The call of the wild

The call of the wild
JORGE OLIVERA CASTILLO | La Habana | 27 Nov 2015 - 2:19 pm.

Astounding is the shock of a Cuban national and resident on the Island,
at a video posted on the Internet of a dog violently thrown into a
vehicle belonging to Zoonosis, the agency responsible for the collection
and euthanization of sick stray dogs.

The condemnation of this action, certainly reprehensible, came from a
scandalized Dr. Valia Rodríguez Rodríguez, who decided to send a letter
to the "Acuse de Recibo" ("Acknowledgement of Receipt") section of the
Granma newspaper in order to denounce a phenomenon that transcends the
hurling of the pet, like a rag ball, against the vehicle's metal sides.

Without wishing to downplay the complainant's concern, I think it is
more important to focus on other more everyday and humiliating types of
violence that, unfortunately, are not even covered by the official press.

I am referring to those which occur daily on our buses, or just outside
oir grocery markets, where people flock to buy some of the products they
are so lacking, or in the many neighborhoods where conflicts are settled
by knives, blows and punches.

In the litany of evidence of the regression that eats away at us, like
termites at a piano, we ought to highlight the thuggish passion of the
"rapid response brigades" that the government unleashes against
pro-democracy activists, with tactics that include verbal harangues,
beating, kicking and spitting.

These behaviours, incompatible with reason, which have taken root across
the country, reflect the intransigent entrenchment that the regime
employs in order to maintain unanimous support for its ideology of
power, with the consequent violation of the ethical and moral values
surviving in our homes, schools and workplaces.

If seeking water from a stone is absurd, it is equally so to demand
sanity and decency in the midst of a socio-economic disaster with no
signs of any solution, while the resistance to change only hardens,
holding out against the struggle to replace the old structures
sustaining ongoing chaos, in the broadest sense of the term.

It is dramatic that the whining of a dog has shone a spotlight on
violence in Cuba.

What about human suffering, of the kind that comes when someone is
stabbed over something that never should have escalated beyond a simple
argument, or strings of expletives, shouted out and accompanied by
vulgar gestures, in response to a simple stepping on of toes, or some
other insignificant incident?

What about the torment suffered when facing a mob licensed to offend and
beat others in the defense of socialism, invented by the Castros to
remain in perpetual power?

Violence is a phenomenon inherent to this political model, now
approaching its 56th anniversary.

Its existence depends on the use of brutality, in all its forms.

The worst thing about the situation is that it is not limited to the
normality of these episodes today, but the aftershocks that will occur
in the future.

In its sluggish metamorphosis, Castroism sees to the conservation of
extreme violence, in almost all its manifestations.

It is unfortunate that the thousands of samples of the paradigmatic man,
formulated in the laboratories of the Revolution, have lost the ability
to behave civilly.

Without a prior process of civilisation, democracy is unviable. But what
else can be done in response to such beasts, disguised as people?

Source: The call of the wild | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1448630356_18421.html