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Alarcón's gift for excuses
reveals failures
By Ana Menéndez.
amenendez@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Sun,
Jun. 18, 2006 in The Miami Herald.
Ricardo Alarcón, the president of
Cuba's national assembly, is an immensely
entertaining and gifted man.
It's not easy explaining Fidel Castro,
and a less-experienced performer might have
flubbed it. In Alarcón's hands, the
difficult task was transformed Wednesday
night into a thing of beauty.
Is the old comandante sick, senile or suffering
from Parkinson's? None of the above, a suave
Alarcón assured those gathered in
Broward for the annual convention of the
National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
''I would say that Fidel Castro is very,
very strong and healthy,'' said Alarcón
via satellite, a sheen of sweat over his
upper lip helping to enhance his humanlike
persona. "More than you could imagine.''
And so it went, a 45-minute interview with
journalist Mirta Ojito that touched on Cuban
history and U.S. immigration policies while
providing important insights into Cuba's
political philosophy, the complex and carefully
constructed ideology that can be summed
up in three little words: Not our fault.
CONVOLUTED EXCUSES
Cuba doesn't have open Internet access?
It's the fault of the United States.
Cuba jails journalists? No, it doesn't.
Cuba has a housing crisis? I know you are,
but what am I?
At one point, Ojito relayed a question
from the audience: The Damas de Blanco want
to know when you're going to release their
husbands.
Alarcón's answer: "When will
the U.S. government put an end to a policy
of genocide of pretending to destroy these
people by starvation, by hunger, as is clearly
reflected in this volume . . . ?''
And thereupon Alarcón produced one
of his props from 1959, a declassified U.S.
report on American shenanigans in Havana.
It would have been much easier to just answer,
"Never!''
But the Cuban Revolution has never offered
straight answers, only convoluted excuses.
Poverty, illness, housing shortages, plague,
athlete's foot -- everything bad that happens
to Cuba is the fault of the United States,
specifically the embargo, that misguided
policy that Alarcón variously referred
to as ''ineffective'' and a tool of "genocide.''
Victims sooner or later fall in love with
their own suffering, and Cubans -- on both
sides and for widely disparate reasons --
are no exception. But few nations have managed
to turn victimhood into so profitable and
enduring an art form.
This is not to argue the quality of pain
or the merits of the claims to suffering.
But self-pity has a way, in individuals
as in nations, of stunting the capacity
for self-reflection.
Reasoned debate about Cuba is all but impossible
because competing versions of victimhood
-- each with its own constituency -- have
formed a logic-resistant force field.
SELF-ASSURED SPEAKER
Alarcón raised some good points
that are worth talking about, specifically
the skewed U.S. immigration policy that
gives preference to politically motivated
''exiles'' from Cuba over economically motivated
''immigrants'' from Mexico.
He was sometimes funny, even gracious.
And he was self-assured and well-spoken
in the way of all professionals who are
called upon to defend impossible positions.
But most of his answers revealed an infantile
weakness for excuses and a mentality stuck
50 years in the past.
In the end, listening to Alarcón
for 45 minutes was like being cornered at
a party by the 47-year-old loser who still
blames his parents for everything that went
wrong in his life.
In this case, though, the dialogue served
a higher purpose. It's hard to imagine a
better way to illustrate the failures of
a society that insulates itself from internal
criticism. And for that reason alone, the
evening was a success.
Instead of protesting Alarcón's
interview Wednesday night, exiles should
invite him back to speak every week.
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