I Will not Allow that Hatred to Enter My World Either

By Justo Cruz on February 9, 2024

“I have never allowed that hatred to enter my world”. I heard Dr. Belinda Sánchez Ramírez, director of immunology and imuno therapy at the Center for Molecular Immunology in Havana, say this phrase a few months ago in Brussels during the sessions of the International Tribunal Against the Blockade held at the European Parliament on November 16 and 17, 2023, convened at the People’s Summit in July of the same year in the same city by political, social and legal organizations from Europe and the United States.

We had just finished watching the video entitled La Gota de Aqua (The drop of water) produced by Resumen Latinoamericano. The documentary reflects in a shocking way, through the sad story of little Natali Rodriguez Mendez, the damage and suffering generated by the US policy of suffocation against Cuba for more than 60 years. Natali is a Cuban girl of only five years old who suffers from cancer, one more victim who is not spared from the impact of an inhuman law that does not allow her to receive adequate medicines for her tiny body to fight this disease.

I remember that at the end of the screening of the documentary there was total silence in the room. Many of us present there were very moved, astonished and with tears in our eyes after having lived that sad story full of so much love and suffering in which a young Cuban family was being the protagonist against their own will.

How much more do the Cuban people have to suffer before the White House eliminates this inhuman blockade once and for all?

After watching the documentary, some of us approached its director Yaimi Ravelo, who was also present at the event, in search of more information about the case. We were all interested in knowing how we could help little Natali. Among us was also the outstanding Cuban scientist Belinda Sanchez. While we were talking someone approached our group to tell us that in front of the Parliament a group of no more than 10 Cubans were shouting and screaming incoherently demanding more economic, commercial and financial blockade against their own people in Cuba and calling us traitors because we were there fighting against that same inhuman blockade. Individuals who usually call each other “patriots”.

Let me explain: While we inside the room were saddened and saddened by so much injustice, outside a group of Cuban-born people were demanding more blockade and therefore more suffering for the Cuban family. How can this be understood? asked an MEP in the room.

How can someone feel patriotic when his actions are damaging the welfare of his own people?

A few days ago, watching the interview with the outstanding Cuban scientist Belinda Sanchez at the Round Table, I was reminded of the scene I lived in the European Parliament in Brussels and the words of the Doctor who, with firmness and indescribable sweetness, sentenced: “I have never allowed that hatred to enter my world”.

In her speech on behalf of Cuban scientists, Dr. Sanchez testified before the Court how the genocidal blockade of the United States Government has affected and has affected for decades the scientific-technical work in Cuba. How it is difficult for our country to acquire the necessary reagents and supplies for scientific research and the production of medicines from the US, which makes the purchasing process up to 20% more expensive, causing additional costs valued in millions of dollars. She also informed us about the prohibition to buy equipment for research and production containing 10% or more of US components or how Cuban scientists and specialists are denied visas to travel to the US, preventing them from participating in congresses such as the ASCO Meeting, the most important international cancer congress in the world. Belinda spoke about COVID-19 and how Cuban scientists with love, endurance and willpower grew in the face of the Pandemic and how under difficult working conditions and few resources they managed to create vaccine candidates to protect the Cuban people.

How can there be a Cuban “patriot” who denies the existence of that blockade?

Then I approached her, burning with the desire to know more about the whole process lived in those difficult days when many Cubans like me from far away could not close our eyes without worrying and thinking about the fate of our relatives in Cuba. I was very proud to have the opportunity to meet one of the Cuban scientists who had created the vaccine that had saved the lives of my people in Cuba.

The things Belinda told me were fascinating. She told me how Cuba, in spite of not being able to have all the necessary reagents for the research stage in time, in spite of the permanent blockade on access to the inputs and ingredients essential for production, those Cuban scientists were able to develop 3 vaccines and 2 vaccine candidates against Covid-19, which made it possible to protect our entire adult population and all our children from the age of 2 onwards. She told me how they had to use all the supplies they had stored to develop other medicines and put them all to use in the research of the vaccines against the pandemic. She also told me how they reacted the day they had achieved the first vaccine candidate and the phrase they used to describe the moment, which I will keep to myself because both the moment and the phrase belong only to them. It was a phrase full of Cubanness.

How is it possible that many Cubans now pretend to revise the history of Cuba while ignoring the crime against humanity of not lifting the blockade against the Cuban people in the midst of the crisis provoked by COVID-19?

How is it possible that while Jerome Fauré, director of the Oxford Committee for Relief Against Hunger (Oxfam) was strongly condemning the U.S. blockade “because it is a policy of unilateral measures that limit the development of Cuba’s economy and the livelihood of the Cuban people”…. and that deepen “the serious effects of the pandemic”, there were Cubans in other parts of the world demanding that the blockade not be lifted?

How is it possible to forget when Donald Trump’s government blocked the entry into Cuba of health material donated by Jack Ma, founder of the Chinese company Ali Baba, among which were antiviral masks, diagnostic reagents and ventilators, all vital tools to combat COVID-19? The U.S. company that was going to transport the materials from China used the Helms-Burton Act as a shield against the shipment to the island.

Can this act not be classified as a crime against humanity?

How is it possible that by virtue of the United Nations General Assembly resolution entitled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba”, supported by 187 countries and rejected only by the United States and Israel, with one abstention, there are Cubans in the world who still support this retrograde and inhuman policy against their own people?

I know many of these “patriots”, in Berlin, Dresden, Miami, Madrid, Barcelona, individuals who call themselves “patriots” to justify their felonies, but one of them, who stands out for being a little less incongruous, said, “I do not believe in a patriot who does not love his mother, because he who does not love his mother cannot love his country, that is a lie (…), , he who does not have 100 pesos here and does not want to send 100 pesos to his son, cannot be a patriot”. ..),  What homeland are you talking about?(…..) How long are people going to let themselves be fooled?”

How long is this martyrdom going to last, I would say.

For me these Cubans are not patriots, they cannot even be Cubans, they are nothing more than unscrupulous haters, individuals that I will not allow to enter my world anymore either. This will also be, thanks to Doctor Sanchez, my maxim for this year.

I advise you to do the same and you will find peace for your Cuban soul.

No more hate or haters.

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English