish country. Despite knowing that the official press lies, the first time my instinct was confirmed, the delight was indescribable: I had proof.

Saturday, the day before Father’s Day, I had been to greet the Ladies; it is to them that I own my deepest congratulations. During the twenty-four hours of the festivities, they will be the voices of the fathers who cannot play with their children, and their white clothes will be a reminder that behind the bars of the socialist paradise there are just men. Pablo Pacheco cannot play with his son Jimmy. He is not alone, however: in a church in the capital a group of women will pray that next year they can be together.

Dogs

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

I have only fainted once in my life: I was walking along 23rd Avenue and saw a car run over a dog. The driver and his passenger got out, grabbed the animal by the legs and tossed him, dying, in a garbage can three feet from me. The last image I saw before falling: the agitated dog, bleeding among the trash, while my ears caught the squeak if the tires of the Moscovitch car pulling away at top speed. When I woke up I was in my bed: my friend who was with me had managed to get me in a taxi and bring me home safe and sound, although I didn’t wake up, even at door of my house.

Perhaps that moment has marked my obsession with stray dogs: they touch my soul, I feel helpless not to be able to take them all, I shudder when I see them crossing the street. The other day a friend of mine – totally pessimistic with regards to the future of this country – was teasing me about my fears for the animals; but people carry such a burden of indolence and dogs have been the direct victims of the phenomenon of national apathy: mangy, injured, super thin and grimy, they are a part of the daily landscape of my city, like the trees and birds.

Their terrible situation is only surpassed by their compatriots in the animal world, the residents of the zoo: they are also skinny, dirty and half sick, living in tiny cages for their size (the low roof over the hawks and eagles is truly disheartening), and sometimes they are all alone, giving the impression that their only purpose is to educate us in the fundamentals of animal abuse.

My Poor Head

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

A friend sent me a very worried letter about my physical condition; from Spain she came across a list of seventy-four traitors to the country among whom she found me. It is because I signed a letter, together with other representatives of civil society, asking for flexibility in the sale of food and permission for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba.

The controversy fascinates me; here in Cuba I have another blogger friend who called me immediately to say that in her opinion they should tighten the screws until we don’t even have water to drink, because only this will end the dictatorship: it did not occur to me to call her a “fascist”, nor to her to call me a “Castro-ite assassin.” As usual, we ended our dialog in total harmony; she raised certain questions in me, and I left her with some doubts.

It would not be the first time on my small island that we’ve had nothing to eat; we already lived through – and it had nothing to do with the foreign policy of the United States – the time after Perestroika and Glasnost, which sent seventy years of communism straight to the fires of hell. I don’t think democracy is exportable, nor hunger a detonator of social consciousness. I have always wondered how many hours we spent on August 5, 1994, in a “Malecon Slaughter” styled after that of Tiananmen. Does anyone today speculate that China is democratic?

Since I’ve had the use of reason, Cold War politics have only served so that the Minister of Foreign Affairs can repeat over and over at every world summit the infinite mantra of “blockade, blockade, blockade,” while the private accounts of the country’s owners are “growing, growing growing.” Meanwhile, the European and Latin American left applaud as if some economic restrictions could justify the longest western dictatorship.

This is my opinion: I could be wrong, I could be right. Perhaps it is naïve to think that this liberalization would promote the democratization of Cuba, but the contrary ends up being – when viewed coldly – equally naïve. I appreciate all those who have kept this controversy alive on the web in a civilized and objective way, especially Ernesto Hernandez Busto in Penultimos Dias, who has made me feel that a harmonic and divergent Cuba is not so far off; one where, as Reinaldo Escobar said, political dissent is decriminalized.

To those who ask for my head, just an observation: I think they will have to fight it out with the boys from the Department of State Security, who have already laid claim to it.