Speak now or shut up until the next debate

Maybe it’s just my desire to believe that something’s changing that has made me notice a certain tendency to a collective catharsis. Where I once saw shrugged shoulders and people pretending not to see, I can see now fingers pointed at the problems and mouths that talk about disagreement. Taking the first available chance of doing so, which can be either during a school assembly or in a conversation while waiting to buy some bread, tongues unroll. The sharp words progressively dismantle what the media works harder each day to make us believe.

A wailing wall extends these days along the whole island. Moved, in part, by the call for deliberation in the speech of Raúl Castro on July 26th, but moved mainly by the fatigue of the “cycle of silence” which has started to break. Little by little, we are finding the satisfaction of talking publicly about our problems. We gradually find joy in questioning the government, while the massive lament encourages us and makes us bolder.

There’s also a lot of skepticism, from those who have witnessed other episodes of debate that came to nothing. The memory of the discussions prior to the fourth PCC (Communist Party of Cuba) Congress and its subsequent silencing, is the argument of some who don’t feel encouraged. However, I’d like to believe that what we are living is unstoppable. Those who have started by expressing their dissatisfaction with the small salaries, the corruption, or the deterioration of the health care system, will unavoidably get to questions of the political system, the actual authority to decide for the people, and even international relations.

Maybe it’s purely my illusion, but it seems to me that what has started as a whisper is going to end in a scream.

Text of sign on the wall: In defense of the revolution, no ingenous nor weak alerts, energetic and combative.