Annul your insularity

She was leafing through her passport when the phone rang. She could just barely hear the voice of a friend living in the Canary Islands yelling, "You heard? Now Cubans can travel as tourists!" Then the line cut out, and she was left staring at the blue document, full of visas to enter lots of countries, but without a permit to leave her own. With some hope she set out for the local immigration office. She is not an immigrant, but only here could she obtain the safe-conduct to annul her insularity.

For decades we in Cuba have lived trapped in an absurdity that takes the place of a Berlin Wall. The limitations on crossing our national borders highlight what a poet called "the damning circumstance of water on every side."

Last week it seemed that a crack had opened in the bureaucratic wall. On Monday the press contained the definitive version of the Guidelines approved in the recent Cuban Communist Party Congress. Thousands of eyes skipped over the rhetoric about production, transformation and our bright future to find a little nugget of gold in the pan of dross- a phrase about "migratory flexibilizations." A brief phrase, but it made headlines in the foreign press and set phones ringing for at least 24 hours. But the elation didn't last long. On a second reading, clouds of doubt gathered. "To consider a policy that would make it possible for Cubans resident in the country to travel as tourists," it said in point 265 of the text, without giving details of how or when the expected reform would be implemented.

Even today, as you fill out the application for a travel permit, in the space designated "reason" you cannot put "tourism." You can only claim that members of your family are awaiting you, or that some friend wants you to visit him in the country where he lives. The host is then obliged to go to the nearest Cuban consulate and apply for an invitation. It costs about 200 euros and amounts to a succulent industry without any polluting smokestacks, bringing in millions of dollars per year for our authorities. Without this letter issued in your name, you needn't waste your time showing up at the office where grim-faced soldiers decide. Then come days spent biting your nails as you wait to know whether or not you will be given the authorization to get on a plane. So it seems that now they are going to consider eliminating the previous letter of invitation; but nothing is said of eliminating the opprobrious exit permit itself, also known as the white card.

An undefined- but substantial- number of those who go through these motions still receive a negative response, though no court comes into the picture. The "crime" committed consists in opining critically about the government or belonging to an opposition group. Not that you ever get any explanation; at most the laconic phrase: "you are not authorized to leave the country at present." Holders of medical degrees, too, know that their skill is an impediment to travel. Some, with family abroad, wait years to leave the country.

This is why, when she heard on the other end of the line that the light was green, she ran off to the immigration office. She showed the passport with the lone-palm emblem and several visas of various colors stamped in it. With this in hand she invoked the terms of the new Guidelines, and a grim-faced captain looked her up and down from sandals to hairdo. "Try going to the airport and getting on a plane without the exit permit. You think you can do it?" he challenged her in front of everyone. And then she knew that nothing had changed, whatever the headlines, or her own desires.

Yoani Sánchez is a Cuban journalist, author of the award-winning blog Generación Y.

© Yoani Sánchez / bgagency-Milán