For Cubans in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn't Begun

For Cubans in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn't Begun / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Posted on May 13, 2013

From Sampsonia Way Magazine: In March the Cuban columnist Roberto
Zurbano published an article in The New York Times entitled "For Blacks
in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn't Begun."

Although the author himself has since said that his text suffered from
editorial interventions (namely that the title should have read "For
Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution is Not Yet Finished"), his perspective
has still caused a huge reaction on and off the Island. Consequently, a
variety of responses to the article appeared in the Cuban online press.

At the time it seemed that the Island's racial polemic might finally
come out of the closet of censorship into the public arena. But
unfortunately, at the beginning of April, the Editorial Fund of the Casa
de las Américas in Havana dismissed Zurbano from his post as its director.

Thus, the logic of totalitarian intolerance won another battle. Cuba
isn't changing, even though everything looks like it is.

And Afro-Cubans are not the only ones in Cuba left without their
fundamental rights. Over the past half-century the anti-democratic
tradition on our island has not set out to back racial apartheid, but
rather civic discrimination, whereby the State claims that no dissident
voice is legitimate, where no law is born out of the people's wishes but
instead by decree of the historic caudillos, where a human being's
fundamental rights are still held hostage in the name of utopia.

In his controversial article, Zurbano claims that "It is unrealistic to
hope for a black president, given the insufficient racial consciousness
on the island." But in these historic circumstances what should urgently
be made realistic is for Cuba to gain in social conscience and for the
president of our country to finally be a public servant, not a demagogic
messiah.

http://translatingcuba.com/for-cubans-in-cuba-the-revolution-hasnt-begun-orlando-luis-pardo-lazo/