After 64 years of censorship and repression in Cuba, especially against intellectuals, writers, poets and artists in general, the free world continues to be a magnet for those Cubans who still dare to dream. However, slavery has its consequences. The term coined by the Cuban intellectual Dagoberto Valdés explains it well: anthropological damage is the worst of the evils that the nation has inherited from these years of dictatorship and ostracism.
I was invited to the International Book Fair in Tampa, an initiative that seemed like an effort, and should be an effort, to raise the free voices of Cuban creators.who inside and outside, have decided to be faithful to their truth, and have had no qualms about writing freely, but in practice it was not like that. I am speaking fundamentally of those free and independent creators who live in Cuba and who because of their daring have been repressed, imprisoned or taken to atrocious isolation, to the isolation that the poet Raúl Rivero spoke of so many times.
The Union of Writers of Cuba, an institution of the official Cuban intellectuality, which responds to the mandates of the totalitarian dictatorship, is in these moments when they want to whitewash or justify Castroism and its legacy, a spearhead of those efforts. , and therefore the writers who still belong to that infamous monstrosity are part of them.
Just as they created a PEN chapter of writers on the Island just a few years ago, affiliated of course with the officialdom, now they want to do the same with institutions and initiatives of the exiled Cuban people.
As I firmly believe in freedom of expression, I have no problem exchanging ideas with people who think differently than me, but I do have a problem if writers who within Cuba have had the courage to raise their voices and They have received retaliation. And unfortunately that has been the case at this book fair in Tampa. The dissident Cuban writers, the voices that within Cuba have been expelled from the UNEAC, immersed in total isolation, denied publishing or speaking at any public event on the Island, were not invited to this Fair, as were the writers who They are still part of UNEAC.
On a personal level I could understand the fear of these UNEAC writers of going against the guidelines of the institution, which in exchange for their complicity and silence, publishes their books and promotes them internationally.. I do not share that position, but I can understand that their silence in the face of the atrocities of the system controlled by UNEAC is the silence of those who have lost their will and thereby surrendered their souls. Even though I think it’s good that writers uneaceros have heard the testimonies and reviews of the books written in freedom, by exiled Cubans, who have taken on the task of ensuring that contemporary Cuban history is not forgotten through works of fiction and essays or testimonials, I cannot accept or understand why independent writers who remain in Cuba were excluded from a forum like this, and why, for some time now, there has been an effort to publish pro-government writers in Cuban exile media, while those who remain are excluded again. They have been openly critical of censorship and lack of freedom of expression and thought on the Island.
In the death throes of a regime that has destroyed the Cuban nation materially and spiritually, it is essential to find a common space where the truth, so often hidden, can be told without ambiguity, and where everyone can tell their piece of history. But for this space to be real and fruitful, there can be no exclusions, and above all, there must be an act of contrition on the part of those who have done harm or have been complicit in the dictatorship. There can be no justice without truth and without repentance. These 65 years of iron dictatorship have resulted in thousands of murders, millions of people who have been unjustly imprisoned, and the same number of people who have died in search of freedom. In order to found a new nation rooted in virtue, we must banish lies and impiety. If those who have been afraid, or who remain afraid, cannot yet face their victimizers, they will be relegated by history and by reason; But those who, despite fear, have faced totalitarian power, upholding truth and common sense, can never be excluded, and on the contrary, they are the example of faith and perseverance that our suffering people need.
If we want to resume the historical role that Tampa played in the necessary war organized by Jose Marti, we must cleanse Tampa of Castro’s poison and its influence. If we truly want the freedom of Cuba, we must put first the virtue that Father Félix Varela spoke so much about to Cubans.
