Dreaming in Color

Dreaming in Color / Rosa Maria Rodriguez
Posted on August 25, 2015

Rosa Maria Rodriguez, 5 August 2015 — On August 5, 1994, the Havana
shoreline filled with a human tidal wave that took the capital by
surprise and overflowed into international news. The national press, as
always, had to wait for the approval of the censor before reporting on
the event. Nothing like this had happened in thirty-five years of the
Castro dictatorship: a tsunami of people overcame fear, and hundreds of
them went to the seaside promenade, driven by rumors that boats from the
United States were coming ashore to transport those who wanted to emigrate.

Many thought it was another exodus approved by the authorities, like the
Mariel boatlift. When they got there, the unraveling rumors gave way to
frustration, and anti-government demonstrations broke out along the
length of the Malecon and adjacent areas. Thus was born the event known
as El Maleconazo.

The agitated human mass started breaking windows, trashing shops, and
confronting the police. The riots lasted for several hours. Then the
government sent in its specialized police force to do what it does best:
suppress.

Society inevitably returned to its sheep-like obedience and today,
twenty-one years later, the bleeding continues by "cutting the femoral"
of the nation, which the authorities have always used—and even
provoked—to their benefit, for permanently remaining in power.

After that event everything returned to the routine that characterizes
life in Cuba: those who are able to emigrate do so, and many of those
who do not continue to play the role of supporters of the regime, as the
only way of sociopolitical survival.

After fifty-six years of the Castros' totalitarianism and twenty-one
years after that event, the Cuban people remain trapped, prevented from
exercising their fundamental rights by the discriminatory designs of a
dictatorial regime.

Many fellow citizens hold the goal of emigrating as the only way of
achieving personal fulfillment (which is part of the pursuit of
happiness) for themselves or their family members.

It is true that there have been some economic and social reforms in
Cuba, but as long as the leaders in the forefront of these changes are
those who committed so many injustices in the past, who imposed and
repealed laws for their own convenience, many will distrust and will
doubt whether they will stay.

Others will hesitate to come and invest their capital in a market run by
a political class that is in power to serve the wealthy minority, not
the excluded majority.

I hope this latest anniversary of El Maleconazo will cause everyone to
reflect on how urgent it is for us to allow ourselves to dream of
freedoms and rights, and social, political, and economic progress in our
own country.

Translated by Tomás A.

Source: Dreaming in Color / Rosa Maria Rodriguez | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/dreaming-in-color-rosa-maria-rodriguez/