There are times when praying makes sense, even if you are an atheist or agnostic. There are situations in which an entire country, searching for an alternative that seems elusive, can give itself over to prayer, imploring the intervention of some higher power to bring relief, compassion, and mercy that earthly powers have not provided. . Crying out for light to come.
I am sure that rarely in its history have the people of my country practiced this exercise with more vehemence. They must have done it out of desperation, many of them already overcome by circumstances. Thousands would pray even while they poured the already thawed food into a pot, to cook, with whatever fire they could, the food already thawed, at the limit prior to decomposition. They were those products that they had obtained with a lot of effort and at almost prohibitive prices (a few quarters of chicken, a few packets of mincemeat or hot dogs, no more), reserves planned to feed them in the coming weeks and that, before losing them definitively, my compatriots They chose to swallow them. And they were digesting them with more pain than satisfaction. Because it was the best, the only thing—besides praying—that many Cubans could do after three or even four days without electricity service throughout the country.
Living with several hours of darkness is a situation that we Cubans have suffered for decades, with ups and downs. In my memory are the prolonged blackouts that began to haunt us in the 1960s. Also the endless ones of the 1990s, that period euphemistically baptized as the Special Period in Times of Peace. Those blackouts that we were once promised would never return and that in recent years have returned, with renewed fury. The same ones that, in recent weeks, in various locations in the country, reached eight, ten and more hours a day, as a kind of macabre training for what came with the “disconnection of the national electrical system” that for almost three days turned to the island of Cuba in a dark spot. The land of long shadows, only without any Eskimos in sight.
Much has been said about the causes that originated the energy crisis that has now reached its most dramatic climax. The deplorable state of the energy generation park, aged or obsolete; the lack of foreign currency to purchase the necessary fuel; the effects of the old US blockade; the poor strategic foresight of the decision-making spheres that did not make the necessary investments in the electricity generation industry while new and more hotels were being built for potential tourists. All the reasons are possible and they all seem to have combined to finally create the perfect storm of the prolonged national blackout suffered by citizens. A power outage that, of course, almost paralyzed the economic and productive activities of a country that needs them so much, overwhelmed by different crises, among them the supply of those foods that people cooked in a hurry so as not to lose them completely.
And, to make matters worse, in the midst of that overwhelming crisis, a hurricane kissed the northern coast of the country’s east, leaving floods and devastation and the death toll of six, a high number for a country like Cuba.
In the midst of darkness and catalyzed by desperation, dozens of people in different parts of the country, instead of praying, took to the streets to express their distress. As expected, the government response was that acts of vandalism or “disturbances of citizen tranquility” would not be tolerated. And people know well what that intolerance is like, because you can end up paying for the audacity of desperation and helplessness with a sentence of several years in prison. The strange thing is that the three-day blackout was not considered a “disturbance of citizen tranquility.”
The most possible and common logic through which a state of exhaustion and loss of hope that became more evident with this darkness has been channeled is the migratory desire that persecutes hundreds of thousands of Cuban citizens. Much has already been said, also, that another of the great crises affecting the nation today is immigration. This is an ongoing process that, in the last three years, has caused more than a million people to live outside the island, 10% of the country’s effective population.
In this regard, however, it must be remembered that those million or so Cubans, added to what was already a notable and bleeding diaspora, are those who have been able to leave, not all those who wanted or dream of leaving. They are those who have benefited from US visas such as those granted with the program of the parole humanitarian, those who have obtained other citizenships, especially Spanish, those who have received a visa from a country and have not returned, or those many who, paying figures around 10,000 dollars, have traveled to Nicaragua to undertake the “route of coyotes” and have already crossed to the United States or remain in Mexico waiting for permission to enter the northern territory.
Now, just a few days away from the presidential elections in the United States, my compatriots must also look with fear at the scenario that is being drawn in front of them. Because a victory for the Republican Donald Trump, as we know from previous experiences, will toughen or cut off the possibility of emigrating to the United States, through legal and, above all, illegal means. Because Trump has not only promised it, but he has condemned immigration with a nationalist and populist discourse, reeking of fascists, even considering that immigrants “pollute” the blood of Americans, a statement that a third of the citizens of that country… who, by the way, no longer seem interested in remembering the origin of the blood that runs through their very American veins.
Meanwhile, a victory for Democrat Kamala Harris, I don’t think it will bring better news for potential Cuban migrants to the United States. The political and social pressure that has been generated around the issue of migration will imply for the presumed president to take more or less drastic measures to control it, since the country’s public opinion has already been poisoned, that is, “contaminated”, with the infinite anti-immigrant speeches that have spiced up the ongoing electoral race.
But we don’t get good news from Europe either. A Europe that speaks of internment “camps,” that closes several of its borders to migrants and in which there is an increasing abundance of political speeches that encourage xenophobia and condemn en masse those who would like to migrate.
The experiences with the prolonged national blackout and the hurricane with deaths have been painful, and its physical and mental consequences will haunt people for a long time. But perhaps in a few days many will forget to pray, as is natural in the human (and Cuban) condition, while others with more faith will continue to pray, hoping that some good news will deign to arrive from somewhere.
Leonardo Padura He is a writer and Princess of Asturias winner of Literature in 2015. His latest book is Go to Havana (Tusquets).
