Havana Cuba. — A few hours ago I was surprised by a shrill headline from the granny’s mini-newspaper (well, as everyone knows, that is what the Anglo-Saxon diminutive “Granma” comes to mean). The brand new official organ of the only legal party in Cuba solemnly announced: “An exceptional economic event that opens a new stage.”
For a moment I thought hopefully that the paunchy people from Havana’s “Palacio de la Revolución” had decided —finally!— to forget about the socialist economic enterprise and bureaucratic planning. I am talking, of course, about the same inoperative institutions that have put our Homeland in the fury in which we are sunk, but that are maintained at all costs by the regime.
Of course, after more than sixty years of the triumphalist proclamations that characterize the media of Castroism’s agitation and propaganda, I hastened to read the complete information. That way I could have a clearer idea of what part of the truth was in the headline quoted above. As soon as I did, my illusions about a hypothetical beginning of the profound changes that Cuba desperately needs were extinguished.
It turned out that the strident headline was copied from words spoken at a protocol ceremony by a foreign visitor: Mr. Abdelhak Saihi, Minister of Health, Population and Hospital Reform of Algeria. But the agitators of the Granmafaithful to what constitutes a well-rooted practice in them, they distorted the quote to their liking until it was unrecognizable.
It is the case that the distinguished traveler, with his grandiloquent phrases, was referring to the economic-commercial relations between Cuba and Algeria. We are talking about two countries that maintain good political ties with each other, something that was made clear during the tour that the “president of Continuity” made a few weeks ago through Africa, Europe and Asia. During it, Miguel Díaz-Canel held out the bowl before his counterparts from the “friendly countries” visited. With it he obtained debt forgiveness and some other handouts.
But, to be objective, we must also recognize that the Greater Antilles and the largest country in the Maghreb are not major trading partners: neither is the former nor vice versa. Therefore, Mr. Saihi, when stating that the bilateral forum represented “an exceptional economic event that opens a new stage in economic-commercial relations” (full sentence), was circumscribing his somewhat exaggerated words to a phenomenon of limited importance, of secondary character, such as Cuban-Algerian ties.
Why the exaggeration of the communist headline? Are we talking about a deliberate attempt to arouse illusions, even for a few hours, among your less informed readers? Or could it be that the workers of the official body (who claim to be journalists, but are unaware that their fundamental mission is to inform) are so clumsy that they failed to understand that their headline distorts and caricatures what the foreign minister said?
In any case, the meeting reflected in the aforementioned front-page news also served for something else: Cuban Vice Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, in the presence of the Castro regime’s top staff (including Miguel Díaz-Canel and Manuel Marrero Cruz, Heads of State and Government), took the opportunity to elaborate on the favorite topics of the red agitation.
According to the granmero text, the voluminous deputy prime minister, among other things, “recounted the complexities that Cuba has experienced in recent years, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, technological incidents and, especially due to the intensification of the blockade”. Elaborating on the latter, Cabrisas affirmed that he “continues to be the greatest obstacle to the economic and social development of our country.”
Or to put it another way: the communists once again affirm that the endless calamities and shortages that the unfortunate inhabitants of this Greater Antilles suffer today are due to the unilateral measures adopted by the United States. This is a very bold statement when it is made to refer to a country that, as is known, is one of the main food suppliers to Cuba.
In other words: the true causes of the national disaster continue to be ignored. Not a word is said about bureaucratic planning, the central role given to the inefficient “socialist state enterprise” and government hostility against true entrepreneurs. Poor Cuba, so far from freedom and so close to Castro-communism!
OPINION ARTICLE
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