The Future Begins on August 14

The Future Begins on August 14 / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides
Posted on August 9, 2015

Cubanet, Rafael Alcides, Havana, 3 August 2015 – For some, it began on
17 December of last year, when – as surprisingly as a goal scored at the
last minute deciding a world championship – the leaders Barack Obama and
Raúl Castro publicly announced the reestablishment of diplomatic
relations between Cuba and the United States, following 50-some-odd
years of politicians on both shores hurling invective at each other. But
that was still just an announcement, the prologue. The materialization
of the historic event – the first part of which was accomplished on 20
July when the Cuban government inaugurated its embassy in Washington –
will take place when, this coming 14 August, John Kerry will raise the
US flag at the American embassy's old-time home facing Havana's Malecón.

It is a moment awaited with curiosity by Cubans in general – and, very
particularly, by that part of the dissidence that supports the
reconciliation of the two governments. What will come later? The
conjectures are flying and there is not one that can be taken seriously.
But one thing that is known, that is certain, everywhere, is that
tomorrow has begun, and yesterday has started to become a distant
memory. It's what can be heard in the lines to buy eggs, at the
neighborhood domino tables, at bus stops, in factories, in offices, at
funeral wakes, and at any other place where two or more Cubans are
together, talking.

The government doesn't see it this way, and it continues to make plans
with the optimism of someone who is sure of its people's unconditional
approval. It insists on governing under the rallying cry of "Socialism
or Death" for all time.

Nor does a certain segment of the dissidence see it this way. This is
the part that has seen Obama give everything in return for nothing; that
fears that the measures to soften the economic embargo, which have
already begun to be seen, will regenerate a regime which
(notwithstanding what should, by natural law, have already occurred in
Venezuela, but has not) would otherwise be a memory today.

The other segment, the optimistic one, already sees itself raising a
glass on that great day marking the start of the future, as they come
and go amongst government authorities who, in Panama, fearing
contamination, refused to stay under the same roof and breathe the same
air as their opponents. Because of course, those people (the ones in
Panama, at least) could not but be there that day, when their foreign
minister, Bruno Rodriguez, sat down with his counterpart, John Kerry.

It is not to be believed that the US Embassy will also then allow itself
to be restricted by the condition that for several years now has been
governing festivities sponsored by accredited diplomats in Cuba. It is
an unusual constraint that prevents ambassadors from simultaneously
receiving on their premises both government dignitaries and dissidents.
Or to put it another way, it obliges them to have the government people
enter through the front door, and the dissidents through the back.

The US would never accept such a thing. In that case, the optimistic
dissidence maintains, the other embassies would find themselves
dispensed from continuing to carry such an onerous burden. Thus, another
significant breach between the two sides of the opposition.

Of course, "Who Knows Who" does not live far from there. But in any case
– as an estimable dissident told me who practically applauded the skin
off his hands on December 17 and who today avidly awaits August 14 –
"that embassy" is over there, too, to provide its occupants the pleasure
of looking over their celebratory glasses towards those captious
attendees of the Panama summit, as if to say, "Never say never."

"That embassy over there," he continued, will be an important and
none-too-silent witness of what is happening with human rights in Cuba.
For the moment, the government will continue to arrest and abuse, but it
will have to do so with much caution, given that it is being observed in
situ; and given that neither the tourist, nor the investor, nor any of
the characters who will play a role in the future that has just started,
would much like the spectacle of police massacring the citizenry who, in
exercising a universal right such as that of dissent, has gone out on
the street to demonstrate. Besides, what's coming now in the bilateral
relations is "I'll give this much if you give that much." And Time, for
Its part, continues to march over the administration of little old men
who have run out of time.

All this would seem to confirm what the journalist Regina Coyula was
saying in a tweet launched into the ether at 12 midnight on July 20
that, while seeming to have given all in exchange for nothing, the
astute Obama had reopened the US embassy in Havana in a "subtle
stratagem that one day will be dubbed a novel version of the Trojan Horse."

Source: The Future Begins on August 14 / Cubanet, Rafael Alcides |
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