HAVANA, Cuba.- Alexander will no longer be able to walk, as he must have imagined, through that old square in Berlin that bears the same name as his. Despite his wishes, he will not be able to land on a brief spot in the immensity of “Alexanderplatz” while he waits for the camera to shoot to show the photo later, on his return, in his little town in Camagüey. Alexander will also not be able to get close to that fragment of the Berlin wall of which a brief sample still remains, but which no longer divides the city in two. Despite his emphatic enthusiasm, his desire to make the journey, he is not going to go through the great Brandenburg Gate.
The man from Camagüey will not be able to move in the city’s subway nor will he try to guess what the passengers of that “Metro Tower of Babel” are talking about, if he were to listen to conversations in German, French, English, Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian or Italian, even Spanish. That boy who is such a husband, such a father of a family, such a Christian, and even such a grandfather despite his youth, will not get on any plane that brings him closer to Berlin. He will continue in the Camagüey of Camaguey, despite his determination to make the trip to the old continent.
Alexander will not be at the tribute to his dead uncle, killed a few years ago in Germany by some xenophobes from that part of the country they called democratic, even though it wasn’t. He will no longer be able to get to the institute where his mother’s brother studied, much less make a speech in that place of homage that a group of Germans set up to remember the atrocity. Alexander is not going to unveil that plaque as the organizers had thought, and he will not come into contact, as he would surely like, with Christian Protestantism in that land where the evangelical churches that reject indulgences were born. He, like so many Germans, does not believe in the authority of the Pope nor is he devoted to the saints of the Catholic Church. Alexander will not make the trip to the country of Luther and the Protestant Reformation.
He will continue in Camagüey despite the efforts of the organizers, because in the response to his visa request they assured that he was a possible emigrant, despite the fact that the organizers made the purposes of the trip known to the German diplomats in Havana, very clearly and in “letter of invitation”. And they also noted that they would bear all the expenses of the trip and those of the stay, and that it would not be a burden for the government. Despite all this, Alexander will not see the traces of Luther and Calvin, although he would very much like to.
And perhaps the German government is not to blame. Mistrust, suspicions, have their reasons. It is well known that there are many Cubans who want to make a one-way trip to any place that is far from this brief island of demonic government. The fault lies with the government, even worse than that Spartan polis. The fault lies with the repression and hunger, the fault lies with the punishments decided by the government and its lifetime generalship, that generalship that Aristotle spoke of so long ago.
The fault lies with that uncertain future that those of us who live in Cuba have, and also that certainty that the governments of the world have, when they suppose that the communists are getting rid of their opponents, but also of their criminals, of all that criminal offspring that they themselves provoke before. Alexander will not attend the tribute to his dead uncle, and the fault is not with the Germans. Who then is to blame for this refusal?
The fault lies with the communists, and it is, still, with Fidel Castro and his brother, and with the atrocious generalship, and with the governments’ awareness that Cuba gets rid of many things for convenience, and first of all those who oppose them, but also of a criminal or a murderer. Cuba, and by that I mean its government for life, gets rid of its criminals, its opponents, many good people who do not genuflect. The evidence is there, in sight and very palpable. How many Cubans left in the last two years?
How many of those who demonstrated in the Cuban streets exactly one year ago had to leave after 11J? How much tranquility did the government achieve with those exiles? Many are in prison today, and those prisons are also, at least for the government, a way of exile, of separating, but of an even sadder, more devastating exile and separation, and perhaps even more irreversible. Alexander, the Camagüeyan, will not travel to Germany to pay homage to his dead uncle, and I insist that the fault lies with the government that forces its children to decide between serving long sentences or exile.
And there will be many who will not receive a visa in the future, although the government applauds each exit, for a “mere health issue”, because each exile could be one less protester in a 11J or in a 20N, in a 3F, in a 23D, on any given day of the almanac. The government dreams of new Camariocas, with many Mariels. The government itself could provoke another “Maleconazo”, and massive and dangerous crossings through Central America.
The tumultuous exits lower the pressure of the pot, and in the long run they will contribute dollars to the owners of Cuba. Each emigrant, opponent or those who remain silent waiting for the jump, can be very beneficial for the communist government of the island. And that is why Alexander did not manage to attend the tribute they prepared for his dead uncle, although the bosses would have applauded the departure of one more, the departure of a probable opponent, and one less on the ration card. The Germans were certainly not to blame. It was the government that badly marks his children.
OPINION ARTICLE
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