Untitled - Convivencia

THE VIRGIN OF LA CARIDAD:BREAD, JUSTICE AND FREEDOM FOR CUBAEditorial 29. SEpt-Oct 2012. Convivencia Magazine. www.convivenciacuba.esFour hundred years ago three menrepresentatives of the Creole stratum of theIsland picked up from the sea, after the storm,a small and brown image of Mary, Jesus ofNazareth’s mother.That was the symbol of our domestic encounterbetween three cultures: two Indians, a blackslave and an icon of the Christian religion whichis the religious matrix of our identity. Thestorm was the proof that no transculturationtakes place over the serene waters of the sea incalm. The Cuban “ajiaco” (1) Fernando Ortizspoke about, “is boiling” in the national potsince the start, sometimes with less pressureand other times with safety valves.Four centuries after the start which has beenalways mixed and always in gestation, “Cachita”,the small and brown girl, has become one ofthe native symbols along with the maturity ofour culture.That is why we have a party whenever allCubans, women and men in the Island and inthe Diaspora, celebrate this great anniversary,and this is not only the celebration of areligious image which would be slimming andimpoverishing fact. We have a feast because400 years ago today’s nation started to showthe first signs of gestation. On the boat of thethree Johns the semen of faith coming from theMiddle East through European ways fertilizedthe native culture and the African one in theCaribbean matrix of a Latin AmericanChristianity.The celebration of the 400 years of the findand presence of the mixed-race image of theVirgin of La Caridad that lies in El Cobre andin the historic memory of all Cuba is not onlya religious fiesta but also the intention tolavish attention upon the origin, a folk partyof reunion and crossbreeding, a fair ofuniversal vocation of openness, a festival ofidentity, a procession of values and virtues,a feast of the national soul.Since then, Cuba and Cachita dance a “sonmontuno” (2) at the mountains in El Cobre.Thus, Cuba and Caridad (3), with our two mostaffectionate “C”, enjoy the Cuban “danzón” (4)and they fan themselves with the tuft of theroyal palm and they both wear a butterfly ontheir motherly chests so that no Cuban feelshimself excluded from their tricolour bosomlike the tricolour “tocororo”(5).Wherever Cubans want the storm to be over,their hearts’ intimacy have sensed a lot andtalked and very much prayed the sea that unitesus becomes serene, they sense, talk and praythe double wall of the two stretches of ElMalecón, the bright one in La Ermita and theoriginal at the coast in Havana open to the freeflow of Cachita’s sons and daughters. The oneswho look from that Malecón fight the nostalgialooking at the Island and the ones who aresitting bored on the green alligator hope toreunite the other part of the only Cuban nationunder the tender and warm cloak of La Caridad.This way we celebrate, we pray, we long for, wework, we wait and love, we fight and love, webelieve and include everybody, we change and125