He estado pensando en los miedos de los que nos gobiernan

Nuestro pueblo tiene miedo: miedo al cambio, a lo desconocido, a lo nuevo. Pero no sólo tiene miedo el pueblo, el gobierno también vive con miedo.

Porque los que un día se adueñaron de esta isla y la convirtieron en su feudo personal, hicieron de ella una cárcel que ha terminado atrapándolos.

Se acostumbraron a no tener límites, a obrar con impunidad, a no dar cuentas de nada a nadie: ni del dinero, ni de sus propiedades, ni de sus viajes, ni de las universidades en el extranjero en las que estudian sus hijos...

Se acostumbraron a tener todo el poder, a hacer leyes a capricho, a controlarlo todo: el sistema educativo, los medios de comunicación social, el sistema judicial…

Se acostumbraron a no dar explicaciones a nadie, a ignorar o excluir a los que se atrevían a cuestionarlos, a encarcelar impunemente a los opositores.

Hicieron de Cuba un búnker inaccesible a la fiscalización de la comunidad internacional, mientras callada y persistentemente expandían la penetración ideológica y la desestabilización de toda la región y de otras geografías.

Pero eran tiempos de poder y de gloria: acunados por Rusia, con el control total de la información, la población civil sometida y un mundo hipnotizado por una extraordinariamente bien tejida propaganda.

I Have Been Thinking About Our Quotas of Fear

The first Alien movie was shown on Cuban television one Saturday night. My entire family had gone to bed, but I—then a teenager and an absolute science-fiction enthusiast—stayed up to watch the movie alone.

It was fascinating and terrifying. Although I had the living-room lights on, the rest of the house was dark. Between scenes, I would turn around to look into the darkness, as if my chair were part of that spaceship, as if that horrible creature were going to come out of the screen and wrap me in its tentacles.

We are fragile beings, extremely vulnerable and quite incapable of predicting the future. And that makes us easy prey for fear. In fact, our greatness does not lie in never feeling afraid, but in building a story in spite of our fears. And the first step toward doing that is precisely to recognize our fears, give them a name, and decide what we want to do with them.

We are afraid of freedom. We are afraid of not knowing what to do when we are able to live without chains, of not knowing how to take control of our own destiny once no one is telling us what to do. We are afraid of a society in which we will have to dialogue and reach agreements about the ways in which each person wishes to exercise his or her freedom.

We look at the ruined country in which we live and see only destruction: homes, roads, the electrical system, water service, transportation, education, the healthcare system… and the people, deteriorated both physically and morally. Our souls collapse, and deep inside we think: “If change comes, what will I do? How will I do it? Will I be capable of finding my place in a different reality?”