Havana/Someone has decided to correct the official propaganda with a simple marker. On the corner of 23rd and G, in Havana’s El Vedado, a sign that originally proclaimed “Havana lives in me” has received a correction that is as simple as it is devastating. On the printed letters, an anonymous hand added a “There is no” and transformed a word. The result is much closer to the daily experience of the capital’s residents: “There is no life in me, Havana”, as if the city itself dictated its epitaph.
The intervention did not need a brigade of restorers, a commission of experts or a budget item. All it took was a violet marker, some skill in calligraphy and the conviction that that message, adorned with photographs of smiling children, needed an urgent update. The new version also has the virtue of being much more credible than the original.
The location of the sign adds another layer of irony. G Street, officially Avenida de los Presidentes, was for years one of the main meeting points for young Havana residents. Emos, rockers, geeks and other urban tribes gathered on its benches, walks and flowerbeds and found a space there to exhibit their differences, listen to music, fall in love or simply spend the night away from family surveillance.
The economic crisis has emptied pockets and streets, emigration has taken away a good part of the young people and police operations have contributed to discouraging spontaneous gatherings.
There was a time when on weekends that avenue was abuzz with boys dressed in black, dyed hair, piercings and guitars. The emos became protagonists of international reports, while the police tried to control youth gatherings that challenged, if only because of their aesthetics, the uniformity promoted by those in power.
Nothing remains of that bustle. The economic crisis has emptied pockets and streets, emigration has taken away a good part of the young people and police operations have contributed to discouraging spontaneous gatherings. Added to this is the demographic collapse of a country where fewer and fewer children are born and goodbyes abound. The avenue preserves some of its trees, its benches and its monuments, but it has lost a good part of that energy that made it a territory of encounter and rebellion.
The photographs on the poster show five smiling, healthy and carefree little ones. They are the image of a Havana that claims to be young and vital, although reality points in the opposite direction. The “there is no” added to the announcement also summarizes that absence. There is not enough fuel, medicine, or transportation, but there are no longer many boys who filled G Street with their antics, their arguments, and their desire to take on the world.
Where before young people gathered to show that they were alive, now a stranger has had to write on a sign that the city has long been a corpse.
