By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – I know I often hold unpopular opinions. I don’t know if it’s for better or worse, but I’ve never aligned myself with prevailing currents or societal conventions. That’s why, among other things, I don’t have a tattoo on my skin, nor do I follow popular artists. It’s not that I’m a misanthrope, but the hypocrisy of humanity disgusts me.
I have the advantage of not being a politician or harboring aspirations in that regard. That’s why I say what I think. I begin by writing that I was born in an unworthy country that boasts of saying that Cubans are the best, despite the facts repeatedly proving us wrong.
It’s like the elephant in the room that everyone insists on ignoring until, by force of habit, it goes unnoticed.
Both here and on the other side of the Florida Strait, we hear the cheers of demagogy that speak of a heroic people. The oppressors paint us as a symbol of resistance and victory against imperialism; the exiles portray us as a country fighting for democracy when the truth is that Cubans have never wanted to be free.
All you have to do is delve into history, and what is written here becomes a daily fact. I will briefly go through our past, aware that I will incur in many simplifications that, despite that, do not distort reality.
According to the US historian John Lawrence Tone in his book “War and Genocide in Cuba 1895-1898,” during the last war of independence, the number of Cuban volunteers who joined the Spanish army almost doubled the number of independence fighters, which was around 40,000. A questionable number because many of the first, in a clear act of opportunism, joined the insurgent side when they saw that the Spanish empire was crumbling.
Some historians point out that the volunteers who joined the Spanish numbered between 60,000 and 80,000 men. The rest of the Cuban population remained apathetic or expectant, deducing that the majority of Cubans at that time either were not interested or were not willing to do anything for the freedom of Cuba.
The US intervention was a catalyst that, in my opinion, did more good than harm. It is probable that Cuban patriots would have achieved independence but at a higher cost in lives and time.
During the 57 years of the republican era (1902-1959), Cuban democracy was a complete disaster. There was a lack or absence of political maturity in the people, weakness in democratic institutions and the rule of law, and two dictatorships, those of Gerardo Machado (1929-1933) and Fulgencio Batista (1952-1959).
Perhaps the most stable period, despite rampant corruption, was the first Batista government and the two preceeding governments, all derived from the 1940 Constitution.
Until the persistence of envy, resentment, caudillismo, cowardice, and national stupidity led us to the definitive destruction of the national soul.
Starting January 1, 1959, every field, town, and city received and greeted those who descended from the mountains. They were the hope of a better country. Especially Fidel, whom they saw as a savior, the man who would solve all their problems.
It’s curious what Miguel Ángel Quevedo, former director of Bohemia Magazine, details in a farewell letter dated 1969, just before committing suicide.
Let’s look at these excerpts:
“The same people who elected them demanded their heads in the public square. The people were also guilty. The people who wanted Guiteras. The people who wanted Chibás. The people who applauded Pardo Llada. The people who bought Bohemia because Bohemia was the voice of that people. The people who accompanied Fidel from Oriente to the Columbia camp in Havana. Fidel is nothing more than the result of the outbreak of demagogy and foolishness. We all contributed to creating him. And all, out of resentment, demagogy, stupidity, or wickedness, are guilty of his rise to power”… “We forgot Núñez de Arce when he said: ‘When a people forget their virtues, they carry their tyrant in their own vices.’”
It’s sad to accept that Quevedo was right. When Fidel Castro began to intervene properties of US owners in Cuba, the people applauded. When he continued to intervene Cuban properties, the people applauded. When he intervened in the remaining brothels, the people applauded. When he started the executions, many of them televised, the people applauded.
And it’s not rhetoric; the archive images don’t lie. There were crowds in the squares supporting Fidel and shouting: “Firing squad.” It was the exacerbation of all envy and resentment and the fanatical worship of a false messiah that allowed them to accept in 1961 that he declared the socialist nature of his revolution after denying it for more than a year and calling such an accusation slander by imperialism and counter-revolution.
And the people supported the lie and flocked en masse to defend it against those who came in the Bay of Pigs. And they went up to the Escambray mountains, also en masse, to fight against those who, after fighting against Batista and becoming disillusioned by the new totalitarian direction, decided to rise up.
And the slogan was that if Fidel was a communist, they were too. It was the climax of the absence of any human value or principle.
Likewise, the hate rallies continued, with crowds shouting, “Let the scum go,” during the events of the Peruvian Embassy and the Mariel exodus around 1980.
Today, we see a submissive and demoralized people who care nothing about the tragedy of over a thousand of political prisoners but make viral every piece of gossip circulating on social media. Lizandra Gongora’s situation, a Cuban mother sentenced to 14 years just for demanding changes in Cuba, is a fact that gets little attention.
The older generations, hostages of their own biography, swallow the disappointment without the courage to recognize guilt. The new ones only think about leaving the country, while here, they “go with the flow.”
The regime itself knows it. Recently, one of the presenters of that garbage dump TV show called “Con Filo” expressed that the people are not bothered by the new measures but by the inequality of some who can vacation in Varadero or show off their imported cars. Could he be referring to the children of the Castro elite who don’t hesitate to flaunt their luxuries on social media? Or is this how they exploit the resentment and envy of a people to justify their course changes and attack the new rich who haven’t shown their commitment to “The Revolution”?
The truth is that we are guilty. The totalitarian regime, hunger, lack of medicines, total misery, unleashed social violence, hopelessness, and everything that we suffer is nothing more than the national karma for past and present sins.
Read more from the diary of Pedro Pablo Morejon here.
