HAVANA, Cuba. – That the Buena Fe group he had left Cuba for parole humanitarian he almost killed me with laughter, not only because having forgotten that it was December 28, he managed to make me fall into a fool’s errand, but because I actually imagined them being “continuity” of the group’s keyboardist—who Yes, he emigrated to the United States a few months ago.making a clean slate in his already shaky career—but above all about that Osvaldo Rodríguez, from the group Los 5 u 4, who after having been the official soundtrack of marches, parades, PCC congresses, acts of repudiation and others everyday life of Castroism, ended up in Miami, the “fashionable destination” for communists when they retire.
Maybe the joke would have worked with the very mediocre Arnaldo Rodriguezfrom the Talisman, with the ultra-detuned Amaury Perezwith Annie Garcesthat of the 60s and I don’t know how many thousands of millennia, even with the “ineffable” Raul Torres But without a doubt, joking with those from Buena Fe was perfect because they have that “look” of agents that distinguishes them from the rest of the clowns of the Castro circus. In fact, they were (de)formed in a MININT school and perhaps because they used too much starch to iron their uniform, they still cannot take it off.
But in the midst of the joke, the responses it provoked even from the musicians who They have been forced to reaffirm their “revolutionary conviction” on their social networks. (lest some distracted censor from the Ministry of Culture includes them on the list of the plagued and does not even invite them to a CDR party) the point is that it is credible news because it fits perfectly into that pattern of ruptures internal affairs that have been clearly marked in the midst of the worst crisis that the dictatorship has faced in more than half a century.
One can innocently fall into the joke because the cracks within the regime today are so deep and extensive, so full of disappointed people, renegades, radicals, reformists and, above all, dissidents that it is not at all unusual for ruptures to occur in the most important layers. external aspects of the totalitarian entity (artists, scientists, technicians, managers, officials, their families are part of that “outer layer”). And that is the fundamental component of the most recent migratory wave that, because it is the most visible part of the system, leaves visible a raw body that we have never seen in such a degree of decay, of putrefaction.
That’s why the joke works, because it doesn’t so much seek to ridicule those who, with their own actions and offenses, with their bad faith, have made themselves ridiculous in front of their former fans (who, feeling betrayed, abandoned them, leaving them literally alone in more of a stage) but, through the joke of the escape, it seeks to expose the sick and abandoned body of a dictatorship that is living its last hours. Not because she has been defeated by the “enemy” but because she discovers, first, that the true monster lives inside her, and second, that her skin made of infidels is falling to pieces.
In a certain way, the joke of last December 28, the reactions provoked, especially from that majority that gives credence to anything that happens in Cuba because this is no longer a country, not even a farm, but a time bomb — and that cannot make anyone in their right mind laugh—they are like an omen of how we will be in a “news mood” for the year that begins, where few things are announced as good for the communists, with the starting shot being the return of Donald Trump to the House Blanca, the closure of the border, the deportations, the brake on remittances controlled by the military, in short, the national pressure cooker on fire and with the goal of GDP growth of 1 percent.
If in 2024 they announced only 2% economic growth, which later ECLAC reduced it to 1.3and by December it was less than 1, almost 0, now that they say they accept failure from a more “realistic” perspective (with dollarization, hunger and blackouts become law) we are instituting the new disaster that we will witness shortly and by more than 365 days.
We are entering the new year without economic results but with a “march of the fighting people”, with intransigence, with the bag of coal at 2,000 pesos, with the pound of pork at 1,000 and with an exchange rate of the dollar on the street that does not It responds to nothing and no one but only to the madness and imbecility that affect us as a crazed and idiotic people. We will enter with more natural catastrophes, accidents, more corruption, more dismissals, all as signs of abandonment and despair, but above all with more news of good and bad faith that we will read as if they were April Fool’s jokes because, apparently, in Cuba between unfulfilled promises and failed plans, the date will be celebrated throughout the year 2025.
