Nothing New Under the Sun

Nothing New Under the Sun / Lilianne Ruiz
Lilianne Ruiz, Translator: Unstated

Now one of the photos I had put in my posts has been taken by State
Security and put in a 17 minute documentary to try to accuse Señora
Martha Beatriz Roque and twenty other Cubans of faking their hunger strike.

I wasn't able to watch the documentary because my television broke some
weeks ago. Following the appearance of the photo (where I appear in the
company of women I greatly admire), I had won the opportunity to be
heard by some people who didn't know about the hunger strike.

In reality, this protest is also targeted to the arbitrariness of the
system that doesn't recognize our rights and tries to destroy us. So it
was not covered by any Cuban news media but merited an entire production
by the Revolutionary "artists," who offered proof — once again! — of how
over time they patrol, monitor, and keep our lives under surveillance.

So in the later edition and with the efficient work of a sound engineer,
or maybe just a simple sound guy, part of the Cuban public has taken it
as "proof" that the hunger strikers, and especially Martha Beatriz, were
not in a state of complete starvation, having been given vegetables
through the window on a date, according to what I was told, of September
18, which is when the strike ended after having received a response from
Chaviano's kidnappers.

I've worn myself out trying to explain to my neighbors that if someone
wants to say it's a hunger strike and later wants to eat their fill
secretly, they can hide the food before beginning the process. I have
noted the magic of editing and sound, with which you can do almost
anything in audiovisual material, which is why it doesn't prove anything.

Martha Beatriz did not move from her deathbed where I saw her, did not
let anyone in, and always refused to receive medical care. One of the
women companions of the strikers, who were there to help them, had to
revive her on several occasions when she lost consciousness. There
wasn't any doctor from the clinic like they showed in the documentary.

Ultimately I decided to investigate, consulting several publication
about when and how many times and based on what it was said, or F.
Castro said from the podium, or from the position of an accusing witness
(as in Huber Matos's trial), that Cubans who opposed and do oppose the
politics of the Castro regime that has become Cuban communism are not
representing themselves. To put it another way: in my country, from the
beginning of this great scam, they have accused the opposition of being
mercenaries.

A mercenary is someone who is not involved in the cause for which he
risks his life, and who receives payment from those who truly are
interested. When my country received a huge amount of money and arms,
including nuclear weapons as in the October Crisis, from the Soviet
Empire with the condition that communism would be installed, who was the
mercenary in that economic relationship?

But earlier, when the former Cuban president Prío Socarrás and the then
president of Costa Rica in 1958 supported the armed insurrection of the
rebels of the Sierra Maestra with money and arms, what did the
opposition against Batista use this money for that was not taboo and in
an case was it necessary and just to use it for something that was never
the freedom of the Cuban people?

What happens in Cuba is that the State is the owner of all jobs,
including the self-employed who take care not to annoy the State. And
the State pays a salary of less than 20 CUC (< $20 US) to its employees.
And if one of them behaves in a way that turns into a "deserter" from
the hyper-controlled politics (which above all tries to keep Cubans with
an idiotic beatific smile of socialism on their faces, waving flags and
worshiping the government icons) it turns out that this uncomfortable
atom in sick and dangerous society will be left, in the first place,
without a job, if they decided ahead of time that they weren't going to
continue to receive — as a mercenary! — a salary from the abhorring
State dictatorship.

Then, as the Cuban opposition is peaceful and doesn't buy weapons, State
Security and its campaign of manipulation whip up the people who receive
half a pound of oil for the whole month against people who eventually
could be consuming olive oil.

The political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque, the only woman among the 75
arrested during the 2003 Black Spring, and Antunez, and the many people
they slander on television are not compensated, let alone with $50
million dollars, because no one is asked if they are willing to suffer
everything they narrate in their testimonies and in the end if they
would be given this sum would choose such an ordeal for their life. A
life so short, so fleeting, so exhausting, like that of the whole world.
Their health, their youth, their life, their freedom, cannot be
compensated with money. Our time is too short to sell it.

It takes courage and faith in God to believe that Cuba can still be free
of the plague that darkens it.

October 2 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/nothing-new-under-the-sun-lilianne-ruiz/