IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 2 ENGLISH | Page 26

solidarity of the Cuban people to other continental nations and other places around the world has
caused work to be undervalued, as well as general
despair and the disintegration of the family and
all social spheres. This has made a shambles of
Cuba. Our doctors, teachers, trainers and other
professionals enhance the image of global benefactors the leaders in Havana promote, while the
Cuban population is plunged in desolation and
despair.
It is difficult to understand how the values of our
nation have been physically, morally and spiritually destroyed—at all levels—in such short shrift.
The State’s demagoguery has no credibility whatsoever; it has abandoned the people to an uncertain fate. People today live their lives without
plans or perspectives. The paternalistic state has
forfeited any responsibility for its commitments
and does not promote the creation of the spaces
needed to be able to confront the challenges of our
current times. Furthermore, with this same intimidation, it never stops threatening the freedom of
a people it continually harangues in its attempt to
glorify the supposed victories of a revolution that
has never considered their rights, and that has
taken for itself the responsibility of everyone’s
destiny. It pays no attention to what should be respected regarding the ongoing, Cuban, nation
building project, a project that has been ongoing
since the early twentieth century.
During the first half of that century, Cuba sought
truly sustainable progress in all sectors. Slum s
were not the norm, since there were only a few,
like Las Yaguas, in Lawton. This is where society’s marginalized people lived, with little education or culture, and in extreme poverty.
During its early years, and with what history has
deemed great hypocrisy, the revolution destroyed
this neighborhood and sent its residents to live in
housing with a certain degree of comfort, in the

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city’s outskirts. For this, it did not forget to demand eternal gratitude. Today, marginality is
proliferating everywhere and shantytowns are
cropping up all over the country. These are places
where Cubans deprived of the most basic rights
and real possibilities for progress are born and
live.
Despite the undeniable deterioration and disintegration of our economic body, and our moral and
spiritual values, Cuba’s leaders seem interested
only in keeping their power through an iron-fisted
control. They have no intention of creating spaces
for development and social growth; neither do
they intend to allow for the kind of intrinsic guarantees a liberating process would.
Our social panorama today is filled with extreme
desolation. Pessimism is our daily bread; a desire
to leave our homeland is the thought that drives
the minds of our children and grandchildren. Disunity, mistrust and constant loss of basic, ethical
principles plague our society. Corruption metastasizes into all areas of daily life, and presents itself as a constant flippancy in government decisions and a total lack of real, legal guarantees for
an independent civil society. The lack of information and institutionalism is dragging this country beyond the abyss, and this in full open disinterest of the part of officialdom. This and other
things are obvious in its absolute silence before
the real problems that assail us, and worsen in
great measure precisely because of its arrogance
and indolence.
We are victims of a system that sustains itself on
vane and futile rhetoric. The collapse of all hope,
fracturing of the family, and both personal and
governmental, economic disillusion and dependency, promise no auspicious future at all for a new
and dignified society.
Disrespect and citizen and police violence take
lives every day, and blacks are the most affected,