I Love You Not Despite But Precisely Because of the Tyranny

I Love You Not Despite But Precisely Because of the Tyranny / Orlando
Luis Pardo Lazo

Not a single Cuban is free in the world. If anything, the freest Cubans
are the slaves who still live there, because they have nothing to lose.

Thus, the Cuban passport is the biggest trap in the history of the
world: The Cuban passport is our "Little Pioneer" bandana that marks us
for life as slaves of the Castro regime (even when the Castros are gone,
but not Castroism).

And this is why the Cuban people are so wise: It is because we are so
cynical.

We know that traveling to and from Cuba is not a right. We know that the
little trip from and to Cuba must be earned with blows of silence and
complicity. We know that we have to behave ourselves like good pupils,
before and after this little trip to Cuba. We know that we are servants
of the Cuban State, that has taken us hostage outside of Cuba, as within
Cuba our families remain hostages.

The best example of this I say to you with my heart in my hand is you.
You who flee from me. You who don't want to give me a "Like" or a
"Share" on Facebook. You who pretend that the other side of the screen
doesn't exist.

But that does not make you guilty, you are even more of a victim. Your
silence is honored with your presence. I feel close to you, in
solidarity with you, intimate. I love you again, Cuban. Your fear honors
my voice. Your cowardice makes me humble and more responsible to speak
for you, for me.

If I keep doing what I keep doing it is for this, for us as free as
perhaps never exists because the tyranny is terrible. But what "we" so
free is enough to be happy, to think that we won the battle of the
spirits in freedom.

One day, the final member of the Ministry of the Interior will die.
Then, my life. Then, my heaven. Then, my love.

11 August 2016

Source: I Love You Not Despite But Precisely Because of the Tyranny /
Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/i-love-you-not-despite-but-precisely-because-of-the-tyranny-orlando-luis-pardo-lazo/