It鈥檚 been a decade since Cuba鈥檚 most prominent dissident, Oswaldo Pay谩, died in a suspicious car accident on the island. An important new biography of Pay谩 was presented at Books & Books in Coral Gables Wednesday night, and SA国际传谋 spoke with the author, David E. Hoffman.
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The Cuban regime denies it, but many believe it was responsible for Pay谩鈥檚 2012 death 鈥� because few dissidents ever challenged, and rattled, the communist state as seriously as Pay谩 did. At the turn of the century, his petition drive, known as the Varela Project, collected tens of thousands of bona fide signatures from Cubans demanding a referendum for democratic change such as free elections.
The Cuban Revolution had never been confronted with that widespread and adamant expression of popular dissent.
The late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, of course, never permitted the plebiscite those signatures were supposed to trigger under the Constitution; he instead threw scores of Varela activists in prison. But in "Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Pay谩 and His Daring Quest for a Free Cuba," Hoffman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Washington Post editorial writer, recounts how that David-versus-Goliath drama laid the groundwork for Cuban dissident movements today, including last summer's 鈥淧atria y Vida" protests.
鈥淥swaldo would say: 鈥楥onquer your fear; demand your rights,'" Hoffman told SA国际传谋.
"Your rights are given to you by God and not by the state. So be the protagonists of your own history.鈥� And I think actually that鈥檚 what movements like 鈥楶atria y Vida鈥� and San Isidro are about now.鈥�
Hoffman鈥檚 biography follows Pay谩's trajectory from the defiant Catholic teenager the regime punished by sending him to an island to do hard labor, to the soft-spoken hospital technician who refused exile and decided to doggedly take on Cuba's dictatorship using its own bylaws.
"To me, it's an endless fascination how one person can tackle a big totalitarian system that way," said Hoffman, who has written books on the Soviet Union. "What does it take?"
Hoffman also examines the uneasy relationship between Pay谩 and Miami鈥檚 Cuban exile community 鈥� which initially distrusted Pay谩鈥檚 effort to confront the Cuban regime through legal means rather than exile-led insurrection.
鈥淥swaldo鈥檚 lesson is that Cubans have to change Cuba themselves," Hoffman said.
"This is not going to be something to come from the United States; it鈥檚 not going to come from elsewhere. It has to come from within.鈥�
Hoffman said in that regard, Pay谩 can be compared with such Cold War European dissidents as Russia's Andrei Sakharov (in 2002 Pay谩 won the human rights award named for Sakharov), the former Czechoslovakia's V谩clav Havel and Poland's Lech Walesa.
Hoffman presented his book alongside Pay谩's daughter, Rosa Mar铆a Pay谩, herself a Cuban human rights activist who now lives in Miami.
