Are Cubans Ready to Take to the Streets?
Cuban artist Tania Bruguera (c) participates in a protest in front of the Ministry of Culture in solidarity with other detained disident artists. Photo: cubaencuentro.com  By Ariel Hidalgo (Cubaencuentro)  HAVANA TIMES  Recently, some Cuban exile groups announced a call for a huge anti-government protest in Havanas streets and in other cities, believing that the right conditions existed for a social explosion in the country. They said that this protest would be in agreement with dissident groups within Cuba. I dont doubt that these conditions do in fact exist. But I do doubt whether the internal opposition is ready to face the government, and especially whether its ready to handle the consequences of this uprising. You need to make quite a powerful call, not only to begin a protest of this nature, but also to lead it to a victorious end. I personally dont believe it is ready for either. Enlightened leaders such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and Jose Faniel Ferrer have managed to mobilize many people in their protests and demands, but you cant just make a simple call for people to take to the streets. Social explosions arent planned. They are spontaneous and come as a response to a certain event that creates outrage among the population. This event isnt normally anything too big, but its the straw that breaks the camels back. Up until today, people have only dared to stand in peaceful solidarity with a hunger strike in front of a house or gathering outside a ministry to demand their rights, which is already a great step forward. However, crowds of people taking to the street to hold a public protest against the status quo is a completely different matter. Even when this widespread unrest does happen, there is a well-founded fear that the regime will crush it with gunfire and blood like the Chinese Communists did in Tiananmen Square, to teach a lesson so that nothing similar would happen for many years or ever again, and this uprising could translate into vandalism of destruction and death. We have examples of this in our own country, not just the Maleconazo in 1994 when store windows were broken, stores were looted and Cubans threw stones at the police. In 1933, there wasnt a unified and strong opposition against Machados government, and one of the opposition groups (the ABC placed bombs against officials and police officers, but many innocent people died, including some children) began to broadcast the news of Machados alleged resignation on an underground radio station, to stir popular movement. This unleashed a wave of violence that resulted in the deaths of many, as well as the leaked rumor from the US Ambassador himself of a possible intervention, which precipitated a military coup, which had been unheard of in Cuba until then. People took to the streets to kill the regimes alleged hitmen. You just had to point at another person and accuse them of being a Porrista (a type of security agent) for the mobs to drag them down the street and lynch them, without any proof. They looted and destroyed many homes belonging to alleged officials, and the chaos and killing was completely out of control. After me, chaos, Machado had prophesized about to board the plane that would take him into exile. This chaos spread for many weeks, and we are still feeling its effects even today. Poet Gaston Baquero said the following about Machados downfall: Cubas backbone broke with this downfall and the country could never walk again.  Acts like these should never happen again. A republic of peace and brotherhood is not founded with rivers of blood, or upon the foundations of gallows. Violence can only generate more violence, just like doves cant be born from eagle eggs. We need a completely different attitude. If you are not only kind to the person who is kind, but also kind to the person who isnt, this moral coup, which we Cubans call galleta sin mano (a slap without the hand), can be a lot more convincing than a physical blow, because it a blow to ones very conscience. Abraham Lincoln asked: Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?  Jesus didnt stop Paul the Apostle on his way to Damascus to ambush him or to throw in his face just how many Christians he had put away behind bars, or how many people had died because of his actions, but rather to ask him: Join us! Paul became Saint Paul, the most valuable Christian evangelical, the man who transformed Christianity into a universal religion. Guillens verses come to mind: Soon well see ourselves, me and you, / together on the same street, / shoulder to shoulder, you and I, / without hate both you and I, / but knowing you and I, / where we are going, you and I / I dont know why you think, / soldier, that I hate you!. The phrase together on the same street is the key here. Im not saying that this glorious march shouldnt ever happen, but only when every other path has been exhausted, and when the vast majority of the population have had this beautiful light of burning enthusiasm ignited, that another poet, Ismael Cerna, talks about, where workers, farmers, students, housewives, painters, poets every race and gender, and even the police and soldiers stand together. When a great student protest was shot down by State Security agents in Hungary in 1955, police officers that were monitoring the protestors, were outraged because innocent students had been shot at, and they turned their guns against the agents, and the students overthrew the Communist regime, with the polices and soldiers support, and they created a democratic republic. We know how that ended afterwards: in a bloodbath prepared by Russian troops, which wont happen in Cuba now. However, the key lesson here is something else: the soldiers wouldnt have turned if the protest had been violent. We need to create a culture of peace in the Cuban people, and convince them that non-violence is the only struggle that can be effective in overthrowing Communist regimes. In order for the sun of freedom to shine on Cuban squares and fields, every Cuban first needs a dawn of peace and brotherhood. The first glimmers of this dawn can already be seen. Making a parody of Marti, we need to put rails on this out-of-control train that is already roaring in the jungle. So, those at the top will have to withdraw, without a single stone being thrown, without anyone being dragged along the street, without breaking a store window; and thats how we will found the new Republic together, making everyone happy, and our future generations, and it will serve as an example of how love can raise up an entire nation, and it can be a guiding light for the rest of the world. Read more from Cuba here.