From Rio de Janeiro
These are days of endless pain and burning indignation.
Last Tuesday I woke up with the news of the death of a giant named Pablo Milanes (photo), one of the brothers that Cuba, my second homeland, gave me. And at nightfall that same Tuesday I was shaken with indignation by a new coup attempt to Jair Bolsonarothe worst and most abject president in the history of my shattered country.
From Havana to Rio
I met Pablito in 1979, when I was in Cuba for the second time. And we never let go again. When he was in Rio he came to my house, our house. And every time I went to Havana we ate together, many times at his house. Pablito, by the way, was a terrific cook.
Sometimes we spent a long time without communicating, but when we resumed contact, always fraternal, it was as if we had gotten together the previous Wednesday. Ours has been a permanent time.
I will carry with me in the depths of my soul the sunny smile of my brother Pablito, his generosity, his infinite capacity for poetry, to interpret not only his country but all of our America and teach us to the world.
I have an Everest of the warmest memories of Pablito, an ocean of affection in a permanent full tide. A smile that illuminated the world and life. And in my chest I carry a dark void full of pain.
destabilization attempt
I was still reeling from the news of that irreparable loss when I learned that the Liberal Party of Jair Bolsonaro – what an irony: it has only a name for Liberal, it is a pile of grotesques and thieves – had entered the Superior Electoral Court with a request to annul the result of the second round of the vote that he elected to Lula da Silva.
The request, without head or tail, was denied, and the Liberal Party was fined some 4 million dollars for having very clearly tried to further tumult the already very troubled political scene of the transition between the current and dying government and the one that will begin with Lula on the first day of 2023.
If it was obvious that the measure, imposed by Bolsonaro on his party, would be rejected as absurd, what was the purpose of disclosing it?
Give more ammunition to the crazed groups of extremists who are blocking roads in the country, who are concentrating in front of barracks and military installations asking for intervention to prevent Lula from assuming the presidency. Increase more and more the tension that does not find an echo between political parties and does not go beyond extremely radical groups.
Bolsonaro would have an option: prepare to take over the head of a very tough opposition to the government to come. He chose to prepare to further tumult the country. Y With that, he added another crime to the already extensive list that will be able to take him to court.
My indignation may soften when that time has come.
My soul in pieces will recompose itself, but with an irreparable difference: there will always be a hole, another hole, this time for the one-way journey of Pablo Milanés, my brother Pablito.