To Understand the Love for France … while in Cuba
One of the things I would like to do on this trip is to find out the relationship, inversely or otherwise between the love I hold in my heart for cuba and the love and adjustment and integration I have to do in France.
The official France is very strict and asks mountains of questions, and papers and registrations and witnessing etc. They are very strict about whom they allow to participate in their sacred idea of France. One thing I have to tell you from the begning is that France is willing to accept you, but you must prove your Frenchness, you cannot be a hyphenated French person, you are either French or not French. Currently I am not French, but all there is compelling reasons for me to become French. I don’t mean by nationality, I am quite happy with my Australian nationality, which I have not renounced in all the years I have lived abroad, but to become French in your mind. Intellectually I can understand the concept and accept it, and even would say I am fond of the structures of what Frenchness mean, but the heart has to be spontaneous. I have always felt I have a Cuban heart, and it is always wonderful to hear Cuban ambassadors talking about Cuba as our country , when in conversation with me. I have in every way felt part of the cuban society, culture, intelligentsia.. It is not the reluctance to repeat it in France but it is the deep sadness I have in my heart to give up my Cubanidad. So what I have to do on this visit is to understand the compromises I have to make in Cuba so that I can fall freshly in love with France..
