The Real Cuba Isn’t a Potemkin Airbnb – by Antonio García Martínez – Common Sense with Bari Weiss
The difference between the communist system and the capitalist one is that both kick you in the ass, but in the communist one they kick you and you have to applaud, while in the capitalist one they kick you and you can scream. I came here to scream.
Reinaldo Arenas, Antes Que Anochezca
It s hard to convey to those who live in the free world what life is like under a totalitarian dictatorship. I d never experienced anything remotely like it before I traveled to Cuba in 2017 to report a story for WIRED magazine, and it was one of the most memorable and unpleasant experiences of my life.
The first thing is the fear: you as an individual exist naked without any recourse against the depredations of the state. I was reporting illegally, with no journalist visa, which would have taken at best months to get. The police could have knocked on the door and hauled me away to the cuartico (little room) at Villa Marista, the Cuban Lubyanka, or disappeared me into some other extrajudicial hole. The authorities did just that yesterday to Camila Acosta, a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC for crimes against state security. The Founding Fathers warnings about tyrannical kings and their obsession with habeas corpus hit differently when you re confronted with an unaccountable state machine and no recourse to rule of law or individual rights.
The second thing you notice is the deception: To live in Cuba is to live in a web of lies. It begins with the media, which is pure propaganda repeated by everyone, chorus-like, or else. As a cope, everyone has a half-dozen make-believe realities in their heads, which they selectively deploy depending on whom they re addressing. I d ask person A about person B and they d warn me they worked for the state and to be careful. Then I d then speak to person B and they d tell me the same about person A. Perhaps both were correct. I wasn t exempt: I d lie about what I was doing in Cuba since I wasn t supposed to be there. Everything is a regimented fantasy. Underneath it is an ever-shifting haze of rumor, speculation, and wishful thinking.