IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 129

ment, the uniforms galore, the collective surveillance, the imminent attack, the military invasion. The Enemy America was a powerful presence on the island even before the latter detached from the Spanish yoke and the 13 Atlantic colonies rid themselves of the British crown and its redcoats. Despite the heavy taxes imposed by the Spanish colonial administration to export and import of goods, the American merchant fleet was constantly visiting Cuba. This activity represented twice the trade from North American ports to Britain and France. Much of the laborious transformation of an almost barren military colony to a productive emporium was due to such an impetuous trade and the related technologies. In short, the interaction between the Cuban and the American people was much more favorable than harmful from the very beginning and throughout all their history until 1959. Despite the oversizing of the unfortunate episodes and disputable aspects in the mutual relationship, it costs an enormous effort to understand how the powerful neighbor so enmeshed in our formation as a nation could so easily transformed from one year to another in the credible enemy that the newly seated regime needed to justify their stay with an endless militarization of a small country. However, this radical concept is an igniting spark in a civil society captivated by the effluvia of a picturesque mountaineer militarism that fiercely supported or silently consented the mass executions— without legal guarantees— of former or suspected henchmen of the old regime. The civil society was captivated by the jingoistic warmongering profile that never before, even during the independence wars, appeared to be a feature of the light Cuban idiosyncrasies. Such an eventual perversion of an important( although not critical) part of the population was defined by the majority ´ s tendency after the failure of another invasion, this time by Cuban exiles at Bay of Pigs sponsored by the United States. Thus, the civil society helped to confine itself and to throw away the key. It condemned itself to be in a site under continuous surveillance as in a military base. The Greenhouse Effect In a brief analysis, it is virtually impossible to define all the adverse influence of conservatism, intolerance, repression, and subordination brought by the continuing militarization to the Cuban nation. The socialist law justifies the army as both means and end. Nothing could better explain the functions of this instrument as a support system. At the same time, it intimidates the civilian population subordinated to the interests of the ruling military caste. Precisely this consistent, comprehensive development of the civil subordination to the military carried out a devastating effect on the society as a whole. Firstly, it zeroed the independence of the citizens and their civil rights. Secondly, I think the people in uniform hold an oversized sense of superiority and dominance over the rest of the population. They considered the latter fully available for complying with their commands 3. Even the design of the ill-fated Special Period was aimed to subject the Cuban nation to a Pol Pot-ian military camp routine. 4 The false view of the country in a permanent state of war and about to be invaded resisted— albeit with significant deterioration— the onslaught of more than half a century without connection to reality. The constant stoking of the " Enemy ", the snatched system of mass mobilization against an imminent attack, the alleged provocations, and the government statements on the adversary provoked a radical transformation in education, customs, behavior, family relationships, cultural perspectives, and personal perception
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