At the Second International Conference of Socialist Women held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1910, the communist leader Clara Zetkin urged the commemoration of an unfortunate event that occurred in the United States, where 129 textile workers died in a fire while on strike demanding better working conditions.
On the Internet, two different dates appear to mark the event, one is March 8, 1857 and the other the same day, but in 1908.
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 death of Raúl Castro’s wife and as the economic crisis deepened, it has not been celebrated with the same intensity as before, although there is no lack of praise for the dictatorship in the official media in times like these.
An example of this “revolutionary optimism” was offered by Pastor Batista Valdés on March 6 in an article published by the newspaper Granma. I am referring to the one entitled “In Time with Women”, where she refers to the last congress of the FMC, which, apparently, has also passed without glory.
The optimism of the Castro pastor provokes these two questions: Are there reasons to celebrate, and to which women is he referring?
The Daily Panorama of Cuban Women
In principle, I don’t think Cuban women have any more reason to celebrate than the fact that they are alive despite all their hardships. And that is the work of God, not of the dictatorship. Because the majority of Cuban women who work do not receive a salary that even allows them to buy the necessary food for themselves and their families. Many of them spend considerable time searching for such food and lack an effective public transport service to get to work and back home. When they finish their workday and arrive at their homes, it is common for there to be a blackout. Then they have to figure out how to make the food and then how to wash it, because the lack of water and detergent is also widespread. Possibly, when they are exhausted and want to sleep, they will not be able to do so because the blackout continues and it is very hot. I imagine them with cardboard as a fan throwing fresh food on their children.
Many of these women of childbearing age are forced to invent substitutes for sanitary pads, a product that the dictatorship is not able to place in the markets or pharmacies where it is sold in a controlled way. They also lack medicines to properly treat their illnesses.
Thousands of Cuban women also nostalgically recall the departure of a loved one abroad. On top of that absence, they will have to endure in silence – because that’s what they’re federated for! That Miguel Díaz Canel Bermúdez sends those Cubans the label of “failures,” just because they left to seek a dignified life abroad, something that the dictatorship will never be able to offer them.
I believe that in such conditions there is not much encouragement or opportunity to celebrate “the glory that has been lived” (1).
On the other side of the “equality” proclaimed in Article 42 of Castro’s Constitution
But we know that the journalist is referring to “revolutionary” women.
Pastor Batista Valdés 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 Mar Verde prison to see her husband, nor that her visit was suspended for the fourteenth time, since March 2023.
Nor is she interested in writing about Mayelín Rodríguez del Prado, who has been imprisoned for more than a year and seven months, just for having live-streamed the protests that took place in Nuevitas on August 19 and 20, 2022. For this “very dangerous” act – that is, for having made real-time use of the technologies that Batista praises in his note – they are asking for 15 years in prison, the same sanction that was applied to Fidel Castro for going to kill other Cubans in the Moncada barracks, which once 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 women imprisoned for dissenting from the dictatorship he defends, including Lisdany Rodríguez Isaac, who is psychologically harassed by State Security so that she loses her pregnancy.
Pastor does not have the courage to write a report that offers us an objective view of why “the medical power” cannot solve cases such as that of the girl Amanda Lemus Ortiz, who had to receive a humanitarian visa to attend to her health abroad, thanks in part to the help, in part, of many of those “failures” to whom the despot of continuity contemptuously referred. Much less will she have the courage to write about the “Women who dream of a country”(2). I am referring to Anamely Ramos, Katherine Bisquet and Daniela Rojo, who, although Cuban, are not “revolutionary.”
Silence of the international left, identical to that of the devil’s shepherd
Identical to the silence that Pastor Batista Valdés keeps on these issues, without a doubt another shepherd of the devil, is that of the international Left.
To date, this political force has not spoken out about the number of women imprisoned in Cuba for protesting peacefully, or about the systematic violence against the “Ladies in White,” or about the gender-based violence that last year caused the death of 83 women and this year has already caused 10 femicides.
That Left has also not spoken out about the right of Cuban women to unite in an organization other than the official FMC and has remained silent about the numerous injustices committed by the dictatorship against women who do not agree with it.
Both the journalist and the international left are on the same side, that of hypocrisy, manipulation and mendacity.
Roberto de Jesús Quiñones Haces
Notes:
- .- Part of the lyrics of a song by Pablo Milanés, an important Cuban singer-songwriter.
- “Women Who Dream of a Country” is a cinematographic work by the young Cuban filmmaker Fernando Fraguela, who has just won the first prize at the Berlin Courage Film Festival. The film is censored in Cuba.