Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Two Accursed Words

Two Accursed Words / Fernando Damaso
Posted on August 3, 2015

Fernando Damaso, 30 July 2015 — Prohibition and prosecution are two
words widely used by Cuban authorities since their accession to power an
amazing fifty-six years ago.

From the first months they prohibited political parties and
organizations, free speech and the free press, the exercise of trades
and professions outside state control, and the public practice of
religion. They banned private education and health services, privately
owned companies and businesses, and everything that would hinder the
totalitarian regime they were establishing. To achieve this, they
persecuted everything that emerged contrary to it.

As for prohibition, they banned: free exit from the country; private
trips abroad; access by Cubans to hotels, shops, and other facilities
set aside for foreigners; possessing foreign currency; buying and
selling houses and cars; fishing from a fixed platform; the sale by
farmers on the free market of agricultural products; and even the sale
of creations by artists, who should always be creating "within the
Revolution."

The victims of this prohibitive megalomania number in the millions, and
the damage to the country in the billions, much more than can be blamed
on the American blockade (embargo). Those who have lived under these
daily absurdities can vouch for that.

As for persecution, they have persecuted all, under the "totalitarian
principle" that "everything that is not properly authorized, is
prohibited." To do this they have created vast agencies of persecution.
They persecute the political dissident the same as the commercial
intermediary, the street peddler the same as the owner of a duly
established restaurant or cafeteria. The problem is to persecute, in
order to maintain the terror that induces subjugation. It is not the
result of a random act.

Even today, after eliminating some absurd prohibitions, they have
increased persecutions. It could not be otherwise: it is the only way to
keep a failed economic, political, and social system in place for a
while longer.

Source: Two Accursed Words / Fernando Damaso | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/two-accursed-words-fernando-damaso/

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