interesting interview with Leonard Padura in the supplement Ideas of The nation (Buenos Aires) on July 16. I think this is the first time that he has so emphatically acknowledged the very serious problems that the blockade produces in Cuba. There is a phrase that sums up his thinking on this matter: after talking about the pandemic and its effects on tourism and the “pressure of measures that reinforced the economic and financial embargo” Padura adds that “it may seem that it is a justification, but ( the embargo) is real and affects the Cuban economy globally and particularly the daily life of Cubans.” And later, he finishes off this argument by saying that “(It) takes a certain level of risk, courage and decision and to start with an economic territory that is affected by the limitations of the North American embargo, but that is also very affected by internal inefficiency. ”
These observations are an advance in relation to previous statements by the Cuban novelist. It is obvious that the effectiveness of the blockade is enhanced by internal obstacles that prevent the Cuban Revolution from updating its economic model, a process that should have started at full speed when the collapse of the Soviet Union took place and that is still to be seen. But with that said, the problems the novelist points out: Generalized shortages, deficits in the generation of electrical energy, shortage of medicines and essential medical supplies, among many others, are fundamentally caused by the criminal blockade that Washington has imposed on the rebellious island for more than sixty years. Padura cannot ignore that during the pandemic Donald Trump tightened the economic sanctions against Cuba, reaching in its infinite evil to prevent the arrival of masks, ventilators and even vaccines to combat Covid-19.
Some fifty additional restrictions were imposed by the bandit in the White House on a country that was fighting a deadly battle against the pandemic. And Cuba, despite the blockade, scored a Pyrrhic victory because it defeated the coronavirus And he did it with his own vaccines! No country in the underdeveloped world has achieved such a formidable feat, something that unnerves the Miami anti-Cuban mafia and its politicians for hire like Bob, Ted, Marco, Ileana, Mauricio and others of their ilk. I underline this issue because it is a crime against humanity that raises the conscience of free men and women around the world but that fades into the shadows when Padura, instead of using the appropriate term, “blockade”, appeals to the liar name that the US government and its intellectual and political representatives have chosen to hide their crime: “embargo”. The Cuban novelist uses that term three times in the interview, something that he did not do before. But he would have been more appropriate to call things by his name and speak of “blocking”. He is from Havana and intelligent: I don’t lose hope that he will do it in the future.
It is obvious that Cuba’s macroeconomic management must change, and that any change implies a challenge, a going to sea and an alteration of power relations forged in previous times, which tends to unleash tenacious impediments. There will be those who win and also those who lose with this change, but Cuba, and I want this to be very clear, has no other alternative than to embark on the path of “revolutionizing the revolution”, and to do so without further delay. Many Cuban revolutionaries have been demanding it for years. Silvio repeated it on June 26 of this year, when he gave the example of Vietnam and China, which boldly embarked on a path of great “updates” and managed to save the revolution. Now it is Padura who also claims it. In good time.
I believe, however, that the Cuban novelist is guilty of injustice when he speaks of the reprimands he would have received for writing what he writes while living in Cuba. Although he does not use the term “regime” to refer to the Cuban government – something that his interviewer does, who knew how to have a more open and progressive thought in other times – he conveys an image of a persecuted writer that is unfounded. I think he should have told his interviewer that in the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Fidel’s speech, “Words to the intellectuals”, he was awarded nothing less than the Alejo Carpentier Order granted by the Council of State and that this distinction was granted in a ceremony that was attended by the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Really persecuted writers did not have the same luck: cases of Javier Heraud in Peru or Rodolfo Walsh in Argentina. It is no coincidence that this news, which denied the image of a writer harassed by a “regime”, was completely ignored by the Latin American and Spanish communication sewer that endlessly dulls the consciences of our peoples. Not one line, not one thirty-second comment on a radio or television newscast was intended to report on the event.
Padura complains that his work is little known in his country. He is right, although all his books are published in Cuba by UNEAC, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. I do not know your case in particular, but due to references from other writers it is very possible that the circulation of these editions is reduced because -and allow me this conjecture- commercial publishers do not usually look favorably on the works in their catalogs being published in large quantities in Cuba, where books are not merchandise but are sold at almost gift prices. This matter should be explored.
I end up returning once again to the blockade: what image could the drama of this crime convey? It occurs to me that perhaps one of the most convincing would be George Floyd, that African American who, unarmed, was arrested by a patrol car in Minneapolis and killed by one of the officers that for nine minutes he knelt on his neck while the victim screamed that “I can’t breathe”. The blockade is just that: a brutal and inhuman empire that falls hard on an island that can hardly breathe anymore and that, despite its protests – and those of the international community that every year at the UN demands that its executioner end the blockade – turns a deaf ear to that cry and continues with its pressures, as that evil police officer did until Floyd stopped breathing. Whoever does not report this crime becomes, despite it, his accomplice. Padura has finally begun to talk about him, although still using the fallacious lexicon of the executioner: “embargo”. It would be good if he once and for all uses the correct expression, “blockade” and takes advantage of the enormous worldwide spread of his word to condemn , without this attitude forcing him to abandon his criticism of what he calls the “internal inefficiency” of the Cuban government.