By Monica Baro Sanchez (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – For the last several years, I’ve resisted identifying myself as either a leftist or a rightist. The recalcitrant Cuban right considers me a leftist, or rather accuses me of being on the left; and the recalcitrant sector of the Cuban left accuses me of being on the right. That makes me happy. I’m glad that no gung-ho member of any band likes me. Even their scornfulness makes me happy. That scorn confirms to me that I’ve found my rightful place on the political spectrum – nowhere fixed but circulating among all of them.
Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset explained this better in 1930, in his book La rebelion de las masas [The revolt of the masses]. “Being on the left, like being on the right, is one of the infinite ways that a man can choose to be an imbecile; both, effectively, are forms of moral hemiplegia [paralysis on one side off the body]. Furthermore, the persistence of these labels contributes more than a little to falsifying still more the present ‘reality’ – already false in itself – because they twist still further the political experiences they respond to, as is evidenced by the fact that today the rightists promise revolutions, and the leftists propose tyrannies.”
I don’t believe that the people I know on the left and right are imbeciles. I have friends and relatives who identify with one side or the other, and I love and admire them. But for myself, yes, I’d feel a little stupid choosing a band. It’d certainly make life easier for me – I’d avoid being caught in so many crossfires so many times a year, since it’s always better to count on a band that will cover you. However, then I wouldn’t be honest. I’ve come to a point in my life in which there are as many griefs as achievements, but no regrets – precisely for the importance I put on being honest.
You can question anything you want about me, but not whether I’m lying. Or if I’m pretending, or if I’m playing a part. I can live with the hate and rejection of many people, with threats to my physical integrity, with the worst insults in my social media. I’ve done journalism and been an activist in Cuba under the harassment of State Security, and there’s nothing worse than that. If the cost of pleasing is pretending to be someone I’m not, I prefer to displease. I prefer absolute solitude. The only thing I couldn’t live with is the feeling that I betrayed myself to please others.
To say that I don’t identify with the left or the right doesn’t come out of a desire to be on good standing with everyone, because the proven result in reality is that in the end you please almost no one. Instead, it comes out of a reluctance to understand the world in those binary terms that are so archaic and flawed. Much less do I seek to remain neutral. I don’t believe in neutrality, not even in journalism, least of all in journalism that must defend itself within totalitarian systems.
But the idea of thinking about myself as on the right or left sparks phobia. What’s almost always understood as the right or left is a set of stereotypes, symbols, blueprints, parties, leaders; that is, a set of reductions of reality, like canned junk food. I want to be able to come and go from all sides, and converse with people on all sides, in the most unprejudiced manner possible, without bearing the blame for the bad actions of Governments from both bands, that aren’t mine. I feel like a person who’s politically non-binary. I don’t want to see sides, I want to see people.
I also don’t believe that Cuba’s problem is the existence of a leftist regime, or that it could be solved with the implantation of a rightist one. In the history of the 20th century, there’ve been dictatorships on the right and left, totalitarian systems of the right and left, democratically elected governments of the right and left that have violated human rights. The problem of Cuba, in essence, is the lack of freedoms. The problem of Cuba is that there’s no room for those who think differently. For those who think differently, there’s only death, jail, banishment, and exile.
What I deeply desire for Cuba is liberty, democracy, and justice, with everything those words include. I yearn for a country where all political identities can coexist under equal conditions, whether they’re located on the left, the right or the center, as well as those who don’t see themselves anywhere on that spectrum. It’s possible to be very rightist and very Stalinist at the same time, or very leftish and very fascist, if you’re attacking civil and political liberties. The principal challenge here isn’t changing slogans, symbols and leaders, but learning to respect the right of every human being to be different and live on their own terms.
Attempting to transform the struggle for freedom in Cuba into a battle between people of the right and left, or between Republican and Democrat Cuban-Americans, will be the most effective way to lose that freedom. Cuba doesn’t need one band to impose itself on another by force. Cuba doesn’t need one half of itself defeated, dominated, and humiliated. What Cuba needs is to have no political agenda above the agenda of liberty. Once again, that call of Jose Marti: “with all for the good of all.”
If I should live to see a democratic Cuba, I don’t know what type of political party I’d give my vote to. I now reside in the United States, and if I eventually become a US citizen someday, I don’t know if I’ll vote for Democrats, Republicans or Greens. Or if I’ll vote. What I do know is that right now I don’t have a country, because Cuban dissidents don’t have a country where they can exist and be fulfilled. So, the first priority for me is to construct that country. Later, I’ll decide – if I have enough will and energy left – what drumbeat I’ll join in with.
Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.
