Granma's Journalists and a Missed Opportunity

Granma's Journalists and a Missed Opportunity
March 19, 2013
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso*

HAVANA TIMES — One of the things that surprised me about Canada when I
was there was it had peaceful heroes. Its historic cemetery is full of
lawyers and poets, and although I don't deny that there's more than one
charlatan among them, the fact is that none of them were represented on
horseback with a sword in their hand.

Their statues represent figures holding sheets of paper in their hands,
which could have well been draft laws or incomplete poems. I remember
one day, while having coffee with a friend, I asked about the national
hero of that multinational melting pot. After thinking for a few
seconds, he said it should be Terry Fox.

Their heroes are different from Cuba's, since the island's heroes are
national, or epic, or they don't function. Or they can be heroines, like
Mariana Grajales, who sent her children to fight and die in battle,
which still makes people's hair stand on end.

It's not that we Cubans are inferior; I'm only emphasizing the
difference. But I think just like peaceful Canadians cleared the way in
Normandy, Cubans must learn that there are times when an epic out of
place leads to rudeness, bad manners, and still worse – lost opportunities.

This applies, for example, to what I read in an article in the Granma
newspaper (March 11). It was about a visit to the daily from the US
Interests Office in Havana, led by its general consul, informing the
public about requirements for obtaining visas following recent
immigration reforms on the island.

It was a nice gesture that would have been worthwhile for one to take
advantage of, especially since the number of Cuban descendants living in
the US is equal to 10 percent of the Cuban population and that this
group constitutes the most economically active population of
transnational Cuban society. No big deal: just let them talk and pass on
what the Americans said.

But instead of that, what the Granma article described in a third of its
succinct extension was the fighting spirit of Cubans, supposedly putting
the gringos in difficult situations where they couldn't replicate
anything…like Antonio Maceo in Peralejo.

Therefore it talked about how its reporters asking about the Cuban
Adjustment Act and the program to recruit Cuban doctors serving in poor
Third World countries – two issues that, whatever the readers' views,
all will agree had nothing to do with the objective of the visit or with
the powers of the officials interviewed.

To top off this epic apotheosis, Granma's reporters — in the face of
their visitors — brazenly criticized their guests saying that "US
immigration policy toward Cuba has caused painful losses of lives and
its sole purpose is to promote subversion and destabilization in the
country, justify anti-Cuban propaganda and to distort our situation."

Finally something caught my attention in the Granma article. There was a
moment when the American consul stated that the US is accepting fewer
visas for visits by young people, because they tend to stay longer than
the elderly.

The Granma article replied by saying that this wasn't the case because,
according to the Cuban government, only 13 percent of Cuban visitors
stay in the US. Needless to say, this didn't respond to what the general
counsel said about the greater frequency of "stays" by young people
compared to those of older people.

Nevertheless, it's not my intention to delve into the mental wanderings
of those who write these articles or those who approve them. Instead,
I'll focus on the tremendous public irresponsibility held in that statement.

In the last twelve years, in terms of non-immigrant visits alone, a
whopping 120,750 Cubans have stayed in the United States, just over one
percent of the national population. And if we can believe the general
counsel, these are mainly young people of optimal working age who are
going to have their children in the United States.

If this amount is added to the many thousands who come to the US with
immigrant visas or cross the border somewhere else, then we must
understand that we're talking about a serious issue that must be
addressed ideologically.

The island's society today demonstrates a demographically regressive
bulb-shaped pyramid, and the population is continuing to decline because
women aren't having children, or they have them when they migrate. This
is leading to a bottleneck in which the pyramid is going to become
inverted in a society with low levels of productivity and
capitalization. It's an unsustainable situation.

I know that asking Granma to say something serious may be hoping for too
much. They never have and never will as long as the blinders of the
party's ideological apparatus remain in place.

But frankly I worry about so much levity in the middle of a disaster, as
well as the very rude behavior with those gringos who, whether we like
them or not, are only doing their jobs.

They were only representing the country where many Cubans live; those
who produce babies as well as the wealth that some of them send to
Cuba…two things that there are increasingly fewer in Cuba.
—–
(*) A Havana Times translation of the original published in Spanish by
Cubaencuentro.com.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=89847