Stairway to an infarct

By Aurelio Pedroso

HAVANA – What’s happening right now in Cuba is reminiscent of an episode from the well-known Paris Commune. This, after saving everything that should be corrected in time, space and 14 or 20 other considerations that can be added to the parallel.

It turned out that those brave workers and craftsmen, while the enemy gathered at the gates to the city, were engaged in heated debates about the new hours for the work-day, about whether the bakers should work at night or not, and other reflections, maybe even what would the right time be to take the dog out to poop, while the enemy forces sharpened their teeth in the siege to end up with that beautiful socio-political project with great humanist meaning that set a standard in world history.

For the lovers of Cuban history, I pause. Some serious researchers say (Lic. Raúl Rodríguez la O is one of them) that the controversial Maj. Gen. Vicente García, from Las Tunas, was so advanced in this thinking because one of his political advisers was Filiberto Charles Peisso, a sergeant from the Paris Commune.

Something similar is happening on the island. Instead of focusing on core problems and actions that will bring relief to the citizenry, some people sheltered by the government’s flags seem to enjoy irritating other people. I say “irritating,” instead of a more explosive word. If it were a question of exemplifying, I would never finish these lines, telling stories more surrealistic than those told by García Márquez in his immortal “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

So we have the case of a modest, simple 15-step staircase, built as if for one of Snow White’s dwarfs, that has to be demolished, leaving it up to someone’s mental powers to levitate one’s body to the rooftop for the purpose of repairing a TV antenna or the water tank, hanging the clothes to dry in the sun, or simply watching a woman with dangerous curves and rhythmic movement walk by.

But there’s something even more absurd: The building in question has a permit for rooftop construction.

At a time when the city is in danger of collapsing because of postponed maintenance and repair – and I won’t describe the causes because they’re the subject of another column – these “commune inspectors” keep thinking on the esthetics, not in the peace and comfort of people, so they apply the magic words from obsolete decrees.

There is a noticeable struggle between those who bet on, and pin their hopes on, the germ of a prosperous economy for the nation and their families and those who never tire of tripping other people for the sole purpose of souring their lives, because I wouldn’t want to think that what they want is money and more money, either from the left or the right, or from under the table.

Might the inspectors be agents paid by powerful foreign intelligence agencies whose goal is to create disturbances and more disturbances until a social explosion occurs? I don’t believe that, because I consider myself immune to that almost collective paranoia. Your worst enemies could be your own brothers, a street-corner philosopher might say about the problem. The bureaucracy of papers and minds is on a full-frontal attack.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we have met the enemy and he is us. No need to await an invasion on our shores. May God keep us from killing each other. Or is it that we’re already killing valid efforts and simple hopes, such as building a simple ladder to remove the dry clothes from the rooftop while we watch the sun go down?

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