Voices From the Island

INSIDE CUBA: Voices From the Island
Welcome to Cuba.
By Achy Obejas

"The truth can not be blockaded."

Americans—especially on the left—love to ask Cubans living abroad if
we're for or against Cuba. I always say the same thing: It's complicated.

When my family escaped from Cuba in 1963—on a boat in the middle of the
night—we thought the Cuban Revolution wouldn't last. Soon, we believed,
we'd be back home, in Cuba—brief sojourns in the U.S. having been
practically a ritual for dissenting Cubans after any change in government.

My family wasn't rich—we owned nothing—but we wanted to go back to our
country, to live in our homeland. Like so many others, my parents were
counting on the revolutionary government to be like the many other
administrations since Cuba freed itself from Spain at the end of the
19th century: ephemeral, propped up or dismissed at the whim of the
United States.

So many years later, the Cuban Revolution has proven itself remarkably
durable. This year marks its 50th anniversary.
* * * * *

As a child of exiles, I grew up with very particular mantras about Cuba
and the Revolution. Because these came from my parents, I believed them
whole-heartedly.

Later, in college, and especially as I met young Cubans who traveled to
Cuba in defiance of familial objection and U.S. policy, I began to hear
other stories about the island and the revolution. And I began to
question many things.

I met Cubans who lived in Cuba and were in the U.S. on scholar or artist
visas. I argued about how gays were treated in Cuba with singer Sara
Gonzales. There was much praising of the revolution, or sober and
measured commentary—in such contrast to exiles' extreme. But sometimes,
especially if there was too much drinking, there would be dark
confessions, especially from closeted gays, about things that weren't right.

In 1995, I went to Cuba for the first time, attending a conference on
national identity. It was a strange and enchanting trip, though the
transcripts of the conference will reveal I said not one word. Instead,
I watched, I listened. I did all the things returning Cubans do—I
visited the tiny apartment in which I was conceived, I walked up the
steps of the University of Havana, I strolled the Malecon. I cried a
lot. I was fawned over, the prodigal daughter returned—because in Cuba,
I never left: my parents "took" me.

When, two years later, I fell in love with a Cuban artist who would go
on to do some of the most challenging work seen on the island since the
Revolution, I began a seven-year process of going back, often for months
at a time—of, in fact, living in Cuba, having a home and neighbors and
daily rituals, of having my ideas challenged and sharpened, of
constantly discovering new and unexpected aspects of Cuba and its
Revolution.

Americans—especially on the left—love to ask Cubans living abroad,
especially Cuban-Americans, if we're for or against Cuba, if we're pro
or anti-Fidel, if we're revolutionary or anti-revolutionary. It's a
hateful and ignorant question because it assumes our situation is black
and white, binary, oppositional.

I always say the same thing when I'm asked: It's complicated. Part of
the problem is that, well, it's our problem—that is, it's a Cuban
problem. I know few Cubans, and not just in Miami but in Havana too, who
want intervention. The vast majority of us—here and there and everywhere
– want reconciliation, an end to estrangement, greater civil liberties
on the island, a more efficient and open economy, peace and friendship
with the United States. But we want to figure this out among ourselves,
among Cubans.

I know this is hard sometimes for my non-Cuban friends on the left, who
are so invested in Cuba they feel it's practically theirs (and so
invested sometimes, that they're loath to see the evidence with their
own eyes of anything that might contradict their ideas). But it's not.

Those who stayed in Cuba are the ones who need to make the decisions,
the ones who need to figure out what's best. Those of us who have chosen
to live abroad—for whatever reason—can only have an auxiliary role. Cuba
is for Cubans.

The most crucial lesson I've learned going back and forth—and I do at
least once or twice a year—is that we have to listen to each other,
really listen. For me that has meant acknowledging that my parents were,
in fact, right about many things.

It has also meant an understanding that what Cubans in Cuba think is
paramount. So when In These Times approached me to put together a
special Cuban anniversary issue, the very first thing I asked was that
it be an issue by Cubans on the island.

I wanted this to be different than the usual packaging, full of economic
or historical treatises. Because I'm a writer engaged with culture, I
think culture is a better indicator of the future than almost anything
else. (Anyone familiar with the Cuban culture of sacrifice and
inventiveness would have known that the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1989 would bring deep changes but that Cuba, and the Revolution, would
survive.)

So in this special In These Times edition, "Inside Cuba: Voices from the
Island," you'll find literary writers, rather than academic experts.
They are not dissidents, though each is critical in his or her own way.

There are two articles that were not exactly submitted for this special
edition. One is a compilation of entry selections from a blog that
details gay life in Cuba. Technically the blog is unsigned, though it is
an official forum of the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation, a
queer grassroots group in Cuba not recognized by the government. When I
met the president of the group, Aliomar Janjaque, and the vice
president, Mario José Delgado Gonzales, last summer, they made a point
of underscoring that they're not dissidents.

"I don't give a damn what kind of government we have," said Janjaque,
exasperated. "What I care about is human rights, what I care about is
how gay people are treated."

The other article is a column that appeared for only a few hours on the
Juventud Rebelde website. It's poignant and heartbreaking but, perhaps
more importantly, it's very telling.

There are many other stories that should be here, that will, hopefully,
be in future issues of In These Times. (In fact, our January issue will
feature a dialogue, in which we will continue our Cuba discussion.)

This isn't definitive. It's just a glance. A peek inside.

Editor's note: This article appeared, in dramatically different and
shorter form, as the introduction to the special "Inside Cuba" section
of In These Times' December 2009 issue.

INSIDE CUBA: Voices From the Island -- In These Times (1 December 2009)
http://inthesetimes.com/article/5216/inside_cuba_voices_from_the_island