Antonio José Ponte (massacres, 1964)
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Party (fragment The party controlled )
"Today, sitting at my desk in a morning no clouds, I see through the window the crowd of parallelepipedal static rectangular and I am cured of malignant disease that nearly hide the truth about Cuba: retinitis pigmentosa. " Today is a day of 1960. Before writer opens a view of the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado. The writer is Jean Paul Sartre. It is his second trip to Cuba. The first, which sometimes brings to mind for some comparisons, was at 49. Sartre has not heard anything about until this morning retinitis pigmentosa. It has not felt their obfuscations but states that it suffered. (He suffers, yes, strabismus). Simply find the name of the disease in the speech a Cuban official and decides to take over. According to that official, anyone who could draw a happy picture of the pre-revolutionary Cuba (Graham Greene in his first vacation in Havana, for example) suffer from retinitis pigmentosa or side vision loss. Able to see in front of the Cuban reality, not enough to descry the corner of my eye. And that got away. Jean Paul Sartre places such notice at the beginning of hurricane eye on sugar. Tune your instrument, look, before lending to execute a long suite of Cuban issues, in the manner of Gottschalk and Gershwin. doctor Notice serves as a warning for not having enough side vision possessed in his previous trip. In 1960, eleven years later, he proposed not to lose anything of view. should not take a look at the photographs that show him in his second stay in Cuba. Always dressed in suit, a cigarette in his hand, his strabismus seems to cover the whole picture. Like these reptiles to which the autonomy of both eyes allowed to hunt the entire round. Like one of these reptiles in the glass case of his glasses. See a copy of the newspaper Revolution, and under the banner of a Cuban proposal to resume relations with the United States, appears on the front page a large picture of him. Lee in an airplane seat map of the island. They portray him in the pantheon of José Martí in the cemetery of Santiago de Cuba. Visit a sugar mill and a rural town that is built. Assists , with the head of the revolution, Havana's putting his play The respectful prostitute. is the first time since Fidel Castro attends a theater performance. After the performance, an actress asks if it is true that it intends to end prostitution, and the revolutionary leader says yes. This seems a nonsense to Sartre. The leader of the revolution turn ensures that the former prostitutes in taxi drivers. Sartre held a gathering of Cuban writers he treats at length about the Soviet socialist realism and political commitment of the writer. Dinner at an inn whose sign promises to China and Creole food all day and all night. Attend one of the biggest rallies of the time. (That opens the slogan "Patria o muerte!" And take the photo Ernesto Guevara known. In his memoirs, an anthology of the lived between 1944 and 1962, Simone de Beauvoir mentioned that meeting with a role in Beijing opera, bulls in Huelva, Candomble in Bahia, the vision of the desert, the white nights of Leningrad, a orange fight on the Piraeus and the bells of the end of the war.) "Sartre is Sartre!" Taxi drivers shout at him in Havana. He changes the cigarette for a cigar in his visit to the commandant's office and it gives Guevara fire. Take a coffee together. Guevara sat in a chair with greater height than their visitors. An office like a television scenario. "In this office does not enter at night," Sartre describes it. As if they were playing that office in a wax museum. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre sitting, not against a person, but to the authoritative copy of Guevara. "Due to the perfectly polished boots of it? What plasticoide texture of his jacket? In any case, we note incoincidencia between the French couple and argentinocubano military. If anything the three agree, they do not made a photomontage. Sartre dinner at the same restaurants previously delight Graham Greene. Walk the Paseo del Prado. I stay in a hotel room where National would all his Paris apartment. To describe the item listed silks, windshields, embroidered flowers and flowers in vases, two double beds for himself. (Simone de Beauvoir takes separate room, just as each has his own apartment in Paris.) Sartre first delivered to the pleasure of air conditioning. View the city from one of the privileged point of view. "It was enough to draw the curtains when I arrived, I saw ghosts graceful long stretch toward the sky." And associated with the modern buildings of the Vedado to the previous degradation politics. Nightclubs are more numerous than in his previous visit. "Swarm around the Prado up its doors back on track electricity and attractive names and twinkling eyes of passers hurt." Find a crowd gathered around the gaming tables of the Tropicana cabaret, but the city at night is not one that was crossing Graham Greene. Slot machines have been removed. The lottery continues to operate after having been adjusted. casinos in the major hotels are open, but its earnings and the state will deposit. A Night in Havana has little time left. Sartre has been commissioned to write several articles on the events of the island is the man in Havana in L'Express. Although once arrived in Cuba regrets the limited edition and the publication of weekly Paris and decides to move to France Soir, where you can relax. Write Hurricane on sugar for an audience of millions, but neither would break to explain the stupidity of some of its fragments. As when he says about beards and manes Cuban revolutionaries: "I saw black rivers cover the chest to the diaphragm and have seen faces hairless, with four grown desperately hairs at the junction of the chin and neck. had not stopped to admire the range of a beard, when his owner , to shed his military cap, I showed an early baldness. In the youthful heroes of the last battles his face is smooth, hairless as a girl, but the hair falls on the shoulders " case of Sartre , these lines need to be topped by pensamental conclusion: "The extreme variety of combinations is attested in the discipline, a deep individualism." The author confesses to having been less beard since his arrival in Cuba than in one evening in Saint Germain des Prés. What's so much pormenos fashion columnist in the description of an unprecedented haircut? The exotic, the explanation of strange beauty, seems to trigger this and other fragments of Sartre's Cuba. are also notorious some of your wits. "If America did not exist," he ventures, "perhaps the Cuban revolution inventory: it is they who will retain their freshness and originality." And he is closing his oracular public dialogue with Cuban writers: "Do not forget that the intellectuals are never happy anywhere." Cuba is a paradise and I wish to stay well, to remain so. " in Havana in 1960, Sartre notes that some brothels have been closed and others keep intact their trade. After one year of revolution in power, still works the national lottery, casinos and brothels are still open. And if one of the features of every revolution is the austerity, he asks where to find Cuban austerity. From the revolutionary triumph, political power in the country seemed divided into two. At the Palace Presidential located in the old city, met the council of ministers. Chairing the board a man of law. "The law itself in its universality more formal and tyrannical", describes Sartre. And in a suite at the newly opened Havana Hilton camp planted the commander of the revolutionary army. From there he ruled the country who has not stopped doing since. The President of the Council of Ministers appointed by him Habis. The ministers had their approval. However, the council persisted in carrying old-style public affairs. And young the Havana Hilton were made of the modernity of the environment in which they resided. was El Vedado to Old Havana. architecturally Each group boasted of how much was missing. The Palace of sufficient settlement. And in a suite at Havana's most modern hotel, the guest boasted of tentativeness, of being only in passing. At that time the mobs were engaged in raiding nightclubs and casinos on behalf of the revolution. "Where is the Cuban austerity?" Ask Sartre. mobs devastating the gambling halls and hotels Deauville Plaza. When they tried to sneak into the Capri hotel, found on his way to Hollywood actor George Raft. And this, which looked after the interests of the boss Meyer Lansky in the casino and hotel in Capri, decamped to the crowd a speech peppered with revolutionary slogans to cool their vandalism purposes. The best performance of his career, according to witnesses argue. Jean Paul Sartre would have been astonished to see how close the Presidential Palace was the largest prostitution district of Havana. Just a few blocks. And the president signed the Council of Ministers a decree which closed this quarter. Every house of prostitution, any game room. For a day later in the Havana Hilton concentrate people, a crowd replete hotel elevators, take the stairs and suddenly penetrated in the command suite. were employees of gambling houses and the families of those employees. They were from the sellers of cigarettes to the dealers, those who left the presidential decree unemployed. Not daring to appear on the hotel, prostitutes had their complaints in writing, addressed letters to the chief of police headquarters. Humane letters, according to Jean Paul Sartre, in claiming their rights to their work. Letters friendly prostitutes. The commander heard the reasons employees gave lectures to messages of prostitutes and immediately called the ministers. These let alone its president and left to account to the real ruler of the country. White anger, Sartre describes the commander. According to this, the council was guilty of a jerk moralism that threatened the revolution. "They wanted them to delete the game? He also wanted, but on condition that could encontrársele employment to all staff that such a move would leave the street. And there was no industry at the moment able to host such a figure. was resolved only when the unemployment problem could be settled the game. Moreover, the majority of prostitutes in the city from the countryside. Order to those women who sell their bodies was a tremendous ingenuity. And prosecuting them would be a crime. misery ended only when peasant could be canceled prostitution. The ministers made the same mistake of many previous governments for not undertaking the causes, fighting their effects. And instead of addressing unemployment and poverty, battling against gambling and prostitution. was not yet time for closure. While necessary, the revolutionary power would have to take over the public lottery, gambling houses and casinos. (The presidential elections were postponed until they were eliminated unemployment and illiteracy). slots could be deleted, since they did not offer jobs to anyone, but would have to ensure that every man and woman keep their jobs. As for prostitutes, had to be fought whom the parasites, pimps and corrupt police. Leave the sex trade in the bones, not to sweep. Crack down on pimping whores blind eye. So the decree signed by President of the Council of Ministers may not be current. It was too premature, lacking other precautions. And ministers would do well to convince the President of his mistake. The President, however, declined to retract. He had put his signature on the decree, had given his word. (Sartre showed suspected of concealing such intransigent when his hesitation to act). It became increasingly larger division of power in the country. In Sartrean formula: "The real authority was not legal, the legal authority was not true." It was time, therefore, openly taking the reins. Time for the Council of Ministers rid of this ballast was president. Time to leave the hotel. The host of the Habana Hilton announced its decision to withdraw from public life. For best output was not given the obstinacy of the President. unfolded a mock recall with an eye on the masses to prevent it. And it was according to his calculations. Simone de Beauvoir tells a million peasants met in Havana and "banging their machetes, with a deafening noise, demanded to stay at the head of the country." who had to retire was the President, demanded the popular will. And a press campaign accusing him of embezzlement. So the head of the command to take control eventually total. Nomadisms No more, no more detours. The confirmation of his fate came from the same village. "Finally Liberation Revolution was to become," Sartre breathes at ease. The deposed president had to seek asylum. Would be more than two years locked in the Embassy of Mexico to authorize their departure to the country. Having been instrumental in the seizure of power, dealers and prostitutes were forced to leave the stage. representation had already ended. Without were able to see new industrial development and without having put an end to the misery of the countryside, the revolutionary administration issued the closure of the gambling houses and prostitution. So a decree met before find unacceptable. The sang his last public lottery number roulette winning and the only survivors went to a warehouse in the newly established film industry. would spin again for the staging of a bygone era. game tables the same fate that the spindles in the kingdom of Sleeping Beauty. "No more fun. Commander arrived and ordered it to stop, "sang a son of the time. Where was the Capri Hotel Casino opened the Red Room, a new local music. The Havana Hilton was expropriated and became appointed the Habana Libre. In the old city, ending the presidential palace as a museum dedicated to the revolutionary epic. (There you can admire a life-size reproduction of Commander Guevara). And a year after his first visit to revolutionary Cuba, returning from a trip to Brazil, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre made a brief stopover in Havana. not exist in the city and night spots. No gambling or American tourists. The National hotel, half-empty, houses a congress of the militias. militants of both sexes. Very young, according to the French writer who discovers militia maneuvers throughout the city. the country, say to the French couple, awaiting an invasion. Visiting a state factory, Sartre speaks to a group of workers. Asked a question, the workers begin to respond and a leader in detention and is responsible for them. Jean Paul Sartre wanted to know how advantageous it was for them the change of political regime. But who is an official answer, and one and release it for everyone. converse with the poet Nicolas Guillen and it says that any formal search is counterrevolutionary. Privately, some writers confess that Sartre and his partner were struck by the fear of not being true revolutionaries. And begin to censor themselves. De Beauvoir compares what is one to another stay in Cuba, from one year to another: "Less happy, less freedom, but in some ways great progress." And this progress refers to agricultural production, a field that will soon (if not already) a setback to another. is about the same time that Susan Sontag visit Havana. Attend a night club La Lupe on the Network because then include the Cuban singer in his catalog of "camp". Memories of Cuba will make recurring eight years later, traveling in Vietnam. His trip to Hanoi, written in June and July 1968, is the memory of her first out "outside the premises of Western culture." The example of the Cuban revolution worth it then for some approaches to the Vietnamese revolution. But also get it away from comprehension. "You probably do not understand anything here until you delete to Cuba in my mind," confesses a break from his diary. Anyone who knows the kind of illusions that a visit to revolutionary Cuba can afford to wake up in Sartre trust in what Susan Sontag Vietnamese perceived reality. However, Trip to Hanoi shows a more chastened than Hurricane on sugar. Sontag is more skeptical, go to step less steady. The strangeness is facing much greater and, fortunately, it behaves hesitantly. Perhaps care less often offer lessons and more intimate. (That bonachonería that Sartre welcomes readers into his hotel room is extremely unlikely). Sontag in 1954, to drive the French in Hanoi, including restaurants, inns, dens and dance halls, the number of these women were thousands and were to remain on the street once they close their brothels. Lose their livelihoods as their office was legally convicted. We proceeded then to the rehabilitation of such citizens. The new life of the capital allowed any kind of optimism, all starting from the beginning. If true the news that gives Sontag, any other revolution so far has led a program of rehabilitation. Prostitutes in Hanoi were placed under the guardianship of the Women's Union. The sorority set up rehabilitation centers in the field and sent thither his eyes. Far from the city, for revolutionary thought (as for many other logics), it is corrupt, bad influences. The well away from the old procurement and customer networks. women in these centers were spoiled during the first months. Treated as children. Field aimed at curing what the big city had hurt them, would be moved even further children. During the first months, the scheme contemplated teaching reading aloud fairy tales and children's play continued practice. Therapy was directed to the replacement memories of childhood, the biography soared far beyond the first violation, the first customer, the first night in the whorehouse. To start a new life was a need for new children. Only after this period of treatment and girls, boarders received reading and writing classes, learned a trade which underpinned the future and returning adult stage. O were first in it. Finally, they gave a dowry that would enable them to find within the hierarchical husband Vietnamese society. This feat, along with stories Fairy and newly learned writing, tucked the old prostitutes in tradition. Deep past and potential, seemed to be the motto of the Vietnamese program. The of the Cuban revolution, less detailed, would focus on the secrets of the seam. Seamstresses would much of the former prostitutes. Seamstresses and taxi drivers. Taxis yellow and black belong to the National Drivers Association Revolutionary Rentals (Anchara, since in the new company adopted all acronyms), and purple taxis prostitutes working re-educated. They did otherwise, the street. TP stood for these past vehicles: Popular Transportation. "All Whores", people called them. And those drivers were immediately on the color of the cars, the popular nickname of "Violetera." seemed like a great joke organized by the authorities. After the closure of casinos and brothels, gambling and prostitution in Cuba continued life timid, frail, illegal. Everyone who ran gambling stakes acquired skill in the act of digesting the list before it fell into the hands of the police. The Gambling Havana had to stick to proclaim the luck in Venezuela or South Florida's game of luck of others. And it was for the 90, three decades after its expropriation, the Habana Libre hotel was partly foreign owned. Because after having fought until the exile, the revolutionary government favored the arrival of foreign investment. Socialism, according to a definition that was popular in Eastern Europe, was the longest way between capitalism and capitalism. Who was chief guest of the old Havana Hilton, still head of government had no choice to accept the return of some foreign companies. had torn down the Berlin Wall, the Soviet empire had disintegrated. Of the Cold War left very little standing. going to be, of course, a return curtailed. Foreign capitalists could not become homeowners at all. Investment was mixed, some state and foreign party, with a preponderance of the first of these two. Only after the Cuban economy made strong, be strong again. If global capitalism is that not sink before, as claimed in their speeches the leader of the revolution Cuban. So, in the midst of blackouts, went on the hotels. And it turned out the notice to swarms surround these pockets. In search of light, however much they give head against the glass walls. At the risk of fire. was returning to prostitution and who managed to banish the beginning of his long government refused to accept the return. West of the city advanced genetic research laboratories. Ernesto Guevara had predicted the emergence, within the revolution, the new man. What decision had crept into the neighborhood of the alchemists to forty years after the homunculus announced Guevara had not just lifted from the table of vivisection? human experimentation threw too unpredictable results. A whore had received education and could be reformed, to become a seamstress or taxi driver. And in case mix Conversely, young people trained as doctors or engineers ended up invoking the exercise of prostitution. one who worth of letters from hookers to take power could now avert the Guevara myth of the new creature with the recognition of the return to Cuba for prostitution. End so on public boast that the country he ruled with the more cultured tell the world prostitution. Man passed back to the new prostitution, as the mythologies should be revised. New Man, new prostitution, capitalism just called ... As always when faced with a case of conflict, revolutionary thought put his hand on pedagogy. Forced to dismantle much of the sugar industry, faced a crowded number of unemployed and the only solution envisioned was to send to former sugar workers, no matter their age, to do further studies. covered her unemployment with the opening of new classrooms. As a major philanthropic success proclaimed a new educational system of the unemployed. Grown men were forced to wear galoshes student of one of those characters in Chekhov, fearful of adulthood, which can delay as his years of learning. Trofimov, which appears in The Cherry Orchard with glasses and a worn student uniform. Liubov Andreievna remembers: "Then you were still a boy, a nice estudiantillo, and now is almost bald and wears glasses. Can you still remain a student? " "It seems that my fate is to be an eternal student," he acknowledges. Being a student, living in the pending delay. and declaims Trofimov extensive parliaments about the future of humanity and Russia, although personally he can not do anything. Cuarentitantos years of revolution in Cuba have achieved outstanding educational results, a pool of brilliant professionals and technicians. Have failed, however, provide sufficient target all the staff beyond the classroom. What to do with who, having passed through the classrooms are bent on prostitution? What measures make the most educated prostitution in the world? Doctor? Prostitution and pimping are not offenses under the Criminal Code in force in Cuba. Although both activities may become punishable under the consideration of danger. danger, according to Article 72 of Law 62 of the Criminal Code adopted in 1988, "in which special proclivity of a person to commit crimes, demonstrated by the condition in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality ". is, pure potentiality, which dispenses with evidence. The first Revolutionary Council of Ministers had shared with previous governments to combat the error effects rather than causes. Several decades later, not unlike the revolutionary administration favored the repression was not the best ways to police. (Try an understanding of the issue would lead to the fields of economics, the devastation planned). "New Delight" name, perhaps without irony, to the prison he received the new prostitution sentenced for "dangerousness. And Sartre who asked for the austerity of the revolution Cuban ... Ten years after the last visit made to Havana, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre signed, along with many other intellectuals among whom was Susan Sontag, an open letter published in Le Monde that he reported the abuse suffered in Cuba by a group of intellectuals. One of the rectangular parallelepipedal French writer spotted from his hotel room would house, over time, a health center dedicated to fight in foreign patients to the whims of a particular eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa. After suffering from strabismus, Sartre die blind. black box
Party (fragment The party controlled )
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