I’ve been thinking about what they have made us believe. Recognizing it is false.
When we were preparing for the long-awaited visit of John Paul II, in every diocese Christians were encouraged to go door to door inviting families to the meeting with the Pope.
A nun knocked on the door of a first-floor apartment in a building, where she was warmly and kindly received by the family. They invited her in, listened to her, spoke with her… Upon saying goodbye, they told her: “Sister, don’t go to the apartment on the fourth floor, because those people are communists who don’t even believe in their own mother.”
The nun, of course, went to the fourth floor, where she was wonderfully welcomed and received. But when she was leaving, they told her: “Sister, don’t you dare go to the apartment on the first floor, because communists live there who don’t even believe in their own mother.
One of the greatest “achievements” of the system established in Cuba has been to make us all distrust one another. I remember hearing endlessly the phrase: “Be careful, you never know who you’re talking to.”
It is true that the system has always relied on an army of informers, and that has always been both a source of fear and an excuse to raise all kinds of barriers. But beyond that, this way of acting has planted in us the mentality that, in reality, we cannot unite in a common front to claim our right to be a free, democratic, and prosperous nation.
They have made us believe that we are more divided than we really are.
They have made us believe that it is impossible for us to show solidarity with one another, and that every attempt to support someone who dissents is destined to fail.
They have made us believe that they hold unshakable control over this people, and that we will never be capable of making them lose that control.
They have made us believe that no matter how much we demonstrate, everything will be useless, and that it is not worth going out into the streets to demand the freedom we need and deserve.
They have made us believe that we are a divided people who will never be able to rise up.
They have made us believe that there will never again be another July 11th.
And yet, when you talk to people here and there, in private or in small groups, Cuba becomes homogenized, and we realize that we are a people who want the same thing. It does not matter if you are an “ordinary Cuban,” a public official, or a law enforcement agent—when one manages to break through the barrier of distrust, when one manages to enter the space of individual truth, it becomes clear that we are a people with a single desire: the end of this dictatorship and the arrival of a new time of freedom, justice, and prosperity—a time when we can live without fear, without having to guard ourselves from one another, a time when we can live and not merely survive.
They have made us believe that we cannot change things, but that is not true.
Comments powered by CComment