Havana Times

My Second Trip to the Czech Republic

Nonardo Perea

HAVANA TIMES — On May 4th, I traveled to the Czech Republic for the second time. This time, I had been chosen to take part in a workshop, along with five women, about the issue of women’s rights today, their social empowerment, where another vulnerable group was also introduced, the LGTBI community.

Counter-revolutionary issues were never dealt with at any point of the workshop, not even by those from the organization who had invited us. I didn’t pick up on anyone’s interest in destabilizing the Cuban government. We did journalistic work and we learned how to make journalism videos with a critical eye, taking into account the fact that every time we make a report, we have to do so with the utmost sincerity.

I know some people who believe that me taking part in this course will imply problems for me, and I have even be labeled a “worm”, an old name which like fashion itself has been recycled, forming part of the 21st century.

This makes me think about how far behind we are, as well as all the bad things we deserve for being so ignorant, incapable of seeing that time moves forward, and nobody lives longer than 120 years. That’s to say, at the rate we’re going, a lot of people will already be dead in 20 years and they will never see a prosperous and promising future, while another large part of society, myself included, will be so old that they will no longer have any life plans.

I’d like to know if telling the truth, voicing your opinions or being critical of what is happening around you makes you a “worm”.

I am a worm because I’m against a lack of freedoms, of not being able to read what I want, of not being able to apply Fidel’s Concept of the Revolution to my own life, because this concept has been bandied about so much that everyone who has read it knows that it hasn’t been carried out in the slightest.

  • Changing everything that needs to be changed… – I am still waiting for changes, such as that of our two currencies, for example? and why is it that nothing has been said about a change in president yet? Isn’t this set to happen in 2018?
  • It’s full equality and freedom… – We are still far from having this equality, much less from having complete freedom. On May 17th, I arrived in Cuba and I had a feminist magazine, Alas tensas, confiscated from me. They claimed that it was a subversive magazine that couldn’t enter the country. They carried out an exhaustive search of my belongings and I was interrogated too.
  • It’s being treated and treating others like human beings – It’s clear that a lot of people here in Cuba aren’t familiar with this part of the Concept.
  • It’s never lying, nor violating ethical principles; it’s the firmly-rooted conviction that there is nothing in this world that can crush truth and ideas…

That’s why I don’t lie, I write things just as I see them, and I believe that as a citizen of this country, I have the right to say what I think, just to verify my existence, that I am and we are all a part of history, which might change for all of those people who want a better future for themselves and their children.

Please, let’s focus on the Concept of Revolution, but let’s not just read it out loud like officials normally do in speeches. Let’s put it into reality, let it be put into practice as of today, so that we can realize, in some way or another, that something isn’t quite right in our lives.