The Ballot Box, The Stretcher

The Ballot Box, The Stretcher / Yoani Sanchez
Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sanchez

Tiles on the walls, a screen covered in green fabric and a metal table
where they usually place syringes and cotton. This was the cubicle where
I voted this morning to elect a delegate to the Municipal Assembly of
People's Power. Located inside a doctor's office that was turned into a
polling place this Sunday for the residents of the area. "Prescient" I
thought of nothing but being alone with my ballot next to the large sink
where they wash hospital implements. "Prescient" because my country is
in a "coma" of indifference and apathy, and is going to need a profound
revival – almost a defibrillation – for citizens to have real decision
making power. Thirty-six years since its creation the current electoral
system has not convinced us, not even once, that it represents the
people against the power, rather we have become accustomed to the exact
opposite.

So between the smell of formaldehyde and the hint of a stretcher, I
annulled my ballot. After years of abstaining I decided to participate
this time in an election that will change absolutely nothing. None of
the delegates ratified at the polls could influence even the most
pressing issues of our reality. Nor do we know how they think about our
huge everyday problems, because the election law only allows them to
submit their biography and their photo. So today in my neighborhood we
were invited to choose between two faces, between two names, between two
resumes… For this reason several neighbors and friends – knowing the
futility of filling out a ballot – chose to abstain. But I wanted to
satisfy my curiosity, to re-experience the senselessness of a paper that
decides nothing, nothing changes, nothing moves forward.

First I wrote the letter "D." Enormous, like a voiceless scream, I
sketched that initial of a long-sought concept: "democracy." And I did
it in the midst of a clinical setting that fit metaphorically with my
gesture of annulment, with the urgent intervention that the ranks of the
People's Power demand in this country. A deep surgery, an extensive
extirpation of the meekness of the National Assembly, an electroshock of
freedom to stop the parliamentarians from unanimously approving and
applauding all the time. We will need to resurrect, to be reborn as a
society, and to begin to behave like one


22 October 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/the-ballot-box-the-stretcher-yoani-sanchez/