Cuba's wall has not fallen ... but it is not eternal

Cuba's wall has not fallen ... but it is not eternal
Posted: 11/10/2014 12:50 am EST

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 9 November 2014 - My life up to then
had always been lived between walls. The wall of the Malecon that
separated me from a world of which I'd only heard the horror. The wall
of the school where I studied when Germany was reunified. The long wall
behind which the illegal sellers of sweets and treats hid themselves.
Almost six feet of some overlapping bricks that some classmates jumped
over to get out of classes, as indoctrinating as they were boring. To
this was added the wall of silence and fear. At home, my parents put
their fingers to their lips, speaking in whispers... something happened,
but they didn't tell me what.

In November of 1989 the Berlin Will fell. In reality, it was knocked
down with a sledgehammer and a chisel. Those who threw themselves
against it were the same people who, weeks earlier, appeared to obey the
Communist Party and believe in the paradise of the proletariat. The news
came to us slowly and fragmented. Cuba's ruling party tried to distract
attention and minimize the matter; but the details leaked out little by
little. That year my adolescence ended. I was only fourteen and
everything that came afterwards left me no space for naivety.

The masks fell on by one. Berliners awoke to the noise of hammers and we
Cubans discovered that the promised future was a complete lie. While
Eastern Europe shrugged off the long embrace of the Kremlin, Fidel
Castro screamed from the dais, promising in the name of everybody that
we would never give up. Few had the insight to realize that that
political delusion would condemn us to the most difficult years to
confront several generations of Cubans. The wall fell far away, while
another parapet was raised around us, that of ideological blindness,
irresponsibility and voluntarism.

A quarter century has passed. Today Germans and the whole world are
celebrating the end of an absurdity. They are taking stock of the
achievements since that November and enjoying the freedom to complain
about what hasn't gone well. We, in Cuba, have missed out on twenty-five
years of climbing aboard history's bandwagon. For our country, the wall
is still standing, although right now few are propping up a bulwark
erected more at the whim of one man than by the decision of a people.

Our wall hasn't fallen... but it is not eternal.

Source: Cuba's wall has not fallen ... but it is not eternal | Yoani
Sanchez -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cubas-wall-has-not-fallen_b_6130784.html