Iván García, Translator: JT
Right now there are two Cubas. The visible, of official gridlock,
popular disenchantment, and an unknown future. And that in which what
happens in the few spaces in which the regime allows bare-chested
debate, and where those who think differently aren't called
"mercenaries", nor are they accused of being agents of the United States.
It looks like gibberish. While a Cuban who yells "democracy and freedom"
in the public way is crushed with billy clubs and karate chops dispensed
by intelligence experts in street fights, slowly and behind closed
doors, liberal thought gains ground, respectful and tolerant.
One of these pockets of democratic debate is located in the old San
Carlos seminary, in the old section of Havana. There, on March 30th, the
magazine "Lay Space", a publication of the Catholic Church, organized a
conference there with the Cuban-American entrepreneur Carlos Saladrigas.
Its title: Cuba and the Exodus.
Access was free. In the packed room close to 200 people gathered. You
could see alternative bloggers like Yoani Sánchez or Miriam Celaya.
Independent journalists a la Reinaldo Escobar and Miriam Leiva;
economists marginalized by the State such as Oscar Espinosa Chepe;
activists for racial integration such as Juan Antonio Madrazo and
Leonardo Calvo, and a new generation of dissidents, like Eliécer Ávila
or Antonio Rodiles.
Also in the discussion were distinguished neocommunists such as Félix
Sautié or Pedro Campos; the moderate politician Esteban Morales; the
anti-State priest José Conrado and His Worship Monsignor Carlos Manuel
de Céspedes, an authentic man whom nothing deters.
The majority of the democratic dissidence on the Island approves of
these grounds for civilized debate. It's the society on which they bet.
At 4 o'clock sharp in the afternoon in the central hallway of the Félix
Varela Salon, Carlos Saladrigas made his way. He wore a white long
sleeve guayabera, a trimmed beard, and wire-framed glasses.
After greeting the audience, he took out his Apple tablet and began his
presentation. It wasn't extensive. In little more than 30 minutes he
drew with a broad brush his impressions on Cuban exile.
Saladrigas knows what it is to be dispossessed. Son of a political
family during the republican era, he inherited from his father the genes
of a pure and tough negotiator. His story is the vision we have of the
United States. The solitary boy who arrived in an operation frocked by
the Catholic Church, known as Peter Pan, and when his family could
travel, he had to wash dishes and pick tomatoes in South Florida, as
Saladrigas himself tells it. Then he became a successful businessman,
with an estate valued at several million dollars.
Between that Saladrigas — who cried inconsolably and prayed in the last
row of wooden pews at a small parish church in Miami in the 60s, and
this one — seated with his immaculate guayabera in a debate arena in the
Cuban capital, there is a 180-degree turn.
At one stage, he asked for the head of Fidel Castro on a tray; it was
the shot at a target for all he'd lost. He had to live transplanted in
Miami, while he felt the lullaby of la Habanera Tu or La Bayamesa in the
distance.
After having been a conservative who disavowed all dialog with the olive
green autocrats, and opposing a crossing loaded with Catholics to the
other shore, he would travel to Cuba in 1998, during the visit of John
Paul II, Saladrigas moved his political positions from the ultra-right
to the center, perhaps leaning a little towards the left.
The 'why' of his transformation is something that isn't clear. If we
were to take at face value his public statements, we would have to come
to the conclusion that his Catholic faith put to the missile test was
one of the causes of his political transplantation. There are those who
allege other reasons.
In his rear-view mirror, Carlos Saladrigas observes how the pages of the
almanac turn inexorably and the Cuban economy springs leaks everywhere.
Castro II is betting heartlessly on State capitalism. And a virgin
island opens its legs to, in the near future, receive the dance of the
millions. Perhaps he doesn't want to arrive late for the cutting of the
cake.
At least so thinks a sector of exiles and dissidence on the Island. You
can't be naive. Something is cooking in the sewers of power. In that
very salon, some months ago, a firm Fidelista like Alfredo Guevara
responded to questions from "sellout mercenaries" such as Oscar Espinosa
Chepe, ordered to be imprisoned in the spring of 2003 by his friend Fidel.
Through the San Carlos seminary have also passed some suspicious types,
like Arturo López-Levy, graduate from a US university, and professor in
Denver, cousin of Luis Alberto López Callejas, son-in-law of General
Raúl Castro and the best picker of hard cash in Cuba.
The dissertation of Carlos Saladrigas was nothing to write home about.
Old news. What every Cuban knows, because he has at least one relative
in exile. The key wasn't the bland, politically correct chat. No. It was
the message that the round trip which sent Saladrigas into dissidence
and exile has for the future of Cuba: reforms are underway and he wants
to be one of the agents of change.
After his presentation, Saladrigas responded to a battery of questions.
He ran several analyses from which we can learn that the Cuban-American
impresario is not playing a sterile game, and is well-connected and
informed, more than one might imagine.
He assured us that within 5 years, Cuba's situation will unfailingly
change. And, of course, 'no' to more socialism, contrary to what was
said recently in a press conference given by the economy czar, Marino
Murillo, when he said that no political reforms would take place.
With serenity and self-assurance, Saladrigas drew a dream future of an
inclusive, tolerant, and rich Cuba. To achieve it, he said, the country
will rely on its enviable human capital. The astute businessman winked
at the regime in affirming that the best merit of the Castro brothers
was having known how to administer poverty.
"There are nations that can generate riches, but do not know how to
administer poverty", he noted. With the intent of stimulating those
disaffected who are waiting for the slightest opportunity to flee Cuba,
he said "if you were 25 years old, you wouldn't get out of the country
before me".
Carlos Saladrigas sees it all very clearly. Too clearly. I noticed that
he did not question the hundreds of detentions of dissidents for the
visit of the German Pope, or the spontaneous blow to someone who shouted
"Down with communism" in the Plaza Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba.
Nobody else asked, either.
And it is these open spaces for the Catholic Church that generate a
certain mistrust and some, not meaning all, attend to see and hear, not
to investigate. It's the lack of custom after five decades of listening
to only one discourse. And many still don't believe it.
Photo: Juan Antonio Madrazo. Carlos Saladrigas makes his way to the dais
to give his presentation, after having greeted the independent economist
Oscar Espinosa Chepe, standing, in a black shirt.
April 1 2012
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