Dearest Obama

Dearest Obama / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Posted on June 5, 2015

The presidents of the USA have been a taboo subject in Cuba for 55
years. The image of the Bad Imperialist can only be authorized by the
top propaganda authorities of the Communist Party (the only legal one on
the island) or, when appropriate, by the very Council of State. The
idea was to depersonalize and discredit all the men of the White House
(the documentary pamphleteer Santiago Alvarez embodied the vile vanguard
of that mission). The external enemy has to be artificially animalized,
to be slain just the same as one more internal opponent. Only in that
way, by a simple media comparison for the eyes of a captive audience,
would the elevated image of our Maximum Leader shine brighter in our hearts.

Fidel the future, Eisenhower the fossil; Fidel the strapping, handsome
proletarian, Kennedy the bourgeois little asshole; Fidel the
internationalist warrior, Johnson the international warmonger; Fidel
sincere to the bone; Nixon scandalously phony; Fidel the perpetual
comrade; Ford this year's fleeting model; Fidel the pitcher, Carter the
catcher; Fidel the still-young star, Reagan the nearly senile stuntman;
Fidel in the "Special Period in Times of Peace," Bush the bombings of
post-perestroika; Fidel celibate, Clinton promiscuous; Fidel the horse,
W. Bush the jackass; Fidel the dove who has been robbed several times of
his Nobel Peace Price, Obama the white hawk with a blackbird's feathers
(the official Cuban press racistly accused him of betraying his own race).

After nearly a decade of being censored in Cuba (in spite of receiving
the clear signal and being invaded by Cuban personnel), the TeleSUR
channel started to be free in Cuba as a gift from Raul in the New Year.
Now it's not just the pirate patch of Walter Martinez on tape, savoring
the Bolivarian mush to the illiterate and fanatics of the continent, but
rather, since January 2013, it's finally Mr. Barack Obama, live and
kicking on every TV in Havana.

And, to the confusion of everyone at home, it turns out that the skinny
kid from The Mulatto House in Washington doesn't shout, nor present a
threat to the public with his hooked fingers, nor wear a military
uniform, nor spend hours and hours giving speeches to the millions and
millions of his Babylonian nation. To top it off, the guy looks like a
citizen and, as such, talks about urgent environmental concerns, about
minority rights (representing the local LGBT community better than our
National Assembly), or social projects that don't need another
half-century of sacrifice (while at the same time the police authorize a
protest against him).

In my surveilled neighborhood of Lawton, after seeing this unheard of
thing—a civilian president who does not preside in perpetuity—there were
those who made the joke that the next People's Power electoral ballot
should include an extra box to check for "Deputy Obama." I should
publicize that humorous story online. OK, now I've done it here.

If I were the Cuban government, I would not take so lightly the symptoms
of satisfaction or scorn for our socialism within the Cuban
neighborhood. And, just in case, I would prepare one more chair in the
Palace of Conventions. The slogan of the plebiscite of the Castros to
the Castros in 2018 could well be this:

Cuba, Obamaness is coming!

Translated by: BW

11 April 2015

Source: Dearest Obama / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/dearest-obama-orlando-luis-pardo-lazo/