Cuba, the Country of Shrews

In Cuba, the crisis existed long before the start of the pandemic, as one Cuban woman related a few months ago:

What job does a Cuban need to have in order to achieve the decency of life of their dreams? Well, it doesn’t exist.

 

Cubans have understood for a long time that we are not a country that “can run itself,” as many say, because I would simply say that it is not really being run at all. Anywhere else in the world, people who have a job live well, or at least live decently, and so it seems fair to ask: What job does a Cuban need to have in order to achieve the decency of life of their dreams? Well, it doesn’t exist.

 

We are a country in which a gang of thugs are in charge, businessmen who are looking for ways to take advantage of even the way you breathe or laugh, people who need to know everything about you from the moment you are born, to make sure that you are not a potential threat to their empire that betrayed the fairest and purest ideas of freedom and struggle fought for by our ancestors. These big fish, who demonstrate their stupidity by coming up with ideas like “breeding ostriches” to feed the people, while they enjoy the privilege of being able to sit in the best restaurants and eat whatever they please, surely without having to pay, where they are served by a dozen slaves shaped by ignorance and custom.  These are humble and simple people, ordinary service workers who see in them the lost tip of the day.

 

At the same time, these white-necked gorillas puff out their bellies and throw the “circumstances” of the situation in your face, and like a clichéd psalm you are made to hear over and over again, they go on about the criminal escalation of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States. . Seriously? Are you going to recuse yourself again with that tale? Damn, when I go to ask you for a leave without pay because I have to take care of my bedridden mother, you say no, or when I ask for help because I live in a house in danger of falling down again, you say no, while all the municipal housing officials go around boasting about their gold jewelry, the most expensive on the market.

 

I can also give you the example of when you forbid me from leaving my house, because I think differently, than what you have imposed on me or that I think or see something differently, according to your macho and conceptual prototype of how you want things to be. So you’re telling me, jackass, that all of this is the fault of the Americans and the so-called blockade, which is the same song I have been forced to listen to for more than 20 years.

 

The circumstances? Sure. It is possible that your complaints about how things have been broken for a long time are correct, but does that make the current circumstances just or moral? Because this is the true measure of us as human beings.

 

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