Cuento en inglés: US AND HIM

 

US AND HIM

Translated by Esther Sarfatti

Just a few hours before Poisson’s victory, I began writing in an attempt to anticipate his inevitable transformation into a myth, describing it as objectively as possible and do everything in my power to prevent this event from overwhelming all of posterity.

Poisson’s fame, and the obsessive admiration that so many had for him (expressed through statements such as “He plays like God”) was, to my understanding, what allowed for the mere possibility of the Match to be considered. The powerful torrent of demands for the event to take place snowballed into the ultimate encounter between Poisson, the most gifted chess player of all time, and God. I dare assert that there had never before been as much speculation about human intellectual capacity, nor had so much presumptuousness been displayed as in the defense of the champion’s talent made by a large part of humanity. Actually, taking chess as the only point of reference, the differences in the players’ qualifications were overwhelming. Poisson, as we know, was very precocious in learning the secrets of the chessboard. He became a national champion at age ten and was winner of the juvenile category and Grand Master by twelve. At age eighteen he became world champion with an admirable victory, discouraging anyone who may have hoped to beat him in the near future. When it seemed like his reign would be absolute and long lasting, he refused his challengers and abandoned his crown and chess playing for over twenty years. Offers of large sums of money encouraged his ostentatious return to the game, and he won back his crown in an even more convincing manner than before. From that point on, he defeated every possible adversary, single or multiple, ultimately nullifying any human rivalry.

God, his adversary, had no recognized chess-playing skills at all, notwithstanding his immense prestige in other spheres of influence. Even so, from the beginning he had the support of believers of all monotheistic dogmas. Due undoubtedly to its strength in numbers, the Catholic Church took charge of all divine representation for the Match. Although some hesitated and others refused, the Vatican didn’t think twice about handling the Supreme Being’s terrestrial representation. As such, the Vatican negotiated the conditions of the competition and the amount of prize money, which could not seem excessive when compared to the stakes of the Match.

Now that it’s all history, one may forget that what happened was only one of the many possible outcomes. It’s worth remembering that when the challenge was still a fantasy, Poisson had said that he would be willing to play a simultaneous match. Many took the opportunity to imagine the different techniques and playing styles characterizing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

I suppose that, foreseeing the theological difficulties that might arise in the event that, for example, God the Son was defeated, God the Father was victorious, and the Holy Ghost tied after a long, hard game, the Pope dismissed such a prospect. As the spokesman for the divine rival, the Pope declared that God’s playing would be carried out in a unanimous and undivided fashion, and that His presence would be as discreet as ever, a condition that was reluctantly granted to Him.

From that moment onwards, we witnessed an extensive yet innocuous rivalry between atheists and believers. The definitive confirmation of human capability was assigned to Poisson, though for the atheists, its validation posed an additional problem. How could they reconcile the negation of God with the possibility that He might lose a game of chess?

It wasn’t any easier for the faithful to accept the most spectacular ratification of God’s existence through something so lacking in mysticism as a game of chess. As a result of all of that, the symbolism attached to the Match was so bewildering that no one was ready to die or kill for the encounter’s significance or lack thereof (please excuse the weakness of this argument, but it’s the only one, as I see it, that explains the incredible absence of physical violence in this case).

On the long-awaited day of the Match, I took my seat—that privileged position which had cost me all of my savings—in the room where it would take place, sharing the discomfort of the judge who had to say, in following with tradition: “May the best man win.”

I attest here to the ingenuous awe with which all of humanity watched the first move of the white pieces, assigned to God. Though it was a most conventional move (P-K4), that shifting of the pawn, guided by the supreme, invisible hand, crushed centuries of incredulity with devastating simplicity.

Apart from that, in what we assumed to be the caution understandably befitting this first encounter, the contenders were happy to accept a quick draw. No one asked for more; some complacently watched the apparently automatic motion of the white pieces, and others admired the skill with which Poisson moved his own.

On the other hand, right from the beginning of the second encounter—the white pieces now in Poisson’s hands—God’s game proved to be sloppy, characterized by an unthinkable lack of imagination for One responsible for the whole of Creation. As they watched the Almighty commit a series of outrageous blunders, I remember the Vatican experts’ discourse on the inscrutability of God’s designs, followed by a string of theories on the importance of sacrifice tactics in exchange for certain strategic advantages. The moment came when all those following the game understood that only a miracle could save God from being defeated. “Nobody better than Him to make it happen,” murmured the Almighty’s followers, smiling nervously. At the same time, as Poisson’s followers and proponents of human competence, we understood that, in spite of the first, revealing move He had made with His pawn, we had never seriously thought that God could be defeated, even for just one game. I attest to the fact that even the most obstinate atheists, like myself, were waiting for the miracle. In any case, Poisson was the first to call checkmate. My eardrums still reverberate with the uproar that followed the fall of the black king. Many clamored that the Match must be suspended, due to sacrilege, and investigations be carried out to prove that the Supreme Maker’s place in the second game had been usurped by the Devil, or Death, or the Invisible Man. When news that a typhoon had hit the Philippines broke one hour later, this turned uproar into definite chaos, as the natural disaster was attributed to the wrath of the defeated. Later on, when word came from Rome (“God is ready to proceed with the Match”), nobody knew what to say. And here I would like to introduce a personal observation which I deem conclusive, taking some distance from the facts: Poisson’s usual arrogance immediately gave way to an almost humble countenance; in his press interviews, he showed his Adversary a degree of respect completely undeserved by Someone exhibiting such inferior playing skills.

I understand that, for the most part, people under so much momentary pressure generally will not pay attention to details like that one. Only someone like me, obsessed with analysis and objectivity, could find time to derive a sensible conclusion from the more subtle points of the Match. This is why I dared, so prematurely, to divide the Match into two separate moments. In the first, thanks to two draws and the Creator’s only success, Poisson’s strengths were seen less as heresies and more as concessions from God in order to make the encounter more interesting. The second moment was defined by the growing certainty that Poisson would be the winner. This conviction was the one that pushed the Creator’s fanatics to use the catastrophe in the Philippines as proof that the world would end as soon as Poisson won the Match. In the midst of such threats, Poisson became increasingly humble, yet his desire to attain a decisive victory grew with every encounter. In the last game, when his victory was only minutes away, Poisson was the only one who desired it. Even his most avid supporters were hoping that something would happen to avoid the defeat of the Eternal and its imagined repercussions. I remember a fierce atheist sitting near me, who had held up a sign reading “Poisson: kick His ass!” on the first day of the Match. Now the same man, on the day of the last game, shamelessly held up a sign that begged, “Poisson, think of the rest of us”. Of course, his plea was ignored, as Poisson had no time to think of anything but his game. When the invisible hand declined His king, we held our breaths in unison. As I was one of the few who didn’t close my eyes, I witnessed the instant in which Poisson ceremoniously stood up and held out his hand, to shake and be shaken by that of his Rival.

Any future statement to the effect that we weren’t relieved by the news of the earthquake in Greece is untrue. Its two thousand-plus victims seemed minimal compared to the hecatomb we were expecting. Those who were so terrified a few hours before were soon ready to celebrate a victory, one of which they felt they’d been a part. Everyone anxiously awaited the press conference where Poisson—who some even began to decorate with the attributes of a new redeemer—finally appeared.

Poisson’s declarations to the press confirmed the fact that he finished the Match having learned a few things above and beyond simply exercising his chess-playing skills. With the same humble tone that characterized his latest statements, he affirmed that imagining God as a vain tyrant, ready to show his power at any moment, was in fact the worst of heresies. Describing Poisson’s tone as moving would be excessive, yet he declared that only the truly Almighty could have the luxury of being so humble and wise as to accept his defeat and show his infinite and acclaimed goodness in a new light. As for me, I only hope that the lessons Poisson learned that day will be sufficiently long lasting. I doubt it, though, for immediately a journalist, obviously hoping to squeeze a disquieting statement out of him, asked what he thought about the earthquake in Greece. Poisson’s cutting retort insinuated that linking such an event to the Match was the equivalent of considering God a sore loser, assigning him a meanness unfitting to His dimensions.

And last but not least, here is the most important evidence of the change that the Divine Virtue caused in Poisson: the player’s splendid decision to donate the prize money he had won in the Match as aid for the earthquake victims. Even so, some people still have a hard time believing that such a gesture revealed more generosity than guilt. Before such lack of faith, I can only imagine how worthwhile it would be to persuade God to play another Match simultaneously with all of humanity. Perhaps that would be convincing enough.

How much impact does Luis Manuel have now?*

By Enrique Del Risco

There was a time, not long ago, when Cubans were glued to every word that came out of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s mouth. And everything that went in. His statements, hunger strike and thirst strikes kept the regime and the dissidents on edge, intriguing Cubans on the streets of the island who before seemed indifferent, as well as those in the diaspora who had little faith.

In a matter of months, Luis Manuel was transformed from the naive boy wondering where Mella was — founder of the local communist party amidst the imported capitalism of the Karpensky Block (formerly Gomez) — to becoming the author of the country’s most renowned performances, including the bold move of referring to the president — no less imposed than Karpensky capitalism —a s “El Singao” (The F^cker) from then on.

During those months, Luis Manuel went from being a co-founder — alongside Yanelys Nuñez Leyva — of the phantasmagorical Museum of Dissidence to the earthly San Isidro Movement, gathering a growing number of allies and followers. He became the protagonist of a national soap opera, determined to forever bind the country to his girlfriend, Liberty.

By then, every word, every gesture from Luis Manuel was measured, dissected, weighed. Each of his hunger strikes was followed by police operations, debates about their timing or legitimacy, and protests across the world.

That November 27th, with the siege of the Ministry of Culture, kept all Cubans with internet access on edge. It was in response to the police raid the day before at the San Isidro Movement’s headquarters and the arrest of its leader, disguised as a hospital admission.

Each of Luis Manuel’s arrests was accompanied by such uproar that it seemed impossible for the regime to confine him for too long, not even when imprisonment came disguised as a hospital stay, as a mere concern for his health.

Until July 11, 2021.

On the day when it seemed like all Cubans took to the streets to protest against the regime, Luis Manuel, the eternal rebel, was not among the demonstrators. He, who had announced it in a livestream months before (“the government has already fallen, we just need to realize it”), didn’t get the chance to lead his prophecy.

Like José Daniel Ferrer, the UNPACU leader at the other end of the country, Luis Manuel had barely stepped out onto the streets before he was arrested. His pursuers must have been very convinced that this monster, who was the rage of the people, couldn’t get anywhere without people talking about him.

In the following weeks, the regime found a formula to stop people talking about Luis Manuel, Maykel Osorbo, José Daniel Ferrer.

After showing months earlier that they could incite entire neighborhoods to rebel with their presence, acts, and shouts, the regime discovered it was enough to bury them under hundreds of other Cubans as brave and desperate as them, but tragically anonymous.

From then on, it was an indecency to demand the freedom of a few when hundreds were imprisoned. That was part of the Castro regime’s plan. To apply, at the level of incarceration, the genocidal principle attributed to Stalin: “One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.”

The vast majority of us Cubans have grown up educated in the Marxist-Leninist theory that the masses are the engines of history and that personalities, if anything, play a secondary role. As if Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler were merely incarnations of the will of their respective peoples.

Whether Marxist-Leninism is right or not doesn’t matter. What’s certain is that, no matter how much they insist on it, their leaders never applied it to themselves: from Lenin to Stalin, from Kim Il Sung to Mengisto Haile Mariam, from Ceaucescu to Enver Hoxha, from Mao Zedong to Fidel Castro. Ironically, since the Enlightenment devoted itself to toppling the idols of faith, no system cultivated more idolatry for its leaders than those inspired by dialectical materialism.

Since its start by its founder, Castroism, while renouncing personality cults, took great care to underline the supernatural status of its leader. From considering himself the fulfiller of the prophecies of the Apostle of the Cubans. From the doves perched on his shoulder in his triumphant speech in Havana, announcing the new Messiah; to the meticulousness in ensuring no one around him seemed taller than he did. (It’s said that Abel Prieto always had to stand one step lower in photographs where he appeared with his Commander in Chief).

It is true that shortly after the revolution’s triumph, the most famous Castro forbade dedicating images to the revolution’s leaders. But what initially seemed like an act of humility was, in the dry substance of the acts, a way to better control the image projecting his power, starting by eliminating the possibility of being caricatured.

It is also true Fidel Castro didn’t indulge in statues, as Stalin, Mao, or Kim Il Sung did. But why waste bronze when you can paper an entire country with your words? When historians don’t publish a book without citing you in the opening epigraph? When the initial letter of your name is enshrined as children learn to write it? And all of the above couldn’t be considered, under any circumstances, as a personality cult.

If Castroism has been careful with the image of its founder, it is equally so with its adversaries, albeit in the opposite direction: every possible effort is made to degrade them, diminish their value, not only as political figures but as human beings.

Ricardo Bofill, founder of the Cuban human rights movement, was mostly known to Cubans in the ’80s through Granma and official television. He was accused of every possible crime, including stealing communion wine from the priest when he was an altar boy (which didn’t prevent him from joining the Communist Party of Cuba before being expelled during the so-called “micro-infraction” offensive). The campaign was so effective that it’s still hard to mention Bofill’s name without associating it with the epithet “El Fullero” (The Cheater), which was attributed to him in the official media, the only sources accessible to us back then.

Fidel Castro loved to repeat Marti’s proverb that a just idea from the depths of a cave is worth more than an army. In the mouth of the re-founder of Cuban communism, the phrase contained a couple of contradictions. On the one hand, such confidence in the justice of an idea denied the materialist he claimed to be. On the other hand, he repeated that phrase not from the depths of a cave, but in front of the multiple microphones that crowned the podium of the Cuban army’s Commander in Chief.

The place where dissenters of his regime speak from is much closer to the depths of a cave. Whether it’s the cell in any of the nearly three hundred prisons in the country, or from the ramshackle apartment serving as a social headquarters in Old Havana. Or from a movement besieged by the police, or the apartment atop a micro-brigade building where an independent newspaper is forged.

As much as they commend the virtues of materialism, communists have always known that not everything can be explained by the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Sometimes, just ideas and carefully curated images can tip the balance of power in one direction or the other.

If Stalin studied in a Russian Orthodox seminary, Fidel Castro also received his dose of Christian education in the Dolores and Belén schools. All his subsequent Marxism wasn’t enough to erase from his memory and his political instincts the example of the poor preacher who, with barely a handful of followers, created the force that, years later, would overthrow the most powerful empire the earth had known, spreading thereafter across the globe.

Stalin, Castro, and their followers, feeling more akin to Roman emperors and their prefects than to any poor preacher with sublime aspirations, never underestimated the threat posed by any preacher willing to live defending a just idea. Hence, their seemingly disproportionate fervor against those whom through no rational explanation, including that of dialectical materialism, would suffice to perceive as a serious threat.

Meanwhile, here we are, those of us who once followed the adventures of Luis Manuel or Ferrer like a soap opera, who endured their temporary imprisonments with unbearable despair, accustomed to the imprisonment of over a thousand of our bravest compatriots, not knowing what to do with their nearly 900 days of confinement.

If demanding the freedom of their leaders seems an attack against the democratic conviction they defend, doing so for the over thousand still in prison seems as unstimulating as any statistic. Meanwhile, Castroism, fully aware of its strength as well as its weaknesses, doesn’t let up. If the thousand imprisoned Cubans serve to intimidate the rest of the population, the handful of imprisoned leaders — Luis Manuel, Ferrer, Maykel — is the guarantee that the body of the people’s dissatisfaction, their yearnings for freedom and prosperity, won’t lead to anything until they find their heads.

*Translated by Alberto de la Cruz for Babalu Blog.

 

The Cuban Moment

Hoy participé en el evento "The Cuban Moment" para discutir el tema de las actuales relaciones entre los Estados Unidos y Cuba. Toda la discusión se condujo en inglés así que contra mi costumbre pondré el texto que leí tal cual. 

I must confess that when I read the news about the normalization of relations between United States and Cuba it reminded me of an episode from the Simpsons. The one in which Mr. Burns and Homer escape to Cuba with a trillion dollar note just about the same time Fidel Castro finds out that his regime is on the verge of bankruptcy and he has to resign. When Mr. Burns and Homer are brought to Castro’s presence the Comandante asks them to let him see the note. Although Mr. Burns has doubts, Homer encourages him saying “Mr. Burns, I think we can trust the president of Cuba”. Of course, Castro doesn’t give back the bill, and in the next scene Mr. Burns and Homer are crossing the Florida Strait in a raft. It seemed to me that on December 17^th, the president of the United States was playing Homer Simpson’s part.This is not because I’m a supporter of the embargo because I am not. I just think that in taking this bold step, Mr. Obama has been as naïve as Homer Simpson. When he outlined his position, Obama seemed confident that the normalization of relations with Cuba and the free circulation of American tourists would do what half a century of a more aggressive approach failed to produce. Many people think that Obama gave too much for almost nothing: a diplomatic victory and three healthy spies for to a poor guy with some teeth missing. He has shown too much confidence in the good will of Cuba’s leadership and in America’s influence on Cuba’s society. Obama seems to ignore that Cuba is neither as isolated nor under so much ideological control as 30 years ago. He might not be aware either that Raul Castro’s pragmatism points to the switch from a socialist to a capitalist dictatorship. While Obama sees the normalization of Cuba-US relations as a radically new event, for the Cuban government it is only the next lifesaver that will allow them to survive for five or ten more years, just as the European investments of the 90s did, or the Venezuelan oil of the last 15 years.One of the reasons Castro’s regime is the longest dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere is that it has adapted to every single challenge of the last 56 years, changing many things except its stance against anything that endangers its almost absolute control over Cubans.Let’s take into account that human rights violations in Cuba are not just a problematic issue, but part of a system of oppression that prevents its people from supporting themselves economically or conducting normal relationships with the rest of the world. So, in Cuba’s case, the human rights issues transcend the ethical dimension; they are part and parcel of everyday reality.   If we play the cynical card, we would say, “If we have relations with Saudi Arabia why not with Cuba?” But let’s be really cynical, and remember that Saudi Arabia has oil and Cuba doesn’t. What’s more, Cuba is a country that rarely pays for anything. Ask Russia, ask Venezuela, ask Mexico, ask Spain. Unconditional relations with Cuba could be bad for the American conscience but worst for its pocket.   We must also remember that this normalization occurs in a context of dangerous tendencies toward autocracy in Latin America, and right now the Cuban regime represents the worst of Latin American traditions in terms of violence and autocracy. The Cuban example is perverse and contagious, and if the US government thinks that good relations with Raul Castro could improve its relationship with the rest of the continent, it should think twice before  changing its position regarding Cuba’s membership in the Organization of American States.To conclude: I don’t believe in the magical powers of the free market or of American tourism. I think that this normalization process should be accompanied by conditions. Other way, the American karma would be at risk one more, and unforgettable, time. The condition I’m thinking of is as simple as the legalization of the Cuban opposition. The Cuban government’s will to deal with its citizens in a civilized way, or its refusal to do so,  should give us a good idea of how they are going to treat American interests in the future.    

Bueno, eso fue todo lo que dije en toda la noche hasta que la moderadora amablemente me preguntó qué pensaba del asunto y tuve que disculparme por haber sido la única persona que esa tarde se había referido al tema de los derechos humanos que evidentemente no le interesaba a nadie más que a mí. Luego expliqué por qué todavía me interesaba el tema pero supongo que a los lectores de este blog no necesite repetírselo.

P.D.:
Ya me iba del salón donde se celebró el evento cuando una señora me abordó:

-¿Tú eres Enrique?

-Sí. –respondo, resignado ante esa irremediable realidad.

-Por eso es que ustedes siempre les pasa lo mismo. Por confiar en los americanos-me dice.

-¿Quiénes son “ustedes”? –le pregunto a mi vez.

-Los cubanos.

-¿Pero usted no es cubana? – le pregunto basándome en su acento bastante obvio.

-Sí pero yo nunca he dicho esas cosas –me dice y me pregunto si “esas cosas” a las que ella alude será el tema de los derechos humanos en Cuba en general o simplemente su dependencia de los Estados Unidos en particular- No hay que esperar nada de ellos.

-Pero es Obama el que ha hablado de derechos humanos.

-Sólo son palabras.

 -Sí, pero palabras es lo único que hay ahora mismo y a ellas me atengo. Nosotros los bobos no tenemos más que palabras y a ellas nos aferramos. –y a partir de ahí no queda mucho que decir y nos despedimos.