Meteorologists of politics

By
Germán Piniella                                                              Read Spanish Version

ps.german@mail.com

Often
one sees shameless meteorologists who, after announcing that
"Tomorrow will be sunny and clear," watch impassively how,
from dawn to dusk the following day, the skies burst into
interminable showers. The skies darken and the rain pounds, without
mercy or truce, the trusting citizens who went out without an
umbrella or a raincoat. Nary a cloud vanishes, nary a ray of sun
peeps. Then they appear again on the TV screen and, without the
slightest shame, state: "It’s been raining all day today."
Nothing about what they warned the previous day. About the forecast
that the people believed, zilch. Rather than predicting the weather,
they do an autopsy of the climate. And they shovel earth on the wrong
previous forecast.

Not
all of them are like that. Some explain honestly that the sudden
change was due to some cause or another, that the forecast is never
100 percent accurate, and that the change in the weather was due to
specific, unexpected conditions in one layer of the atmosphere or
another, or as a consequence of the climate change, or because of any
other logical and scientific reason. Or they simply admit they made a
mistake. Those are the ones who don’t consider themselves infallible.

There
are journalists and politicians who resemble the meteorologists I
mentioned above. They behave very similarly and often make
statements, or write in the anti-Cuban press news, editorials and
opinion pieces that seem like ominous weather forecasts, such as ones
I cited, instead of information. They are warnings of imminent
catastrophes, social hurricanes, economic tsunamis, or political
earthquakes of an intensity that exceeds all possible scales. A
little while later, the threats disappear, the prophecies fade, and
the same people who warned about a disaster ignore their own previous
news, forget their grim prognostications, and terrify listeners with
a new prediction.

Cuba
is one of their preferred targets, though not the only one. Like
inept and forgetful prophets, they have announced the imminent fall
of the Cuban revolution on countless occasions, only to swallow their
words when they don’t turn out to be true. Remember the collapse of
the Soviet Union? For that reason, and because of the disappearance
of Europe’s socialist camp, Cuba in the 1990s lost 80 percent of its
foreign trade and favorable exchange conditions (not subsidies, but
different and fairer rates, less subject to the inflated or depressed
prices in the world market.)

According
to those fortune tellers, the Cuban collapse would occur in a matter
of days. Many in Miami packed their suitcases as they awaited the
good news, ready to come and "save the country," "restore
democracy," "prevent the ensuing chaos." And when the
Cuban government remained upright, when the country reconditioned its
trade, sought new partners, survived the so-called Special Period,
and began to emerge from the economic crisis and increase its GNP,
they didn’t even act like the meteorologists and looked for an
equivalent of "It’s been raining all day today." They just
forgot their prophecies and created new forecasts.

How
many times did the revolutionary power totter on the lips of those
prophets? How many times has Fidel gone into a coma or died and the
government has quashed the news? How many times has a diagnosis of
his illness been made? The temporary turnover of power to Raúl
Castro and the transfer of power by constitutional means after
Fidel’s resignation summoned the soothsayers once again. Soon there
would be mutinies, uprisings, massive emigration, disorder, anarchy,
total collapse — the disaster was imminent. Later, after the
transfer of power was completed peacefully, in accordance with Cuban
law and with the support of a majority of the population, came
silence.

The
economic blockade the United States imposed upon Cuba at gunpoint 47
years ago has cost the nation almost $200 billion in losses. Aside
from the fact that it is nonsense to call it an "embargo"
either in English or in Spanish (please read the definition in a
dictionary), the meteorologists of politics fail to mention the
pressures exerted by the U.S. on third countries so they won’t trade
with Cuba, so they will deny it credit, stop visiting the island, or
fail to send fraternal aid. Above all, they keep silent about the
illegality of that blockade and the extraterritorial laws that
reinforce it. Probably, after it disappears some day, they will also
forget it ever existed. 

Mainly
as a sequel of the Special Period after the collapse of socialism in
Europe and the multiple aggressions by the blockade, Cuba suffered a
severe economic crisis. Two of its consequences were the conflict in
public transportation and the generation and supply of electricity.
Daily, the world’s mass media printed announcements of the impending
collapse of transportation and told about the countless blackouts in
the nation’s cities and towns. It envisioned "hot summers"
and more mass migrations.

But
it so happened that Cuba announced a plan of importations for the
transport sector, and a new "energy revolution." Little by
little, investments came in and the first new buses appeared, and
fewer blackouts occurred, until the dark nights practically
disappeared and the bus stops stopped looking like the gates to a
baseball stadium. Cuba even began to export its concept of energy
revolution to other countries. Suddenly, the newscasts about Cuba
stopped mentioning public transportation and the state of electric
power. Nothing was said about improvements, nothing about following
up the news — something that is elementary in journalism — nothing
about being objective.

I
could go on citing examples. In almost five decades of revolution and
constant aggression by the largest economic and military power in
history, this little island — much smaller than the state of Florida
and with fewer inhabitants than the city of New York — has
successfully withstood one invasion, many attempts to assassinate its
leaders, terrorist attacks, aggression of all kinds, campaigns of
slander, and a long etcetera that would fill volumes. All attempts
have been fruitless. And only for a reason that has never been
present in the meteorological reports of U.S. policy toward Cuba —
the Cuban people.

If
Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship lasted little over five years, if
Gerardo Machado’s dictatorship in the 1930s lasted even less, if the
many Latin American tyrannies (all of them supported enthusiastically
by the United States, publicly or secretly) also were relatively
ephemeral — in terms of time, not of victims, who would number
millions throughout the continent — how is it possible that in half
a century of shortages, alleged murders, torture and injustice, the
Cuban people have not shaken off a dictatorship that oppresses them?
There is only one reason: it would be like struggling against
themselves.

For
that reason, today, when new catastrophes are predicted, when people
assert that Cuba cannot overcome the devastation of the two cyclones
that join the other hurricane of world economic crisis, when
overwhelming epidemics are prophesied, when people apocalyptically
affirm that hunger will sweep the country, when massive emigrations
are foretold anew, when the measures taken by the government are
dismissed as useless, when doubt is cast on the official figures,
when very reliable sources are quoted that speak of more disaster
(always anonymous sources, always unconfirmed), we Cubans prepare to
rebuild the country, to struggle against the adversities, to endure
renewed aggression.

These
are the people who warred for 30 years in the 19th Century,
occasionally almost naked, wielding as their main weapon their
machetes, their work tool, to achieve independence from Spain. These
are the people who inflicted on the United States its first military
defeat in America when they repelled an invasion organized, trained
and financed by the CIA. These are the people who don’t give away
their surpluses in a questionable gesture of generosity but share the
little they have with those who have less, even at this time, who
have fought in Africa for the independence of several nations, who
send their doctors and teachers to obscure places to heal and train,
asking for nothing in return, who teach free of charge not only their
own folks but also those who have no money to pay for their education
in their own countries, even citizens of the nation that threatens
them.

Cuba
will resurface. It will heal its wounds, rebuild its homes, recover
its crops, restart its industries, restore its museums and theaters
while continuing to give brotherly assistance to those who have less,
without losing its cheer, without ceasing to sing. And then, once we
have recovered what we lost, when we have erased every vestige of the
hurricanes, when we can say with certainty that we have returned to
normality, perhaps the meteorologists of politics, forgetting all
their grim prognostications, will forecast — with total ineptitude
and lack of shame — new disasters. And they will shovel earth over
their wrong previous forecasts.

Germán
Piniella, writer and journalist, is assistant editor in Havana of
Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.