HARRISONBURG, United States. – At the Second International Conference of Socialist Women held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1910, the communist leader Clara Zetkin urged that an unfortunate event that occurred in the United States be commemorated, in which 129 textile workers died in a fire while They went on strike demanding better working conditions.
At first, the date was celebrated in tribute to working women and the first countries to do so were Germany, Austria and Denmark. Then the commemoration spread to more countries, until in 1977 the United Nations (UN) declared March 8 as “International Women’s Day.”
In Cuba, during the “reign” of Vilma Espín at the head of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the date was celebrated with great fanfare. With the ex-guerrilla dead and as the economic crisis deepened, it has not been celebrated with the same intensity as before, although there is no shortage of praise in the official media.
An example of this “revolutionary optimism” was offered by Pastor Batista Valdés on March 6 in a note published by the newspaper Granma. I am referring to the one entitled “In time with women”, where it refers to the last congress of the FMC, which, apparently, is also passing without glory.
The Castro pastor’s optimism provokes these two questions in me: Are there reasons to celebrate? Which women is he referring to?
The daily panorama of Cuban women
In principle, I don’t think that Cuban women have more reason to celebrate than the fact of being alive despite all their hardships. And that is the work of God, not the dictatorship. Because the majority of working Cuban women do not receive a salary that even allows them to buy the necessary food for themselves and their families. Many spend considerable time searching for food and lack efficient public transportation to get to and from work. When they finish their work day and arrive home, it is common for there to be a blackout. Even so, the whole family has to manage to prepare food and then wash, because there is also a general lack of water and detergent.
Many Cuban women of childbearing age are forced to invent substitutes for sanitary pads, a product that the dictatorship is also unable to place in markets or pharmacies. They also lack medications to adequately treat their illnesses.
Thousands of Cuban women also nostalgically evoke the departure of a loved one abroad every day. On top of this absence, they will have to endure in silence – because that is why they are federated! – that Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez calls these Cubans “failures”, just because they went abroad to look for a decent life, something that the dictatorship will never be able to offer them.
On the other side of the “equality” proclaimed by article 42 of the Castro Constitution
We know that Pastor Batista Valdés refers to “revolutionary” women. The “journalist” is not interested in the fact that José Daniel Ferrer’s wife, Dr. Nelva Ismaray Ortega, was illegally detained last Saturday, March 2, when she was going to the Mar Verde prison to see her husband, nor that her sentence was suspended. visiting for the fourteenth time since March 2023.
He is also not interested in writing about Mayelín Rodríguez Prado, who has been imprisoned for more than a year and seven months, simply for having broadcast live the protests that occurred in Nuevitas on August 19 and 20, 2022. Because of that “very dangerous” fact – it is That is, for having made use in real time of the technologies that Batista Valdés praises in his note – they ask him for 15 years of deprivation of liberty, the same sanction that they applied to Fidel Castro for going to kill other Cubans in the Moncada barracks, which again demonstrates the fear that the dictatorship has of the dissemination of the truth.
The “journalist” will also not be interested in the fate of the women imprisoned for dissenting from the dictatorship that he defends, among them Lisdany Rodríguez Isaac, whom State Security psychologically harasses so that she loses her pregnancy.
Batista Valdés does not have the courage to write a report that offers us an objective vision about why “medical power” cannot solve cases like that of the girl Amanda Lemus Ortiz, who had to receive a humanitarian visa to attend to her health in abroad, thanks to the help, in part, of many of those “failures” to whom the despot of continuity contemptuously referred. And much less will he have the courage to write about the “women who dream of a country.” I am referring to Anamely Ramos, Katherine Bisquet and Daniela Rojo, who, although Cuban, are not “revolutionaries.”
Mutis from the international left
Identical to the silence that Pastor Batista Valdés, undoubtedly another devil’s shepherd, maintains on these issues is that of the international left.
To date, this political force has not spoken out regarding the number of women imprisoned in Cuba for peacefully protesting, nor in relation to the systematic violence carried out against the Ladies in White, nor with respect to gender violence. which last year caused the death of at least 89 women.
That left has also not spoken out about the right that Cuban women have to join an organization other than the FMC and has said nothing about the numerous injustices committed by the dictatorship against those who do not agree with it.
Both the journalist and the international left are on the same side, that of hypocrisy, manipulation and mendacity.
OPINION ARTICLE
The opinions expressed in this article are the exclusive responsibility of the person issuing them and do not necessarily represent the opinion of CubaNet.
Follow our channel WhatsApp. Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through Telegram.
2024-03-08 14:39:10
#Cuban #women #pastor #remains #silent