Those Who Were Born Slaves

Those Who Were Born Slaves / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on March 6, 2015

"…one is what one does, and not what one writes." José Martí

Angel Santiesteban, Jaimanitas Border Patrol Prison, Havana, January
2015 — Ever since we were born, we heard our parents offer their
political opinions in a low voice when they were of criticisms against
the government. It was an act that we learned by imitation, something
natural spawned in us as cultural training. Silence began to be part of
our being. Look both ways before expressing a problematic point of view,
this was a spontaneous act that was borderline naivety, but was actually
a survival instinct.

When I started to lose the fear, friends got frightened. They didn't
want to understand that even the word "political" in the mouth of an
intellectual, was something completely contradictory because if the
dictatorship had taught us anything, it was that it was using the
national and Latin American artists to wave flags in their favor. But
when it came to expressing discontent, it was an aberrant, demented act
that – in clear words – was nothing more than hitting the wall with
one's head, and that seemed logical to no-one.

For this the same "logic" with which they fertilized us across
generations, we have endured more than half a century of dictatorship.
It has been the most effective weapon of the regime against the Cuban
population. First they enslaved our souls, then they have made us know
the rigors in the body.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

2 March 2015

Source: Those Who Were Born Slaves / Angel Santiesteban | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/those-who-were-born-slaves-angel-santiesteban/