HAVANA, Cuba.- A well-known saying goes that “man is the only animal that stumbles twice with the same stone.” But that principle, in those literal terms, is applicable to a normal person, to an ordinary human being, as are the majority of my readers or this columnist himself.
Not the communists. We already know that, if we use the above adjective in its usual sense, they are not “normal.” They stumble over the same stone not once or twice, but hundreds of times. To be convinced of this, we need only look at the obstinacy (or, better still, the perverseness) with which they insist on the same things. same sterile recipes who have proven to the point of exhaustion how ineffective they are.
In the case of our Island, it is enough to look at the information that, almost daily, is offered by the Castroite media about the fashionable communist leader’s travels through our countryside. Years ago, it was Dr. Machado Ventura, who, despite his advanced age, appeared, day in and day out, wandering through rural areas throughout the country.
In the presentthe baton has been taken over by his substitute in office, also a doctor (what an obsession these reds have with appointing doctors to organize the Party!) Roberto Morales Ojeda; a little less, by President Díaz-Canel and sporadically by his vice president Valdés Mesa.
Despite the diversity of the characters, their comments are always the same: “We need to produce more!”; “We need to increase productivity!”; “We need to increase yields!”… And so the days and weeks go by, which then turn into months and years, and the communists continue to insist on “perfecting” their unviable system, which has proven to the point of exhaustion that it is only capable of producing hunger, misery and despair.
The ban on the “Package”
These bitter considerations come to mind in light of the recent ban decreed against the so-called “Package”; that is, that combo of serial novels, movies, musicals and other film materials that some independent entrepreneurs have marketed for years.
Although Cuban television has not been limited to the two channels of yesteryear for decades, but now offers more options, the quality of the latter is so poor that everyone who can tries to obtain additional materials that allow them to have a greater choice. In this effort, the famous “Package” has played a central role.
And it is necessary to say that, although those digital combos They are prepared by people outside the Ideological Department of the Central Committee, the ukases of that infamous “Thought Police” are taken into account by the former when choosing the materials that they will include in their selection each week.
The experience of decades has taught Cubans on the island how much attention the Castro-communist leaders pay to any political issue. It is possible – even probable – that the police will not respond to a call for help for a family being robbed by criminals; but if someone shouts “down with communism!” then the police will show up immediately…
Package versus State Security
Knowing that, those who make the various “Package” versionsIn order to avoid the undesirable attention of State Security, they avoid copying newscasts or other programs that criticize or condemn the decisions taken by the Castro-communist regime. In other words, self-censorship flourished among them. Despite this, now the Havana Palace of the Revolution has decreed its prohibition.
The implications of this arbitrary There are several recent measures. In the legal field, I consider the considerations made by Eloy Viera Cañive in The Touch. The colleague, first of all, rightly points out the underlying flaw that entails the fact that, in countries with a totalitarian vocation such as Cuba, the fundamental principle of law that states: “No one will be prevented from doing what the law does not prohibit” is not applied.
In our unfortunate island, the opposite rule applies: “A citizen may only do what the law expressly authorizes him to do.” Or, better yet, another version of that same principle, which is not only more witty, but also more accurately reflects the unhealthy essence of the Castro-communist system: “Everything that is not prohibited is obligatory.”
But we already know that the system based in Havana stumbles twice and more over the same stone. The desire to intensify the Bolshevik indoctrination of its subjects has always been present. And of course, in the “era of splendor” of Castro-communism, when ordinary citizens did not have computers and the Internet did not exist, this form of social control exercised by those in power flourished much more than now.
With the same stone…
In this context, it is appropriate to mention a personal anecdote from when I returned to Cuba in 1966, after finishing my law studies in Moscow. The Czechoslovak film Waltz for a Millionwhich remained on the billboard for I don’t know how many weeks (in any case, more than the 52 that it takes a year).
It was a light film about love, music and sports, but without any transcendence. The impressive success it achieved in Cuba (and which I remember surprised its own producers) could only be explained by one reason: In the midst of the flood of films about wars, revolutions and “building socialism” that flooded Cuban cinemas and television at the time, the little Czechoslovakian film represented a welcome oasis of freshness.
But another saying goes: “A dog that lays eggs, even if they burn its snout.” After more than half a century, the Castro-communist ideologues, by prohibiting the “Package”, are as if they were banning the emulators of the Waltz for a Million today. Which leads to, as noted in an instructive report published this Wednesday right here in CubaNet“the weekly package will continue to circulate.”
The journalistic work echoes the comment of an ordinary Cuban about the infamous “Package”: “It will only move to the black market, it will become more attractive because of the ban and prices will go up to compensate for the risk.” And perhaps in the process —I hope— the filmmakers will stop censoring themselves. Because if they are going to be persecuted anyway…
