1, 2, 3, 4… The Census!

1, 2, 3, 4… The Census! / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado
Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado, Translator: BW, Translator: Espirituana

The Antillean archipelago's authorities say that "In Cuba, we all
count", and that's why from the 15th to the 24th of September all of the
homes of the country will be visited to gather census information. I
understand that the census is a statistical operation that should be
carried out every 10 years and that it is important for determining,
among other things, the number of people who make up a group or state.
Also,it is a primary source for obtaining other basic social, economic,
and demographic data about a society. But I ask myself, who accounts for
the Cuban emigrants dispersed throughout the world that are part of our
nation?

In recent days, an "information supplement" on the Population and
Housing Census, published by the National Office for Statistics and
Information, appeared under my door. It explains to citizens what the
"mission" of the census is and shows the questionnaires that the data
collectors, called enumerators, will fill out. Among the notable items
is question 16, which asks how many land lines and mobile phones there
are in a residence. As the only telephone company that provides service
to all Cubans living on the archipelago, doesn't ETECSA, which also
happens to be state-owned,have these figures?

In this census task, like in the two previous ones carried out by the
government,there will be inquiries regarding the condition of the houses
and their construction and general characteristics.I hope this will
result in some benefits for society! Because there is no use knowing,
for example, the serious problems existing in the houses and in their
maintenance(that is already well-known and we have been putting up with
them for years, because the necessary resources have not been assigned
to them), if a sustained constructive assistance is not designated and
assigned to the renovation and rehabilitation of the impoverished
housing inventory in Cuba.

I remember the first time the government carried out that statistical
task.It was in the 70s, when they had more than a decade in power.It's
been ten years since the last census and the results were not made known
to the population, let alone did they produce any benefits or
improvements in the average Cuban's life. Development and efficiency are
not achieved with state inquiries, but with the political will of
governments, with real motivations for the citizens and incentives in
all spheres of society. That should be a natural and systematic
practice, attentive to the law and always directed to the benefit of
everyone, not just a group. Modernity is not reached just with
information or by decree.

It is good to keep control of our inputs and outputs, whether they be
material or intangible, individual or collective. Every demographic
investigation relating to the totality of people by province,
municipality, city or different urban and rural areas — by sex and age,
average educational level, marital status, active working population,
etc. — is important for the development of government policies. On this
occasion, they mix the population census with "the short-term and
medium-term economic and social plans especially for the appropriate
guidelines for the Party's and the Revolution's economic and social
policies". This opportunistic mixture conjures up in my mind, like an
animated cartoon, a leader who without planning lies down on the bottom
of his political boat to try to patch or plug the holes in the bottom
with his body. Because he is being left without extremities…

For a militarized society, deformed by this government in the degrading
tradition of having to have even one's underwear counted when one is
going to emigrate, to have "regulations" about what one should eat or
wear, to have someone decide what one should read, to "be transported"
generally according to the needs and interests of the state, to be
watched by those in charge of one's block or by the police, to have
someone predetermine what radio stations one should listen to and what
TV channel one should watch, whom one should disregard and whom one
should believe, in the end produces a population sunk in a sustainable
defenselessness and indolence, unaware of its rights, and as a result,
easier to subdue and direct.

So let's count: 1, 2, 3 at the dictatorship's "conga-line pace"*, for
whose manipulations and campaigns to stay in power indefinitely, but not
for the exercise of our fundamental freedoms, "in Cuba, we all count".

*Translator's note: The original Spanish is a quote from an old Cuban song.

Translated by: BW, Espirituana

11 September 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/1-2-3-4-the-census-rosa-maria-rodriguez-torrado/