Giving Up Revolutionary Pleasures

Cuba: Giving Up Revolutionary Pleasures
July 31, 2015
By Martin Guevara

HAVANA TIMES — Cuba has entered a new and encouraging stage in the
building of a new kind of socialism, a system notably different from
that "real socialism" it once tried to force into the relaxed and
festive Caribbean spirit of Cubans.

What will the Party's Central Committee do to change the whole range of
tastes that are deeply rooted in the revolutionary, austere and nearly
ascetic spirit they claim took hold of Cubans' collective desires after
the revolution?

For more than half a century, Cubans looked down at the vice-ridden ways
and customs of the capitalist world with contempt. As such, rather than
endure their situation, they were happy with only one pair of shoes, a
stoic jar of water in their fridges, a sunk mattress impaled by springs
and having to co-exist with mosquitos and cockroaches instead of
employing an environmentally unfriendly bug repellent.

It is therefore important to forewarn visitors and hapless tourists,
those who are unaware of the aesthetic parameters and the heights of
sacrifice of the Cuban people, such that they do not confuse the
pastel-colored ruins, the drunk vagrants, the minimalist fashion,
footwear and lifestyles, with any kind of problems, so that they
understand this is a sovereign and thought-out decision by the people of
Havana, who would rather see their once intense and photogenic city
collapse than witness its development into a comfortable place.

That is where the authentic nature of Cubans lies. Cubans prefer to
spend the night in the aged and dilapidated tenements of Havana (known
as solares), where, in the form of an identity trait, there is no
electricity, no water and no shortage of families.

Because of their adventurous spirits, Cubans enjoy every minute of
uncertainty as to whether their roofs will collapse on top of them,
something that happens every month in the said tenements.

What's more, Cubans truly feel consolation, joy, pleasure, even
happiness, to know that foreign visitors are resting at a hotel with all
of the comforts they could never afford (which they of course also don't
want). Cubans are happy to know their sisters, aunts and even wives
leave their homes at night to become the delicacies of foreign visitors,
so that they may return to their country with a comprehensive and
complete experience of the island.

Cubans hate lobster, all kinds of seafood, good fish, tasty sauces, rum
and quality cigars. Of course, they can't even see beef in pictures and
the sight of a juicy steak can sometimes give them a heart attack.
Cubans simply hate meat.

Instead, they love that amorphous and pungent mass people call "goose
paste," the revolutionary alternative to perverse bourgeois pleasures
advanced by the Comandante, our bearded spiritual leader. Cubans are
thrilled by weevil-infested rice, coffee made out of roasted chick-peas,
and pizzas with melted condoms for cheese. Cubans are happy as long as
they can see foreign visitors (those who enjoy their sisters at night)
ingesting all of those taste-filled things that are the enemies of the
proletariat, those things many people long to have.

And another thing: Cubans love bicycles, single-speed bicycles
preferably, and what they enjoy most is pedaling under the summer's most
intense sun, to go in search of a head of garlic, a handful of nuts and
bolts or a can of paint stolen from a State shelf at the other end of
the city.

They love waiting for public transportation for hours. It's not that the
system doesn't work well, Cubans love standing in line and wrestling
with others, getting home late and exhausted…and with an empty stomach.

As long as they see foreign visitors traveling comfortably in their
rentals and perfect, air-conditioned buses, eating well, drinking the
best of the best, having fun with their wives or sisters, bathing at the
best beaches, enjoying a game of golf, going scuba-diving, yachting
about, then Cubans are happy and feel realized as revolutionaries.

What evil plot could the government now have in store for the people, so
that they will begrudgingly give up such delicacies as "goose pate" and
weevil-infested rice?

I only beg of them, on behalf of the people of Cuba: let it be anything
but the imperialist imposition of lobster and ham!

Source: Cuba: Giving Up Revolutionary Pleasures - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=113004