For the Mexican left, Cuba has been a kind of romantic dream, an aspiration just 110 kilometers from Cancun.
For a long time, what happened there was perceived as a beacon of hope, a possibility to build a different world. For this reason, those radio programs captured on short wave that began and ended with the phrase: “Cuba, free territory in America” were listened to with admiration.
The new Cuban trova, represented above all by Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés, exported the story of a people who were hard-working, educated and committed to the Revolution.
The trips had a pedagogical sense, because factories were visited, food production chains were observed, it was verified that the pioneers, Cuban boys and girls were taught and could recite paragraphs from Fidel Castro’s speeches or disarm a weapon with the blindfolded.
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They were curiosities that the elite of the left in Mexico would never have allowed, but the magic was that what happened on that small island in the Caribbean would have repercussions on the entire continent, because “the march to socialism was unstoppable.”
The bellicosity of the Cuban extreme right in Miami, protected and supported by the CIA, helped to feed the mythology that is narrated in pieces such as “Playa Girón” or “Yo me quedo”, by Silvio and Pablo, respectively.
The problem is that, for decades, the Cuban regime established a dictatorship in which there is little room for dissent.
What happened there can be referred to in similar terms to the failures of the left in history and recalls the book by François Furet, The past of an illusion.
The island’s inhabitants have become migrants and those who remain suffer innumerable economic hardships and are also not free. To make matters worse, they are being jailed, because they expressed their desperation because they are hungry and in a context of expansion of Covid-19 that can cause great havoc.
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A sample of the disaster is reflected in the relief measures for the population. In the free food modules, the following products will be delivered: 3 kilos of rice, 2 kilos of legumes, 2 kilos of spaghetti, 2 cans of sardines and a kilo of sugar. You can choose between 250 grams of milk or the same amount of cereal.
To get an idea of the magnitude, it must be borne in mind that there are not many alternative ways to obtain food. This alone explains the fatigue that can be measured by decades of deprivation and stress.
The already deep cracks in the system are explained by the restrictive policies of the United States towards the island, but it must be admitted that the problem is another.
The economic blockade against Cuba should not continue and for at least two reasons: because it serves as a pretext to justify the hardships that are actually the consequence of an economic model that does not work, and because it does not help those who work to build better conditions. of life and struggle for a political opening.
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