From our Bureau of Socialist Compassion and Social Justice with some assistance from our Bureau of Golden Years in Socialist Utopias
Cuba’s food crisis is so intense that in addition to rummaging through trash bins, Cubans are now finding it necessary to steal food from those who sell it. And it seems clear that many of those who are caught stealing are retired and emaciated viejitos y viejitas.
Castro, Inc. will blame the “blockade” for this tragic crisis, but the truth is that it has no one else to blame but itself and its insane economic policies. Stuck with a very low fixed income in the midst of hyperinflation and food shortages, many elderly Cubans now have no choice but to steal food for their survival. Over half of the 1,600,000 retirees in Cuba receive only about 1,500, or $12 dollars a month.
Ironically — and fittingly — it appears that many of these thieving retirees were once gung-ho “revolutionaries” who did their utmost to support Castro, Inc., but have now been abandoned by it. Add this tragic and ironic twist of fate to the long list of “accomplishments” of the so-called Revolution.
Abridged and loosely translated from CubaNet
A few months ago, I witnessed an elderly lady steal two guavas from a produce market. She was caught by the guard at the door, who scolded and humiliated her in front of all the customers. The scene was doubly terrible because of the unnecessary harshness of the guard and because it’s not every day you see an elderly person, who doesn’t look homeless, steal something so trivial.
Shortly after, this scene repeated itself in several produce markets in Havana, where the vendors, depending on their disposition, try not to lash out at hungry elderly people while also trying to avoid losses, because things are not in a state to be given away, much less on a daily basis.
At a small sales point on Salud Street in Central Havana, a young vendor was momentarily distracted by the TV she had installed to entertain her child while she worked. In those seconds, an elderly lady swiftly put two plantains, which cost 35 pesos each, into her bag. She did not look disheveled or dirty. She could have passed for any grandmother.
Just as she was about to close her bag and leave, she realized I had seen her and didn’t know what to do. Her embarrassed expression and my surprise were noticed by the vendor, who immediately understood what was happening. The lady held the plantains half in, half out of her bag.
“Ma’am, this can’t happen every day,” the young woman said in a condescending but firm tone. The woman took out the plantains and apologized. Unable to leave things as they were, partly because that unfortunate woman could be my mother and partly because the situation is unacceptable, I gave the vendor the 70 pesos and handed the plantains to the lady, who thanked me quietly without looking at me.
“She came yesterday too and took two ripe plantains. I’ve seen her stealing sweet potatoes, garlic heads, onions. One or two at a time, but bit by bit she’s gotten used to coming almost daily, and I really can’t afford it,” the vendor explained.
Among the merchants, there’s an ongoing debate and complaints about elderly people stealing. Some feel sorry for their situation and give them some vegetables or fruit. But the elderly return because they’re hungry every day. The cost of two plantains or two pounds of sweet potatoes is a significant hole in a monthly pension of 1,578 pesos. Many social canteens have closed, and outside of occasional help that an elderly person might receive, they have no other choice but to beg or steal to avoid starving, a reality that is not open to interpretation. It is literal.
The extent of the failure of the social, political, and economic project once called the Cuban Revolution is revealed in a particularly painful way in these elderly people who steal to eat. They are a mirror in which young people, whom the government tries to attract with job fairs that almost no one attends, see themselves. Working for the state sector is only a guarantee of living and dying in the most absolute misery.