Cuba / Cuban Affairs

I have been thinking that it is time to lift our heads.

It is no secret to anyone that, as a result of the recent events in Venezuela, hope has surged that a radical change might occur in Cuba, one that would allow the end of the dictatorship and the beginning of an era of democracy and prosperity.

However, along with hope, fear has taken root in the hearts of many Cubans. A fear that is fed by the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen or how—but not only by that.

I believe that, as a people, we are also afraid of change. Cuba is a disaster, but it is “our” disaster, one in which we have learned how to move and adapt to and how to survive.

We know how and where to find food, how to get what we need for the house, where to look for medicines. We have learned to deal with blackouts; we know how to protect ourselves from repression, how to take care in the face of growing violence… And we have learned to “disconnect” from situations that should worry us but that we learn to handle because we live in a state of survival, automatically we move into the background— we adapt unhappily to such things as the increasingly deficient education of our children, or their lack of a future. We live sunk in the night, but we have learned to feel safe in our darkness.

And yet, aren’t we already tired of living in misery, in need, in a lack of opportunities? Aren’t we tired of being manipulated and having our minds stuffed with lies and empty speeches? Aren’t we tired of speaking with fear, acting with fear, living with fear?

Deep down, we want a change of system; we long for a different society, a different life, but we do not know what is coming. We are unsure since we have no idea how to build that new life, and we are afraid of suddenly finding ourselves in a society in which we don’t know how to “get by” the way we do now.

In reality, life has to be pushed forward; the pains of labor must be accepted and the child must be brought into the world, because when we have the child in our arms, we will learn how to deal with him—but the child, that new society, needs to be born.

That is why this is not a time to let ourselves be trapped by fears; this is not a time for passivity and silence. On the contrary, it is a time of “creative hope.” It is a time to continue demanding our rights and, above all, our right to a free, democratic, plural Cuba. It is a time to say what we think, not to let fear silence us. It is a time to pray that God will bring together everything necessary so that we may finally be a nation of freedom, justice, and truth.

 When the evangelist Luke seeks to strengthen the spirits of Christians in the face of the evil they are suffering—an evil that produces fear, insecurity, and discouragement—he invites them to trust in the presence and power of the One who promised that evil would not prevail, and he says to them: “Stand up, lift up your heads; your liberation is drawing near.”

Let us not allow insecurity to push us into thinking that evil will have the last word, because there is no darkness in this world that can endure forever without, sooner or later, being defeated by the light. And this is the time to believe in the power of the light.