IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 121

In a conversation I had with a group of
young people, the first answers I got seemed
right out of official rhetoric: “Yes. Of
course” and “I love my flag and homeland.”
Yet, later, after one of them dared to cross
the line: “I am proud of being Cuban; but
not of my people. Cuba has become a
hypocritical place,” the opinions began to
flow:
-I would wear a T-shirt with the Cuban flag
on it, but not other symbols, like from the
Party, or with Che’s face, or that of the
Cuban Five.
-I like my country, but I’d like to get to
know others.
-I want to travel, not emigrate. But if I find a
country I like more than this one, I’d stay.
-Why would I have to lose my citizenship?
-Why can’t I go see my family outside
Cuba? I’d like to be able to pay for my own
trip?
-Why can’t I freely leave and reenter Cuba?
- Why is it that people in the Developed
World are not “if they’ve stayed”
somewhere? They live wherever they please
for however long they please and don’t have
to offer explanations.
Little by little, the concept of nation became
revitalized, and the idea that they loved their
country gained strength, all the while they
felt freer and freer to express themselves.
They felt freer from the mandatory
allegiance they must express.
-Cuba is unique; it is special.
-I would stay in my country if they treated
me like a person.
-If relations with the United States really get
resolved, I wouldn’t leave.
-Yes. I’d like to be able to decide what
happens in Cuba.
With the exception of the generation that
actively participated in the secret wars, or in
the Sierra Maestra’s guerrillas, or in the
changes that came about through the then

nascent revolution (and if they fully
accepted the results), subsequent generations
have refused to uphold an inalterable canon
have felt increasingly excluded from their
homeland’s destiny. In Cuba, even social
achievements are imposed: internationalist
solidarity, the vegetarian campaigns
unleashed in the 1990s, and even current
campaigns against homophobia. Civic
initiative has been totally disempowered.
Thus, the real reaction to any good cause is
skepticism and resistance. One of the things
that most harmed our national identity, and
the reason for the current, acknowledge
“crisis of values,” was the eradication of
religious thought. Another thing was the loss
of gains made in the area of animal
protection, which is at this very moment a
motive for struggle for the approval of a law
that would be only the first step towards
civility. Media attention to the Spanish and
African cultures has totally displaced any
sense of identification with native
population, even though some scholars
claim that the legacy of our original
ancestors was not quite so primitive, and
that
their
culture
was
evolving:
consciousness of a divine origin that leads to
a divine state. This concept is viscerally
missing in the nation-State that began after
1959. In their current state, even eventually
officially acknowledged religions like the
Catholic or Yoruba faiths are not able to
detain or reverse the spiritual and moral
degradation that is plaguing the country.
Why? Because the very dogma of the former
excludes the esoteric aspect that superior
states of consciousness offer, while the
second suffers because its practices produce
cruelty to animals and suspicion, and not
solidarity, regarding one’s neighbors. The
first is caught in struggle for political power;
the second, exploited as a tourist destination
that has become a symbol of social

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