IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 30

were presented at the 2015 LASA
conference as well as previous ones, one
must notice the high number of them
that mention or allude to the Cuban
government’s system as the primary
agent in achieving high rates of human
development; they are said to serve as an
enviable example for the entire continent
and the whole Third World. Few are the
presentations that delve into the dramatic
reality endured over decades by deep
Cuba’s millions of inhabitants. If one
finds one or a few papers (from more
recent years) about urgent matters, they
are essentially considered reflective of
the disintegration of the European
socialist camp and/or of the worldwide,
general crisis. The regime’s devastation
of our economic and socio-cultural
structures, and even of many old
traditions, like respect and love of work,
respect for other’s rights, the law, or
order, as well as of harmonious
coexistence, have been almost magically
buried under cold facts and numbers the
regime uses to systematically saturate
international institutions. Such is also the
case with its inflated claims regarding
education, public health, focus on
children, and even the struggle against
racial and gender discrimination.
Blandishing clever statistics, which, of
course, serve as tools for researchers,
scholars, and academics (since they have
access to no other, non-official,
“scientific” indicators), the Cuban
regime must have planned its insertion
into LASA (some may, in fact, not want
to consult other sources). The Cuba
Section would take care of the rest; it
grows more every year, like a fattened
calf; it is directed from the island by
people in the official nomenklatura.
Their mission is to fulfill the regime’s
legitimating goals, but while seeming to
represent an alternative set of

intellectuals and scholars. These, in turn,
defend
its
hypotheses,
and
concomitantly disqualify others, and
strive so that other, authentically
alternative versions or studies about the
country’s reality be acknowledged, or at
least minimized.
The tribulations of a panel
I had the honor of being part of a panel,
“Racismo y Raciocinio: Movimiento,
Medios, Debate, y Legalidad” [Racism
and Reason: Movement, Media, Debate,
and Legality], at the recently concluded
2015 LASA conference. I was in the
company of other well-known, antiracist leaders and members of the
internal opposition in Cuba, Manuel
Cuesta Morúa and Juan Antonio
Madrazo Luna, as well as with Dr. Juan
Antonio Alvarado, of the Platform for
Cuban Integration, and Editor-in-Chief
of the journal IDENTIDADES. Puerto
Rican academics Guillermo F. RebolloGil and Ariadna M. Godreau Aubert,
were also on the panel. They were going
to find themselves in the uncomfortable
position of sharing the experience of
being treated as a lonely minority; I
know not if by accident or informed
choice. They had to