Today I saw an old childhood principal, who happens to be from Cuba. She’s getting older but I remember her vividly and she hasn’t changed a bit. I’d forgotten where she was from though and barely guessed right judging by her slight accent. When I asked her thoughts on the Cuban situation, she said “don’t ask” and then proceeded to tell me how one of her brothers was incarcerated for 20 years, for resigning his government post shortly after Fidel’s triumph. He made this decision when Fidel announced, only a few days after taking power, that the part of the Cuban constitution that mentioned God was to permanently and immediately be omitted. He got 20 years because the “revolucionarios” couldn’t find anything he’d done wrong. This man of principle fell for, as did every other God-fearing Cuban back in the day, Fidel et alia’s act pretending to be pious Catholics, when “they would visit local churches in masses wearing rosaries, shamelessly deceiving the public, carefully concealing their communist agenda.”
I feel the need to document and share this because I get the feeling that many young people who have never experienced the atrocities of a dictatorship and have never been witnesses to anything less unpleasant than having Bush as president, may romanticize and idealize what has cynically been called and glorified as the “revolution”. My principal’s second brother was also incarcerated for refusing to serve the government, and by sheer luck, only served two years. This very family owned a three-story house in the center of Havana and woke up one day to find a sign on its walls reading: Property of the Government. When they claimed otherwise showing their property documents, these were also taken from them. The father died of a rage/impotence-induced stroke and the entire family is now out of the island.
Somewhere along the way, the “revolution” raped Cuba and it has been raping, spitting on her and feeding her just enough so she can’t defend herself and be alive for more. The once beautiful and dignified is now wearing rags and bearing bastard children who do not know the meaning of the word freedom. May we never forget Trujillo, may we never forget Fidel and may we carefully watch Chavez as we learn from a series of very sad and long lived mistakes in Latin America.
Related post: The Lost City
Oh… que bueno que publicaras este parecer. Esperemos que a la clase jóven, quien apenas ve estos bosquejos de maldad en gran parte del mundo, sea confidente y también rememorice no sólo su pasado local, sino también el global. Para que vean cómo eramos. Y esperemos de ellos una revolución, a la paz.
Gracias Antonia!
copycat blogger. ;-P