Winternet
Photograph taken at public hotspot in Havana in January 2017
My winter in Cuba
has been a refresher course
on what is important and why
on how a cause that that could have been mine
has descended into obscurantism
losing its soul and conscience along the way.
How sixty years of a much celebrated revolution
cannot put a balanced diet
on the plates of its people :
frigoles and arroz, arroz and frigoles
arroz without frigoles, frigoles without arroz –
while tourists merrily eat their fill.
I am at a loss to explain
where the proceeds from the tourist invasion go.
There is no sign of their being used effectively
for things other than what are considered to be
the baseline contributions of government.
Could the abuses of the Battista gang be still in play?
How sixty years of a much celebrated revolution
has failed to equip the island
for the information revolution
and allow it to make its way.
I can only understand this as a betrayal
of the ideals of Castro’s design.
(I open a parenthesis
a Cuban Communist
who is worth his stuff
will know what Marx had to say.
about the factors of production and social change –
and how information and its spread are the key agents. )
Ideas have a life of their own.
they pop up unexpectedly.
they sneak around corners.
they leap into an alternative discourse.
even when outrageous,
they cannot be beaten down.
In this proud and impressive country
ideas need to spread their wings.
winternet needs to drop the w
and it will
sooner than we sense
more dramatically that we can devine.
Click here to read in Spanish
