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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Influences of Paya Over My Life

The Influences of Paya Over My Life / Mario Barroso
Mario Barroso, Oswaldo Paya, Translator: mlk

Away from the capital and without any contact with the Christian
Liberation Movement I thank God who made use of small signs of liberty
that came to me from here and there in order to guide me in the middle
of the sad and confused Cuban reality. Even in reading from a book as
poisonous as "The Dissidents" I realized where good and evil were really
found.

Maybe the most significant and influential for me have been the
so-called spiritual leaders in exile, Cuban pastors and priests who in
Miami, and beyond religious differences, kept very alive their love of
Cuba and shared it like a fire in periodic prayer meetings and through
joint projects and whose news and messages arrived at the island through
radio programs like those conducted by Francisco Santana such as "The
Cuban and His Faith" or "Cuba, Your Hope," or Lenier Gallardo, pastor of
the Lutheran Church "Prince of Peace" in spaces like "Yesterday, Today
and Forever" or in his classic Sermon of the Seven Words each holy week.

As part of that faith group and representing the Baptists was Marcos
Antonio Ramos, very influential as pastor and intellectual in exile and
of great reputation among Cuban Baptists. They not only defended the
validity of the Varela Project in exile, in the middle of many instances
of misunderstanding and confusion but also in an indirect way and thanks
to the broadcasting helped to inform many like me on the island.

Whatever happens from here on I will be eternally satisfied that I will
not be able to say that they did not knock on my door, and when they
knocked I accepted the challenge: I am a signatory of the Varela
Project and I refused to endorse the reform of the Constitution that
declared the irrevocable character of socialism in Cuba, a clumsy
reaction of the regime before the mastery of Paya, celebrated by Carter
in his visit to the island as well as various figures from around the world.

The correctness of my citizen decisions I owe in great part to the
influence that notwithstanding such obstacles came to me from one Paya
with whom I never had the honor of shaking hands, but from whom I always
had the joy of finding myself spiritually near, and now more. The
arguments that were heard from this brave man, opposing all the useless
indoctrination of the regime's propaganda to which I was exposed during
all the years of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, made me
react to the reality that I had a right to rights, and with me my fellow
man, the totality of my fellow citizens, with all and for the good of all.

Translated by mlk

November 1 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/the-influences-of-paya-over-my-life-mario-barroso/

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