Monday, July 18, 2011

Cuban Icarus Dies in Desperate Escape Attempt / Yoani Sánchez

Cuban Icarus Dies in Desperate Escape Attempt / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez

2011-07-18-DSC08013.jpegAdonis G.B. came into the world as the socialist
system in Eastern Europe was beginning to collapse. He spent his
childhood among the privations of to Cuba's most critical time which we
called "The Special Period." Perhaps he proudly wore the pioneer scarf
and his voice may have been the loudest when the children shouted, "We
will be like Che!" We can guess that in his teens he was exposed to the
new educational method of teaching classes through television. Also, he
had the opportunity to be confused by the dual monetary system and, one
find day when he started to shave, he would have discovered in the
mirror a man with no expectations.

It is not ours, now, to find political advantage in Adonis' decision to
travel as a stowaway in the landing gear of an Iberian Airbus, but to
find the causes that pushed him to die like that. The truth is that the
Island's officials haven't said a single word about his death,
paralyzed, perhaps, by the degree of popular anguish. But despite the
institutional secrecy, the news circulates on all sides and and one
question predominates: Was the situation of this young man in Cuba so
untenable, or did he have an additional reason, whether feeling pursued
by danger or compelled to cross the ocean to meet someone? For now, no
one knows. The truth is that he could not have undertaken such a plan
without planning ahead, because among the most protected places on this
island are the airports.

It's hard not to dwell on his suffering in the cramped space he shared
with the jet's wheels. The pain in his bones fractured by the implacable
landing gear mechanism a few seconds after takeoff, the panic of
confinement, the rage at understanding the failure of his attempt, the
unexpected cold that ended up killing him. No one will ever know if he
had the occasion to repent.

We don't know the severity of his problems, but what we can intuit is
that he found no solution at hand to end them. Adonis came to the
conclusion that he had to leave the country. But he didn't have a
Spanish grandfather that would allow him to change his nationality; no
one in the world would give him a letter of invitation; no embassy would
award him a visa, because his desire to be a permanent immigrant surely
leaked through his pores. Nor was he a high performance athlete or a
talented musician with the ability to travel and desert. He lacked any
contact with the human smugglers who frequently cross the Straits of
Florida, and had not the slightest idea that he was going to commit a folly.

There is no thermometer that measures human despair and each person has
his own threshold of resistance. This young Cuban whose body was found
hanging in a strange position in the Madrid airport had two
opportunities to participate in elections, never knowing how the
candidates he elected thought. He attended elementary school at the time
of the Fifth Communist Party Congress and had to wait fourteen more
years for the next Party Congress to announce some changes. He probably
didn't have a profession with a future, nor resources to undertake the
intricacies of self-employment. His own roof would have been, for his
short years, an impossibility.

Adonis could not wait. If he had stayed in his country he would be
alive, thinking of a better way to escape from here.

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