I remember my dear late uncle Rubem Cerqueira Lima, Doctor and General in the relatively
glorious Brazilian Army, already retired and promenading in his bright pajamas
through the dark rooms of that old mansion in the neighborhood of Canelas.
Uncle Rubem collected stamps and kept birds that messed up their cages, freed
pigeons that shat in our heads, ferocious dogs and a she-monkey chained to her one
door and two-windowed wooden house, perched on top of a powerful phallus, a straight
and rounded trunk planted smack below the belly button of that backyard. The monkey’s house reminded us of the cuckoo
clock hanging on the dining room wall, chirping the half and the full hours.
Uncle Rubem
and his small zoo taught me much of what I use now to be happy in my journey.
But it was precisely from my General uncle’s more than divine
she-monkey that I got my best lessons – especially
the lessons of keen observation, of clear and firm expression in the practice
of freedom of expression for the common good – even when prudence indicated it
was safest to keep the noble silence.
Only Raulzito * and I got to observe the supreme gift of that
quasi-divine she-monkey.
The monkey maintained a permanent expression of nausea, disgust, revolt and a sardonic smile
that deepened when she gazed at us and reached a pinnacle when she stared at
the high society ladies, those who specialized in the usage, exploitation and
incarceration of their animals, salaried or not, so they themselves could live
better and acquire more.
In or out of limelight, not even a famed Sarah Bernhardt, a Cacilda Becker, a Cleyde Yaconis
or a Fernanda Montenegro would be capable of re-enacting that monkey’s
expression.
Yet when confronted with the monkey what traumatized and unbalanced the
bourgeoisie was not her inimitable facial expression but her skilled hands in
an incessant drumming of her engorged genitalia, in apocalyptic and non ending
masturbation – as if she was telling everyone “Hey, your idiots, you may have chained me,
enslaved me, you may have prevented me from having a companion, but I still
climax, I still come, deliriously I come, one orgasm after the next, while wrapped
in lies your orgasm is null, rare, dirty and meager”.
How many times did I hear the
pathetic cry
of refined ladies imploring their husbands not to allow the bad monkeys’
example to corrupt the pristine visuals of their off spring.
Today I witness the patron media, adept at worship of neo liberal
apartheid turn this Cuban blogger into a goddess, into an admirer of the
Brazilian capitalist “democracy”. And I also feel the perverse veil of
forgetfulness explode in a burning meteor to reveal my uncle’s she-monkey.
Before this blogger ever existed Cuba, dominated by Washington was a nation of suffering
people, exploited, tortured by enormous economic and social inequality that did
not even allow the satisfaction of basic needs of food, education, medical
assistance and housing. An inequality that maintained the majority of adults
and Cuban children in misery and extreme poverty, in the midst of corruption, of
safeguards for the rich, of drug traffic and prostitution – a reality that
continues to dominate Latin American “democracies” elsewhere in the continent
and worldwide.
This depressing reality changed radically with the triumph
of the socialist revolution of 1959 and despite the backlash caused by the notorious economic
blockade and of every imaginable official “terrorism” imposed by the great
capitalist “democracy” – a blockade created in vindication for the
nationalization of American companies, the end of corruption, of drug traffic,
prostitution and games, all highly lucrative foreign businesses – despite the
backlash the socialist bolivarian republic of Cuba presents one of the best quality
of life and human development indexes in the Americas and can ensure free of
charge to all its population, without exclusion or discrimination, one of the
15 best educational systems in the planet, with no illiteracy, with the highest
level scientists and technicians, medical and pharmaceutical assistance that is
a worldwide point of reference, social
security for its citizenry, good quality nutrition, employment, housing, social
peace and sovereignty created by the union and solidarity among peasants,
students and Cuban workers.
And speaking of the state induced terrorism suffered by Cuba, it is enough to
remember some of forgotten ones: the invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1971; many
terrorist attacks by the American government on Cuban offices overseas in 1974;
the murder of the Cuban ambassador in Mexico in a CIA terrorist plot that blew
up the ambassador’s car in 1975; a bomb attack against the Cuban diplomatic
mission at the United Nations in 1978; a bombing attempt against Cuban artists
at a Lincoln Center event in New York City, also in 1978; the CIA develops a
bacteria to destroy Cuban tobacco plantations in 1979; the CIA introduces a dengue epidemic to the
Island that infects more than 144 thousand people, kills 158 Cubans, the
majority children, in 1981; the Granada invasion by North American troops that
kills hundreds of Cuban workers busy in the construction of an airport.
Meanwhile, or after it all and after 911, firefighters and civilian veterans plagued by
respiratory diseases from the Twin Tower explosions and dust, disenchanted and
helpless are left to their own devices, destined to die in poverty as they did
not have the money to pay for the exorbitant medical treatment offered by the
North American “democracy”. Movie director Michael Moore then takes them to
Cuba where they receive free medical treatment and return healed, bringing back
the solidarity of a brotherly people and medicines that cost 1% of what is
charged for the same product in the United States and in the capitalist world.
Four decades of the economic blockade did not shake the Cuban people’s
heroic will nor did it stop the country in the achievement of great collective
material progress and one of the more advanced quality of life development
indexes. The dramatic consequences of a
stupid capitalist blockade to the Island that included the rationing of medicine,
food, oil, gasoline and other essential goods were surpassed by solidarity and
in the strengthening of the union between a strong and honest government and
peasants, students and workers.
I imagine how devastating would be the suffering of people if confronted for such a long time by
a situation of such gravity in a capitalist “democracy”, with its corrupt
government officials, politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen always eager for
more profit.
In the few times when a socialist revolution is victorious in a capitalist
country, the ill-fated bourgeoisie runs away to Miami and the well-born rich flee
to Paris.
Those who stayed in Cuba and who do not share in solidarity, who do not think about
the common good, corrupted by personal gain virus, who want to have more than
others, those instigate against the regime and do not fight the blockade.
By virtue of a simple humanitarian issue, all of us, Cuban and non Cubans must fight for the end of this absurd,
un-humane and murderous economic blockade to Cuba.
While the Cuban blogger conspires against her country’s
regime here in Brasil, uncle Rubem’s she-monkey looks at her and smiles.
Author: Luiz Eladio Humbert, 2013
Translation
by Erica Weick
** Translator’s Note - The author refers to
Raul Seixas, later famous as a rock star and who then lived next door to Uncle
Rubem.
