The Day My Mother Lost Her Faith in Fidel and the Revolution

The Day My Mother Lost Her Faith in Fidel and the Revolution / Yoani Sánchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez

My mother, devoted to Fidel, sat in front of the television. A few days
later her two daughters understood that a transcendental and
irreversible change had come over that compulsive thirty-something. A
former militant in the Young Communist Union, she had suffered a degree
of ideological disillusionment in the late eighties, but the trial of
General Arnaldo Ochoa was too much for her revolutionary illusions.

I remember seeing her sitting in that easy chair in front of the
television thinking that her "Commander" was more than a father – much
more than the nation itself – and observing, from my naïve adolescent
perspective, her transformation. Her anger, her sadness, while the farce
of the judicial process continued. Later I heard from my school friends
that a similar metamorphoses occurred in many of their homes. "What have
we come to," seemed to spread among a good part of Fidel's faithful
followers.

Why, 23 years after that "reality show" televised throughout the
country, is what is called "Case No. 1 of 1989" still considered a point
of rupture? How did this moment become one of the dates marking the
decline of the Cuban Revolution?

I do not think it was solely because of popular sympathy for the haughty
and handsome man who was in the dock. Nor for the false note of the
generals – chubby cheeked from the good life – blaming one of their
colleagues for enjoying a luxury here, an extravagance there. Nor can it
be said that it was just the evident contrast between the soldier who
had led battles in Africa, and the Commander in Chief who played at war
from afar, from the comfort of his office.

I think it all came together for many Cubans, in that moment, that the
train of the political process had gone off the rails. But undoubtedly
added to this was the desire to find a good excuse for a break, a
sufficiently strong pretext to show the door to an ideology that had
defrauded so many. We children saw this metamorphosis in our parents…
there was no way we could emerge unscathed in the presence of such a
mutation.

For four weeks, the small screens in every Cuban household were tuned to
these courtroom images, where the great majority of those present wore
olive green uniforms. We heard the witnesses testify, the accused shift
from a tone of alarm to the stuttering of terror as many of them
declared that the highest levels of the Cuban government were not aware
of the drug trafficking.

Raúl Castro talked about how he had cried in front of his bathroom
mirror, thinking about Ochoa's children, but he still approved his
execution, and that of three other defendants.

And all this happened before our eyes in the same year in which the
Berlin Wall would fall and many Eastern European regimes would crumble
like illusory castles in the sand. It wasn't possible to separate what
was happening outside our borders from that Military Tribunal that
indicted Arnaldo Ochoa for "high treason against the country and the
Revolution." Difficult to separate the crisis of faith that the Cuban
process was passing through at the moment of this public lesson
broadcast to millions of TV viewers.

The authorities – intending to teach us a lesson – wanted to show that
they were still capable of striking a blow against any ideas of a
tropical Perestroika that might be lurking on the island. A
self-inflicted wound in their own ranks was a very clear way of warning
that there would be no mercy for those who crossed a certain line.
Parallel to the official version of the trial ran a thousand and one
popular rumors about the most decorated General in Cuba overshadowing
Fidel Castro.

Many analysts argued that what was a really playing out was a rivalry
for power. It was not surprising, therefore, that so much of the
evidence presented in the trial ultimately did not convince the
audience. "There's something more going on here," said the older people…
"there's something fishy," they repeated, with the wisdom of those who
had seen many others fall, be ousted.

At dawn on July 13, 1989 Arnaldo Ochoa, Antonio de la Guardia, Amado
Padrón and Jorge Martinez were shot. My mother had turned off the
television just as the sentence was announced. I never saw her look at
the screen with rapture again; nor meekly consent when the figure of
Fidel Castro appeared.

13 July 2012

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