14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 29 November 2023 — A recurring phrase in Mexico is the one attributed to former President Porfirio Díaz: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” Although the expression brilliantly summarizes the history of a country, the truth is that many Mexicans have seen this proximity as quite the opposite. Even today’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself modified the phrase before the North American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in 2021. For López Obrador, those 3,180 kilometers of border were a juicy blessing from which they should get every possible benefit.
The US has land borders with Canada, to the north; and with Mexico, to the south. But the case of Cuba is quite unique. It is not only about the famous 90 miles that separate us, and that beat in the minds of a good number of Cubans like a fixed idea. There is also the land border that, de facto, covers 44 kilometers of wire fences at the Guantanamo Naval Base. The Mexican phrase could well be extrapolated to a country where poverty, the denial of God and belligerence with the North have been taken to absurd limits.
In 1961, 136 Catholic priests were expelled from Cuba. In his pathetic speech of 13 March 1963, Fidel Castro also attacked other religious groups that he called “instruments of imperialism.” For decades, admitting your religious creed could deprive you of studying for a university degree. I myself was “not approved” at the end of my secondary studies and could only aspire to study masonry at a trade school, despite having a notable academic record. My parents managed to remedy that matter and I was able
