Translations 283
Women in the Ring
Boxing: Women in the Ring
Although boxing is inherent to our sporting tradition, several voices linked to Cuban pugilism advocate the inclusion of our women in this sport, a decision that falls to the authorities of this discipline on the island.
By Luis Autié Cantón digital@juventudrebelde.cu
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
SHE: Gustavo… You’re thinking of going out today with your cronies? HE: I can’t go, my love, with all the things I’ve go to do at home!
Cuba is lagging behind. And no, I’m not talking about transportation or technology. I’m talking about boxing. Our men’s squad are championss because of their respect for each other. To name the four letters in a pugilistic event is to sow, among rivals, fear of the coming storm. It is to know that they will have to die on the canvas to defeat ours. We’ve earned that right over the years. But, I insist, we are lagging behind. When the next edition of the World Series begins, if it sees the light after the corruption scandals at the highest levels of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), it will be competing in eight male divisions and, listen well, in four female divisions. While this is not yet confirmed, when the river sounds…
And our female boxing, dear reader, doesn’t even bring stones.
Tamers
Nelsy Torres is 21 years old and gets up early every day to train. Her greatest aspiration is to be able to compete officially.
“As a boxer, I need boxing to be legalized because I want to fulfill a dream. If they don’t give me the opportunity, they are slowing down women’s rights. While other countries advance with results, Cuba is lagging behind. I’m sure we can have the same results as men. Even better. We can’t wait for generations of boxers to go by, and we can’t get anywhere,” she says impotently.
Rolando Acebal, helmsman of our main boxing squad, confesses that he has not seen any girl fight here in Cuba, but he does not hide his opinion that we could have good exponents in the future. “Currently, in the world, the countries that practice male boxing also practice female boxing, and no harm has been seen to the health of the athletes. If it had been any other way, it would have been detected and it would all be over.
“There are Cuban coaches abroad who work with women’s boxing. I think we should not deny that right to women who have the desire and have requested the opportunity to train and compete. There are even mothers advocating for their daughters’ opportunity. We’ve been told that they’re analyzing, doing medical studies, but we’ve been doing it for a few years now and we’re lagging behind in that sense.
The Story: A Ring on the Stand
The girls with their jabs, their uppercuts and their hooks are not rain that just fell. Since the 18th century, there have been sports fights between women in this discipline. The Londoner Elizabeth Wilkinson, in 1722, is the oldest known champion. A little more than a century later, it was fought for the first time on this side of the Atlantic, when the bell rang for the North Americans Nell Saunders and Rose Harland to face each other, ring by ring, in 1876, on American soil.
In 1954, almost 80 years later, a women’s poster could be seen on television. One of the fighters who appeared in the “magic box” was Barbara Buttrick, one of the most famous boxers of all time.
The United States was the country where women’s boxing developed the most, following that fight of the nineteenth century. Between 1975 and 1978 some women applied for boxing licenses. Particularly important was the successful trial that the boxers Cathy “Cat” Davis, Jackie Tonawanda and Marian “Lady Tyger” Trimiar carried out against the state of New York, due to the rejection of their requests for licenses. The wide media coverage of these events directed public attention to this discipline.
However, the persistence of restrictions and prejudices led Lady Tyger to go on a one-month hunger strike for women’s rights in boxing in 1987.
As can be seen, some of the most important fights in the history of women’s pugilism have not been fought on canvas, but in the courts. Five years after that hunger strike, in 1992, Massachusetts boxer Gail Grandchamp knocked the system out by getting the state Supreme Court to recognize her right to box after eight years of trial. At the time, the Court held that it was illegal for an official to deny a license to box on the sole ground of the applicant’s sex. However, Grandchamp was unable to practice boxing because he had already exceeded the maximum age of 36 for amateur boxers.
In 1993, the USA Boxing Association, which is responsible for amateur boxing in the United States, agreed to regulate women’s boxing throughout the country after 16-year-old Dallas Malloy won a federal discrimination lawsuit in court.
Despite all the official and unofficial history, of all that baggage that goes back to the eighteenth century, it was not until March 15, 1996, that occurs the fact that is considered by many as the birth of modern female professional boxing. We refer, in this case, to the fight between Christy Martin and Deirdre Gogarty. That same year, the UK Amateur Boxing Association repealed the 1880 ban on boxing for women, and a year later, in July 1997, the first U.S. women’s boxing championship was held. In the following years, other countries were authorizing and organizing this discipline, in the women’s section, and were consecrated world champions in all categories. That is why it is difficult to understand that, in a country like ours, where neither race nor gender distinctions are established, we still do not have the legal or institutional instruments that allow our girls to get into a ring and defend the four-letter t-shirt with their gloves.
Boxing was first included in the modern Olympic program in 1904 in St. Louis, but it wasn’t until London 2012 that women were able to fight under the five hoops.
At the British event, women competed in three weight categories and a total of 36 boxers took part. The Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) still refused to include women’s pugilism as a demonstration sport in the program of the Games four years earlier in Beijing.
The time for women’s boxing matches in summer events is four rounds, two minutes each, unlike men, who fight in three three-minute moments.
If we consider our route, in which boxing has undoubtedly been the sport with the most Olympic and world titles in our history, nothing takes away the right to think that we could, with a little time, become a power of female pugilism. I sign it, and I stamp it.
Cuba, noqueada?
Perhaps one of the aspects that most restrains the Cuban Boxing Federation is the issue of the safety of girls in the ring. In this regard, Rafael Lerena Naples, head of the medical corps of the national team of this sport, believes that there is nothing to worry about in this particular case.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have an athlete in the squad at the moment. The problem is that the competent authorities have not yet authorized Cuban women’s boxing to begin. We are waiting for that”.
The doctor says that “there has never been any damage to the health of these girls”. In this regard, he explains that “the risk in sport is in all specialties. People are at risk of being injured, even walking down the street. However, the risks in high performance are always minimized. The Cuban athlete has entered satisfactorily in all the sports disciplines and for having, especially in the specialties of combat. So why not in boxing? Cuba has demonstrated, with results, quality in boxing since the triumph of the Revolution, and has made it clear that we are a source, a quarry, of good boxers. Why not have boxers”?
“Bebo” Alcántara, 76 years old, ex-bodeguero and boxing fan since childhood, does not understand why women should fight in a ring. “Boxing is a gentleman’s sport. My father always told me this when my mother protested against the violence of the fights. Now, I love boxing, but I don’t see any attraction in seeing two women “punching each other”. Women are more delicate. I think they would lose even femininity.
On the other hand, the soul of the ring, the protagonists, who live daily the intrigulis of this sport, have favorable opinions on the development of them in the pugilism. The light welter Andy Cruz, considered the most complete boxer in Cuba at the moment, expressed his support: “I like very much that they also take into account female boxing. I have seen Cuban women fight, many have come from other sports. I have liked them, I have seen that they have quality and I know that in the future they can achieve great things. I am sure that in a short time they will reach the same height that male boxing has achieved.
Rolando Acebal explains that in Cuba women have had results in sports such as judo, weights or wrestling. “Traditionally, the Cuban woman is brave, a fighter, sacrificed. They are the example of Mariana Grajales, and have demonstrated over the years that they are capable of performing any task.
Hopefully, these voices will serve as a straight line to the chin to change mentalities. Hopefully, the brake and the lack of decision will not recover to the protection count of logic. We want to hear our National Anthem while, on a ring, the referee raises his arm to a Cuban girl.
Approve women’s boxing? – Letters to the web edition
Indalecia Herrera
Sunday 14 April 2019 | 01:03:50 am.
No female boxing.
Alexander
Sunday 14 April 2019 | 09:06:52 am
I am a passionate lover of boxing, in all its dimensions. I do not think it is right to truncate the wishes of any woman, who voluntarily loves this sport and wants to practice it. They want to see history more beautiful than Mary Kom’s. For me the best boxer of all time, within the amateur world. The one that fought against all adversity and prejudices and became multiple Olympic champion. Cuba is left behind, many times for banal justifications. the personal decision of the individuals to respect themselves, as long as it does not affect the general society. And approving female boxing, does not affect anyone. Let’s step forward and in a few years we will have our champions, I’m sure of that. The potential is.
Dany
Sunday 14 April 2019 | 10:07:54 am
Very much in agreement with this inclusion of women’s boxing we are missing medals and opportunities and above all we have not given women their opportunity to demonstrate their boxing qualities that I have no doubt that in a short time they resemble male pairs
Julio Tejera
Sunday 14 April 2019 | 01:42:06 pm
Yesterday I saw a photo on Facebook where in the foreground you can see a woman with a machine gun and in the background a man with an apron in front of the sink and a text almost the same as the caricature .. What a strange coincidence.
Ramon
Sunday 14 April 2019 | 04:37:18 pm.
No to Boxing for women ??? And when they have taken the rifle? If we are going to talk about danger.
José
Sunday 14 April 2019 | 08:47:04 pm
Not allowing female boxing is simply discrimination against women. Only they must decide if they are boxers or not. Why do some people believe they have the right to decide what only they should do? For a long time the female weightlifting was stopped.
Charles
Monday 15 April 2019 | 08:51:53 am.
That other countries do something is not an argument for us to imitate them. But undoubtedly women have the right to practice any sport according to their physical characteristics. I personally do not like boxing and least of all feminine.
Joel Iglesias
Monday 15 April 2019 | 07:47:19 pm.
Well if they want to promote women’s boxing or drawing serves, very badly, each person independent of gender has the same rights, at least is what they enact.
Reinaldo Cedeño
Tuesday 16 April 2019 | 01:25:20 am.
it’s horaaa !!!
Nandy
Tuesday 16 April 2019 | 04:16:15 pm.
If it is found that there is no risk for women, that is, that does not cause any disorder to women because of the blows they may receive in the breasts, etc., I agree that it should be practiced; That the FMC of his opinion on the matter, because I am convinced that they will investigate before giving an opinion.
Cubans Deported from Mexico
Fifth Flight with Cubans Deported from Mexico Arrives in Havana
April 17, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In less than a month, approximately 300 Cubans arrived on the island in five deported flights. Photo: Talia Gonzalez/ Facebook.
A new group of Cuban citizens deported from Mexico arrived in Havana on Wednesday as part of the migration agreements between the two countries.
The Mexican Federal Police aircraft landed at José Martí International Airport with people who had left the island legally, but became irregular migrants on their way to Mexico.
In less than a month, approximately 300 Cubans arrived on the island in five flights of the deported, many of them with anecdotes of vicissitudes and outrages suffered during their route through South and Central American countries bound for the United States.
As in previous cases, these human beings will return to their families after receiving the necessary attention, including health care, said immigration authorities, but said that those who left accounts pending with the legal system before leaving must face it.
The Cuban government took advantage of this situation to insist on its call for regular, orderly and safe emigration, in order to prevent people from becoming victims of criminal groups linked to human trafficking in the region.
The scenario has been complicated in recent months by the escalation in the aggressiveness of the U.S. government against the island, which includes the politicization of the flow of Cubans between both sides of the Florida Strait.
Recently, Washington reduced the period of validity of the B2 visa for Cubans from five years to three months, with only one entry, under the pretext of an alleged reciprocity with Cuba’s treatment of Americans.
Havana, through its Foreign Ministry, rejected the decision, describing it as ‘an additional obstacle to the exercise of the right of Cuban citizens to visit their relatives in that country’.
This measure adds to the closure of the services of the United States Consulate in Havana, to the unjustified interruption of the granting of visas to Cubans, forcing them to travel to third countries without any guarantee, and to the failure to comply with the visa quota established by the migratory agreements, he stressed.
In less than a month, approximately 300 Cubans arrived on the island in five deported flights. Photo: Talia Gonzalez/ Facebook.
With information from Prensa Latina.
Cuba to open first “LGBTI-friendly” Hotel
Cuba to open its first “friendly LGBTI” hotel
By EntreDiversidades
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Playuela Beach, located next to Cayo Guillermo, has been the site chosen to build one of the hotels that will undoubtedly be visited by the LGBTI community.
According to Mathu Hotel in Cuba, the country plans to open the Rainbow Muthu Hotel, the first hotel facility dedicated to the LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) community in October 2019.
The new hotel will have 248 rooms of high comfort, five restaurants, three bars, a room of animation and all the necessary facilities for the practice of aquatic sports.
“A perfect #LGBT-Friendly hotel, for an escape to #cayoguillermo #granmuthurainbow, will be an incredible place to visit all year round with these incredible rooms and views,” says one of the facility’s promotions.
The Muthu Hotel representation in Cuba has summoned CENESEX to help in the selection and training of the personnel that will work in the facilities; in addition to collaborating in events, promotions and campaigns.
Media silence on LGBTI march
What the media doesn’t say about the LGBTI march in Cuba
By Redacción Razones de Cuba
May 16, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
There are many images that swarm in social networks and in different international press media about the march that last May 11 which was called by some “independent activists” of the Cuban LGBTI community. In the vast majority of them, there is a morbid delight in showing the detention of four people who insisted on continuing the march, disregarding the considerations of the authorities who, in the absence of an official permit, urged the participants not to continue marching through traffic-filled streets.
In the video that Razones de Cuba shares with its readers, we see the exchange between a PNR official and several of the demonstrators, without any weapon whatsoever, in a tone of respect and logical argumentation. The media tends to silence these details, trying to show that the march was repressed in its entirety and not to give birth to these testimonies that the vast majority of the participants in the demonstration held a dialogue with the authorities, without outbursts or any desire to break with institutionality.
Respect, reason, and peace: cardinal points of citizen tranquility, for the search in Cuba of individual and general well-being under the rule of law.
The Conga is Within Us
The Conga is Within Us or Nobody Can Take the Dance Away From Us
May 7, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The failure this year to carry out the conga against homophobia and transphobia because of a decision beyond the organizing committee of this twelfth edition of the Cuban Days Against Homophobia and Transphobia, as reported in a note on the institutional pages of social networks linked to the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), is a fact that we can no longer remedy.
My first answer: the rainbow flag is already flying on my balcony, and it will do so until these twelfth Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia culminate.
The analysis of this negative impact coincides with my blog post 400 after almost ten years of existence, a text that, of course, I would have preferred outside for a very different reason.
Of course, we never aspired to a process of cultural transformation as profound as the dismantling of homophobic and transphobic prejudices so prevalent in our society, taking place in a linear manner, without contradictions and even stagnation or setbacks, as this adjustment to the program might seem to many people.
We must not, however, allow such a setback to spoil the party.
It is true that the conga is the seed and almost the origin of these Jornadas, which were preceded in 2007 by a brief walk by Mariela Castro Espín and a group of activists, mainly trans women, who marched from Cenesex to the movie theater at 23rd and 12th.
Already the following year, the conga erupted as the initial activity of the first days. Its realization has become a tradition, as the moment of greater visibility of LGBTI people in Cuba, to celebrate and promote educational strategies and progressive policies of social inclusion. We’ve been have been forging ahead for more than a decade, from the work of successive batches of activists, most of whom have been formed under the impulse and leadership of Cenesex and its director.
The result of all this evolution is palpable. Pronouncements against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the country’s main policy documents. Approval of the first law that explicitly protects sexual diversity. Proclamation of a Constitution that proscribes any discriminatory action against persons on that ground and recognizes equal rights for all types of families.
And so, there are many other transformations in consciousness and social practice that are sometimes difficult to quantify, but are there in our daily lives, and those of us who have lived this process can perceive them, and it would be an injustice not to assess them in their exact value.
We have just had, for example, a broad participation of LGBTI and H activists (heterosexuals who accompany us in this long struggle) in the parade last May First, both in Havana and in other provinces – and not only of people linked to Cenesex, by the way, who waved their rainbow flags with pride and conviction, in support of the urgent causes for which all our people are fighting today, against the blockade, the Helms-Burton Act, and also for our legitimate aspirations for a prosperous, sustainable… and inclusive socialist society.
I, therefore, have the peace of mind that nothing and no one can send us back to the closet, nor do I want nor can I believe that anyone would want us to.
I am sure that this apparent circumstantial setback with the conga will also allow us to take out essential experiences for future battles.
We must concentrate on the main purposes ahead of us. The legislative changes that have to accompany the new Magna Carta are essential, and we must work to defuse any concerns, concerns or reservations that conjunctural situations – such as this one with the conga – might create, if we are not capable of closing ranks and acting with intelligence and unity.
As the popular saying goes about the procession, our conga goes inside. It doesn’t matter that this year we are asked not to do it. What has already been danced – and what remains to be danced – is not going to be taken away from us.
Translator’s Note: “La procesion (religious parade) va por dentro”. Popular saying meaning that a person can act bravely and show a smiling face, while dealing with a sorrowful situation that is within their mind.
This May Day the rainbow flags toured our squares with pride and conviction.
Who is Paquito?
Photo by Jose Goitia
I am Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, also known as Paquito, from Cuba; I am a Marti follower and an author; I am a communist and gay journalist; I am a convinced and superstitious atheist; I am the father of a son whom I have adored and have been a partner for fifteen years with a seronegative man who loves me; I have been an AIDS patient since 2003 and am a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for more than twelve years; I am a university professor and a student of life; a follower of Cuban economic issues and a passionate devourer of universal literature; an incontinent and belligerent moderate; a friend of my friends and a compassionate friend of my enemies; often wrong and never repentant; a hardened and eternal enthusiastic optimist; alive and kicking; in short, another ordinary man who wants to share his story, opinions and desires with you…
Does Biden Have What It Takes?
Does Joe Biden Have What it Takes to be the Democratic Presidential Candidate?
By Fernando M. García Bielsa
(Specialist in North American issues. He has published in Cubadebate and other Cuban and foreign websites.)
April 26, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo taken from Diario público
Former Vice President Joseph Biden has just officially announced that he is running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the November 2020 presidential election in the United States.
Covered in a cloak of false moderate or center positions, Biden is willing to come to the rescue of the corporate political establishment at a time when, between the electorate and the base of that party, demands and positions of support for a popular agenda have Abecome predominant.
Joe Biden is of course the best-known figure at the national level – among more than fifteen other politicians who are in the running for the Democratic nomination – perhaps with the exception of social democrat Bernie Sanders, who was much admired after his successful grassroots campaign in 2016.
A few days ago, the NY Times reported that Democrats who are part of the “Stop Sanders” effort are distressed by the momentum of the effort. A headline in the Washington Post said, “Center Democrats fear that far-left positions will lead to defeat in 2020. So they are pushing for alternatives.
In addition to having a name that part of the public identifies, Biden adds other advantages such as the favor of the country’s political and financial elite. With it comes access to the coffers needed to wage a successful and costly electoral campaign, as well as the favor of the national machinery of the Democratic Party. Also, it is supposed, he would also be assured of favorable coverage by the big media and television networks.
However, this politician also has his disadvantages before a rather skeptical electorate with clear tendencies to reject the same elite of Washington and Wall Street and, in general, those who conduct politics in the U.S. capital, a trend that has become more marked in recent years.
Joe Biden is 76 years old; he has been a member of Congress for no less than 36 years and vice president of the country for another eight during the Obama Administration. He is undoubtedly the oldest and most skillful of those serving the country’s among those who have announced their presidential aspirations.
Although with an image of center positions, his alignment with corporate and financial interests is very broad. It has been part of the corresponding game with policies in favor of big business, banking, insurance companies and the unanimously-favored increase in military spending, financial deregulation, and so on.
Like almost all Democratic politicians and presidential hopefuls from the Clinton and Obama currents, which are the ones that have hegemony in the party, Biden has a good arrival and relations with established elites in the African-American sectors and the union world.This is not the same as saying that he has real acceptance or descent from the workers or the so-called black or Latino communities.
One should not underestimate the strong and already established attitude of rejection, mentioned above, which has shown a large part of the U.S. electorate has shown toward towards politicians and elites in general.
These are factors that conspire against Biden’s potential, even though he has the advantage of being close to the establishment, the holders of the money and the favor of the big media.
Another issue to consider is the apathy of voters, also a longstanding trend that particularly affects Democrats when counting votes. Part of the factors that led to the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 20l6 was that by forcing her nomination, favoring her with all kinds of manipulations, the structures and leadership of the Party, they frustrated the possibility of motivating and energizing its base, as independent Senator Bernie Sanders was doing.
It is considered that for this electoral cycle and in order to defeat the Republican candidate, who most likely is the current president Donald Trump, it will be necessary to mobilize and give new energy to the Democratic electorate and rescue part of the popular sectors that it took from them.
Although this is definitely a party of the system, it will have to moderate its neoliberal propensity to reconnect to some extent with its base, with the so-called middle classes, a good part of them workers, and with many people disappointed with politics, and with the neglect and deterioration of their living conditions.
That was part of what gave Trump in 2016 the opportunity to manipulate anger and deep dissatisfaction among Americans with the country’s dysfunctional political system. Particularly the games symbolized on Wall Street and in the federal capital, and by the disconnection of the political spheres from the common people.
Although with a less unpleasant figure than Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, with Joe Biden (who resembles her in many substantive respects), could run the risk of repeating her discouraging and failed campaign in the last election cycle.
Biden has a history of openly defending capitalism and an underhand evasion of class inequalities. A long record and sequel to his positions that could make him vulnerable to his opponents during the coming months of the campaign, and in the home stretch if he were nominated, a record that includes expressions of racist type, of marked support for war, of favoring the deregulation of the banks, etc.
Or the fact that he has shown himself to be harsh in the face of crime, even to the point of insensitivity, as when he said in a speech before the full Senate in 1993:
“It doesn’t matter whether or not they are people who have been in need or marginalized in their youth. It does not matter whether or not they had a past that allowed them to be part of the social fabric. It doesn’t matter whether or not they were victims of society. The end result is that they are about to beat my mother…, shoot my sister…”, etc.
He is pointed out as a firm acolyte of the Military Industrial Complex. From his powerful position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2003, Biden provided political cover for the massive military attack on Iraq authorized by Republican President George Bush. Some have said he did more than any other Democratic senator to get the green light for the invasion.
The forgetful citizenry may only have a nebulous image of this personality whose name is familiar to them, but much is the burden and complexity of his political record. For Biden to get the Democratic presidential nomination next year, it will depend largely on how many voters in the primaries would or would not have known about the background of this consummate politician; how much of his actual record will come to the fore in the coming months.
Although it’s too early to say, and even considering that money and the big media will pull the embers into their frying pan, I estimate that, in the long run, the Democratic Party structures, to some extent pushed by the rank and file, will favor a “new face” from among the dozen or more presidential hopefuls who have already thrown their had in the the ring for the Democratic nomination at the national convention to be held in July next year in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In photos: Lina Ruz, Fidel and Raúl’s mother
In photos:
Lina Ruz, Fidel and Raúl’s mother
By Equipo Editorial Fidel Soldado de las Ideas
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Lina Ruz in her house in Birán, in 1958. Source: Oficina de Asuntos Históricos del Consejo de Estado / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
On the occasion of Mother’s Day, Cubadebate and the site Fidel Soldado de las Ideas share images of Lina Ruz, Fidel’s mother, whose children “(…) treated her more naturally and confidently. She established order and schedules, wrapped them under the blanket at bedtime, bathed them and dressed them, guessed their spirits, and even ran after them or slapped them when they had gone too far in their mischief. But this happened if she managed to reach them, if she managed to capture them, because the boys, especially Ramon and Fidel, already knew her and escaped the slightest evidence or threat of punishment. All her kindness, Lina dumped in loving care and sleeplessness, without forgetting her obligations at the front of the house”.
Excerpt from the book Todo el tiempo de los cedros: Family landscape of Fidel Castro Ruz, by the author Katiuska Blanco Castiñeira.
Lina Ruz in Birán, 1925. Photo: Oficina de Asuntos Históricos del Consejo de Estado / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz. In the dedication of this photograph can be read: “My dear friends Paciano and Julia. With all the affection of her always friend. Lina de Castro Birán. 10-4-1926” (According to the date noted at the foot of the dedication, there were only about four months left for the birth of Fidel) / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz, dressed for Fidel’s graduation as a High School Graduate in Bethlehem, June 1945. Source: Book: “Fidel Castro Guerrillero del Tiempo” / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz during the visit to her son Raúl, in the Second Front, in 1958 / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz in her house in Birán. Fountain: Oficina de Asuntos Históricos del Consejo de Estado / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
To learn more about the ideas of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, visit our site Fidel Soldado de las Ideas. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
On the “Independent” LGBTI March
”Independent” LGBTI March or Another Wound to Heal
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
It is very likely that these lines will not satisfy any of the parties involved in what happened this Saturday, May 11, in the so-called “independent” LGBTI march from Parque Central to the Havana Malecón, but I feel the obligation to comment on and broaden some of the considerations I have already made in social networks, whatever the risks involved.
As I have already said, I regret the events that occurred almost at the end of the walk through the Prado capital of about 200 people, who despite not having the proper authorization, the police authorities and the Ministry of Interior accompanied and guarded for several blocks of that extensive walk.
It was the EFE agency that reported that within that group there were those who apparently had the intention of provoking an incident, and did not obey the instructions of the police, to be able to create, in front of the cameras, the spectacle that had been proposed. This teaches us once again that LGBTI people must be very clear so that they do not manipulate us or use us for political ends against not only the Revolution, but also our own rights and conquests.
Everything indicates that the bet of some well-known figures of the so-called dissidence, who never worried or occupied themselves with constructive proposals or messages for our rights as LGBTI people, was to dilute the atmosphere even more during this twelfth edition of the Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia, and it is evident that in part they achieved it.
In contrast, however, like the crowded Diversity Party with several hundred attendees, where most of the LGBTI community and its most systematic activists – including participants in the illegal march – were present until almost midnight, it did not merit the same media attention.
But my doubts about this demonstration began long before, and I shared them with several people who were aware of its details, without receiving a convincing answer.
Why call it for Parque Central, in Old Havana, and not in some of the Vedado scenarios where, for eleven years, the Conga against Homophobia and Transphobia has been taking place, and whose cancellation this year was the alleged cause of the call to hold it? What groups are those who have habitually used this area of Parque Central and the Capitolio, to attempt some pale anti-government protest?
The call for the march set a place and time to begin, but it was never clearly stated what the route would be or where the possible participants would go. Wasn’t that definition or was the intention not to go anywhere, but to reach a certain state of massive tension?
If the purpose was to show discontent to the authorities, why didn’t they go to shout “We want the conga”, for example, at the Gala on Friday the 10th at the Karl Marx Theater, where none other than the Secretary of the Council of State, the Ministers of Public Health and Justice, the President of the People’s Supreme Court and the Attorney General of the Republic, among other leaders of the country, were present?
Many criticisms have been generated by the statement of the director of the National Center for Sex Education that behind the organization of this march there were groups of people residing in Miami.
I personally do not know what the origin of this idea was, but I can testify to the ardent enthusiasm and the broad promotion they carried out on social networks, including my Facebook wall, subjects who no longer live in Cuba and systematically devote abundant time and efforts -almost incredible for those who, I suppose, have other daily occupations much more absorbent and unpostponable that capitalism imposes on them-, only to criticize any action or reaction of Cenesex, its specialists and activist networks.
I can also attest -because I greeted them with sincere affection and even took pictures with them- to more than one person known and trained as an activist in the community networks linked to Cenesex who live in the United States and traveled expressly to Havana to be in the Jornadas, and very particularly in this march that did not have official permission.
I am aware of the bad taste that lets us talk about all this. Believe me, it hurts me to do it. Among other reasons, because almost certainly it is very probable that I too am committing some injustice with my perhaps subjective and partial appreciations, even if they are based on the real and objective elements that were within my reach.
In fact, a colleague and friend whose judgment I greatly appreciate and who, for years, has been a participant in my activist and blogging efforts on these issues, has alerted me with sincere concern about the risks to my “credibility as a communicator and activist”, by this taking such an unusual position in me, that I always prefer balance and benevolence when assessing human behavior.
But I refuse to make any kind of personal calculation in the face of such a painful situation, where those of us who are the main victims now want to pass ourselves off as perpetrators. Whatever it is, it will be; even if it implies any individual setback that has little or no relevance.
The least important thing now is to tell the truth, so that in the midst of all this bullshit hope is reborn in a cause that, sooner or later, it will be their turn to continue cultivating and carrying on with other people who will surely do it better than those of us who did it up to this point.
To those who, in good faith, and with legitimate discontent, participated in the walk, I thank you with all my heart. They did what they thought should be done for a just cause, as I have done many other times, not without making mistakes and suffering the consequences. I would never question the intentions of that possible majority of those present, which I am convinced did not premeditate nor could they suppose the provocation in which it finally ended up being involved.
And I say more. Were it not for my close and unconditional commitment to the Organizing Committee of these Days – which brings together so many valuable people who have put all their passion and mind into this collective work, including unspeakable pain when we have not managed to do something like we believe our people want, expect and deserve – and the most information I could have on the evolution and possible consequences of this event, perhaps I would have been in that same fragile position, with my rainbow flag over the Prado.
The negative repercussion of these events demonstrated, however, that the march was not a success, as those who defend their anti-government agendas more than our rights as LGBTI people say, but a serious mistake that we could end up paying for with a very high cost of splits, extremisms, and setbacks in future processes of dialogue, if we are not able to critically analyze what happened and thus draw lessons to overcome it.
For my Party and the Government, I believe that the message has also been very clear.
I explained this in my previous text when I tried to explain how it was the Revolution itself that empowered us and made us aware of our rights in this more than a decade of educational strategy and political struggle against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It facilitated the creation of spaces for our intimate and collective realization -such as that emblematic Conga that was suspended this year-, which we can no longer and do not want to renounce, even if it means defending them from any threat, with the intelligence and courage that we have always been capable of in Cuba throughout our entire history.
To all parties involved in what happened on the Paseo del Prado, even if they are not fully or partially satisfied with these harsh words I have written here, I reiterate that we have no choice but to try to exorcise ourselves from our own demons, restlessness, prejudices, and grudges, and start again to move forward, to heal this temporary wound and continue with the construction of that more just, progressive and inclusive society, to which the vast majority of our people aspire.
Who is Paquito?
Photo by Jose Goitia
I am Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, also known as Paquito, from Cuba; I am a Marti follower and an author; I am a communist and gay journalist; I am a convinced and superstitious atheist; I am the father of a son whom I have adored and have been a partner for fifteen years with a seronegative man who loves me; I have been an AIDS patient since 2003 and am a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for more than twelve years; I am a university professor and a student of life; a follower of Cuban economic issues and a passionate devourer of universal literature; an incontinent and belligerent moderate; a friend of my friends and a compassionate friend of my enemies; often wrong and never repentant; a hardened and eternal enthusiastic optimist; alive and kicking; in short, another ordinary man who wants to share his story, opinions and desires with you…
Beijing’s Hidden Side
Beijing’s Hidden Side
Beijing surprises at first sight, but it is essential to descend from the skyscrapers to the catacombs of the Chinese ancestors to understand why in this city, located from the Havana prism on the hidden face of the moon, even the humblest of its inhabitants speaks with optimism of the future.
by Alejandra García Elizalde, special report
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
Beijing looks like the city of the future. The first lights of the day on this side of the world – which lives 12 hours ahead of the Island – first stumble upon the skyscrapers of the city. In days of little pollution, it is a spectacle of yellow lights reflected in the crystals of the jungle of buildings that appears in front of the window of any neighbor of the Chaoyang district, located in the heart of the capital of the most populous country in the world.
Amidst the vertigo of architecture, there is space to remember Havana. Every morning, as on the Island, the parks are filled with people of all ages, taking advantage of the sun on cold days, or the cool in the heat; to walk their pets, play cards, buy fruit or sweets from street vendors who settle in the surroundings, or exercise with traditional Tai Chi, the martial art that many Cubans practice today, mainly in old age.
Although there are similarities between the Island and Beijing, the colors of the Caribbean and the smell of the sea are much missed. The tones of this city are mostly gray. The smoke caused by the pollution of nearby industries means that only a few times, after the dawn, one sees the blue of the sky or the sun.
It seems that the city floats within a thick cloud.
But Beijing attracts in other ways: the subway, always punctual, that connects in a few minutes each end of the city of more than 24 million inhabitants -more than twice as many as in all of Cuba-; the smells and flavors and variety of its food, despite being so different from that of Cuban cuisine; the way in which the skyscrapers coexist with the pagodas of imperial times, 5,000 years ago, a pattern that follows with certain fidelity the architecture of Havana’s Chinatown, on the backs of the Capitolio.
The hard-working and noble spirit of its people caught Fidel’s attention in 1995 and 24 years later, these traits remain intact. They are always seen in some activity: on scaffolding, watering trees on equipment prepared for it, when there has been much lack of rain, loading cement in the vicinity of a building under construction…
“I can appreciate that China is the country of the 21st century, it is the country of the future, with its human potential, its natural resources, scientists, the talent of its children. I believe that in the 21st century China is going to be the awakening giant,” Fidel told the press on that occasion. And so it has been.
Nothing is as important to the Chinese people as their history and millennial traditions; and the Qingming Festival or Day of Sweeping the Tombs, held every April 5, is proof of that. This national holiday is very reminiscent of the Day of the Dead in Mexico. Millions of Chinese visit the country’s cemeteries to pay tribute to their ancestors.
On that day they clean the tombs and adorn them with flowers, make offerings of food or money with fictitious bills created for the occasion that are burned next to the tombs to reach the beyond. The legendary hero and the humblest ancestor of a family matter.
Babaoshang, an ancient temple transformed into a cemetery after the Empire became a Republic west of Beijing, overflowed with flowers that day. There is such variety and color in the parade that tulips, peonies, orchids and chrysanthemums seem to come out of a painter’s palette. The country of the future is also a nation that does not forget, and this is perhaps the key, the yin and yang of Chinese power.
If 5,000 years ago his people discovered the compass, paper, silk, porcelain…, today it follows in the wake of another important transformation. In a quarter of a century, it became the second [largest] economy of the planet and is a reference for the world in the development of artificial intelligence, space exploration, the invention of initiatives to curb pollution of the environment.
Beijing surprises at first sight, but it is essential to descend from the skyscrapers to the catacombs of the Chinese ancestors to understand why in this city, located from the Havana prism on the dark side of the moon, even the humblest of its inhabitants speaks with optimism of the future.
Chronicle of an Announced Provocation
Cuba: March or chronicle of an announced provocation.
By MARCO VELÁZQUEZ CRISTO
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Undated, but posted May 14, 2019.
We denounced [the fact] that there were attempts to manipulate and use the LGBTI community to try to confront the Cuban authorities for not authorizing a march against homophobia and transphobia, at the right time.
Perhaps some skeptics thought we were exaggerating or inventing arguments to underpin such a state decision. If we consider that the aforementioned march has been organized, promoted and supported for years by the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), an institution belonging to the Ministry of Public Health whose main objectives include contributing to the recognition and guarantee of the sexual rights of the population, it makes no sense to think that the State sees it as subversive or harmful.
What happened on May 11 demonstrated the announced manipulation of an event that suffered the distortion of its humanist essence provoked by the action of the counterrevolution.
Other activities were taking place within the framework of the Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia (held since 2008 under the auspices of CENESEX). These were attended by most members of the LGBTI community, a group of people belonging to it gathered in the capital’s Central Park to force the march that had not been authorized.
The call for the march was made mainly through social networks, which were used by unscrupulous counter-revolutionary elements to manipulate and abuse the feelings of these people, encouraging them to participate in what they wanted to turn into a political provocation.
It is understandable that they managed to confuse some of them, given how sensitive they are to any manifestation of possible discrimination. An example was the ease with which they introduced the idea that it was an action of this type that some who were organized thought they were organizers. Victims of such an inhuman act of evil.
This type of action is not new. Let’s remember, for example, the march carried out a few years ago by a group of young people against violence in the world. Its ends were noble and apart from any political interest, but, what did the counterrevolution do? They sent several of their miserable elements to muddy the march, which tried to put up some poster or other with the usual lies against the Revolution, [and which] had to be taken out of the place.
The notorious mercenary Yoani Sánchez tried to put on a media show, taking advantage of the fact that it was necessary to stop her in order to prevent her from spoiling the afore-mentioned activity for the young people.
This time there were no posters because they couldn’t carry them, not because they didn’t intend to.
Another question, Who were among those who were at the head of the 11/5 [May 11] march?
Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, Who is this subject that the media call “environmental activist”? A counterrevolutionary who has participated in multiple provocations, whom they present as a great scientist, when in reality what he has done is to attribute himself to works of that character in which he had no participation, of that enough has already been written.
The links of this stateless person with the U.S. Embassy are public, being one more of the “leaders” of the “opposition”, as the counterrevolution says, that they tried to manufacture. Let’s remember Juan Carlos González, alias “Pánfilo” who, as a hardened alcoholic, they tried to transform into a “fighter” against Castroism, or that of the false “invalid poet” Armando Valladares who was neither one nor the other, etc.
Other high society counterrevolutionaries present were Ileana Hernández, Yosmany Sánchez, Yennia del Risco, Oscar Casanella and Boris González Arena, all playing a role of agitators and inciters to disobedience of the orientation that came from the authorities. All with several post-graduate and graduate degrees obtained in institutions that practice subversion against Cuba.
The goal of mounting a provocation by these elements inserted inside the participants in march referred to, to propitiate a later media show is shown by the following: The authorities, showing restraint despite, not having authorized such activity, let it develop until the end of the Paseo del Prado. There they tried to persuade the marchers that they could not continue because they were going to cause traffic jams on an important road like the Malecon, something that could even endanger their lives.
At that moment, Ruiz Urquiola together with the rest of the annexationist crew, began to instigate to continue on, trying to do it by force, defying the authorities. This provoked his arrest which he resisted mounting a show so that the media, including of course, the media team of the counterrevolution, could do what they had planned; to lie, magnify and manipulate the event to campaign against Cuba. It must be said that Urquiola committed, among others, the crime of contempt, something that is not the first time he has done so.
Some deluded people, or those who were deluded, criticize the fact that the decision was taken not to authorize a march that was known to try to manipulate the counterrevolution, which could not achieve its purposes due to the timely action of the authorities that prevented vile mercenaries from carrying out their plans.
There is the talk of repression, what does this word mean? “Action of violently repressing an uprising, a political demonstration…”, Where was the violence against the marchers? Ruiz Urquiola and others who resisted arrest were the ones who caused them to be reduced to obedience. But there is not a single image of a blow, of tear gas, a jet of water under pressure, of a wounded person, they have nothing. Because what there are images of is the authorities talking to the participants, explaining the reasons why they were not allowed to continue, trying to persuade them to abide by what they were being told, something that is not done anywhere in the world.
Something that is being ignored, only counter-revolutionary elements were arrested, whose “clean sheets of service to the empire” we will publish at another time not to make too long this post.
What has happened does not mean that the rights of the LGBTI community will be limited or that there will be a setback in the recognition of these rights. If anyone is responsible for what happened, it is the mercenaries at the service of the U.S. government who, following its instructions, tried to transform one march from noble purposes to another for political ends.
It is known that the orientation coming from Miami are: to encourage the calling of public marches with apparently innocuous motives that leave the government (they call it a regime) without arguments to prohibit them. If they do, [they want to] generate the rejection by the sectors of the population that are affected. To take advantage of those that are authorized to “denounce violations of human rights and democratic liberties.”
That is the truth. All this is inserted in an attempt to weaken the Cuban Revolution, as a way to create the conditions for a supposed scenario of the fall of chavismo, to find a divided society that makes the task of destroying the social project that takes away their sleep easier.
But they are going to be left with the desire, our people are educated, they know their Revolution and they will not be fooled.