Saturday night and G Street in the most central part of of the city, is packed with young people sitting on the grass or pressed together in the darkest areas of the park. They boastfully show off every type of tendency, aesthetic, existential, musical and even sexual preference. They are part of the urban tribes that gradually invaded a Havana where a few years ago a man wearing an earring was immediately hauled off to the police station. Now, the impression is that Cubans want to make up for lost time, leaving behind those decades of military grayness where everyone dressed alike. The teenagers choose to emphasize individuality in contrast to spouting political slogans where the "we" is always emphasized, the formless mass of the group or pack.
Party night on the central avenue is just beginning. Quirky and sympathetic figures keep arriving. A group of supposed "werewolves" arrives in their dark clothes, and on the other corner several girls made up as vampires greet each other. From some nearby balconies older people watch and say something often repeated and dull, "These young people are lost." They say it because their forms of dress seem grotesque to them, their tattoos aggressive, and the languor of some seems to come straight from Japanese manga.
But above all, the adults criticize the apathy of the young. They accuse them of living at the margin of reality, of floating on a cloud of apathy, of being able to spend the whole night talking about the latest PlayStation game just released, or listing to music from Lady Gaga they've recorded on their cell phones. It would appear they live in another place, in a remote dimension, where material hardships and the prolonged crisis fails to interest them; in a cosmogony of their own that they have created to escape the here and now.
But, in evoking those days when I was the age of those who today spend the night on G Street, I realize that for us it was a time when we were too sober, too old. Those were the days of "volunteer" work on the weekends, endless military practice, and boring official television as the only distraction.
In contrast with the young people today, for us to go out in the street with hair a striking color or wearing jeans would have been interpreted as ideological deviation. And don't even talk about access to imported comics! Every tendency to emphasize individuality was rejected, and dreams of fantasy stories like Dracula, The Lord of the Rings, or Momo, could be interpreted as psychiatric imbalance or a fascination with capitalism.
Differentiation was the shortest way to signal a possible disaffection to the system. Evasion could be taken as an opposition act, and the first hippies or rockers that dared to walk the streets dressed in their fashions, faced insults and official repression. The police vans raided these meeting places and the archetypal urban lumpen was personified on national television as someone with very tight pants, messy hair and sunglasses.
Uniformity was so abused for so long that new forms of dress began to appear, of living and loving, the rejection of the oldest was heard everywhere. Many of these older people cannot yet accept the existence of these emos, werewolves, transvestites, punk and guerks right in this society that tried to make itself over from a Marxist manuals written in the 19th century. For members of the Communist Party and the military has been especially difficult to accept coexistence with all these phenomena of modernity, with the boldness of the young and the explosion of their decorative accessories and body markings. But what arouses the greatest disgust is their tendency to be apolitical, oblivious to the vagaries of ideology, difficult to convene when their attendance is desired at some official event.
So when I see these lazy kids of today, I feel relief and joy. I prefer the apathetic to the fanatic, earbuds connected to an MP3 player to heading off to trench warfare. It makes me happy to see them turn away from membership in the only youth organization permitted by law, or fail to applaud an octogenarian leader shouting at the rostrum. Seeing them, I know they will wake up from this inertia, and one day shake off the apathy they now display. It will be much easier for them than it was for us to put aside bigotry, to break the indoctrination.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
That's the bad news -- although the Castro regime is trying to spin this as a success of its "reforms" (due to the 17% rise over 5 years).
The worse news is that throughout this time it was generally accepted that the average monthly income in Cuba was $20.
Go figure.
For Sánchez to claim that they somehow parallel a rejection of the Cuban status quo is simply ludicrous. As in any country, some will grow up to reject convention; others will accept convention, some will embrace convention with qualification; others will embrace it without qualification.
The reaction of the authorities in Cuba to perceived 'deviance', as described by Sánchez, is no different than any other society, most recently in the West with the brutal and propaganda-driven suppression of young people protesting the corruption of politicians and the corporate money industry.
Once again, Sánchez delivers a piece that's almost pathetic in its banality.
You are very confused or you don't understand that castrofascims is a wild capitalism criminal regime since long ago!!!!!!!
This documentary leads the audience through the discovery of this hope, through a tourist's camera which looks to be turned off and oblivious to the conversation at hand, yet is focused on candidly capturing each person's wishes. Clandestine underground shops, businessmen experienced in all things illegal, dodgy pimps, mothers who force their daughters into selling their bodies -- the hidden face of the State which welcomes tourists into its luxury resorts is openly displayed beyond censorship's control. One special guide is Yoani Sanchez, the independent blogger, a leader of the new, peaceful revolution -- the revolution of ideas. The internet is its main instrument, while the government attempts to limit computer use with any means possible in a pushing and pulling of ideals. Castro's supporters and dissidents, young and old -- none deceive themselves that the star of the revolution will shine on for much longer. And this is what this project focuses on: the wishes on a falling star.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afnx7j1m6eA&annotation_id=annotation_725071&feature=iv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KVqUrOBiQQ
YOUTUBE : Documentary : " Cuba y los Elefantes " - Versión completa- Complete film (with English sub-titles)- A look at Cuba, in reality beyond its tourist attractions. A documentary that takes us to reflect on the achievements of the socialist system and proclaim what the Cuban people really live. A production of the Political Institute for Freedom Peru.
Una mirada a Cuba, a su realidad más allá de sus atractivos turísticos. Un documental que nos lleva a reflexionar sobre los logros que se pregonan del sistema socialista y lo que verdaderamente vive el pueblo cubano. Una producción del Instituto Político para la Libertad Perú (iplperu.org).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCIk66EPIV4&list=PL336A24E33F0891C1&feature=player_embedded