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January 16, 2008

Cubans begin 2008 with bishop hoping and singer doubting

by Manuel Quintero
Ecumenical News International

GENEVA — Cuba’s Roman Catholic leader speaks of promising expectations, while an iconic artist voices perplexity and doubts.

Both reflect the mood of millions of Cubans at the dawn of the New Year, the 50th since the revolution that brought about massive social and economic reforms and left it isolated for many years by the West as a communist stronghold.

In his Jan. 1 homily, Catholic Bishop Jaime Ortega said the “need for changes” in Cuba “expressed by the highest authorities” of the country were “a promising step that has created expectations.”

A national debate began when Raul Castro, who has been acting as the country’s president in place of his brother, Fidel, spoke in a July 26, 2007 speech about introducing “structural and conceptual changes that are needed.”

Following the speech, more than 200,000 gatherings were organized across the island at which participants offered some 1.3 million complaints about the problems in housing, transportation, health, education and salaries that have degraded living standards in Cuba.

Ortega noted that, in December 2007, the Cuban Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement referring to decisions that “should respond to the concerns expressed and which are anxiously awaited by our people.”

“Whenever necessary, tolerance, amicable coexistence and reconciliation are possible among Cubans… There is no reconciliation regarding ideas or stances which may be irreconcilable, but reconciliation is possible among people,” said Ortega. He pledged the Catholic Church’s cooperation in the process that he said was a “common endeavor.”

On the other hand, singer Pablo Milanes, at a Dec. 26 concert, aroused the audience with his song “Two Questions for One Day,” in which he expressed deep perplexity and doubts about the national situation: “Was it really worth it? I ask. I don’t know. Was it really worth it? I respond: I don’t know.”

A Latin Grammy Award winner in 2006, Milanes is an icon of the Cuban Revolution.

In another song, “Suicide,” which also prompted a standing ovation, Milanes voiced his regrets: “Nothing is worth as [much as] it used to be. There are one hundred reasons for not believing anymore. What yesterday was an ideal is imposed as a reason today.”

Milanes’ song ended with a longing for an earlier period: “I want to go back; I want to cling to my past. Where is it?”

Cuba is expected to face new economic hardships in 2008. At the December session of the National Assembly, the minister of Economy and Planning explained that the country will face a new shortage of hard currency in 2008.