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”. 75