Please President Obama, from a Woman Living in Cuba

This has been making the email rounds, in Spanish.  It was taken from Yoani Sanchez’ blog, Generation Y, comment #351 on the post titled “Nostalgia de la pizza.”  As you read this, keep in mind that the internet is illegal in Cuba, and the risks this brave woman took just to add her thoughts to a blog post.  She somehow found a connection, and enough distance from her local CDR thugs to voice her opinion. We who are blessed to live in a free country have a responsibility to those who do not. Please read, and think hard about the millions of nameless, silent captives living under the boot heel of castro’s repressive dictatorship, and what lifting the restrictions means to their hopes for a future free Cuba.

Translation courtesy of our good friend Cubanita:

 LETTER FROM A CUBAN (WOMAN) LIVING IN CUBA

Ladies and gentlemen:
I am a Cuba woman who lives in Cuba and now takes some time to send you this note, because I think you can all understand and analyze my worries.

I’m worried about what everybody is talking about over here, about the administration in the United States. and, be clear, when I say “what every body is talking about over here” I am not talking Granma, the round tables on TV or any other propaganda device sponsored by the (Communist) Party. I am talking about the conversation among Cubans like me, those that once in a while seize any opportunity to read Yoani Sanchez’s posts, or what people are saying in Spain or in Miami. I am talking about the Cubans that try to keep quiet, because we have to be able to keep feeding ourselves and raising out children, and, in order to do that here, you have to keep your job (at all costs?).

People over here are saying that the blockade is going to be lifted, that Obama is going to allow the remittances and that a lot of Latin Americans countries are going to step in to help us. (People) are also saying that the cure will be worse than the disease. What aid and what blockade are they talking about? Long time ago, over here, we understood there is not such a blockade, and we know very well what that foreign aid always ends up becoming.

I am a mother of three that, as many others here, was born after 1960. And we have all drank Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, we have worn Nikes and when we have been lucky enough to have eaten a piece of chicken or an onion, we know it came “from the monster” (the evil imperialism?)

C’mon, what we need –the Cubans living in Cuba, the ones struggling, day to day, with the hellhole we all help to build– is to have our civil rights restored. It’s as simple as that.

What we need is to get back our right to make a choice, to choose (freely), to get back the possibility to leave and come back (to our country), the freedom to read and to publish, the freedom to exist without thinking all time what my neighbor is going to think or what the CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) is going to interpret (from my actions).

We don’t need the embargo to be lifted; we need to be allowed to access the Internet, we need to be allowed to have a passport, and we need to be allowed not be considered as a vulgar or antisocial individual when we don’t agree with the TV’s commentator or the teacher.

We don’t need the embargo to be lifted; we need to be freed from the rationing card and all those complex processes that prevent us from deciding what to do with our Moskovich (old Russian brand of car circulating in Cuba), that same car that we were able to obtain by being an “outstanding worker”, which mean a model citizen and, up to a certain point, an unconditional one.

We don’t need investments, tutors, someone to direct us foreign aid; what we need is to be allowed to produce. We need to get back our right to our country, to our resources, to our market, to our supply and demand. That’s what we need! In today’s world there are more than enough examples of what intelligence and hard work of the children of this island and its culture, the Cubans, are able to do.
Therefore, ladies and gentleman, what we need is a helping hand to be able to get back in our feet and grab our own bull by the horns, without ever needing to suffer through social chaos, mafias or bloodbaths. We don’t need the blockade to be lifted nor to receive a huge amount of foreign aid. As people of over here clearly says, if both things happen before we get back our civil rights, the trade with the United States will only go to fatten the pages of our rationing book. The same way the aid will go to increase the offers in the shoppings (government-owned stores where you can buy only with convertible pesos or dollars) or the thank you details the government offers in exchanged of our unconditionally.

Please, Mr. President Barack Obama, think before making a decision. Avoid placing new resources in the hands of the tyrants, take into account that we, Cubans, we’re not stupid, we don’t believe the nanny story of the blockade but, unfortunately, we don’t have the resources.
As people here say, most of us can drink a Coca Cola when the desire arrives, but only a very small handpicked minority knows what it’s like to have a bank account or a property’s title.

Respectfully yours,

Mayra del Montón
(obviously, this is not my real name)
La Habana, Cuba (The Biggest Prison-Island in the World)

The original in Spanish is posted below.

 

Estimados señores y señoras:

Me preocupa lo que se comenta acá sobre la nueva administración de los Estados Unidos. Ojo, cuando digo, “lo que se comenta acá” no me refiero ni al Granma, ni a las mesas redondas ni a las otras vías de propaganda del Partido. Hablo de lo que comentan los cubanos como yo, esos que de vez en cuando, aprovechando la oportunidad, leemos lo que escribe Yoanis Sánchez, o lo que dicen en España, o en Miami. Hablo de los cubanos que nos mantenemos tranquilos, porque hay que seguir comiendo, criando lo muchachos y, para eso hay que cuidar el trabajo.

Dice la gente acá que van a quitar el bloqueo; que Obama va a permitir las remesas y que muchos países de América Latina van a venir a nuestra ayuda. Dicen, en fin, que va a ser peor el remedio que la enfermedad. ¿De qué ayuda y de que bloqueo hablan allá afuera? Aquí nosotros entendimos hace tiempo que no existe tal bloqueo y sabemos muy bien en qué se convierte la ayuda del exterior.

Soy madre de tres muchachos que, como yo, nacieron después de 1960 y todos hemos tomado Coca y Pesicola, todos hemos usado Nike y de cuando en cuando hemos comido un pedazo de pollo o una cebolla proveniente de las “entrañas del monstruo” Caballeros, lo que necesitamos los cubanos de Cuba que vivimos en Cuba, los que batallamos cada día con el calvario que nos construimos nosotros mismos, es que nos devuelvan nuestros derechos civiles. Simple y sencillamente.

Lo que necesitamos es que nos devuelvan nuestro derecho a optar, a escoger, que nos devuelvan la posibilidad de entrar o de salir, la libertad de leer o publicar, la libertad de existir sin tener que estar pensando en lo que interpreta el vecino o lo que va a considerar el CDR.

No necesitamos que levanten el bloqueo, necesitamos que nos dejen tener Internet, necesitamos, que nos dejen tener un pasaporte y que no nos consideremos asociales o vulgares delincuentes cuando no tengamos el mismo punto de vista que el comentarista de la televisión o el maestro.

No necesitamos que quiten el bloqueo; necesitamos que nos quiten la libreta de abastecimiento y todas las otras enmarañadas trabas que nos impiden decidir que hacer con nuestro Moskovich, ese que conseguimos como “obrero destacado” es decir, como ciudadano modelo y de cierta manera incondicional.

No necesitamos ni de inversión, ni de asesoramiento, ni de dirección, ni de ayuda extranjera, necesitamos que se nos deje hacer. Que nos devuelvan nuestro derecho a nuestro país, a nuestros recursos, a nuestro mercado, a nuestra oferta y a nuestra demanda. ¡Eso es lo que necesitamos!. Hay en el mundo hoy suficientes ejemplos de lo que son capaces de hacer la inteligencia y el trabajo de los hijos de esta isla y de su cultura: los cubanos.

Entonces, estimados señores, lo que necesitamos es una mano para que podamos recuperar poco a poco los cuernos de nuestro toro sin tener que pasar por el caos social, las mafias o los baños de sangre. No necesitamos que levanten el bloqueo, ni que nos manden muchas ayudas. Y, como dice la gente acá, si ambas cosas sucedieran antes de recuperar los derechos civiles, el comercio con los Estados Unidos irá a engrosar las páginas de la libreta de racionamiento. De la misma manera que las ayudas se incorporarán a las ofertas de la shopping o a las gratitudes que el gobierno ofrece a cambio de fidelidad.

Por favor, Excelencia Señor Presidente, Barack Obama, reflexione antes de tomar una decisión. Y evite poner nuevos recursos en manos de los déspotas; piense que los cubanos no somos estúpidos, no nos creemos el cuento del bloqueo, pero lamentablemente, no tenemos los recursos. Como dice la gente acá, la mayoría de nosotros se bebe una CocaCola en cuanto tiene deseos, pero solo una minoría sabe qué es una cuenta en un banco o un título de propiedad.

Reciban mis respetuosos saludos,
Mayra del Montón
(no es mi nombre por supuesto)
La Habana, Cuba (La Isla Prisión mas grande del Mundo)