Regardless of the over a thousand political prisonersthe surveillance of any place where a riot could take place –the last one, the Embassy of Panama–, the harassment of any discordant voice, the discrediting of activists and opponents in official media, small corners of freedom of expression proliferate more and more in Cuba .
They do not shout in the streets, as in the unexpected demonstrations of July 11, silenced with repression, threats and trials with disproportionate sentences; nor do they confront the authorities directly. But an insinuation on a bus, in a taxi or in the chicken queue is enough for Cubans to launch their opinions, in many cases against the government, without any type of censorship.
The next scene took place in a barbershop in a Havana neighborhood. The names are pseudonyms, but the conversation happened, word for word. It is a sign that ordinary Cubans not only feed on information outside the state press and television, on social networks and independent media, but that they are no longer silent.
Roberto: Do you remember when Marrero said that the repair and construction of hotels were for the good of our people? Then they took the sister in a phone call that was recorded and uploaded to social networks, listing everything he had to sell: aluminum marquetry, windows and other things in MLC.
The other day I was reading that he reduced the tobacco quota for all tobacco growers, and I wonder, what does Murillo know about tobacco? smoke it nothing else
Yuri: And there it is, nothing happened to it. Look at Murillo, they took him out of a volcano and put him in Tabacuba. That becomes a millionaire there. The other day he was reading that he reduced the tobacco quota for all tobacco growers, and I wonder, what does Murillo know about tobacco? Just smoke it.
Ernesto: We have what we deserve, neither more nor less. We are like this because we want to. Look at the Ukraine, they are fighting with a power and the whole town is in the street, the people on foot beaten with the tanks so as not to let them pass, and they send us a worm of those policemen, who are quarters of a man, and we kept quiet. We are very damaged as citizens.
José: It is that our ideological politics of many years has paralyzed us. Since you are a child at school they are inculcating you to be like Che. Fidel was a genius for evil: that if the CDR, the surveillance, the snitching among the neighbors… All of this has penetrated very deeply into the subconscious of Cubans.
Alexander: The Ukrainians have already tasted freedom. The Cuban does not know what that is, here the only Cubans who know a little about freedom are those who came out on July 11 and let off steam.
Damien: The Ukrainians are anti-Russian because the Soviets did a lot of damage to them. Too much time of oppression, that’s why they don’t want to have anything to do with Russia. The same thing is going to happen here, too much accumulated resentment and hatred. When this system falls you will see how anti-communism, reckoning and revenge will manifest.
Fidel was a genius for evil: what if the CDR, the surveillance, the ‘snitching’ among the neighbors
José: Speaking among ourselves, we understand each other, don’t you think that these here shit their pants on July 11? Everyone saw that, they were left not knowing what to do, but then the position to finger He said that they had to fall on top of the people with everything and gave the combat order.
Yuri: The problem is that we behave well, despite all the lies that are told on television. The protests were too peaceful. If they had been violent, as they say, there would no longer be a dictatorship in Cuba. I was there, I saw it with my own eyes: people shouted freedom, down with communism. The violent ones were they who beat the people to death.
José: They never saw that coming, never. It was complete Cuba, a chain reaction, city by city, town by town, was rising. Oh, and without organization, it was something spontaneous.
Yuri: I say that it will happen again. When the people get tough, they are not going to be able to stop them, when a whole town squares off there is nothing to do, they cannot put everyone in prison, nor do they have a place.
José: They were born again, that day they were born again.
The problem is that we behave well, despite all the lies that are told on television
Roberto: Did you see people in a town in the interior on December 31, how Díaz-Canel shouted singao at a party, a bunch of people screaming loud listening and singing Homeland and Life?
José4: And in the game in Las Tunas, in the stadium, they insulted the Police to the face: “Pinga Police, Pinga Police.” I saw it on Facebook.
Yuri: I keep saying that if everyone stands up, they have to go. They are at a disadvantage. Even the Communist Party is a minority in this country. They have no chance against a million people in the streets, sitting on the ground, with that there is nothing more to do.
Alexander: If they could put everyone in prison, all of us who went to the protests would be in prison. Yomil I would have been a prisoner, who was there too. They charged those who stood out the most, those who saw leadership potential, those who shouted the most and went to the top of the candle.
Damián: They say that young people don’t want the PCC card, I saw it in 14ymedio. Nobody is for that, who is going to want to embark to eat candlelight while the Party bosses are becoming millionaires. They are a gang of thieves and hypocrites.
Take advantage, that what we are doing, now in April is a crime, with the new Penal Code
Roberto: The problem is that we have not become aware that we are the ones in charge here and not them. The day we realize that, that’s where they got. When the people want, they want, and when the people don’t want, they don’t want. What happens is that we Cubans don’t know about that, the people of Ukraine know that, got a dictator out of there in the streets, camping in the streets.
Gilberto: Take advantage, that what we are doing, now in April is a crime, with the new Penal Code. If a repressor sits here and embodies you, you go there.
Roberto: Well, I want to see that, compadre, they will have to build many prisons for that.
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