IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 75

able to bring them into a better future
together with other free nations, including Americans, while protecting and
further cultivating their own unique
Cuban identity. Those who entered
Havana triumphantly in the last day of
1958 in order to form there their “revolutionary” government – in power ever
since - of course, immediately started to
give this fundamental Cuban raison
d’etat, articulated by Marti, their own
twisted ideological interpretation. The
unrelenting anti-Americanism has quickly become one of the principal political
tools in the hands of Fidel Castro and his
revolutionaries, to be used indiscriminately to suppress all their - both domestic and international – enemies. It was
intentionally built by them into the very
foundations of the Cuban totalitarian
state. All their critics could then be
stigmatized as traitors and persecuted as
agents of American imperialism. The
defense of the Cuban Revolution against
the continuing acts of aggression committed by the United States could be
declared as a principal patriotic duty of
all Cubans. Whoever refused to support,
or at least to get his/her behavior coordinated with this official line, could be
eliminated from the Cuban public life at
the discretion of the ruling power and
severely punished. And there is no need
to add: the Cold War between the East
and West which was in full swing in the
moment of creation of Cuban “socialist”
state, framed the designs of its founders
with a highly favorable international
environment and contributed decisively
to its exceptional stability. In Europe,

this conflict ended more than quarter
century ago, but the political regime
created by the Castro brothers and their
cronies in the late 1950s is still here in
the 2010s, still using its old, well-tested
anti-American rhetoric to remain in
power. Does this new situation - at the
end of 2015, when the US and Cuban
Embassies function again in the national
capitals and more “constructive” steps
on the both sides are in the pipeline in
the context of “re-engagement” - also
open new opportunities for the Cuban
democratic opposition? Definitely yes,
but under one condition: that it is used
creatively to overcome, once for all, the
heavy burden of Fidel Castro’s political
legacy; that the difference in opinions as
far as the new US policy toward Cuba is
not perceived as a casus belli in its
ranks, as a reason for escalation of
“ideological” divisions within Cuban
“parallel polis”, but as a call for its
unification. The dispute between the
supporters and opponents of the steps
taken by President Obama and his Administration - a manifestation of political
pluralism that lies at the very core of
American democracy; a continuing and
never-ending struggle taking place on
the US political scene which will only
intensify in the year of presidential
election 2016 – should not paralyze the
possibility of dialogue among the Cuban
dissidents! Exactly on the contrary, it
should be used by them as an opportunity to demonstrate that in spite of all their
differences, they stand united by the
common goal, able not only to talk to
each other, but to act “in concert”.

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