Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez
After dinner they stayed at the dining room table to fill out the
ballots. He nervous, she more decisive. They worked like crazy, marking
them with crosses, while the kids played on the sofa. Those papers
received from the Spanish Consulate in Havana smelled new, of fresh ink
on a shield of columns and crowns. But the newest thing for the couple
was the act itself, choosing from a list of several parties, the action
of deciding among different political stripes. Both, who not so long ago
had guarded the ballot boxes in their pioneer neckerchiefs, voted for
the first time since acquiring the condition of naturalized Spanish
citizens. They took the pen with a determination they'd never applied to
a national ballot, choosing from a distance because they can not yet do
the same where they live.
Millions of Cubans have never heard a political program with the voice a
parliamentary candidate. Nor even a preliminary pronouncement from one
of them on such timely themes as the dual currency, gay marriage, or the
urgent immigration reform. Perhaps it is from this local disappointment
that springs the seriousness with which 12,458 of our compatriots asked
to participate in the Spanish elections of this November 20.
Beneficiaries of the "Law of Grandchildren," they rehearse with the
Atlantic interposed and try to make their mark on another reality,
knowing that their own destiny is decided only by a tight circle of
higher-ups. Who's to say that their growing presence in these elections
won't influence the seats and alliances, the smiles and tears that are
set to fall tonight in Madrid.
The attention with which the Spanish community on the Island follows the
Spanish electoral process is surprising. Among voters here there is a
clear intention to push the policies of Madrid's Moncloa Palace so that,
in turn, something will move in the Plaza of the Revolution. The ballot
cast in this "overseas ballot box" carries a scream demanding attention,
and a handkerchief waving from the shipwreck. The same couple who – from
their Havana table – made their marks next to the name of a foreign
party, now face the dilemma of whether to take their children to "the
motherland" or to leave them in the country where they were born.
Whether we like this dependence or not, today in Spain a part of the
Cuba's course was also decided, of this nation that boasts of its
sovereignty but which, in reality, hangs on many threads that are woven
abroad.
20 November 2011
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