Cubans with a Memory!

By Jancel Moreno

HAVANA TIMES — As usual, government media, especially Cuban TV, doesn’t stop mentioning the attempts perpetrated by US governments against our country ever since the “Revolution” triumphed in 1959. They do so by way of commercials of a historic nature which relive moments that range from the the La Coubre steamship explosion (1960) to imperialism’s latest “subversive” attacks.

There’s no need to explain the aim of these commercials, as it has become crucial for the government to increase our supposed “hate or rejection” of the US government in recent times. That’s to say, revolutionary subversion has become necessary, especially among the new generations, thereby making it clear who the villain of the movie is.

The saddest thing about this though is that each and every one of these videos include the short phrase, “WE REMEMBER!”, and I say this is the saddest thing to not say that it’s the most cynical, because even though I also reject any kind of violent or interventionist attack, not everything is rosy here, it isn’t the kind of heaven that Marti dreamed of to be exact.

Have we forgotten how many Cubans were and are beaten up by government forces? Have we forgotten how many Cubans emigrate and leave everything behind because of repression? Have we forgotten how many Cubans are currently being kicked out of universities because of their political convictions?

Apparently, our government has erased this part of history and that’s what they want to do with the new generations, so that nobody knows how many blows they’ve dealt and deal to the Ladies in White on Sundays, the beatings that Yoani Sanchez, human rights activists, independent journalists, homosexuals have endured, just to cite a few examples of violence.

And this is what I wanted to get to, “the beatings homosexuals endure”, especially between 1965 and 1968 when 25,000 men, religious and homosexual men, were taken by force to Camaguey province to join the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP), where they were subjected to forced labor, especially in cutting sugar cane and they also used to sleep in unsanitary barracks located in camps enclosed with barbed wire and guarded by the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

I, just like many other millions of Cubans, will never forget these pages of history, and the best thing is that we don’t need the TV to remind us, because it is also forbidden for us to forget, WE ALSO REMEMBER!