Almost twenty years ago, Cuban society looked the other way when numerous heavyweights of the national culture they signed a letter in which they justified the execution of three young people who hijacked a boat to reach the United States. The letter also endorsed the jailing of 75 dissidents in March 2003. Faced with that shameful text, silence, complicity or indifference were the most widespread responses of those who lived on the Island.
What has happened in this time so that a new “letter of ignominy”which this time takes the side of repression against popular protests, is causing such a different reaction in here? The first contrast lies in the signatories themselves. If among those who signed phrases such as “Cuba has been forced to take energetic measures that it naturally did not want” true intellectual and artistic wonders stood out, the list of the current signatories seems more like the list of members of a Defense Committee of the Revolution or of a Rapid Response Brigade that of figures of the cultural Parnassus of this nation.
A signature, irresponsible or conscious, has sealed the fate of these people
The absences are also more noticeable and speak for themselves. Each renowned troubadour, plastic artist or writer missing at the bottom of this new letter weighs much more than fifty official spokesmen, watchdogs of the word and ideologues of Castroism that abound so much among those who support it. Although there are also surprising presences, you can imagine the threads of pressure that some of those signatories must have suffered. However, no threat or possible fall from grace and loss of privileges can justify the greatness of a “I do not sign” said clearly and directly.
The document published this week, and to which new supporters are being added every day, also distances itself from that other one, which circulated a few weeks after the Black Springin that it has no intention of convincing or changing the minds of foreign intellectuals who have spoken out against the repression unleashed on July 11, 2021 and the most recent in Havana’s Vedado. Rather, this text seeks to involve the largest possible number of figures within the Island in the blow and the threat – in a visible and categorical way. It wants hundreds or thousands of arms to appear in the action of pulling the rope that surrounds the neck of the Cuban people.
In a desperate act, the Communist Party is trying to drag in its fall and muddy anyone who, out of indifference, opportunism or fear, wants to accompany it in its final blows. More than support, the regime is looking for accomplices to accompany it in the family photo of his inevitable funeral and to do so as also responsible for the arbitrary arrests, the beatings of protesters and police terror. It is not a letter, it is a trap to catch names among whom to share the responsibility for the civil conflict that is brewing in this country.
Saying that “I didn’t know what I was signing”, “they didn’t even show me the final text” or “I was traveling and they put my name without consulting me” will no longer serve to distance themselves from this infamous letter. Those who signed each of his words will have to carry the rest of their lives and careers with the heavy burden of having taken sides with the gag on society and with an authoritarian power that has deprived Cubans for decades of exhibiting their differences, express themselves without masks and voice their opinions out loud. A signature, irresponsible or conscious, has sealed the fate of these people.
They will not be able to say that “nobody knows the past that awaits them” and they did not foresee the personal and social cost of supporting the letter written by a dying totalitarianism. Almost twenty years after that unfortunate text that so many signatories have repented of and others have remained cowardly silent, there is no longer any possible justification that appeals to ignorance or fear. Cuban society, beyond intellectuals and artists, will not be exempt from looking the other way again. The times of apathy are over.
#URGENT #SOSCuba Images of the #repression to the people during the protests in #Cuba. Share! Stay informed with https://t.co/i96XEerLyS pic.twitter.com/o3KEJmFjzC
— 14ymedio (@14ymedio) October 2, 2022
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