Once too often!

[Don Corathers]

I unlurk briefly to recommend a piece of theatre to those who are interested
in this Cuban thread: When the Sea Drowns in Sand, by Cuban expatriate
Eduardo Machado.

Machado was sent to Miami by his parents as a child in the early sixties.
The play is an account of his return to Havana to attend a writers
conference in December 1999, coincidentally at the time when the Elian
Gonzalez matter was at its most contentious stage. As Tip O'Neill said, all
politics is local. For Machado the politics of the Cuban tragedy--the
CIA-sponsored Peter Pan evacuations of Cuban children, the trade embargo,
and the successes and failures of the Castro government over the last 40
years--are intensely personal. It makes for a great 90 minutes in a dark
room, and if you're like me you'll have one of those tears of rage moments
before it's over.

Saw it at Actors Theatre of Louisville's Festival of New American plays last
month, and it is said to be headed for an Off Broadway production in the
fall. Or look for it in print from Smith and Kraus, which publishes
anthologies of the ATL Humana Festival plays every year.

Don Corathers


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Weaver" <mikeweaver at gn.apc.org>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 7:01 AM
Subject: Once too often!


> DT wrote
>
> >To celebrate Cuba's successes in
> >literacy and health care is not to ignore Fidel's tyranny --
>
> "He's not a dictator: he's a Leo."
> Best comment I ever heard about Fidel. I would suggest that anyone who
> believes Castro to be a dictator/tyrant go spend a couple of months
hanging
> out with ordinary Cubans in different parts of the island.
>
> Here is a leader of a highly educated population who has ruled for forty
> years without provoking an internal armed opposition (and think of the
> support they would have got from across the water.) Cuba's police and army
> are part professional, part national service ( which can also be served
> overseas as doctors, engineers, teachers...) They are not an instrument of
> terror!  Weapons would have been readily available should a desire for
> revolt have existed.
>
> Yes, from the late sixties to the mid 80's Cubans were subjected to
> excesses of attempted social engineering (an art often mistaken for a
> science!) and bureaucratic ossification. This was not the work of one man
> but of the Communist Party of Cuba.
>
> Nomination for the CP in Cuba is by neighbours, workmates and the like and
> is recognition of a person's societal qualities. This makes it likely that
> the corruption and other negative aspects which are an endemic part of any
> power structure are constantly challenged by the co-option of publically
> recognised upstanding citizens into the party's ranks.
>
> In 1986, well before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cubans (while
> scorning glasnost and perestroika) embarked on an Era of Rectification in
> which they commenced to respond positively to criticisms of those
excesses.
> 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet bloc Castro is still leading a
> healthy vibrant population, not because he's a tyrant but because he is a
> flexible leader of a flexible, self critical power structure which
delivers
> the general needs of the vast majority of the island's population.
>
> Do you really think that the passionate and joyful music which is being
> received so enthusiastically all around the world is possibly the product
> of a tyranny?  The Cuban army is currently handing over to co-operatives
> profitable agricultural businesses they have been running, organic citrus
> orchards in particular. Do you think that a country with an army which
> responds to an economic crisis by making themselves self sufficient in
food
> is likely to be a police state?
>
> The sheer power and pressure exerted by capitalism may one day destroy the
> Cuban Revolution on the island but that will not stop it being an
> inspiration to future generations of anti-capitalists, nor Castro being
> seen as an historical hero, not a villain.
>
> If this seems a little idealistic sorry, islands of hope (no pun intended)
> are few and far between.
> "We are better than painted by our enemies but not as good as painted by
> our friends". That's Fidel's comment.
>
> Weavercreature - who should be out planting onions and beans not arguing
in
> cyberspace!!!
> Red in thought, green in action ;-)
>
>
>