The Latin American Report # 540

Unbearable statements by Cuban Minister of Labor and Social Security Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera during a working session of the Cuban Parliament have unleashed a new political crisis on the Island, coming very shortly after the previous one (namely, the increase in mobile data rates). Feitó Cabrera's unfortunate statement included a gross characterization of people in Cuba who are said to be in a "condition of vulnerability"—one of the most strained euphemisms of revolutionary propaganda to refer to the universal phenomenon of poverty. It all stemmed from the presentation a new policy that, firstly, defines who is a "person in wandering condition"—another euphemism, in this case generally referring to people known anywhere as homeless, but which here also includes those with psychological problems that cause them to live "wandering" in the streets. That's my own definition, without seeing the official one.

It's certainly a controversial and subjective topic, but the most interesting thing here is that it wasn't over this issue that the minister has been rightly lambasted and shaken from all nodes of the Cuban political spectrum, but over another one—yes, related, but one she didn't need to bring up. The point is that the (former?) minister took it upon herself to specify who does not qualify as "persons in wandering condition." And, to begin with, she's not entirely wrong. The official referred to three profiles in the Cuban social landscape who truly cannot be said to be homeless in the strict sense, but who engage in certain practices that degrade their dignity and, therefore, that of the entire country.

Who doesn't fit the official definition of "street wanderer"?: 1) the growing number of people dedicated to cleaning car windshields at traffic lights—something that had been eradicated in Cuba after 1959; 2) beggars—the minister stated very firmly that "there are no beggars in Cuba," only people who "disguise themselves" as ones; and 3) the "buzos" (literally "divers")—this is: people who rummage through putrid garbage containers, either to collect some scrap still fit for some sale or food scraps for their own consumption.

To clarify the concepts further, it must be noted that not all people who clean windshields, beg for alms, or scavenge—unhygienically—in the trash are homeless. But while not all qualify as such, some do. Thus, a man who has lost his home—because his family turned its back on him, or because he lost everything due to alcohol or any other cause—, or another person with psychological problems who wanders through the streets, may or may not engage in cleaning windshields, begging—of course there are such people here, increasingly more and more real than the minister herself—, or scavenging.

But the minister seems to be talking about those who, having a home, engage in one or some of these three practices. She sees them as tax defrauders, people seeking easy money who don't want to join the workforce "with all the formalities" (btw, in Cuba, there are no statistics on informal work), as people who take the money they get to their neighborhoods to drink cheap rum, or, as mentioned above, who even "disguise" themselves as beggars—in the latter case, even taking for truth in some instances that claim, we are still witnessing a total loss of personal dignity and decorum that should scandalize us all. So, the official sees these people as a problem to combat (or repress), rather than as a social dynamic to manage with comprehensive policies—not merely welfare-based—that help them transform their lives through their own efforts. Her verbal slip laid bare how she views practices that—whatever the reasons—are irreconcilable with the political project of the Cuban Revolution, and above all, far too real (or perhaps too realistic).

Even more concerning is that in Cuba, what a minister says is pre-approved in more than one government body, so I personally assume that the narrative she expressed yesterday before timid deputies is the product of a consensus forged at the highest level of the country's political leadership. Look, political communication could be the only resource of statecraft over which the Cuban government has (some) control, and not even that—i.e., controlling what is communicated, when it's communicated, to whom, and how—is done even moderately well. On the contrary, practically all political discourse—not to mention the practices—embodies a political own goal.