If We Could Travel Freely Even Just Around Cuba, What Would Happen?

If We Could Travel Freely Even Just Around Cuba, What Would Happen?

The dust raised by the Juanes concert made us neglect important issues
of our reality. On the street, few comment on the measures implemented
by Obama to ease shipping and travel to the Island. Even negotiations to
reestablish direct mail service between the United States and Cuba have
been met with indifference. The incandescent lights of show business
left in the dark the new official regulation -- not yet put into
practice -- that allows Cuban post offices to offer Internet access in
convertible currency. Even the seventh short film in the Nicanor saga,
directed by Eduardo del Llano, was overlooked because of the performance.

Now that we've returned to the faded colors of everyday life, I've
turned back to looking at the recently released Pas de Quatre. The story
happens inside an almendron shared taxi whose driver offers his services
for free. Among the three passengers who manage to climb on board this
peculiar taxi, one of them must take -- as soon as possible - -his feces
analysis to a distant clinic. The driver, played by Luis Alberto Garcia,
expounds upon a new philosophy about the damage that immobility and
difficulties in transport do to the nation. To the rhythm of the wheels
on the asphalt, he comes to say that, "There is no concept more
liberating and subversive than that of a Cuban tourist."

So yes, movement has turned into a rebellious act. Hence, to facilitate
people's entering and leaving, displacement, or change of location,
could spark unsuspected transformations at the national level -- if they
gave in to the desire of all us to travel, to use the highways and visit
those relatives we haven't seen in twenty years. If a fever of movement
took the country by surprise the tremor could infect the bureaucrats and
all those leaders lacking in the concept of dynamism. Who knows if the
shaking would also remove those who today are a brake, to let us slip
away -- finally -- along the road of change.

Yoani Sanchez: If We Could Travel Freely Even Just Around Cuba, What
Would Happen? (26 September 2009)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/if-we-could-travel-freely_b_299418.html