IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 91

discrimination are so evident that even
the UN Committee for the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination (CERD) made
a lot of criticism and accusations against
the Cuban government. And certainly
the CERD rapporteur for Cuba in 2011,
the prestigious Colombian jurist Pastor
Elias Murillo, was the object of discrimination when he was passing through
the Island as an incognito tourist. What
happened in regards to the unfortunate
article is not an isolated event. Given
the reaction unleashed by the authorities
against Obama’s impact, perhaps the
journalists and executives thought that it
was lawful to challenge such an uncomfortable visitor even with racist derision.
Nobody noticed the wrongful act and
nobody deign to stop it on time, because
the racist speech and slurs are so normal
and tolerated in Cuba. Arandia´s article
was certainly uncomfortable to read
because of the repeated syntax errors
and internal consistency, but the key is
actually that it got lost in perspective:
the deplorable incident is part of a daily
dynamic in Cuba, since what she insists
on calling revolution does not simply
coexist with racism, but generates it
with so many silences, omissions and
misrepresentations, in addition to
measures that deepen the inequalities
and social injustices. To make clear
awareness of the transcendence and
risks in such a racist environments,
Arandia should remember that in March
2009, at the express request of the
political police, she expelled the antiracist activists Juan Madrazo, Leonardo
Padrón and Leonardo Calvo from a
public debate held under her attention at
the headquarters of the National Union
of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

And on May 20, 2012, after the arbitrary detention of five independent antiracist leaders who wanted to participate
in the commemoration of the uprising
by the PIC in 1912, she publicly said
that she did care neither about such an
act of repression nor about the fate of
the activists. She only care about protecting the position she has reached.
Only when it is fully restored the debate
on racial issues, history, identity and the
subsisting inequalities; only when it is
no longer tolerated in silence the injustice against the unknown or anonymous
young people of African descent, always arbitrarily threatened in the street
by the police; only when the Afrodescendants recover our civic and public voice in order to reaffirm our identity, to defend our rights and to channel
our concerns; only when legal mechanisms are activated to effectively fight
against any discrimination; only then
the visitors could come to our country
without risk of suffering another racist
offense.

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