Spare me!*

Alfredo Triff

Every cause has an effect: I receive an email from a friend regarding an article that appears in a Spanish newspaper. Then I surf a bit and read the back-and-forth between two worldviews -as it’s to be expected, after decades of telluric ideologies and counter-ideologies. It boils down to a game of sorts: In the middle, a famous female Cuban writer living in Paris; at each corner, a fighter representing, say, “pro-Z” and “against-Z” views. One reads what each fighter articulates and one wonders: Is this really about Z or more like a pirouette around Z? I’ve smelled this reek before: The odor of protagonism, masked as defense or critique, really means internecine combat. For us Cubans? A most invigorating prospect! Our self-cannibalism takes perversity and good humor to the nth power. Up with the odor! As the arguments sink, the stench reaches spasmodic levels. A well-known Cuban writer publishes in a known Cuban blog a hyperbolic apology for revenge clothed as “justice.” Surely he wants to have his cake and eat it, but one has to suspect a self-avowed enfant-terrible of the letters dressed -if only momentarily- as an old politico. On the other side, the General’s Daughter asks for “forgiveness” as alternative to the Cuban final solution** (a commendable though surely impossible prospect, given our ***blood-thirst clad as self-righteousness). The reading is as disappointing as the former, because the General’s Daughter’s arguments suffer from self-inflicted amnesia (as the German poet Heinrich Heine suggests, “one’s past life can taint what one wants others to believe about one’s life”). Where is all this leading to? The return of the same: Bad faith and boredom.

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Above, letter Z by Erte. *The author of this post wishes a temporary freeze of pro- and against- “Z” emails. **Didn't you know we have a Cuban Endlösung? Depending your take it takes two forms: The Right punishes the perpetrators of Communism with summary executions via death squads. The Left takes Cuban Revolution’s ill-smelling raison d’etre as unchallenged ever-present Castroist paradise. ***Garlic is the best antidote against blood-thirst. Keep plenty of it behind your kitchen door. Cuba’s future may depend on garlic. Imagine a garlicky rapture of Cuban Right and Left sharing the same bed, engaging in wild, unfettered copulation.