Is this Cuban Satire?
In the headlines this morning I saw the tragic news that Cuban dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto had died in police custody.
Soto was beaten in public view in a park Thursday while trying to resist arrest, according to Zamora, who saw images of the alleged beating on a cell phone. Afterward, he was admitted to the hospital.
"We know his death was caused by the police beating," Zamora told CNN by telephone.
I wanted to know how this was being reported in the Cuban press. Trying to find out, I happened upon the Havana Times. I cannot figure out whether this is sly satire, finely gauged to skirt right up to the edge of censorship, or whether young Cubans really are this far from grasping the connection between their circumstances and their state ideology.
From a young woman named Daisy Valera:
A tiny cup of coffee is breakfast for many people, as well as a snack at other points in the day.
In a country where a little packet of coffee costs 15 Cuban pesos on the black market and the same amount of milk goes for four times as much (in the best of cases), it’s not strange that people often choose to have only coffee for breakfast.
Another important role is the one played by the ration book, the means through which each adult in the family can buy one of those packets of coffee for only 5 pesos. Roughly a year ago, each child in the family was also allotted coffee, but this was eliminated as the first step in the overall elimination of the much needed ration book. New sellers of coffee have appeared on the scene to solve the problem that had required the government to create cafes for the sale of this product that is both appreciated and necessary. However the “literary cafes” flopped. They no longer promote reading and many have been converted into bars because they would run out of coffee too fast.
Likewise, the stands the state created for the sale of espresso generally don’t work because most of the machines have broken down and there aren’t any spare parts (those that still work are swamped with people all day).
Having observed this, she offers this suggestion:
A solution to this may lie in the creation of cooperatives aimed at providing suitable places for the consumption of coffee prepared in different ways. They would not go belly up like all the other the state-run businesses, and by not being a business of a single individual with hired workers they could sell a better-quality product. Cooperatives, whereby workers would put in an equal amount of resources and feel like non-exploited partners, is possibly the best way to improve the situation of services in Cuba, especially the extended sale of coffee. Wouldn’t we be more in tone [sic] with our socialist aims by seeking and succeeding at preserving the culture of coffee consumption in a more pleasant manner?
In another column, she imagines she's put her finger on the problem--lack of Trotsky education in the Cuban school system:
Perhaps the fact that I had never before known about Trotsky made me become an assiduous reader of most of his works, among which I have to highlight Permanent Revolution (1930) and The Revolution Betrayed (1936). August 20th will mark 70 years since the fateful attack carried out by a Stalinist clique against a man who exhibited in his deeds and writings a love for the world proletariat. He was confident that a social structure different from capitalism could free life of all wrongs. Yet despite everything, this Trotsky still doesn’t appear in Cuban history books.
There’s no mention of the founder of the Fourth International, an organization committed to the struggle against bureaucracy, against those who sought to enrich themselves at the expense of other people’s labor, against those lacking scruples in accentuating the differences between classes in a society that aimed to construct socialism, and against those who did not allow the workers to either participate or decide.
So isn’t it important to reclaim him in the history taught on the island, a person truly committed until the final few days of their life to the non-degeneration of societies that are called socialist?
What do you think--are they serious?
The photo is captioned "breadline," by the way.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Two Words; Bagdad Bob!
YES this is serious.
Not the manipulative word choice; "first step in the overall elimination of the much needed ration book."
As well as the assumptions; "Cooperatives, whereby workers would put in an equal amount of resources and feel like non-exploited partners, is possibly the best way to improve the situation of services in Cuba, especially the extended sale of coffee"
Excuse me, the problem isn't the delivery of the service, (because people serving feel exploited) that's working just fine, it's the delivery of the product that keeps running out that is the problem. Implement capitalism and you'll have plenty of coffee to serve the customer with.
Yes, just like Katie Couric, they are serious and a self parody laughing stock at the seme time.
May '11
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
I have to agree with Jaydee, I think this is so very serious that is becomes self parody.
I can hope that is is not, that is it really some very good satire, edging towards the line of what is allowed, if it were to turn out to be that, I would certainly take heart from it.
Jul '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Meanwhile.... another '57 Chevy is found floating towards the Great Satan....
Oct '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
The peculiar turns of phrase hinting at sarcasm may be a result of Ms. Valera writing in English rather than her native language or a result of translation . The answer would probably be more obvious in Spanish. I suspect it is not satire. If so, that would be a pity because her bio suggests an inquisitive and intelligent young lady of the sort Cuba needs for return to its former glory. Glory is not around the corner if 22 year old Trotskyites are leading the ranks.
Sep '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
I don't know if it's satire, but it sounds like something a Berkeley or Boulder "indy" newspaper would run in dead earnest.
Mar '11
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
I'm not altogether sure that this isn't straight (albeit nearly subliminal) satire.
None of the statements are in and of themselves something that could get you into trouble, but there are digs at the government nonetheless. Coffee at three times the rationed price, literary cafes set up by the government flopping due to insufficient coffee supplies, functioning expresso machines mobbed because of the number of broken ones, cooperatives being set up because the won't "go belly up like all the other the state-run businesses."
The references to Trotsky (and by extension the continuous revolution) is all well and good for a U.S. college Marxist Theory bull session, but when you are El Jefe, that might read a little different.
Sometimes satire is a sledgehammer, and sometimes it is a scalpel.
Mar '11
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
If this be satire, then make the most of it!
(with apologies to P. Henry)
Jun '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
I'll go with serious, too, though it does seem like she could be making some higher ups a little uncomfortable. This reads like a typical post-Stalin era Soviet citizen's diary or a reflective bureaucrat in the Gorbachev era. I'd even say that it has a very similar tone to Gorbachev's own work, Perestroika. The people have evolved beyond blaming their problems on wreckers, enemies of the people, and imperialism, but they still believe that socialism is the path to prosperity. They just need to tweak it a little or seek a purer form of it, aka, Trotskyism. This journalist, and countless others in history, have simply plunged themselves into the typical naivete that Socialism breeds. It reminds me of the saying, "Upon discovering that we are on the wrong path, we decided to redouble our efforts." Sadly, there are plenty of people in our own country that think this way, and thus our fight to implement common sense and a proper free market lives on.
Sep '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Percival: I'm not altogether sure that this isn't straight (albeit nearly subliminal) satire.
None of the statements are in and of themselves something that could get you into trouble, but there are digs at the government nonetheless. Coffee at three times the rationed price, literary cafes set up by the government flopping due to insufficient coffee supplies, functioning expresso machines mobbed because of the number of broken ones, cooperatives being set up because the won't "go belly up like all the other the state-run businesses."
The references to Trotsky (and by extension the continuous revolution) is all well and good for a U.S. college Marxist Theory bull session, but when you are El Jefe, that might read a little different.
Sometimes satire is a sledgehammer, and sometimes it is a scalpel. · May 9 at 4:47am
Agreed.
The reporter knows just how far she can go without getting roused out of bed in the middle of the night and hustled off to prison.
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
A while back I posted about a piece written by an American journalist explaining why we should love $5/gallon gas. I'd supposed it was satire, then I changed my mind because it seemed too serious. This past week, I got a note from the author congratulating me for being the only person in the world who even guessed that it could be satire (which it indeed was). The author received so many hateful and condescending comments and a boatload of hate mail because many assumed his satire to be propaganda.
That said, I'm going to err on the side of thinking this one you've highlighted is satire.
Aug '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
I recall reading on granma.cu a few years ago an article about a Cuban baseball team being denied the opportunity to participate in some amateur tournament in the U.S. This was, said the story, at the instance of American officials, who thought the players weren't really amateurs. Nonsense, said Granma: our players must be, because they are never paid!
You do wonder if this was the reporter's way of sneaking in an ingenious dig at his government; but I don't think so. I think he was sincere, and proud, and totally deaf to irony. I also think we must be prepared for a world in which whole nations are crazy. I do not believe at all that one day Communism in Cuba will go phut and everybody there will instantly become normal.
May '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
I am sorry Mr Soto, that you have died at the hands of a regime that kills, imprisons, oppresses. and ultimately hates its own people.
Perhaps poor Mr Soto died in one of those hospitals where Michael Moore filmed Sicko? You know, the ones where Moore took some 9/11 survivors for treatment, and a large dose of propoganda for the Presidente Castro (either one, what does it matter as long as there is only the Communist Party running for election).
Of course Moore avoided the prison camps, enforced isolation sanitoria for AIDS victims etc, in the filming process.
Sep '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Satire or not, my belief is that the entire apparatus of our country's embargo against Cuba should be dismantled and Americans allowed to go there unhindered by the US. I am reminded of images following the fall of the Berlin Wall where citizens of eastern block countries, when encountering America and West's grocery and clothing stores, literally burst into tears. We cannot afford to wait any longer to wait for Castro's little brother to croak. We really need for him to be croaked by his own citizens.
What would happen do you think if American citizens of Cuban descent were to come back to the island to visit relatives and provided thousand of photos of life in America? Photos of healthy children who looked like long dead relatives, only fatter? Foodstuffs from America brought by American relatives would translate into anger against the regime, in proportion to the amount of food brought in.
How long do you think Castro's little brother and his regime would last with so much documentation of the lies they have been told for the last 50 plus years? My belief is that they wouldn't last long.
Dec '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
This is not satire, it's a crew of people on the Government payroll writing propaganda. If it were private citizens working independently, do you think they'd even get electricity to run their servers and workstations?
Dec '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Diane Ellis, Ed.: A while back I posted about a piece written by an American journalist explaining why we should love $5/gallon gas. I'd supposed it was satire, then I changed my mind because it seemed too serious. This past week, I got a note from the author congratulating me for being the only person in the world who even guessed that it could be satire (which it indeed was). The author received so many hateful and condescending comments and a boatload of hate mail because many assumed his satire to be propaganda.
That said, I'm going to err on the side of thinking this one you've highlighted is satire. · May 9 at 8:19am
Are you certain the $5 gas guy wasn't simply pulling the old trick that Lefties use when they realize people really, really disagree with them: "I was only joking"?
Dec '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Conservative Episcopalian:
What would happen do you think if American citizens of Cuban descent were to come back to the island to visit relatives and provided thousand of photos of life in America? Photos of healthy children who looked like long dead relatives, only fatter? Foodstuffs from America brought by American relatives would translate into anger against the regime, in proportion to the amount of food brought in.
The EU doesn't have an embargo on Cuba. Why haven't European tourists, European food and European consumer goods caused the Castro regime to fall?
The problem is not that Cuba's people have no idea how well off their exiled relatives are. The problem is that the regime will kill them for trying to join their relatives. Allow for free emigration and the regime will collapse as the bureaucracy loses all of the slave labor that currently maintains it.
Sep '10
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Stuart Creque
The EU doesn't have an embargo on Cuba. Why haven't European tourists, European food and European consumer goods caused the Castro regime to fall?
Allow for free emigration and the regime will collapse as the bureaucracy loses all of the slave labor that currently maintains it. · May 9 at 1:04pm
To answer the "Why" about Europeans, I think because they frankly don't care about themselves and the negative effects of Socialism let alone a group of Cubans. No Cubans emigrated to Europe, they predominently came to the US. So there wouldn't be any reason for them to come to Cuba and talk to any of the people there except to order drinks while on vacation.
As to Cuban emigration to America, I'm all for it, but we know that's not going to happen anytime soon. Someone has to start the landslide and my thought was that it should be us by letting.....No encouraging Cuban-Americans to visit the old country. The cubans can't kill everybody can they?
Apr '11
Re: Is this Cuban Satire?
Conservative Episcopalian
No Cubans emigrated to Europe, they predominently came to the US
True, but you have to consider that the U.S. is quite a bit closer to Cuba than Europe.