Dignity: According to the Dictator

Dignity: According to the Dictator / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on August 5, 2013

Angel is still missing, for the fourth consectuvie day today. The worry
of all us us, family and friends, is huge, but it will not silence our
voices. Fortunately, but mainly from the enormous effort Angel put into
it, we have many denunciations and chronicles that he has sent us from
Prison 1580, from where he has now been moved to an unknown location, a
complete violation by the Regime, once again, of all legality. We know
that no matter what prison they've confined him in, what he fervently
expects is that the blog will never silence his voice. And so it will be.

The Editor

Speech of the Dictator – 1

Raul Castro has made a call, in his speech to the National Assembly,
asking that "dignified Cubans…comply with and enforce what is
established." That means another call for Cubans to denounce, betray,
squeal on each other: in other words, we need more police, or
paraphrasing the Cuban writer*, "we need to inform on each other."

Is this what the "President" calls "dignity"? Perhaps not coming out
against his policies is being dignified? In all times, this has been
cowardice and so it will remain.

Undignified, then, would be those who live without masks, who have
chosen to suffer and face persecution for saying what they think of the
political process and for demanding social change, democracy for the nation.

If that is undignified, then put me in the top of the list. If having
preferred the beatings, threats, harassment, cuts me off from the
cultural life of the country, a complete marginalization, such that they
invent legal processes against me, that they wait three and a half years
because they pray I will stop and that I'll tell them I want to be a
"dignified Cuban," then I want to continue being undignified.

The words, manipulated and distorted in the mouth of President Raul
Castro, are an offense to Cubans with dignity.

* Refers to Eliseo Diego a writer who published a book titled "Report on
myself", which tells how State Security tried to recruit him to report
the activities of his father and his family.



Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, Prison 1580

5 August 2013

Source: "Prison Diary XLIII (From a Disappeared Prisoner.) Dignity:
According to the Dictator / Angel Santiesteban | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/prison-diary-xliii-from-a-disappeared-prisoner-dignity-according-to-the-dictator-angel-santiesteban/