What is the Answer?

fantomas said...

We are fucked, Manny... What is your recommendation then?

Or are we doomed... another 50 years of a one-party controlled state?

Dime.
11/05/2007 11:24 PM


Manuel A.Tellechea said...

fantomas:

A very acute observation: we are royally "fucked-up." The last Cubans to have voted in an indisputably democratic election in Cuba are now 80 years old. The Cubans who left at age 20 in 1959 are now almost 70. Most who left who were older than 30 are already dead. We have in fact buried more Cubans over the last 48 years than lived on the island in 1959. For the first generation of exiles it's practically over already. The second generation are in their 60s. The average age of Cuban exiles is 45, or twice that of other Hispanics in this country. 45 may still entertain some hope of seeing a free Cuba — as old men, perhaps.

So, yes, fantomas, most of our lives have been sunk in waiting for that precious "Cambio" which children now sport on wristbands in Cuba to their great detriment.

There is no reason to hope except that hope is all that we have left. Fidel and Raúl will die and we will not have to wait another 50 years for them to die. Then we will see if the plutocracy they have created in Cuba can survive them or not.

The best hope — practically the only hope — is that the system will implode as it did in the Soviet Union. There were a few White Russians who lived to see the fall of Communism. There will no doubt be a few of us left who will also see that day in our country. "No hay mal que dure mil años..." as we have told ourselves for 48 years as if we had 1000 years to spare.