From Cuba: A Single Candidate

From Cuba: A Single Candidate / Eliecer Avila
Eliecer Avila, Translator: Unstated
From Diario de Cuba

Yesterday was an exhausting day. From very early I was awaiting messages
from anywhere at all regarding the electoral process in Venezuela. Cuban
television and radio didn't do me any good, because all they broadcast
all day was slogans and this that and the other detail about the
movements and statements of Chavez, along with guests and observers from
the left.

The ability to constantly be updated and compare information possessed
by the whole world continues to be a key indicator measuring the degree
of the ever greater isolation of the Cuban people. For our neighbors,
people always presented as examples of those who are worse off, it's now
normal for them to follow on the internet, through the social networks
and millions of websites, blogs etc., all the relevant events on the planet.

It's useless for Cuba to have an immense number of professionals,
intellectuals, students and a generally "cultured" people, if the
leadership of the State considers that "we are not prepared to access
the free flow of information that is enjoyed by the civilized and
democratic world of today." Although it is not the people who are not
ready, it is them.

With great disappointment, as usual, I watched how they interrupted the
live broadcast from TeleSur (for the "Special Review" following the
Venezuelan elections from Cuba) when it was announced that Capriles was
going to speak. With nothing planned, the two Cuban commentators, like
grotesque puppets, had to fill the time with clumsy words and
rebroadcasts of the same material several times throughout the day,
because someone had to be assured ahead of time that everything was
perfect before airing a tiny edited piece of the words of the candidate
who opposed the candidate favored by Havana.

It is extremely disrespectful, to say nothing of journalistic ethics
which don't exist, that throughout this campaign the Cuban people never
heard a single word directly from the mouth of Chavez's contender. It
would seem that for the press of this country there were not several
presidential candidates in Venezuela, but only one, just like here.

The people of Venezuela themselves heard both of them, in Cuba we saw,
heard and read only one. And the worst of it is that this happens with
absolutely everything, and no one in the structure of the State says a
single word.

Is that honesty? Is this what they invite me to believe in when they say
the future? I know that nobody in this country likes to be treated as
stupid, as a moron, but they will never treat us differently if we are
not respected.

The case of Venezuela itself is a lesson for Cubans. There is no doubt
that Chavez has influenced many sectors of the population of this
country, especially in the lowest strata, but it is also evident that
the people of Venezuela have influenced — with their YES and above all
with their NO — Chavez.

A Chavez who recently spoke of combatting, crushing, now talks of dialog
and building the future of the country together. And there are no longer
changes in the Constitution to monopolize power, silence opposing
voices, and remain in power forever. Although it is possible that deep
down he desires it, he learned that if he continued down the road of
faithful imitation of the Cuban model, he was fried.

This people, my people, has no more excuses. We cannot be simple
spectators to what happens around us, we are frozen in time, asleep, and
if we don't wake up soon we are going to be dead, because our small
flame of hope is extinguished every day in the young people who leave.

In the film Juan of the Dead there is a speech where Juan's young
daughter, who lives in Spain, says, "I left because I didn't know anyone
it was worth staying for." This phrase is a tremendous truth, especially
for those of us who earn nothing, want nothing, in exchange for
resisting, and who, like all human beings, need to feel that the effort
and problems we confront are worth it.

Many want to find a treasure, a very big one that will make them happy
for their whole lives. I dream of finding the soul of this country and
shaking it very hard to make it wake up from the profound lethargy in
which it has been mired for several decades.

This nation cannot die as the men who have led or dominated it died, for
that is to serve the new generations, but today Cuba seems more like a
bitter aftertaste. It is slow, stubborn, thinks it knows everything and
spends its time telling its stories so often told before.

We, the Cubans of today, we have to make Cuba look more like us, as we
appear inevitability of our own time. We have the moral obligation to
try, and we will try. Here, politics will come alive again, here there
will be democracy and hope again. And the military, who have stolen a
political role that does not belong to them, I say to them: better that
you prepare to live with and respect this democratic scenario, and not
to avoid it, prevent it and delay it. Because this way, with the
attitude you maintain today, I don't know who you are helping, who you
are protecting, because it is not the people.

And the people are now realizing that.

Translated from Diario de Cuba.

8 October 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/from-cuba-a-single-candidate-eliecer-avila/