The old man’s tired of the rumors

Old Man Sideburns is what we call him for obvious reasons. Still today, when he’s going from grey to white, he maintains that 1970s look. Every morning he opens early. Through the window you can see him working in his mini patio making threads, changing screws, assembling and disassembling piping and other pieces of tubing, as if he were playing with Legos. Except, they’re not Legos, and he’s not playing.

The old guy is 76-years-old and still works more than six hours on his feet, every day, because his retirement is not enough to live on. He barely survives, alone. One of the more than two million people in Cuba that are over 60, who are responsible for their home (65.8 percent), that live alone (24 percent), and with homes with structural problems (44.1 percent), and that, although they have a pension from the Cuban Social Security system (68.5 percent), they must continue working (28.2 percent) to make ends meet. Each and every month.

The 2017 National Survey on Aging of the Population revealed that in addition to the increasing number of people over 60, whose life expectancy has increased in the last decade, there has been a reduction of persons in the age groups which encompass children and young people, as well the high percentage of young people who are emigrating. People live longer and that’s wonderful. The question, though, is whether a longer life is a dignified one.

The old plumber, who has no television or radio, only reads the newspaper — daily. The Granma newspaper, to be exact. “How many cases [coronavirus] were there yesterday?” he asks about half past nine, when Dr. Durán offers his daily report. He does not know details of the next monetary reform, but he hears the rumors standing in the queue of the grocery store, the butcher shop or in the outdoor state-run neighborhood fruit and vegetable stand, the only place where he can purchase these products, as long as it is not empty. He has no money in the bank; he lives with just enough…

He’s finally heard the rumors. He knows facts, such as that the Minister of the Food Industry spoke of “decrepit chickens” and of raising fish wherever they could, that’s what they told him, although that did not appear in Granma.

The old plumber also knows that, according to what they say, “all the subsidies will be eliminated. … Electricity, telephone, gas, water, transportation … the price of everything is going to go up. … Even the price of movies, theaters and museums will be triple or six times what they used to be.” He’s also heard  that “the ration book will cost 1,500 Cuban pesos … what we don’t know is how much we will be charged for it … where there’s smoke there’s fire, you know…”

There are documents circulating since 2019 in WhatsApp groups with the prices of 23 basic products of the standardized basket of supplies starting on ‘Day Zero.’ According to this leaked information the price of everything is going up. The price of some the items will be multiplied 28 (rice), 30 (oil and liquefied gas), and even 54 (fish) times. It’s scary to think of. 

Old Man Sideburns has never searched anything on Google, nor does he know what a ‘chat’ is. But he does know that from day one of some future month, they’re telling him that a pound of chicken will cost him 20 pesos, instead of the 70 cents he now pays; the milk he has for breakfast will cost him 25 pesos, not the 1.50 he now pays; and a kilogram of salt will go from 35 cents to seven pesos. 

Representatives of the government have explained, on more than one occasion, that it is about subsidizing people, not products. In truth, universal public policies end up reproducing inequalities often because not everyone needs the same things. There are, in fact, those who do not need any state subsidy. But who are those people? What is considered “sufficient” income? What are the criteria by which it is decided? And at what level of deprivation should the state intervene to guarantee a basic well-being? What are the ‘basics’?

Old Man Sideburns dines regularly with his sister, who is also elderly. Sometimes he walks the more than six kilometers to her house, since the 80 cents in national currency for the round trip in a bus represents 24 pesos a month, about six percent of his pension of 385 pesos (as a retiree and widower ). Sometimes he prefers to save this money. Because he must also add an additional 100 pesos he allocates for the medicines for the treatment of his chronic conditions, and around another 60 pesos he uses to purchase the basic necessities distributed through the ration book. So he has about 200 pesos left over for his food and personal hygiene, which represents about 7 U.S. dollars. 

In the socio-economic strategy for “boosting the economy” and “confronting” the crisis generated by the Coronavirus pandemic, the word equity appears twice. Once, referring to the tax system that will be designed for the private sector; the second time, in the heading “direction and management of the economy,” where it is pointed out that a pillar of the economic development of the country should be “to maintain social justice, equity, opportunities for those with lower incomes and a social, diversified and supportive economy, participatory and with social responsibility.”

The words ‘old age,’ or ‘elderly,’ or even ‘older adult’ do not appear in the 32-page document. But it does say that “improving social services aimed at vulnerable people and groups, expanding their scope and coverage and implementing new services” will be one of the measures to be implemented in terms of assistance and social work.

But the truth is, and this after already hearing the rumor about a thousand times, that the necessary monetary reforms that must be carried out are just rumors. And there are few things as ugly as a rumor. It is like calling it an uncertainty. You hear it whispered everywhere, and every time it’s getting closer, intoxicating everything in its path, until it becomes a sharp and universal slap to the face.

And it touches us; it distresses us. Because people’s well-being also has to do with the ability to manage uncertainty. A good part of the services and rights that come together in our citizen status must be guaranteed by the state. It is its reason for existing, not a favor it does to those it truly serves. Nobody wants to be half there, or there in a bad way. Dealing with uncertainty in large doses, every day, what does that make us?

Sometimes Old Man Sideburns explains it like this: “I’m here, living like a mushroom.”

American linguist Noam Chomsky says that if you want to corrupt a system withdraw its financing, something that the United States government insistently tries to do against Cuba: restricting the sending of remittances to the island, sanctioning Cuban trade and exports. … The Blockade. But if you want to erase that system from the map, you also remove its solidarity; it breaks its empathy.

Without this elemental bond between human beings we are weak, furious but weak, fearful of ourselves. Solidarity allowed many Cuban families to survive the hard 1990s. Thirty years later, its absence can lead us to a vicious circle of quarrels and divisions in which very few benefit. Meanwhile, the institutions could earn the trust and respect of the people by focusing their efforts on the path already agreed upon, without further delay or the application of band-aid repairs. Rather than “measuring the temperature” of the state of opinion, those who originate rumors instead of clear and timely information, attack the already precarious stability of life, day after day.

The ‘sovereign’ does not win while keeping busy managing uncertainty. Old Man Sideburns, they say, does not appear to win anything. Neither rest, nor security, nor comfort. Neither him, nor most of us.