Danse Macabre

Danse Macabre / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya

Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, West Palm Beach, Florida, 13 April 2016 — The
video has gone viral in the internet in just over 24 hours — between
Monday afternoon, April 11th 2016, and the early hours of Tuesday night
— it had been shared 42,000 times, it had been viewed almost 4 million
times, and the count continued to rise exponentially. The images speak
louder than words: children as young as 7 or 8 years old, in school
uniform, contort in the frenzy of a lewd dance in what is obviously a
Cuban elementary school. Around them, voices can be heard (their
teachers or some other adult in charge of their care and their
education?) encouraging them cheerfully, obviously enjoying the spectacle.

The kindest adjectives that could describe those responsible for this
act are aberration, atrocity, perversity and depravity.

The children's bodies curl and bow with spasmodic thrusts to the rhythm
of music. The girl raises her slender leg up to the boy's waist or she
turns back, bringing her child's buttocks close to the boy's pelvis, who
also rhythmically imitates sexual gestures characteristic of adults in
full intimacy. At one point in the dance, the boy lays on the ground
while his "dance" companion crouches down with her legs open as she
continues her writhing over the boy's lower abdomen, while the general
revelry reaches its highpoint all around them.

Such unusual entertainment, worthy of a brothel or a nightclub of the
worst category, goes on for five and a half minutes to the distress of
any decent spectator, and to the delight of those who continue to
encourage the dancers, with not one teacher or school authority putting
an end the lustful dance.

These innocent children, with their bandanas around their necks, their
white shirts and their scarce few feet in stature are most likely the
very same ones that swear each morning to "be like Che," sing the
national anthem or salute the tri-color flag. It is difficult to imagine
what other, more responsible parents, who are committed to their
families might think about the peculiar "recreational and cultural
environment" that their children are being brought up in, and of the
benefits offered by the highly praised free education, supreme jewel of
the Cuban educational system, much hailed in international forums and
organizations as the role model to be followed, even by developed countries.

Here we have a single video that stands as irrefutable testimony to the
truth that the many voices of the independent civil society have been
reporting for years: the colossal loss of moral values in Cuban society,
the shocking deterioration of schoolteachers and "educators" that
directly affects the deformation of the younger generations, the
immorality invading countless homes and Cuban families, whose members
welcome their children's precocity and shamelessness, children who are
being deprived of the gentle naïveté of childhood before of their first
decade of life. Will defenders of the Castro regime reiterate this time
that this is a fabrication of the enemies of the revolution?

There are certainly numerous factors that have contributed to all this
moral collapse: the appalling housing conditions that make tens of
thousands of families live together in the greatest promiscuity — where
adults and children share the same tight spaces and sometimes even the
same beds — perennial material deprivation, despair, widespread social
corruption and the fight for survival. A characteristic degenerative
process of the socio-political system imposed on Cubans for nearly six
decades.

There might be some who will shrug their shoulders or label as prudes
those of us who have become disturbed and felt disgust at the images
displayed in the video, but these young children, thus exposed, have
actually been innocent victims of those who should look out for their
care and their education: their parents, their teachers and their
political system that hypocritically portrays itself as the guardian of
childhood.

The children's rights have been stripped of the protection of adults, as
have their rights to grow in a safe and dignified environment, to not be
exposed publicly, and to receive an appropriate education within the
parameters and universally recognized moral behaviors. Without
exaggeration, we are witnessing the consecration of a crime that should
be judged and condemned by peoples of all decent and civilized
societies. What do agencies and institutions responsible for protecting
children have to say now? Will they keep silent before this atrocity so
they can continue applauding condescendingly the amazing Cuban official
statistics and the fabulous "achievements" of revolutionary education?

However, the matter is not lacking in a strong symbolic charge. The
danse macabre of these lewd schoolchildren seems to embody the funeral
ritual that had had once been a solid educational system shaping
generations of professionals with highest qualifications and the
broadest of educations.

As for the Cuban authorities, we'll have to wait and see this time how
they will manage to endorse this despicable crime to some twisted
"maneuver of the right in collusion with Imperialism". Their work is
cutout for them.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Source: Danse Macabre / Cubanet, Miriam Celaya – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/danse-macabre-cubanet-miriam-celaya/