Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated
The historical memory of a people is essential to achieve cohesion and
unity. It is formed by positive and negative events and by their main
protagonists through the ages. It is a continuous process without
exclusions or black holes. It is not possible for us to imagine the
world today without its philosophers, politicians, economists,
travelers, soldiers, artists, inventors, scientists, etc., over the
centuries, nor can we imagine it without the wars, epidemics, tragedies,
persecutions, etc., that have also taken place.
Every people has its particular history , and together they form the
history of the world. In the disappeared socialist world, beginning with
the extinct Soviet Union, was established the nefarious custom of
revising history, hiding or eliminating events and people considered
inconvenient to the newly established ideological and political system.
This practice, over time, constituted a criminal manipulation that
deformed historic memory. This, they removed critical events and
important people, occupying those spaces by events and people agreeable
to the new power.
Cuba, as might be expected, was not and is not an exception to the rule.
From the earliest days of the year 1959 until today, there has been a
systematic removal and replacement of our historical memory,
encompassing not only the sphere of thought, but also reaching the
absurdity of demolishing statues and monuments, even without considering
their artistic value.
Examples abound: the statues of the Avenue of the Presidents and the
Paseo, of Alfredo Zayas Park behind the Presidential Palace, the
monument to Maine, etc., in addition to renaming streets and avenues,
parks, schools, shops, theaters, hospitals, factories, recreation
centers and other places. In their eagerness to erase everything, those
in power have tried to do away with fifty-six years of republican
history, trying to artificially unite the wars of independence of the
nineteenth century with the insurrection of the mid-twentieth century,
which enabled them occupy the country. In this crazy intention, they
juggle facts and figures, twist others, and on their pedestals are
installed events and characters of their liturgy.
Nor have historical dates been respected, officially being replaced by
others, certainly less transcendent, but in correspondence with the new
history that they have tried to write, against the grain of reality and
truth, for the sole purpose of enhancing facts and characters, and
historically legitimizing the established model. In this distortion of
the national memory, mere skirmishes of the insurrection have been
turned into combat and combat into battles, all overflowing with
heroism, and the real battles of our history — depending on political
expediency and the characteristics of its central figures — have been
either exalted or annulled. So we talk about some facts of Maceo and
Maximo Gomez, but others of Agramonte and some patricians are silenced,
including those up to Calixto Garcia and the end of the war in Loma de
San Juan, at the gates of Santiago de Cuba, Cubans and Americans
fighting together against the Spanish, which is obvious.
If we consider the official history, Cuba has only been a country of
warriors and war, ignoring all our scientific, medical, educational,
artistic and other events, spheres where from the earliest times great
personalities stood out, people like Arango, Delmonte, Saco, Luz y
Caballero, Heredia, Poey, Romay, Finlay, Brindis de Salas, Varela,
Varona, Aballí and others. To erase the historical memory has been a
task that has engaged many submissive servants, used as efficient tools.
To make it known to our citizens must be the work of honest men.
December 16 2011
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