Havana, August, 10th 2010
The Big Island I walk into my hand while I yield to the lure of hope. Why do some places, some people are too quiet company in the folds of a map or in the signing of a plane ticket.
Cuba is one of those places. With its story that everyone believes in broad terms to know that some associate with clichés, which combined with other policy.
If I have to give a color to the island is green and not red.
If I have to give a face is Fidel, not Che.
island that he married and divorced continually with its contrasts, nature UNESCO, and an embargo that the crease for almost fifty years, poverty and decent five-star hotels, the bottle of rum leaning against the counter of the premises as we have the milk jug.
Walking Havana in the afternoon after the rain mixed with tourists, retracing the history of the past quarter-century colonial houses, among the cars that give the impression of a drunken back in time, rest at a table of Florida to enjoy a drink made of coconut and rum, retracing the eternal rivalry between coated and Amber Havana Club and Bacardi. A war made fascinating registered trademarks of the shadow of the endless work in the fields of sugar cane.
Out runs the old city, teeming with people, even in the rain.
I set out looking at the sky get lighter towards the sunset.
entrance overlooking a small street and look in the empty room of a restaurant: the blades of the ceiling buzz fast, some sitting at tables valet dry cutlery and place them in good order, keeping our eyes fixed on the TV. I stop by a couple of steps down and rest myself rapt by the images, Fidel Castro, green shirt of an ordinance, presented his latest book to a group of Venezuelan journalists, a woman, some men, one with the bandage over one eye. La victoria
estratégico, is the title of a volume of 900 pages, complete with photos, copies of documents, beyond the political beliefs or how you think, a piece of history.
For a moment I wonder if it's an old movie, but Fidel speaks of the recent fires that have hit Moscow.
The master follows the thread of his thoughts and says: "Communication is the weapon of revolution," setting out a "special period" the revolution, but also a great sacrifice.
I smile thinking about how the passage of time modifies the appearances, scoring a face of wrinkles, for example, but can not change the heart.
him, the man who fought for "Cuba libre ", rifles shouldered, inflaming the masses, surely making mistakes, and as he himself wrote," history will absolve me ", now fighting words to his own revolution, his battle against time. Evoking the past in the pages of his book, his life, from a letter from child to Roosevelt, to the days of the Pico Turquino.
Pages that flow through his fingers, one day after another, the time of remembrance, where the word is his weapon.
"My problem is the consensus of the time. The notion of time is gone. Time is an invention of man, "he says.
And I like to think that devoting the great achievements of law at the time they enter into the legend, are of the same material of myths.
For two hours, the Venezuelan channel transmits images of Fidel and his words.
observe the few customers still like me, standing in the doorway listening to the waiter sighs interspersed with words of what was a storyteller's thoughts. Although the airing of the interview will be blown up the daily installment of a South American telenovela.
As long as the journalist quoted the words of Fidel, television close remembering that time and have a space that has been largely overcome. Everyone laughs.
Seeing that it was evening.
The next morning on the Granma, the newspaper of Cuba, announcing the launch of the book of Fidel Castro. Jose Marti airport
purchase a copy of the book. Which has a weight, not only by the number of pages, but because it evokes day of death, fear, strife, somebody who believed that, "Yes, se puede"
A man who has not folded in a greatest war, where Cuba was a pawn.
And after 50 years, after UN 182 out of 191 countries voted against the embargo remained a cry unheeded, beyond what may be the political, in the comfort of our lives just suffer from what the TV door for a few minutes in our homes, the war in the gulf as a video game, to the dead in Haiti, the climatic upheavals at the fall of the twin towers, there is a place in the world that the will of a few years suffers from the yoke of the embargo.
is right for a country that someone decides, humiliating him and waiting for the fall of the Phoenix?
It's just that after the wall fell, after Mandela fought for human freedom, Cuba is still a political settlement?
No.
To this I say,
Viva Cuba Libre.
And that is freedom from the embargo.
0 comments:
Post a Comment