By Miguel Barnet on July 20, 2024
photos: Bill Hackwell
(Speech given at the Cuban the National Assembly of People’s Power, during the discussion of the draft Citizenship Law)
Throughout many years I have seen time run; that which heals everything, which transforms everything and which is really the only thing we truly possess. Historical time can do everything, it makes everything grow and even modifies the metaphors of life. Time is the richest of our possessions; and throughout the time I have lived through, I have seen how people mature and how things are placed in their rightful place. Cubans, that is to say, we, have witnessed the vicissitudes of historical time, the one that moves the sails and makes the days and nights go by, that time is ours and we would not exchange it for any other on the planet. It is our time, the most cherished, the best.
Nothing is impossible today, because we have grown up and we are no longer the same as we were years ago. Cuban, that sweet word as José Martí used to tell us, is a being that grows and puts his Cuban condition above all the attributes he may possess.
Fernando Ortiz said it with meridian clarity: “Cubanness is the vocation of being Cuban, wherever you are born, wherever you live and wherever you breathe”. And that vocation is unbeatable. Over the years I have also seen many Cubans who do not live in their homeland, love it, venerate it and be faithful to it.
It means that to be Cuban one does not have to be circumscribed to any geography, it is a condition of the soul and of the spirit. Nothing can diminish it, nothing conditions it. Some even offered their lives to defend it, like Carlos Muñiz Varela or Lourdes Casal, who came to die in Cuba and is buried in the pantheon of the noble Cuban patriots. Or many others, historians, teachers, writers or collectors, like the distinguished Emilio Cueto, who treasures in his home in Washington sensitive plots of Cubanness, of incalculable value. In short, many who will now see their dreams come true, dreams of fraternity, justice and equity, men and women of the people who do not forget their origins and who are children of this island, like us.
I remember Fidel saying before Cubans who arrived in the 1970s to support the Revolution, “The Homeland has grown.” We will never forget that. And the Homeland has grown in maturity because time is implacable and puts things in their place. Today’s Cubans are not the same, new imaginaries have appeared in our lives, new actions, new purposes, new dreams?
Affections, for example, are not determined by proximity or distance, but by the magic of new technologies. And values are measured from other perspectives; cyberspace, for example. We are cyber-grandparents, cyber-parents, cyber-brothers, cyber-friends…. Physical distance is not an obstacle to communication and understanding between people. We are all at the distance of a click, not exempt of affectivity.
Miguel Barnet
So the Cuban of today, wherever he lives, wherever he breathes, speaks to our ears with multiple breaths of affection, although perhaps less close but more frequent. Cyberspace keeps us united with indestructible bonds that did not exist before. There is no longer any reason to establish distances that ancient times traced for us as a scourge or a retaining wall. Now more than ever we are united by affective networks that erase physical or temporal distances. Time is different; time is today and now, and not tomorrow.
Let us live the time of affection and permanent dialogue. Let us support this law that unites us in a solid planetary embrace. Cuban is he who loves his land, who does not sully it, who dignifies it with his warm or nostalgic embraces, wherever he is, wherever he lives. Cuban is the one who has the Lone Star tattooed in his heart.
That will be the one who assumes his duties and respects the guarantees of the Constitution of the Republic. The one who fully enjoys the citizen condition that protects this law and makes us better, fairer and more contemporary.
Long live brotherhood among all Cubans!
Source: Cubadebate translation, Resumen Latinoamericano – English