Paper Eulogies

[posei...@sympatico.ca]

 

Paper Eulogies

By Lázaro Echemendía

Havana-In 1959, Cuba has a suicide rate of 15.4 deaths per 1,000 residents.
Today, it is over 22 per 1,000, according to official figures. But this does
not seem to matter: "Proclamations on the Cuban Adjustment Act and on the
Blockade and Economic War" is today's headline in the official Granma
newspaper.
The prisons are overflowing, but "already by late afternoon it was decided
to postpone continuation of the debate on the law . so that the congressmen
could go and watch television, a documentary showing the visit of Elían
(González) and his friends to EXPOCUBA," wrote the reporter.
It does not matter if handicapped people stage a protest in downtown Havana,
because "Cuba Will Never Again Be a Colony of the United States," it says on
Page 3.
Six of the eight scant pages are filled with propaganda - not even the
sports pages escape it. And that is nothing compared to the recent
celebration of Elián's return to Cuba in the daily Juventud Rebelde.
Linotype machines churning out harangues, paper eulogies, hysteria, while in
the real Cuba the word goes around of murders, drugs, crime, hunger,
discontent among the people, prostitution, rape, serial killers, just like
anywhere else, crime stories that go unreported in the press but that would
make even Hollywood horror movie producers go pale.
Anita's uncle raped her, then using a hole in the ground buried her standing
up - not realizing that she was still alive. Anita, just 10 years old,
struggled to get out of the hole, but could only get one hand out. Buzzards
flying over head after eating the hand raised the alert.
Sarita Malberti, a well-know actress, in a mad rage killed and dismembered
her daughter.
I personally knew Félix. Who was going to say that this man with the face of
a saint was a serial killer with a penchant for foreigners and tourist taxi
drivers.
All these are stories relished and embellished by the morbid. But deep down,
they are nothing more than an alert - always preceded by the so true phrase
"better watch out, this is bad."
I do not believe - how could I? - in the maxim of totalitarianism, that "the
only thing that works well is repression and propaganda."
Although the two go together, repression is effective, tangible, real while
what can repress thought, what can a paper do that is full of nothing,
unreal not because it is fantastic but because there is no such thing as a
vacuum?
News are not made by a flyer, not even the event itself, nor even the best
newspaper or the best reporter - news is made by the people.
I wonder if I made a mistake in choosing the headline for this article.
Perhaps it should have been, "Inside the Official Cuban Press." That would
have saved me trouble and you, dear reader, time. Because in fact I would
not have written anything.
http://cuba.sipiapa.org/Havana/hav-echemendia0728.htm