The Privileged Ones

The Privileged Ones / Mackandal – Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere
Mackandal - Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere, Translator: Chabeli

The privileges granted by the regime to the Cuban military elite, behind
the back of the people's will and stepping over any consensus from the
citizens, have as solemn goal to buy the loyalty of this elite.

Bought loyalty is not acting in a reasonable and conscious way, which
would be the right thing to do. Give the level of misery and hardships
that the country is facing, the military elite should be willing to give
up their privileges and live under the same hardships that the majority
of the people, who they claim to defend, suffer from. But, unfortunately
that is not how it is. The armed forces, far from protecting the
interests of the citizens, are the loyal dogs of a ranch called Cuba.

The thirty-five new colonels, personally promoted by President Raúl
Castro, are living proof of what this article emphasizes.

They swore to be loyal to him and the Party. They do not care about the
people or the country's path toward democracy. They are loyal to him and
the Party, shamelessly, like a dog with a bone.

Cuba deserves a better fate and leaders fully committed to the honor
that is gained from freedom and political plurality.

The manipulation of patriotic morality and of the motherland itself when
only a few receive privileges from those who have even taken from the
country the sense of its own history.

A disproportionately large army is ready to repress, imprison, and kill
for a blind loyalty that often turns against themselves.

These privileges granted by the regime have created a new class that
sucks away everything from the people who are exploited even in matters
of the dues they pay to the union which repeatedly end up in the hands
of the military. The same thing happens to the money from wages and
remittances. In hard currency stores, owned by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces (FAR), the constant changing of prices on the products, the abuse
of the customers, and the threatening authoritarianism are part of the
bitter daily routine.

The so-called "reliable" are Communist Party militants, who wear a
uniform that protects them from all suspicions, as well their children
and relatives, after having been involved, more than once, in corruption
scandals. Without generating any profit, they suck it all in, being real
good-for-nothings and parasites embedded in the heart of the motherland.

These privileges are precisely why a large part of the population
rejects the police as much as the military.

We must question openly this new classist, racist, and insatiable elite
of those who are the first and loudest to shout patriotic slogans, to
the point that with their gaping mouths it seems like they are going to
eat the Revolution, with their little flags and everything.

Experiences from events that took place in similar societies after the
collapse of Communism tell us that those who hold power are the ones who
later become the owners of corporations and public goods, forming a
solid pressure group that will continue working towards increasing their
personal wealth at the expense of people's sacrifice.

With no force based on reason, but with reason based on force and money
in their pockets, the dreams of the motherland and the fate of every
citizen are in their hands.

Who are those who give them these privileges, never granted before by
any other government? Do they have the moral authority to criticize anyone?

Published by Primavera Digital, July 14, 2012.

Translated by Chabeli

http://translatingcuba.com/the-privileged-ones-mackandal-manuel-aguirre-lavarrere/