By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – I know I often hold unpopular opinions. I don’t know if it’s for better or worse, but I’ve never aligned myself with prevailing currents or societal conventions. That’s why, among other things, I don’t have a tattoo on my skin, nor do I follow popular artists. It’s not that I’m a misanthrope, but the hypocrisy of humanity disgusts me.
I have the advantage of not being a politician or harboring aspirations in that regard. That’s why I say what I think. I begin by writing that I was born in an unworthy country that boasts of saying that Cubans are the best, despite the facts repeatedly proving us wrong.
It’s like the elephant in the room that everyone insists on ignoring until, by force of habit, it goes unnoticed.
Both here and on the other side of the Florida Strait, we hear the cheers of demagogy that speak of a heroic people. The oppressors paint us as a symbol of resistance and victory against imperialism; the exiles portray us as a country fighting for democracy when the truth is that Cubans have never wanted to be free.
All you have to do is delve into history, and what is written here becomes a daily fact. I will briefly go through our past, aware that I will incur in many simplifications that, despite that, do not distort reality.
According to the US historian John Lawrence Tone in his book “War and Genocide in Cuba 1895-1898,” during the last war of independence, the number of Cuban volunteers who joined the Spanish army almost doubled the number of independence fighters, which was around 40,000. A questionable number because many of the first, in a clear act of opportunism, joined the insurgent side when they saw that the Spanish empire was crumbling.
Some historians point out that the volunteers who joined the Spanish numbered between 60,000 and 80,000 men. The rest of the Cuban population remained apathetic or expectant, deducing that the majority of Cubans at that time either were not interested or were not willing to do anything for the freedom of Cuba.
The US intervention was a catalyst that, in my opinion, did more good than harm. It is probable that Cuban patriots would have achieved inde
