Recycle bin

By Yoani Sánchez for El Pais Newspaper, 1 August 2008

Spending hours in front of a computer screen, we tend to think like Windows,  move like Linux, or dream like a Mac.  In some uncomfortable situations we’d like to find the combination of keys that would allow us to escape.  However, the most tempting would be to restart our lives once in a while, like restarting the operating system.  Among our reminiscences of the virtual world, we could send any that we don’t like to the recycling bin.  How convenient if we could throw in a box in the corner the frustrated expectations, the unfulfilled promises and anything that’s past its expiration date.

After hearing the speech of Raúl Castro on July 26, I tossed in my personal basket the last illusions I had about possible reforms in Cuba.  With a simple click I moved from the group of those with expectations, to plant myself in the enormous chorus of the disillusioned.  I made a bundle of the demands I was carrying under my arm and threw it into the dark hole of the trash.  A massive clean up action has occurred on this Island since last Saturday.  Millions of Cubans have packed up their expectations, pruned their optimism and tossed it all in the sack of prognostications.   those who were waiting for an announcement, a wink to confirm that everything was moving, have in the words of the Second Secretary of the Community Party proof of the screeching of brakes.  The political act – imbued with the worst revolutionary kitsch – was the scene to learn what many suspected; the transfer of power has taken place and promises of change are no longer necessary.

For now, we have a recycle bin full of unraveled expectations.  Some are waiting for an event that will put them back in their place; others, we stretch out our hands to eliminate them permanently.

Translated from the original Spanish.

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