Nostalgia for “The Special Period”?

Nostalgia for "The Special Period"? / 14ymedio
Posted on July 31, 2014

14ymedio, JOSÉ GABRIEL BARRENECHEA, Havana, 31 July 2104 — I knew about
nostalgia for the colonial era, the Republican era and even for the
"marvelous" eighties, what I never could imagine was that anyone could
be nostalgic for the Special Period. But everything is possible on this
island and if you don't believe me, then read the June 23rd article in
Juventud Rebelde, "The happiest children in the world," by Glenda Boza
Ibarra.

This young Cuban from the east recounts with great candor her childhood
full of "good and nice" times, in which she dedicated herself – as a
form of entertainment – to counting the few cars circulating in her
neighborhood. Eventually, the journalist says: "I can't complain,
because I was born in this country, a place where children have
everything they need to be the happiest in the world."

To a great extent the conditions we are raised in determine our tastes,
needs and aspirations. A native indigenous to our island would have
perceived the disgusting Paris of 1492 as a dazzling paradise, and a
pigsty like the suite of a three star hotel.
The aspirations, tastes and evaluation criteria of this young woman from
Las Tunas were curtailed by the circumstances in which her childhood
unfolded in the midst of the Special Period, particularly bleak in
eastern Cuba. It is precisely because of these circumstances that she no
longer sees the barefoot children who once again occupy our streets,
terraces and paths, nor the tremendous cultural decline that has
occurred between my generation and hers.

However, there seems to be a glimmer of hope for Glenda. Nostalgia is
nothing more than the desire to escape a troubled present to a past in
which we had not yet suffered the difficulties we are now subject to.
She confesses the strange naivety of her childhood when she writes "we
weren't worried about the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor the
disintegration of the USSR," a reflection that she has already begin to
expand her range of expectations, that her new circumstances have raised
her cultural level and her aspirations.

Will there be such a change that Glenda will reject, outraged, the
pigsty, or on the contrary will she become one more member of the sect
of pig farmers? Only time will tell.

Source: Nostalgia for "The Special Period"? / 14ymedio | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/nostalgia-for-the-special-period-14ymedio/