HAVANA, Cuba.- The official press and its acolytes are saying that the direct by Amelia Calzadilla it was a show, that it is impossible to go hungry when you have “luxury” lamps, “store” furniture, acrylic nails and air conditioning equipment. It is not worth stopping to analyze what unscrupulous people consider “luxury goods”. Suffice it to say that his opinion on the matter shows how miserable they are from a spiritual —and possibly material— point of view, and how aware they are of the extreme poverty in which Cuban households have been plunged.
What is essential to highlight is that Amelia Calzadilla is a professional; and the fact that cybercombatants consider that for a professional to have a split (or two) is an extraordinary luxury, corroborates that Castroism has normalized the massive and systematic impoverishment of the population. The emissaries of the PCC know that behind any comfort in most Cuban homes is the hard work of an émigré, the exploitation of technicians and professionals who deprive themselves of almost everything during the so-called “internationalist missions”, or the savings of parents and mothers who end up in the pocket of the “mule” that brought the split, the washing machine or the microwave from Panama.
In some cases, this “luxury” comes from mothers who get up at the first light of dawn and go out into the heat, to clean houses and take turns in queues; to buy and resell what they can — dodging the police — to then acquire MLC on the black market, at killer prices, and be able to access the stores in hard currency to buy the least expensive split, which will allow them at least one quality rest .
The labyrinth of calamities they face on a daily basis is not enough. Now it turns out that Cuban mothers cannot complain or denounce if they have appliances, acrylic nails or a firm roof over their heads. You have to live in a bajareque, cook with firewood or kerosene and walk with disheveled hair for the glut to sound convincing. No one remembers anymore, it seems, that this “credible” poverty is that of the marginal neighborhoods that took to the streets on July 11, 2021, and that was repressed with blows, imprisoned, silenced.
The Cuban mothers, who endure all the violence of socialism imposed on the cannon, only needed to be criticized for wanting to look presentable in the midst of so much misery. Know the haters that there are also in the lots with acrylic nails and the roof of the house about to fall on them. They put on their nails because they feel like it, because it’s their money and because we Cubans, so marked by vicissitudes, have the firm certainty that what doesn’t go away in tears, goes away in sighs.
Those same mothers, who seem frivolous to the PCC for taking care of their personal appearance, save the chicken for their children and eat the filthy mincemeat they sell at the butcher shop. These mothers, after spending the whole day “struggling”, return home almost dehydrated, with pain in their kidneys, their temples throbbing and the veins in their legs about to burst; but with money to keep shooting while the body endures.
Nobody can criticize them for going to the hairdresser, getting a manicure, or buying a very cold Cristal beer for 200 pesos and drinking it leaning on what remains of the balcony that partially collapsed months ago, without the Havana government give a damn. And it is not that with the Cristal the problems disappear. In fact, they enjoy it with filth, because it is absurd to pay such a sum for something so basic and of national invoice, moreover.
Cuban leaders should be ashamed that a Cristal beer has become the greatest desire of people overwhelmed by high temperatures, thirst and the horrible feeling of being dead in life. Very sporadically, mothers I know indulge in that pleasure that helps them cope with the shitty life they’ve been dealt, and no one has the right to blame them; much less those who live distant from their dramas.
If they want to spend their money on beers, false nails or cable to entertain themselves with Telemundo’s left — more chic than Cubavisión’s — they’re within their rights. Whatever they need so that the daily annoyance does not cause a heart attack, ischemia or a nervous breakdown. Because if Cuba is hell for those who enjoy full physical and mental faculties, it must be the quintessence of martyrdom for those who live with health limitations.
I often see those mothers silently chewing on their acrylic nails, their eyes lost in horizons that I would like to believe full of hope. Then their eyes meet mine and they tell me: “This is shit”, and I, who do not have children, can only wonder what I would do in their place, with so much pressure above and under the boot of a regime that brands them of “wealthy” for having two or three pieces of junk that only in Cuba can be seen as symbols of high purchasing power.
Castroism’s hatred for the Cuban people is infinite; but also reciprocal and they know it. They have behaved disgustingly with a grieving mother. The arguments made for discredit Amelia’s complaint are, in addition to being false and out of context, cruel and disrespectful, as can be expected from a sexist and abusive regime. Keep digging deeper into the vileness. They are treading on mined ground.
OPINION ARTICLE
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