In recent days the Egyptian revolt that led to the resignation of Mubarak has long inflamed the minds of the Cuban dissidents inside and outside the island. Some groups on facebook and blogs from outside the island, inciting a public protest in the streets, to replicate the Egyptian protest on the island. I think this excitement is misplaced for several reasons which I will try to clarify. First
Mubarak and his regime does not have much in common with Fidel nor the Cuban one. Indeed, he has a lot more in common with the old Batista regime.
Egypt has always been abundantly funded and supported by both the U.S. and the EU for its support of Israel and a bulwark against possible Western Islamic hegemony.
This has led in the years to a dramatic economic and social reality, where the poor without any kind of support they were dying of hunger, while the government created a power elite who wallow in shameless luxury, always pampered by the Western powers.
In this view has grown increasingly intolerant people, that if the first was limited to the fringes of the poorest country in recent years has also affected the middle class who can no longer sustain a decent standard of living. Exactly the same view
Cuban the years of the dictatorship of Batista before the Castro revolution.
E 'and then dared to compare the two realities, but not all. In Cuba, the majority of the population although critical of a hard life that has many aspects insostenibli: insufficient wages, prohibitions on the freedom of expression, total control over the population, problems of water and electricity, poor human rights, etc.. argues that socialist ideology still has positive aspects such as health, education and a guarantee even if minimal in the supply of food and housing for all. Moreover, the recent privatization of commercial activities show a small step toward a change that needs to be done gradually to avoid a repetition of what has already happened in the former USSR.
also the thing for me the most obvious and important is that the alternative West has totally failed in its social and economic model. The bright lights who want to sell the illusion of a better life, the false "freedom" was touting to be a mere chimera, if true only for those who can afford it, while the majority of the population in the U.S. to live in Europe sad an existence made up of true and false social deprivation basic, here are dying of hunger in poverty, not in Cuba. Public
below an excerpt from the lives of Cubans in Miami, from "Le Monde Diplomatique", which illustrates as the American dream is anything but that paradise so desired by many Cubans and increasingly in the hands of the more extreme right, where the rich and mobsters are funded by the U.S. government to overthrow the government in Cuba and thus be able to conquer new virgin lands where export McDonald and Coca Cola, to invade the lobby and the multinationals, and expand that false hedonistic model only capable of exporting hatred and war as they have done and continue to do all over the world they touch.
Rob Ferranti
"Miami is tired of the extreme right-wing Cuban"
"Here is how to Cuba, but with more food." The sun has set su Miami e sembra di stare all'Avana: siamo in febbraio e ci sono ancora più di venti gradi. Da una piazza all'altra, in mezzo ai grattacieli, svettano le palme, in lontananza spicca la grande M di un McDonald's.
Con gli occhi il cubano mostra le vetrine piene di elettrodomestici, di mobili, di vestiti, di televisori all'ultima moda, e si lancia in una stima (piuttosto sommaria): «C'è di che rifornire l'intera popolazione di Cuba per un secolo».
I negozi abbassano le saracinesche e nei piccoli fast food latinos si sentono le ultime note di salsa. Donwntown Miami - il centro della città, peraltro tutto spostato a est - si svuota dei suoi uomini d'affari, delle sue segretarie, dei suoi impiegati. Con il lasciapassare still around his neck, almost everyone speaks English. Some eccentric is expressed in English. But all are quick: soon the Wall Street of Latin America will turn into a gloomy desert of concrete and steel.
Metro outdoor walks to distant suburbs. A train every twenty minutes (at best). Buses launch into endless marathons. Miami is made for those who can afford a car, not for the poor. In these buses you know. A Cuban
greets a Cuban. They do not talk politics or Fidel Castro. "How?" I'm tired of going on the run. " The woman paints a tired smile.
The bus does not go to Miami Beach, with its palm trees, the ocean bright e i suoi alberghi art déco, ma al quartiere popolare di Hialeah.
In realtà anche Miami Beach - questa Mecca dell'edonismo - ha i suoi cubani, ricchi ovviamente. E l'esercito di cameriere, di donne delle pulizie e di inservienti. Tutte queste ragazze di seconda generazione, che, perfettamente bilingue, attirano i turisti davanti ai ristoranti di Ocean Drive. «Hey, this is the place! This is the good place! Holá, amigos, como están? Tenemos de todo». Ma questo autobus non va né a Miami Beach né a Little Havana.
Little Havana. Un mito. Un mito alimentato da frotte di giornalisti frettolosi. È vero, per molto tempo Little Havana, a ridosso di Downtown, è stata il «feudo» cubano di Miami. A stronghold populated by supporters of Batista: large landowners, professionals, managers, traders, traffickers but also of every stripe who fled the revolution. [...]
Of their past glory are the old anti-Castro playing dominoes in Maximo Gomez Park and restaurant Versailles, the headquarters of the far right in exile. It is from these parties at every major event the weather becomes effervescent: during the implosion of the Soviet Union, "soon, very soon, will also fall Fidel 'with the crisis in the rafters," with the next shoulder, the system will collapse 'when U.S. troops took Baghdad, "Iraq today, tomorrow Cuba, "and when the" Commander in Chief "got sick," this is a great opportunity for all men and women of courage who want Cuba to take another road. " Here is a run so the cameras to shoot the members of the 'community', although usually only a few thousand people show up to 650 thousand Cubans.
However we must recognize that from the sixties onwards, the far-right Cuban has always been in control of Miami thanks to the enormous economic power of its initial capital, its dynamism and the aid granted for ten successive administrations, and thanks to monitoring of the media. Two worlds intertwined. Two newspapers
in spagnolo, Diario las Américas ed El Nuevo Herald - versione spagnola del Miami Herald. Sei radio - La Poderosa, Radio Mambi, Wqba, ecc.; una rete televisiva, Canal 41. «Quando sono arrivato, nel 1982 - racconta Luis, un uruguaiano - ho subito cominciato ad ascoltare la radio e a guardare la televisione in spagnolo. Tutti i programmi avevano un solo argomento: Cuba. Era il nostro pane quotidiano, una propaganda incessante che non aveva nulla a che vedere con l'informazione».
E da allora non è cambiato nulla.
I giorni dell'esilio Riguardo la stampa scritta, il discorso è simile. Il Miami Herald sa bene che da un punto di vista economico non ha alcun interesse a mettersi contro la destra cubana. La sua traduzione in spagnolo, El Nuevo Herald, va ancora più lontano: edulcorando, censurando addirittura alcuni articoli della casa madre, pubblica quello che sembra più un ciclostile politico che un quotidiano. Per trovare in città una copia di Usa Today o del New York Times bisogna alzarsi presto. E in ogni modo sono scritti in inglese, una cosa che non piace molto ai cubani.
«Il ruolo della radio in questa città - spiega Francisco Aruca - è sempre stato quello di mantenere "la linea" e di esercitare una pressione sociale, in particolare sui gruppi che manifestano opinioni diverse. C'è stato un tempo in cui se ti criticavano alla radio dicendo che eri un simpatizzante di Castro, anche se non era vero, la sera gli amici non ti salutavano dicendoti: "Mi sei molto caro, ma è meglio se non ci facciamo vedere insieme". E tutte le porte si chiudevano».
Contrario all'indirizzo preso dalla rivoluzione - al punto di prendere le armi per combatterla sull'isola negli anni '60, nelle campagne dell'Escambray - Marc Leznic, dopo essere arrivato a Miami, ha creato una rivista, Réplica. Tornato su posizioni più moderate, Leznic raccomanda oggi il dialogo e rifiuta la violenza contro Cuba. «La rivista è stata vittima di undici attentati dinamitardi fra il 1975 e la metà degli anni Ottanta, quando abbiamo smesso di pubblicarla». I tempi cambiano, negli Stati uniti si è ridotto lo spazio per questo tipo di attività. «Questo ci permette di sopravvivere in un ambiente ostile, but where direct action is more difficult - Leznic notes, which now runs, again on the same policy, Radio Miami. But this does not mean that we feel completely safe. " [...]
In the early days had a Cuban exile family nature, white, rich and strongly anti-Castro. The next wave of anti-revolution, until the mid-70s, has added its number of employees, craftsmen, teachers and shopkeepers. In 1980, following the severe difficulties faced by the island 125 000 Cubans crossing the Florida Straits from the port of Mariel.
But except for the pleasure of seeing Havana in distress, their predecessors rather than receive marielitos these evil: for the first time the city is populated by Cubans who do not belong to the former ruling class or the middle class, but from "the street" and have a skin a bit 'more' colorful '. The phenomenon will become even more pronounced in 1994 with the arrival of the rafters.
The city is completely different, with some perverse effects. "Overall, it looks a 'British' in the neighborhood of Coral Gables marielitos talking about, the majority of people come is good people, honest, but between them there are also criminals and mental patients sent by Castro." Regarding the latter, Max Leznic provide an explanation usually passed over in silence: "These insane in psychiatric hospitals were Cubans left in the care of the revolution. Havana had a list. "Where are their parents?
in the U.S.? Then let them go out and send them there. Their relatives have the means to deal with". " With all these arrivals Miami has gone through a difficult period, marked by violence, drug trafficking and violent deaths (later the situation has eased).
Americans of color do not see with pleasure the arrival of these new immigrants, competing with them in the search for already low-paid menial jobs. In turn, Latin Americans and Haitians endure difficulties with the preferential treatment enjoyed by the Cubans. "The Their position is now regulated - Luis observes, the Uruguayan. They are the only ones. The others live in fear, and for a long time in conditions of illegality. If they are discovered and need to lose all "dislodge". "
to all this we must add that even today the Cubans - even if they have got the American nationality - living among Cubans. "They're snobs, we consider the best, they are different! We, Latinos, treat us as Indians. " The paradox can go further: the revolution is now something far away in time and so, as soon as you mentioned them, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, assume an air of importance, "Chavez? It's a clown! Fidel is very, very more intelligent. "
The situation is even worse with the extreme right: "If African Americans would know how to talk about them. Luckily they do not understand what is being said on the radio. "
However, the post-Mariel Cubans in Miami have given his face, with their faults and their qualities. Funny, humorous, outgoing, assisted on arrival by the U.S. government have worked hard and created a space for them. I have become the most dynamic traders, small entrepreneurs in services, trade, pizzerias. Everybody laughed their compatriot Francisco "criticize Fidel because they do not let them travel. Arrived here, never go to Miami, in the outside world seems to care. There is one exception: they just want to go a fortnight's holiday in Cuba. "
The radical anti-Castro clings to its certainties: one more month, one week, one day, and the 'system' will fall, the exiles will return to the island and will be welcomed into a triumphal one of them will be presented to the Presidential election and the win. A strength to speak of the victory of the future is always delayed, and believe themselves invincible live looking to the past.
around them have attracted and still attract a multitude of criminal organizations - Alpha 66, Commandos L, Commandos Martianos billion, Omega 7, Democratic Party of National Unity (Pund), Council for Freedom Cuba and so on - and a facade more "respectable", the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), established in September 1981 by Ronald Reagan, and whose operating methods are based on the corruption of politicians and intimidation. All these people live squandering enormous wealth: the money generously provided by the CIA and various authorities to "overthrow Castro." [...]
The majority of Cuban-Americans but other concerns.
Faced with these extremists, their violence and their pressure for a long time, the Cuban population of Miami has taken a rather passive attitude, participating in the financing of their public activities (And the various clandestine operations against Cuba).
But above all, try not to get noticed. "Even here - says Francisco - people are afraid to speak. I disagree with the mainstream, but do not say anything to avoid problems. " The embargo
Parcel As the millions of Latin Americans who come from a country "communist", but still chose to emigrate to the United States, the Cubans have made the journey to economic reasons.
Having left their families on the island, they want to go to find them, and even if their assets are mostly modest, they want to help them. And do not want to hear about embargo or military invasion of the island.
by Maurice Lemoine Le Monde Diplomatique
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