Commentary by CubaResponde:  Panfilo is poor black man whose crime is declaring on a 90 minute You-Tube video that he was hungry (see Lo que hace falta es Jama! – What we need is food).  This story is so bizarre that most who have no connection with Cuban in the island simply will not believe it.  But this is the Kafkian reality that Cubans have endured for the last fifty years.

What is even more unbelievable is that this absurd fascists behavior of the Cuban government is codified within Cuba’s “legal system” as exemplified by the charges of “dangerousness’ brought against Panfilo.

In the article that follows (PANFILO – Hunger, unsated) Mirta Ojito, assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York, narrates Panfilo’s odyssey concluding that “What he (Panfilo) needs is food, rehab and freedom. But when he walks out of rehab, Pánfilo will still lack food. And freedom.”  This is the surreal, but all to real, reality of the life of a citizen in Cuba.

Jose A Hernandez, MD

President, Cubaresponde

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PANFILO

Hunger, unsated

Cuba, one of the few places in the world where a man can go to prison for announcing in an 81-second YouTube video that he is hungry.

Miami Herald – Sept 20, 2009 – link to original article

BY MIRTA OJITO

MAO35@COLUMBIA.EDU

Mirta Ojito is an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

Was it the song? Jama y Libertad. Food and freedom, croons Boris Larramendi.

The Madrid-based Cuban songwriter wrote the tune as part of the campaign to free Pánfilo, imprisoned last month in Cuba after he drunkenly declared in a YouTube video that there is hunger on the island.

Pánfilo was reportedly released Thursday night and sent to a rehab program for 21 days. Then, the government says, he is free to go home, which is not the same as being free.

Veteran human rights activists have long maintained that publicity and pressure work, even in Cuba, one of the few places in the world where a man can go to prison for announcing in an 81-second YouTube video that he is hungry. A campaign to free Pánfilo, www.jamaylibertad.com, was launched on August 26, about three weeks after his arrest, by a group of Cuban exiles with no experience as human-rights activists.

More than 3,000 people — from Paris to Havana and from New Jersey to Chile — signed a letter urging the Cuban government to free Pánfilo and to respect the right to basic freedoms for all its citizens. The letter was delivered Thursday in Miami to a representative of Juanes, the Colombian singer who is scheduled to perform in a pro-peace concert in Havana Sunday.

Was it Juanes? It wouldn’t do to have a Latin American star in a government-sponsored concert in La Plaza de la Revolución, while Pánfilo sat in a cell and the international campaign raged on.

We may never know why he was released. What is now apparent is that the Cuban government has quickly — quicker than ever before — rectified a grievous mistake. That is, if Pánfilo is treated as an alcoholic and not as a mentally disturbed patient.

“It must have caught the government by surprise,” said Enrique Del Risco, a writer and lecturer in New York, and one of the organizers of the campaign. “It was too quick. It moved too fast for them and there was a lot of enthusiasm around. Some people asked me, `Why Pánfilo?’ and my answer was, `Why not Pánfilo?”’

Juan Carlos González Marco, 48, who calls himself Pánfilo, became a YouTube sensation in late Spring, when he walked in front of a camera to state a simple but fundamental truth: What we need is food, only he said “jama,” [pronounced HA-ma], using Cuban slang.

Pánfilo quickly went from being the archetype of the town drunk to a symbol of all that ails the Cuban people. In June, in a second video, a sober Pánfilo asks to be left alone. If it was possible for some people to laugh with the first video, it was impossible not to be moved by the second. You can’t ignore the fear in Pánfilo’s eyes. He is a man afraid of the state.

And then there is the third video. The spontaneity of the first video is gone, and so is the soberness of the second one. In their place is a grotesque performance of a shirtless drunk ranting about hunger and the police.

Days after the third video was posted on YouTube, on July 28, Pánfilo was arrested and charged with “dangerousness,” a draconian concept which means that he has the potential of committing a crime, but hasn’t yet. He was sentenced initially to two years in prison, which was cruel, short-sighted and absurdly out of step with the modern world.

For years Cuba has reacted to outside pressure to release political prisoners. European presidents, members of the U.S. Congress, famous writers have all interceded on behalf of political prisoners, such as Armando Valladares, Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, and Angel Cuadra, who were brought to their attention by campaigns orchestrated by a handful of human rights activists. Still, it took decades to free most of them.

That was pre-Internet. Pánfilo is a different story. He may have been both doomed and saved by the Internet. His YouTube video was seen by more than half a million. But so was the news of his sentence and imprisonment and, more important, a quick thinking campaign that incorporated the best that technology has to offer.

It took days to collect more than 3,000 signatures on his behalf. Back in the ’60s and ’70s and even the ’80s, when activists like Frank Calzon, now with the Center for a Free Cuba, were campaigning to free political prisoners, communication between Cuba and Washington could take months.

“First we had to hear about the case from someone who brought it to our attention,” said Calzon. “Pánfilo was known to the world before he was imprisoned.”

He was also the perfect victim. Pánfilo was not a human-rights activist, a dissident or an intellectual. He is, simply, a man. A black man who is hungry and drinks too much. Therein lie his power and his weakness.

The government has always been intolerant of dissent, but it is particularly vicious when the dissenter is black. The most recent victims of execution in Cuba were three young black men attempting to steal a vessel to escape the island six years ago.

Pánfilo has escaped that fate. He’s never said he wants to leave Cuba. What he wants is food. What he needs is food, rehab and freedom. But when he walks out of rehab, Pánfilo will still lack food. And freedom.

Mirta Ojito is an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

A) America’s lackluster support of the Organization of American States 
B) Military intervention
C) Charismatic, authoritarian demagogues
D) President Bush

A)  WRONG ANSWER – The US shoulders 60% ($47 million) of the Organization of American States (OAS) budget which is hardly lackluster support. (1) Unquestionably the OAS has many shortcomings that have hindered democracy in this hemisphere but to blame the generous US support for this failing requires a degree of cynicism most of us will find unbecoming.  It would be wise and sound policy if the OAS were to critically examine its behavior towards democracy in Latin America today.  As Glenn Garvin writes, “An organization that can, with a straight face, expel Honduras as a threat to democracy barely a month after inviting Cuba (50 years without elections and still counting) to join, has lost any claim to serious consideration,…” (2) And this hypocritical stance is not limited to the case of Cuba, as the same author details, for the OAS was quiet in 2000 when the military forced out Jamil Mahuad in Ecuador. In addition, there was not a peep from the OAS when Evo Morales in Bolivia drove two presidents out of office by the use of force. (2) Other examples abound. (5)

B) WRONG ANSWER – Susan Kaufman Purcell, Director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami, reminds us that “the region does not want to return to its sorry past of constant alternations between democratic governments and military regimes.” (3) There are many examples in the history of our southern neighbors of military interventions against governments traveling the path to democracy that give weight to this admonition. But, while laudable, the idea can distort our judgments about military actions.  For instance, recently the action by the military in Honduras has been widely criticized and characterized as a simple coup d’état. But in this Central American nation the military, following orders from the Supreme Court and the Congress, deposed President Zelaya who was attempting to unravel democratic standards. (3,4)In this case one may argue that it was the military action that helped democracy, specially in light of the “Charismatic, authoritarian demagogues” of the region (see explanatory comments for “C”) (3,4)

C. CORRECT ANSWER – Purcell very astutely points that “Today, in contrast, the main threat to democracy in Latin America is not the military but rather, charismatic, authoritarian demagogues who use modern means of communication for two undemocratic purposes.”  One of these is the mobilization of the masses, a very anarchists/communist modus operandi, and the other is the dismantling of democratic institutions under the guise of democratically elected authoritarians.  It was the latter that Zelaya attempted in Honduras. (3,4)

D) WRONG ANSWER – The punching bag of the left is included in this group of choices just so those on the left, when they see the name of President Bush as one of the choices, may become interested and quite unintentionally read the rest of the information.

1) OAS lifts ban on Cuba after compromise with U.S – WorldFocus

2) OAS turns a blind eye to violations by left – Glen Garvin

3) Democracy is under siege – Susan Kaufman Purcell

4) Who violated the constitution in Honduras? - L. American Herald Tribune

5) Doble moral democrática – Jorge Ramos Avalos

Jose A Hernandez, MD
cubaresponde@cubaresponde.org

A la izquierda René Descartes – El conocimiento se basa en ideas claras y distintas.

A la derecha John Locke – El conocimiento se basa en la experiencia y reflexiones mentales.

¿Pudieran estas diferentes perspectivas sobre la adquisición del conocimiento explicar el apoyo que goza el gobierno cubano en ciertas esferas?

 Recientemente un lector que desea permanecer anónimo, cuestionó las críticas hacia el gobierno cubano que se leen en las páginas de CubaResponde. Presentó como parte de su argumento la pregunta algo retórica: ¿Cuál es la verdad de la revolución cubana? Deriva esta pregunta apuntando al pensamiento de René Descartes, entre otros filósofos que, según el lector, “pasaron, pasan y pasarán sus días en búsqueda de la verdad pura…”

Ya que considero que esta visión hacia Cuba es bastante común, aunque quizás no se expresa exactamente dentro de los términos filosóficos que el instruido lector sacó a relucir, decidí responder. Mi intención es aclarar las limitaciones intelectuales de este enfoque que tiende a ofrecer cierto atractivo del gobierno cubano y por ende oscurece los abusos del sistema en la isla.

En el caso del lector de turno, la imagen intelectual que se propicia es la búsqueda, siguiendo el estilo de René Descartes, de una verdad pura a la interrogante ¿Cuál es la verdad de la revolución cubana? Este enfoque intelectual me despierta cierta curiosidad ya que en el campo de la historia de las ideas, y específicamente en la arena de la epistemología, existen otros puntos de vista mucho más pragmáticos que, si fueran la guía para las preguntas del leyente, es posible lo hubiese llevado a plantear otra pregunta. Ilustrativo de esta diferencia son los conceptos de John Locke como veremos.

René Descartes postulaba que la idea es lo fundamental para adquirir conocimiento. Para este filósofo si uno podía adquirir una idea clara y distinta del sujeto en el que indagamos, entonces uno pudiera tener certeza, podríamos llamarle una verdad pura, del conocimiento que buscamos. Algo distinto vemos en la perspectiva que ofrece John Locke, pensador más o menos contemporáneo de René Descartes. Para este intelectual inglés el conocimiento se fundamenta en la experiencia, no la idea. Estas experiencias necesitan reflexiones en la mente para poder ser concebidas como conocimiento. Dado que las experiencias y las reflexiones mentales tienen muchas limitaciones, es de esperar que por este mecanismo del saber que propone Locke, los conocimientos que adquirimos reflejarán estas restricciones y nunca tendrán la certeza que postula Descartes. Pero no importa que existan estos obstáculos que nos prohíbe el acierto de nuestro conocimiento, nuestra comprensión avanza.

Este es un breve y burdo resumen de los conceptos epistemológicos de dos gigantes del pensamiento, que, a pesar de estas reservas, espero facilite aclarar los problemas encerrados dentro de la pregunta del lector que pudiéramos expresar así: ¿Cual es la verdad pura de la revolución cubana?

Esta curiosidad por la verdad pura de la revolución cubana nos ofrece la posibilidad de entender el atractivo del que pueda disfrutar el gobierno cubano. Es comprensible que el mero concebir de la existencia de un gobierno que enarbola un ideal puro, tal como una revolución que acaba con las diferencias sociales, permita en ciertas mentes concebir una idea “distinta y clara” de la pura verdad de la revolución cubana. Esta concepción se solidifica si incluimos otras metas de la que la revolución fanfarrea, tales como la alfabetización universal, acceso médico gratis, transporte publico para todos, la universidad garantizada, etc. Aquí vemos ideas claras y distintas de la revolución cubana; de ahí que, en ciertas esferas, se llega a la conclusión de la compresión de la pura verdad del sistema imperante en Cuba que se entiende como la lucha por la justicia social.

Sin embargo ¿que sucedería si en vez de intentar comprender el sistema en Cuba basado en las ideas nos preocupamos por los detalles? Es muy probable que estas ideas se materialicen en el repudio de la revolución. Nos llenaríamos de ira hacia el gobierno cubano si supiéramos que en Cuba existe un sistema monetario que crea clases sociales basado en acceso a la moneda convertible la cual discrimina contra el cubano (lean posts 1, 2); que la alfabetización de la que el gobierno se vanagloria es una pantalla que esconde una feroz censura impuesta por el gobierno; que el acceso médico (lean post 3) y al transporte público (lean post 4) son unas tragedias para el cubano; y que en la universidad el estudiante tiene que demostrar su lealtad al sistema o sufrirá represalias. Sin lugar a dudas, esta información, basada en la experiencia, no aclara la verdad pura de la revolución, sino que avanza nuestro conocimiento de esta.

Regresando a las diferencias entre Descartes y Locke, me parece que si la adquisición del conocimiento esta guiado solamente por ideas, como se ve en la pregunta del lector, el atractivo del sistema en Cuba es predecible; pero si al lector lo guiara las enseñanzas de Locke, donde se enfatiza la experiencia, que en el caso de Cuba nos enseña los abusos y burlas al ciudadano, es posible que en vez de postular la pregunta “¿Cuál es la verdad pura de la revolución cubana?” la interrogante sería ¿Cómo es posible que todavía existan individuos interesados en el conocimiento que apoyen a la revolución cubana?