Welcome Hollande, Goodbye Hollande

Welcome Hollande, Goodbye Hollande / Yoani Sanchez
Posted on May 12, 2015

Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 12 May 2015 — The official
reception at the airport, the photo shaking hands with the host, the
wreath laid at the statue of José Martí and the expected lecture at the
University of Havana. How many foreign politicians have followed this
script in recent months? So many that we have lost count.

A true shower of presidents, foreign ministers and deputies has
intensified over Cuba without daily life feeling any kind of relief from
such illustrious presences. To this parade of world leaders has been
added, this week, the French president François Hollande, who assured us
that his country wants to "strengthen ties with Cuba" so that both
nations, "assume greater international leadership.

During his stay, the politician met with Raul Castro, visited Fidel
Castro in his home, and awarded the Legion of Honor to Cardinal Jaime
Ortega y Alamino. The agenda did not include, however, any meeting with
dissidents and activists. His vision of the Cuban stage could not be
completed with a critical eye on the Government's relationship with its
own people. As the presidential plane lifted off, the official version
of events barely registered on the retinas and ears of the French.

In a lecture at the University of Havana's Great Hall, Hollande said
that "to come to Cuba is to come to a country that represents for Latin
America a form of expression, of vindication of dignity and
independence." Although he didn't say it, the French president knows
that he is in a nation with prisoners of conscience, without political
parties, where opponents are threatened and repressed. A land without
union rights, with an illegal independent press, and a military power
that is handed down in the family.

On this visit we needed reaffirmation that the France of the Rights of
Man still believes in the unshakeable values that recognize the rights
of individuals to disagree, to express their differences without fear
and to organize around them. We demanded some words of support, words
that would confirm for us that the government of the European country is
willing to support, in Cuba, the desires for freedom that have so marked
and modeled its own national history.

In the minds of many, the first French president on Cuban soil will be
remembered for his complacent posture toward the authorities

A man who has declared that French and Cubans have "shared the same
movement of ideas, the same aspirations, the same philosophical
inspiration, cannot believe that he has visited a country where citizens
have chosen by their own free will to subordinate themselves to a
totalitarian power. Does Hollande think that we have tacitly chosen the
cage? Does he suppose, perhaps, that we are comfortable in our chains?

On the positive side of this visit, we will be left with the opening of
the new Alliance Francaise headquarters, and a wider collaboration in
tourism, education and health. However, in the minds of many, the first
French president on Cuban soil will be remembered for his complacent
posture toward the authorities. Hard to remember, after all these years,
a trip with a script so very played-out.

Hollande was accompanied by a business delegation made up of companies
such as Pernod Ricard, the hotel chain Accor, Air France, the
distribution group Carrefour, the telecommunications company Orange, and
several banks. Closing deals in the energy and tourist sectors was
ultimately the most substantial share of their presence in Cuba,
although the meeting with Fidel Castro has dominated the headlines.

Time will pass and our country will progress to a new political
situation. We will hear some historians say that the influence exercised
by the French president was decisive on this path to change. But that
will be later, when the historians rewrite the past and adorn it at
their convenience. For now, it is difficult to know how this insipid
visit could influence our future.

Source: Welcome Hollande, Goodbye Hollande / Yoani Sanchez | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/welcome-hollande-goodbye-hollande-yoani-sanchez/