Reported number of Cuban political prisoners dips
Monday, February 02, 2009
By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA — The number of political prisoners held in Cuba continues to fall gradually, but brief detentions of activists have soared under President Raul Castro's rule, with more than 1,500 documented last year, the island's leading independent rights group said Monday.
The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said that it documented 205 political prisoners as of Jan. 30, down from 234 in early 2008. Twelve of the 205 have been freed on medical parole but continue to serve their sentences and can be returned to prison for parole violations.
The number of political prisoners has dropped by a third since Castro took assumed power from his ailing elder brother Fidel in July 2006, when the commission counted 316 prisoners.
"It is true that in 2008, as well as in the previous two years, the government has stopped applying long prison terms as it did in 2003," commission head Elizardo Sanchez wrote in the twice-yearly report, referring to a crackdown that put 75 critics behind bars.
But Sanchez said Raul Castro's government has increased "low-intensity political and social repression in the form of hundreds of short-term arbitrary detentions."
Castro said last month he'd be willing to send the island's political prisoners and their families to the United States in exchange for the freedom of five Cubans serving long terms in U.S. prisons on espionage charges.
Even if the U.S. agrees, Cuba is unlikely to free all of those on the commission's list, which includes some people convicted of violent acts, such as two Salvadorans sentenced to death for Havana hotel bombings that killed an Italian tourist.
Amnesty International has identified only 66 of those on the commission's list as prisoners of conscience, including 10 who have since been paroled.
President Barack Obama has never discussed a possible prisoner exchange and has said he will maintain a long-standing trade embargo against the island until Cuba shows "significant steps toward democracy," starting with freedom for political prisoners.
But Obama also has promised to lift all restrictions on family travel and cash remittances to Cuba, and has said he is willing to talk directly with Raul Castro.
The commission headed by Sanchez is funded by international rights organizations and it operates without government approval. The group is now largely tolerated, but Sanchez spent eight years in prison for his human rights work during the 1980s and early 1990s.
The commission gets its information from prisoners' relatives or inmates themselves and its reports are regularly used by international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Cuban officials say they do not hold any political prisoners and dismiss dissidents as "mercenaries" who take money from the U.S. government to destabilize the island's communist system. Officials maintain they respect human rights more than those in most countries, given the free education and health care and other subsidized services their system provides.
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Tom Miller Describes Mixed Picture of Reform
As Fidel Fades From the Scene
By Tom Miller
Washington Post
Sunday, February 17, 2008; B02
HAVANA
We were sitting on a wrought-iron bench downtown, Manolo and I, chatting about the December weather, nodding to pedestrians strolling by. I was in Cuba to do some research on José Martí, the national hero who had laid the foundation for the island's war of independence against Spain more than a century ago.
Our conversation was politely interrupted by an officer from the Specialized Police, a force assigned to heavily tourist areas. He asked for identification, not uncommon when a light-skinned foreigner is chatting with a dark-skinned Cuban, then walked away after writing down our data. He returned a couple of minutes later. "Follow me," he said, motioning us to his squad car.
This, I thought, was a miserable way to begin my trip -- but an excellent way to take Cuba's temperature. Ever since Fidel Castro took seriously ill more than 18 months ago and named his younger brother Raúl, then head of the armed forces, temporary president, the word "transition" has been on everyone's lips. They know where their country has been, but no one is sure where it's headed.
The policeman turned us over to a higher-ranking officer who asked whether I had any papers with me besides a few loose sheets stuffed into a small notebook. I had none. Suddenly, several officers put Manolo up against the car, patted him down, handcuffed him and stuffed him in the back seat. I wasn't frisked or cuffed, but officers maneuvered me in on the other side, and off we drove to the police station.
It was a "Dragnet"-era cop shop, with a high desk and officers milling about. I was bumped higher and higher in officialdom, each time asked whether I had any other papers with me. Finally I was ushered into a room where a uniformed immigration officer from the Interior Ministry looked up from his computer screen. He was husky, almost chubby, and his conversation was friendly, or at least not hostile. He, too, asked about papers. "Why is everyone asking about papers?" I asked. He replied with a shrug.
Then a heavy-set plainclothesman from State Security came in. His hair resembled a small dark yarmulke, slightly askew. He thrust a piece of paper in my face. "Have you ever seen this?" he asked sternly. It was the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. "I've heard of it," -- I chose my words carefully -- "but this is the first time I've actually seen a copy."
"Are you sure?" He paused. "We are not opposed to this document, I want you to understand." I thought of the "Seinfeld" line, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"Someone fitting your description has been handing these out," my interrogator said, and repeated his Seinfeldian disclaimer.
"Well, it wasn't me," I said. Fifteen minutes later, I was released. I never learned what happened to Manolo.
My two hours in Cuban custody seemed to fit a new pattern. The human rights activist Elizondo Sánchez thinks that under Raúl Castro, there are fewer arrests and jailings and more brief detentions. "Our day-to-day observation leads us to think that the style of political repression has changed," Sánchez told the foreign media last month.
Raúl Castro, who turns 77 in June, has surprised a lot of people. I'd last been in Cuba a year earlier, and I'd seen a dismal population going about the daily business of getting provisions for the following day. That's still what most people do, but this time there was more money in circulation, more low-end street commerce, somewhat less sense of perpetual anguish.
Cubans spoke, if not well, then at least respectfully, of their acting president. In the privacy of his living room, a writer commented on the younger Castro's lifelong military career. "He knows how to delegate," he said. "Things are running more smoothly." Another acquaintance, a retired bureaucrat, speaking openly in a restaurant, said she thought that Raúl was more understanding of everyday hardships: "He lives in a real neighborhood and understands the street."
Fidel fatigue underlies some of this new attitude. A change -- any change -- is welcome, as long as circumstances get no worse. My informal survey took me to La Víbora, a once-tidy Havana neighborhood that rarely sees a foreigner. A longtime acquaintance there had been a well-regarded scientist some time ago, but the contradictions between words and actions had compelled her to leave government work and find solace in the Catholic Church, through which she makes humanitarian visits to prisons. She described a devastating rainfall that had pounded the eastern end of the island weeks earlier. People had lost their homes, buildings collapsed, roads were destroyed, railroad lines uprooted.
"If Fidel had been in charge, he'd have started a speech that would still be going, and he'd blame the imperialists for the storm," she said. "Raúl devoted three sentences to it in a speech and blamed climate change. He told us that the ruin came to $499 million, and he ordered repair crews to work on the damage."
She also credits the new provisional president with a measure of expanded inmate rehabilitation programs. "I tell you," she said, "I've known two leaders in my life, Fidel and Raúl. I'm not a fan of Raúl's, but I believe what I see."
I got another indication of Havana's mood when I joined a dozen artists, filmmakers and writers around a table of good cheer at a private residence, pouring glass after glass of Havana Club rum. One fellow laughed about the time years ago when culture authorities had tried to discourage him from painting a certain way because it was considered counterrevolutionary. Everyone lifted their copitas at the distant memory, and someone else talked about the difficulty the late gay poet Virgilio Piñera had experienced getting published. The table nodded, and someone piped up, "Clothes. Remember we were told we couldn't wear narrow straight pants?" "Yes, and we couldn't wear our hair in Afros! They said it was ideologically diverting." More laughter. I started to hum Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This."
"I used to listen to the Beatles on a cassette player in the bushes down by the Almendares," one fellow said. On and on these intellectuals one-upped each other, chortling at memories of authoritarian rule under Fidel. They spoke of the era of cultural autocracy in the past tense, as if it had happened under a previous regime. I asked whether they could have had this conversation 20 years ago. "Are you kidding?" a woman replied. "It would have been suspect just to have a dozen people meeting like this." The liberating air of Fidel's absence gave them enough freedom to indulge in repression nostalgia.
The music of the moment is reggaeton. Under Fidel it was salsa. Reggaeton -- a blend of reggae, Latin beats and hip-hop -- fills theaters with madly cheering fans. At Havana's Teatro América, I saw thousands of Cubans applauding wildly, singing along with the two-man Gente de Zona, whose songs they knew from radio play. The young performers, whose suspenders and gold chains drooped at their sides, poured beer on their bare chests to reflect the spotlight better. Raúl and Fidel were far away.
Out in the provinces, though, life goes on much as it did in the past, regardless of which Castro heads the government. In Camaguey, long supportive of Fidel, the streets are filled with as many bicycles as cars. The bread man pulls his cart through residential neighborhoods, selling loaves of soft white bread with a crumbly crust for five pesos (about a quarter), while another street merchant buys empty rum bottles for a peso to sell at a modest profit at a recycling center. A local businessman named Luis, watching the passing scene with me, reflected on the hardships that, despite Raúl, remain glaringly apparent.
"What we need," he finally said, "is a Cuban Gorbachev."
Few of his compatriots would put it that way, but it was a note of budding hope for his country's future.
tmiller08@q.com
Tom Miller, the author of "Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba," has been visiting Cuba regularly since 1987.
*********************************
My comment to WashingtonPost.com
This article is a realistic portrayal of what is underway in Cuba.
However, it would be a mistake to interpret it as a sign of impending collapse, justifying maintenance of the travel and trade embargo.
Rather it should be seen as a reason for the US to take a different stance toward Raul Castro to encourage tendencies toward reform.
Miller's detention may well have to do with an initiative on the part of western human rights activists to pass out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That has been a tactic in other countries.
In and of itself, such an action should certainly not attract any police attention or sanction.
However, when the neighborhood hegemon which has tried to control your country for over a century is publicly committed to regime change, is squeezing every last third country possibility out of an embargo, and calls for instability and military disloyalty, such acts of human rights education are not viewed as disinterested idealism.
For more information on the debate over reform in Cuba, go to http://internalreform.blogspot.com/
By Tom Miller
Washington Post
Sunday, February 17, 2008; B02
HAVANA
We were sitting on a wrought-iron bench downtown, Manolo and I, chatting about the December weather, nodding to pedestrians strolling by. I was in Cuba to do some research on José Martí, the national hero who had laid the foundation for the island's war of independence against Spain more than a century ago.
Our conversation was politely interrupted by an officer from the Specialized Police, a force assigned to heavily tourist areas. He asked for identification, not uncommon when a light-skinned foreigner is chatting with a dark-skinned Cuban, then walked away after writing down our data. He returned a couple of minutes later. "Follow me," he said, motioning us to his squad car.
This, I thought, was a miserable way to begin my trip -- but an excellent way to take Cuba's temperature. Ever since Fidel Castro took seriously ill more than 18 months ago and named his younger brother Raúl, then head of the armed forces, temporary president, the word "transition" has been on everyone's lips. They know where their country has been, but no one is sure where it's headed.
The policeman turned us over to a higher-ranking officer who asked whether I had any papers with me besides a few loose sheets stuffed into a small notebook. I had none. Suddenly, several officers put Manolo up against the car, patted him down, handcuffed him and stuffed him in the back seat. I wasn't frisked or cuffed, but officers maneuvered me in on the other side, and off we drove to the police station.
It was a "Dragnet"-era cop shop, with a high desk and officers milling about. I was bumped higher and higher in officialdom, each time asked whether I had any other papers with me. Finally I was ushered into a room where a uniformed immigration officer from the Interior Ministry looked up from his computer screen. He was husky, almost chubby, and his conversation was friendly, or at least not hostile. He, too, asked about papers. "Why is everyone asking about papers?" I asked. He replied with a shrug.
Then a heavy-set plainclothesman from State Security came in. His hair resembled a small dark yarmulke, slightly askew. He thrust a piece of paper in my face. "Have you ever seen this?" he asked sternly. It was the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. "I've heard of it," -- I chose my words carefully -- "but this is the first time I've actually seen a copy."
"Are you sure?" He paused. "We are not opposed to this document, I want you to understand." I thought of the "Seinfeld" line, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"Someone fitting your description has been handing these out," my interrogator said, and repeated his Seinfeldian disclaimer.
"Well, it wasn't me," I said. Fifteen minutes later, I was released. I never learned what happened to Manolo.
My two hours in Cuban custody seemed to fit a new pattern. The human rights activist Elizondo Sánchez thinks that under Raúl Castro, there are fewer arrests and jailings and more brief detentions. "Our day-to-day observation leads us to think that the style of political repression has changed," Sánchez told the foreign media last month.
Raúl Castro, who turns 77 in June, has surprised a lot of people. I'd last been in Cuba a year earlier, and I'd seen a dismal population going about the daily business of getting provisions for the following day. That's still what most people do, but this time there was more money in circulation, more low-end street commerce, somewhat less sense of perpetual anguish.
Cubans spoke, if not well, then at least respectfully, of their acting president. In the privacy of his living room, a writer commented on the younger Castro's lifelong military career. "He knows how to delegate," he said. "Things are running more smoothly." Another acquaintance, a retired bureaucrat, speaking openly in a restaurant, said she thought that Raúl was more understanding of everyday hardships: "He lives in a real neighborhood and understands the street."
Fidel fatigue underlies some of this new attitude. A change -- any change -- is welcome, as long as circumstances get no worse. My informal survey took me to La Víbora, a once-tidy Havana neighborhood that rarely sees a foreigner. A longtime acquaintance there had been a well-regarded scientist some time ago, but the contradictions between words and actions had compelled her to leave government work and find solace in the Catholic Church, through which she makes humanitarian visits to prisons. She described a devastating rainfall that had pounded the eastern end of the island weeks earlier. People had lost their homes, buildings collapsed, roads were destroyed, railroad lines uprooted.
"If Fidel had been in charge, he'd have started a speech that would still be going, and he'd blame the imperialists for the storm," she said. "Raúl devoted three sentences to it in a speech and blamed climate change. He told us that the ruin came to $499 million, and he ordered repair crews to work on the damage."
She also credits the new provisional president with a measure of expanded inmate rehabilitation programs. "I tell you," she said, "I've known two leaders in my life, Fidel and Raúl. I'm not a fan of Raúl's, but I believe what I see."
I got another indication of Havana's mood when I joined a dozen artists, filmmakers and writers around a table of good cheer at a private residence, pouring glass after glass of Havana Club rum. One fellow laughed about the time years ago when culture authorities had tried to discourage him from painting a certain way because it was considered counterrevolutionary. Everyone lifted their copitas at the distant memory, and someone else talked about the difficulty the late gay poet Virgilio Piñera had experienced getting published. The table nodded, and someone piped up, "Clothes. Remember we were told we couldn't wear narrow straight pants?" "Yes, and we couldn't wear our hair in Afros! They said it was ideologically diverting." More laughter. I started to hum Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This."
"I used to listen to the Beatles on a cassette player in the bushes down by the Almendares," one fellow said. On and on these intellectuals one-upped each other, chortling at memories of authoritarian rule under Fidel. They spoke of the era of cultural autocracy in the past tense, as if it had happened under a previous regime. I asked whether they could have had this conversation 20 years ago. "Are you kidding?" a woman replied. "It would have been suspect just to have a dozen people meeting like this." The liberating air of Fidel's absence gave them enough freedom to indulge in repression nostalgia.
The music of the moment is reggaeton. Under Fidel it was salsa. Reggaeton -- a blend of reggae, Latin beats and hip-hop -- fills theaters with madly cheering fans. At Havana's Teatro América, I saw thousands of Cubans applauding wildly, singing along with the two-man Gente de Zona, whose songs they knew from radio play. The young performers, whose suspenders and gold chains drooped at their sides, poured beer on their bare chests to reflect the spotlight better. Raúl and Fidel were far away.
Out in the provinces, though, life goes on much as it did in the past, regardless of which Castro heads the government. In Camaguey, long supportive of Fidel, the streets are filled with as many bicycles as cars. The bread man pulls his cart through residential neighborhoods, selling loaves of soft white bread with a crumbly crust for five pesos (about a quarter), while another street merchant buys empty rum bottles for a peso to sell at a modest profit at a recycling center. A local businessman named Luis, watching the passing scene with me, reflected on the hardships that, despite Raúl, remain glaringly apparent.
"What we need," he finally said, "is a Cuban Gorbachev."
Few of his compatriots would put it that way, but it was a note of budding hope for his country's future.
tmiller08@q.com
Tom Miller, the author of "Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba," has been visiting Cuba regularly since 1987.
*********************************
My comment to WashingtonPost.com
This article is a realistic portrayal of what is underway in Cuba.
However, it would be a mistake to interpret it as a sign of impending collapse, justifying maintenance of the travel and trade embargo.
Rather it should be seen as a reason for the US to take a different stance toward Raul Castro to encourage tendencies toward reform.
Miller's detention may well have to do with an initiative on the part of western human rights activists to pass out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That has been a tactic in other countries.
In and of itself, such an action should certainly not attract any police attention or sanction.
However, when the neighborhood hegemon which has tried to control your country for over a century is publicly committed to regime change, is squeezing every last third country possibility out of an embargo, and calls for instability and military disloyalty, such acts of human rights education are not viewed as disinterested idealism.
For more information on the debate over reform in Cuba, go to http://internalreform.blogspot.com/
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Rafael Hernandez: It is imperative that we make changes"
'It is imperative that we make changes'
An interview with Cuban politologist and editor Rafael Hernández
Progresso Weekly
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=1
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com
The following is a condensed version of a long and revealing interview broadcast by Radio Progreso Alternativa on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007.
"Cuba today is experiencing an intellectual movement never before seen," affirms Cuban politologist Rafael Hernández, who for years has promoted a culture of debate in our country.
That statement explains the existence of the quarterly magazine Temas, edited by Hernández, which -- in 52 issues -- has touched on practically every problem that affects intellectuals worldwide, particularly the most pressing problems of today's Cuban reality.
To Hernández, "the magazine is in some way the mirror of that intellectual movement, of that output of ideas, of that diversity of Cuba's contemporary thinking that looks not only inwardly but also outwardly, at the rest of the world."
In a small office on the fifth floor of the ICAIC building [Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry], Hernández sits in his trench of ideas. This thinker of average height, a forehead so ample that it has displaced his hair, of fragile appearance and solid thinking, chats not only with words but also with his eyes, which often appear tired of traveling to the future with a round-trip ticket.
To him, Temas "is a sort of stethoscope, the device doctors use to hear the heartbeats of contemporary society, primarily Cuban but also the state of thinking in Latin America."
This monitoring of Cuban hearbeats began in 1995 under the sponsorship of Culture Minister Abel Prieto, who asked Hernández to edit the magazine "so it could become a space for debate, from the perspective of a critical reflection of Cuba's and the world's contemporary problems. That was a necessity at the time, and still is."
The date is significant, because it places the promotion of the debate of ideas 12 years earlier than its beginning in Cuban society. In addition, Hernández says, the publication of the magazine for the purpose of debating -- and "debate is discrepancy" -- reprises a rich process of criticism and introspection that were interrupted by extraneous events that affected Cuba.
The politologist takes out his return ticket because "to understand the present, you have to look backward." He tells me that between 1986 and 1990 "a very important process of public discussion took place, which in my judgment is the most profound and democratic critical debate ever staged in Cuba, and it culminated with the call to the Fourth [Cuban Communist] Party Congress."
The debate "developed a docket of problems, of basic things that had to do with the mismanagement of the Cuban socialist model, not only in connection with economic aspects but also political, social, cultural, etc. At that point, an expectation for change was created; the temperature of public opinion, of the critical social consciousness about those problems, was already high.
"At that exact moment, the crisis of the Special Period unraveled and amid that crisis it was clearly impossible to go ahead with the agenda of the so-called 'rectification' and to implement policies that provided answers to the problems."
As I listen, I recall that Hernández is not the first of the personalities that I have interviewed who refer to that period (1986-1990) of strong critical debate, which I immediately associate with the early alert sounded by Fidel Castro about the likely collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in general.
Another detail that many of the analysts and Cubanologists who write in the foreign press should be aware of is that the current debate in Cuba is focused on the need to perfect the "Cuban socialist model," not on the option between the socialist system and some other system.
"The system's principles must be defended, but the model itself must be transformed" so it may be buttressed, Hernández affirms. "I have heard -- and I don't know if the figure has been used officially -- that more than 2 million proposals have been received and recorded.
"No doubt, some of the proposals are not viable, but I am sure that all the proposals involve every important problem in Cuban society, all the problems that affect the operation of the Cuban socialist model. And I think that that's what the discussions have been all about."
The fluidity of the dialogue returned us to the present, so the question was inevitable: The open debates in the workplaces, nuclei of the Comunist Party and the barrios throughout Cuba -- are they a simple exercise by the people on the psychiatrist's couch, a simple catharsis?
"That cannot happen," he replies, emphatically. "We are in a crucial moment in the history of our country. Into this moment have come together an immense capacity of intellectual creation and an immense social energy. We have a truly educated population, people who think with their own heads. As a result, after all these years, we have at our disposal a public opinion, a citizenry with a capacity for consistent critical analysis, consistent and committed.
"The fact that the leadership of the Revolution summons us to a discussion of the nation's problems and asks us to express ourselves openly is a measure of the willingness for change that exists in the country. I don't think that the leadership of the Revolution can call to a discussion of a number of problems and then do nothing."
Before I can formulate my next question, Hernández answers it. "It's not a question of whether we should make changes or not. The fact is that it is imperative that we make changes. Politics is not the art of exercising human will; politics is the art of what's possible and meeting the needs that reality imposes upon us. Cuban society today demands changes and it is a fundamental element of socialism in Cuba that consensus should be articulated around the response to those changes."
Applying to the problems a traditional Cuban song, I tell him that the accumulated difficulties "are so many that they trip each other up" and that, in my opinion, they could exceed the responses.
Hernández's reply: "We have a number of material problems; we have a number of problems related to the scarcity of resources, but other problems don't have anything to do with that. They have to do with mentalities, with ways of thinking and conceiving socialism, with ways of thinking and conceiving participation.
"Without the effective participation of the citizenry in the control of politics and the decision-making process, we cannot solve any important problem, whether it's the production of milk, local transportation, energy supplies, the savings of resources or the construction of homes.
"All that involves the participation of citizens in the making of decisions involving priorities and in their control of politics. No bureaucratic administrative mechanism can control politics or prevent corruption like the people can."
Hernández tells me that, in its 52 issues, Temas has broached issues such as transitions, the role of the market in socialism, national consensus, socialist property, and the citizens' effective participation, among other topics.
In round tables and articles, the magazine has published the opinions of economists, sociologists, anthropologists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and designers, as well as the discussions and criticism made daily by the ordinary Cuban. Not just print them, but also present them in forum-debates, which any citizen can attend and join. These discussions are even advertised on television, Hernández says.
Has the magazine received phone calls or reprimands for the articles it publishes? I ask. Has anyone tried to censor it?
"Everything that is displayed in the intellectual terrain with ideas, with critical points of view, has to overcome obstacles," he answers. "That's natural, that's normal. If someone doesn't want to fall ill with lead poisoning or silicosis, one should not work in a mine. If one doesn't want problems with the spine, one should not work at a computer.
"Professions, jobs have their own occupational diseases. Our job has them, too; it runs into mentalities that at some point resist the airing of certain things."
I try to interrupt him, but he continues: "In Cuba in the past 15 years, the battle has been waged in an adequate, negotiated manner, through dialogue. The dialogue between the institutions that make decisions and the institutions in the world of culture, the world of thinking, is increasingly fluid. And 'fluid' doesn't mean there is no disagreement.
"The resistance to new ideas, criticism and changes is something that I find in my neighborhood. I don't have to go to any government office to meet with resistance. In our civic culture, there are elements that resist change and refuse to accept specific criticism or reject the convenience of discussing specific problems in public.
"It's not a mentality that's exclusively installed in the head of some bureaucrats but in the heads of many citizens I know who are reluctant to discussion. They don't really believe that a debate can unfold and go to the core of an issue and contend that we are often not ready for debate.
"When we talk about debate or criticism, we often talk about censorship, restrictions, control, but we never talk about our own lack of a 'debate culture.' We must foster a culture of debate from the start, because our society doesn't have it.
"We often call a debate 'good' when the participants say the same as we think. That's not debate; debate is discrepancy. And it is very important that in a debate we express divergent positions in a spirit of dialogue, of mutual respect. And I think that politics is going through that stage right now."
To this Cuban politologist who has given courses in several U.S. and European universities as an invited professor, participation and criticism are essential to build the model of Cuban socialism.
"All the discussion about Raúl's speech on July 26 is a discussion that calls to discrepancy. And that is something that, to me, is essential for the vitality of a political culture. In our case, socialist cultural politics cannot be healthy if it is not developed from the debate and criticism of an immense majority of citizens.
"Public opinion in Cuba is represented by the immense majority of citizens, not by a group that controls a specific number of communications media. And that's essential to make changes and to express, to permit the media (including magazines like Temas) to confront and deal with the problems facing the ordinary citizen."
Hernández final words seem to coincide with the idea held by many
Cuban intellectual and politicians about the future of Cuba.
"All the formulas destined to promote, emphasize and deepen the social contents of socialism are formulas directed at the core of the central problems of Cuba's development. The Revolution must go forward and leave more and more room for the new generations.
"Those new generations are demanding capability, power, a degree of decision over their own ideas, their own problems and criteria about the meaning of a socialist society. And I think that the socialism of the future is the socialism of the young."
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
An interview with Cuban politologist and editor Rafael Hernández
Progresso Weekly
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=253&Itemid=1
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com
The following is a condensed version of a long and revealing interview broadcast by Radio Progreso Alternativa on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007.
"Cuba today is experiencing an intellectual movement never before seen," affirms Cuban politologist Rafael Hernández, who for years has promoted a culture of debate in our country.
That statement explains the existence of the quarterly magazine Temas, edited by Hernández, which -- in 52 issues -- has touched on practically every problem that affects intellectuals worldwide, particularly the most pressing problems of today's Cuban reality.
To Hernández, "the magazine is in some way the mirror of that intellectual movement, of that output of ideas, of that diversity of Cuba's contemporary thinking that looks not only inwardly but also outwardly, at the rest of the world."
In a small office on the fifth floor of the ICAIC building [Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry], Hernández sits in his trench of ideas. This thinker of average height, a forehead so ample that it has displaced his hair, of fragile appearance and solid thinking, chats not only with words but also with his eyes, which often appear tired of traveling to the future with a round-trip ticket.
To him, Temas "is a sort of stethoscope, the device doctors use to hear the heartbeats of contemporary society, primarily Cuban but also the state of thinking in Latin America."
This monitoring of Cuban hearbeats began in 1995 under the sponsorship of Culture Minister Abel Prieto, who asked Hernández to edit the magazine "so it could become a space for debate, from the perspective of a critical reflection of Cuba's and the world's contemporary problems. That was a necessity at the time, and still is."
The date is significant, because it places the promotion of the debate of ideas 12 years earlier than its beginning in Cuban society. In addition, Hernández says, the publication of the magazine for the purpose of debating -- and "debate is discrepancy" -- reprises a rich process of criticism and introspection that were interrupted by extraneous events that affected Cuba.
The politologist takes out his return ticket because "to understand the present, you have to look backward." He tells me that between 1986 and 1990 "a very important process of public discussion took place, which in my judgment is the most profound and democratic critical debate ever staged in Cuba, and it culminated with the call to the Fourth [Cuban Communist] Party Congress."
The debate "developed a docket of problems, of basic things that had to do with the mismanagement of the Cuban socialist model, not only in connection with economic aspects but also political, social, cultural, etc. At that point, an expectation for change was created; the temperature of public opinion, of the critical social consciousness about those problems, was already high.
"At that exact moment, the crisis of the Special Period unraveled and amid that crisis it was clearly impossible to go ahead with the agenda of the so-called 'rectification' and to implement policies that provided answers to the problems."
As I listen, I recall that Hernández is not the first of the personalities that I have interviewed who refer to that period (1986-1990) of strong critical debate, which I immediately associate with the early alert sounded by Fidel Castro about the likely collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in general.
Another detail that many of the analysts and Cubanologists who write in the foreign press should be aware of is that the current debate in Cuba is focused on the need to perfect the "Cuban socialist model," not on the option between the socialist system and some other system.
"The system's principles must be defended, but the model itself must be transformed" so it may be buttressed, Hernández affirms. "I have heard -- and I don't know if the figure has been used officially -- that more than 2 million proposals have been received and recorded.
"No doubt, some of the proposals are not viable, but I am sure that all the proposals involve every important problem in Cuban society, all the problems that affect the operation of the Cuban socialist model. And I think that that's what the discussions have been all about."
The fluidity of the dialogue returned us to the present, so the question was inevitable: The open debates in the workplaces, nuclei of the Comunist Party and the barrios throughout Cuba -- are they a simple exercise by the people on the psychiatrist's couch, a simple catharsis?
"That cannot happen," he replies, emphatically. "We are in a crucial moment in the history of our country. Into this moment have come together an immense capacity of intellectual creation and an immense social energy. We have a truly educated population, people who think with their own heads. As a result, after all these years, we have at our disposal a public opinion, a citizenry with a capacity for consistent critical analysis, consistent and committed.
"The fact that the leadership of the Revolution summons us to a discussion of the nation's problems and asks us to express ourselves openly is a measure of the willingness for change that exists in the country. I don't think that the leadership of the Revolution can call to a discussion of a number of problems and then do nothing."
Before I can formulate my next question, Hernández answers it. "It's not a question of whether we should make changes or not. The fact is that it is imperative that we make changes. Politics is not the art of exercising human will; politics is the art of what's possible and meeting the needs that reality imposes upon us. Cuban society today demands changes and it is a fundamental element of socialism in Cuba that consensus should be articulated around the response to those changes."
Applying to the problems a traditional Cuban song, I tell him that the accumulated difficulties "are so many that they trip each other up" and that, in my opinion, they could exceed the responses.
Hernández's reply: "We have a number of material problems; we have a number of problems related to the scarcity of resources, but other problems don't have anything to do with that. They have to do with mentalities, with ways of thinking and conceiving socialism, with ways of thinking and conceiving participation.
"Without the effective participation of the citizenry in the control of politics and the decision-making process, we cannot solve any important problem, whether it's the production of milk, local transportation, energy supplies, the savings of resources or the construction of homes.
"All that involves the participation of citizens in the making of decisions involving priorities and in their control of politics. No bureaucratic administrative mechanism can control politics or prevent corruption like the people can."
Hernández tells me that, in its 52 issues, Temas has broached issues such as transitions, the role of the market in socialism, national consensus, socialist property, and the citizens' effective participation, among other topics.
In round tables and articles, the magazine has published the opinions of economists, sociologists, anthropologists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and designers, as well as the discussions and criticism made daily by the ordinary Cuban. Not just print them, but also present them in forum-debates, which any citizen can attend and join. These discussions are even advertised on television, Hernández says.
Has the magazine received phone calls or reprimands for the articles it publishes? I ask. Has anyone tried to censor it?
"Everything that is displayed in the intellectual terrain with ideas, with critical points of view, has to overcome obstacles," he answers. "That's natural, that's normal. If someone doesn't want to fall ill with lead poisoning or silicosis, one should not work in a mine. If one doesn't want problems with the spine, one should not work at a computer.
"Professions, jobs have their own occupational diseases. Our job has them, too; it runs into mentalities that at some point resist the airing of certain things."
I try to interrupt him, but he continues: "In Cuba in the past 15 years, the battle has been waged in an adequate, negotiated manner, through dialogue. The dialogue between the institutions that make decisions and the institutions in the world of culture, the world of thinking, is increasingly fluid. And 'fluid' doesn't mean there is no disagreement.
"The resistance to new ideas, criticism and changes is something that I find in my neighborhood. I don't have to go to any government office to meet with resistance. In our civic culture, there are elements that resist change and refuse to accept specific criticism or reject the convenience of discussing specific problems in public.
"It's not a mentality that's exclusively installed in the head of some bureaucrats but in the heads of many citizens I know who are reluctant to discussion. They don't really believe that a debate can unfold and go to the core of an issue and contend that we are often not ready for debate.
"When we talk about debate or criticism, we often talk about censorship, restrictions, control, but we never talk about our own lack of a 'debate culture.' We must foster a culture of debate from the start, because our society doesn't have it.
"We often call a debate 'good' when the participants say the same as we think. That's not debate; debate is discrepancy. And it is very important that in a debate we express divergent positions in a spirit of dialogue, of mutual respect. And I think that politics is going through that stage right now."
To this Cuban politologist who has given courses in several U.S. and European universities as an invited professor, participation and criticism are essential to build the model of Cuban socialism.
"All the discussion about Raúl's speech on July 26 is a discussion that calls to discrepancy. And that is something that, to me, is essential for the vitality of a political culture. In our case, socialist cultural politics cannot be healthy if it is not developed from the debate and criticism of an immense majority of citizens.
"Public opinion in Cuba is represented by the immense majority of citizens, not by a group that controls a specific number of communications media. And that's essential to make changes and to express, to permit the media (including magazines like Temas) to confront and deal with the problems facing the ordinary citizen."
Hernández final words seem to coincide with the idea held by many
Cuban intellectual and politicians about the future of Cuba.
"All the formulas destined to promote, emphasize and deepen the social contents of socialism are formulas directed at the core of the central problems of Cuba's development. The Revolution must go forward and leave more and more room for the new generations.
"Those new generations are demanding capability, power, a degree of decision over their own ideas, their own problems and criteria about the meaning of a socialist society. And I think that the socialism of the future is the socialism of the young."
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Unless reforms are made, we'll lose everything’
PROGRESO WEEKLY http://progreso-weekly.com/
September 27 - October 3, 2007‘
'Unless reforms are made, we'll lose everything' -- Discussion in CDRs
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com
In September 1960, Fidel Castro founded the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) for the purpose of combating the wave of bombings and sabotage coursing through in the country. Today, 47 years later, the CDRs, which bring together millions of Cubans, are immersed in the debates called for by the Communist Party of Cuba to help the Cuban process move forward.
"Unless reforms are made, we'll lose everything," Jorge said to me as we
left the CDR meeting in his building, in the Vedado neighborhood, following an analysis of the July 26 speech by the acting president of Cuba, Army Gen. Raúl Castro. What reforms was he talking about?
"Well, reforms that will make the system work, so services will not be a
disaster, so money will be worth something, so there will be one single
currency (as a comrade said), so corruption won't continue to devour us like termites."
The ordinary Cuban wants reforms to be tangible, not a conflict "between
what the press, the TV say and my daily struggle to deal with food and
transportation," said Catalina Fernández, who is a member of Jorge's CDR.
The absence in the media of the problems that concern Cubans is one of the issues discussed at several of the debates I've heard about from reliable sources.
"Seeing is believing, that's the thing," Catalina adds, and she tells me
that at the meeting she asked "Why don't most young people come to these assemblies? Because they don't think [these assemblies] will solve the problems. They grew up hearing about the same problems, seeing the same sewage problems in the same streets, seeing that the buildings in which they live are not maintained -- at most a dash of paint -- that agriculture is not productive. And now, that money doesn't go far enough."
A young man from the same CDR, a university graduate who listened in
silence, explains his attitude thus: "When we want things to work well, the TV and the newspapers are full of references, commentaries and political messages telling us to work harder. But have you seen any [TV program] showing the debates in the CDRs or in the factories? No. So, what's the use?"
Evidently, there's a little bit of everything. Committees where the people
speak their hearts out, and others where silence and a raised hand will
approve whatever is proposed. The latter are the people invited by Raúl
Castro last Sunday to participate with total sincerity and candor on any
subject. (See: "Raúl Castro: Speak with candor so we can get feedback," in Progreso Blog, Sept. 23, 2007.)
Catalina spoke out because "I don't want to waste this opportunity or the
good things we have accomplished." She has been a militiawoman, has been mobilized many times. "I fell in love with the revolution," she says with feeling. "It hurts when you lose a great love; to save it, you must make changes." Divorced after 20 years of marriage, she says: "I don't want to lose my other great love -- the revolution."
In other CDRs and many workplaces, the debates have been brisk. Topics have ranged from opening spaces to service cooperatives "that can solve something that has not been solved for as long as the revolution has lasted" -- an allusion to efficiency and quality -- to the instability and improvisation that afflict the ongoing projects.
On the subject of improvisation, multiple references have been made to the repair of household appliances and electronic equipment in general.
"People buy without taking into account the repair parts needed per
appliance, so what happens is that you go to the service center and they
tell you there are no parts available," Luis says. He points to the column
in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde called "Acknowledge Receipt," which, he says, "is full of such cases."
In my previous article, I wrote about the discussions in academic forums
open to the public. In this article, I deal with the life experiences of the
people in some places of the capital, with the participation of the
physician, the engineer and the humblest worker.
"I don't know what a 'structure' is, as a comrade called it," says
Arístides. "But, yes, we must be practical and look for whatever works and solves problems." Moreover, "I read the newspapers and listen to the
speeches and I want someone to tell me why the private farmers produce more than the state-run farms. Fidel has said that revolution means changing everything that needs to be changed. So?"
For most Cubans, the problems are perfectly identified. "The challenge is to take the bull by the horns and change," says CDR member Manuel. "But without losing political control. That, never."
The government must "give more autonomy to the companies," he says, "explore other forms of property ownership -- cooperative or communal -- that, well regulated by the law, can fill the holes of state inefficiency." And that inefficiency "is historical."
Guillermo, from the Playa municipality, cautions not to give the wrong
answers to the problems. "On many occasions, we give an administrative
answer to a political problem. On others, we respond juridically to problems whose solution is economic."
Public health was another topic held up for discussion, apparently in a
balanced manner. While the citizens acknowledge the quality of the doctors' work, they wonder why resources like X-ray film are rationed in specific clinics. Or why family doctors are not available in areas or hospitals whose condition leaves much to be desired, whereas they are plentiful in other areas.
"I agree that we should help other countries, but we should ration that
solidarity," Catalina suggested at the assembly in her neighborhood.
As the readers see, there is a little of everything: incredulity and faith;
apathy and participation; love and separation; silences and proposals. It is very likely that Raúl Castro's statement last Sunday will motivate the dumb to speak and that, in the end, many of the suggestions will be enshrined in new policies.
All the opinions are being collected and listed by topics, municipalities
and provinces. There is ample material for feedback, as Raúl Castro said.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
September 27 - October 3, 2007‘
'Unless reforms are made, we'll lose everything' -- Discussion in CDRs
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com
In September 1960, Fidel Castro founded the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) for the purpose of combating the wave of bombings and sabotage coursing through in the country. Today, 47 years later, the CDRs, which bring together millions of Cubans, are immersed in the debates called for by the Communist Party of Cuba to help the Cuban process move forward.
"Unless reforms are made, we'll lose everything," Jorge said to me as we
left the CDR meeting in his building, in the Vedado neighborhood, following an analysis of the July 26 speech by the acting president of Cuba, Army Gen. Raúl Castro. What reforms was he talking about?
"Well, reforms that will make the system work, so services will not be a
disaster, so money will be worth something, so there will be one single
currency (as a comrade said), so corruption won't continue to devour us like termites."
The ordinary Cuban wants reforms to be tangible, not a conflict "between
what the press, the TV say and my daily struggle to deal with food and
transportation," said Catalina Fernández, who is a member of Jorge's CDR.
The absence in the media of the problems that concern Cubans is one of the issues discussed at several of the debates I've heard about from reliable sources.
"Seeing is believing, that's the thing," Catalina adds, and she tells me
that at the meeting she asked "Why don't most young people come to these assemblies? Because they don't think [these assemblies] will solve the problems. They grew up hearing about the same problems, seeing the same sewage problems in the same streets, seeing that the buildings in which they live are not maintained -- at most a dash of paint -- that agriculture is not productive. And now, that money doesn't go far enough."
A young man from the same CDR, a university graduate who listened in
silence, explains his attitude thus: "When we want things to work well, the TV and the newspapers are full of references, commentaries and political messages telling us to work harder. But have you seen any [TV program] showing the debates in the CDRs or in the factories? No. So, what's the use?"
Evidently, there's a little bit of everything. Committees where the people
speak their hearts out, and others where silence and a raised hand will
approve whatever is proposed. The latter are the people invited by Raúl
Castro last Sunday to participate with total sincerity and candor on any
subject. (See: "Raúl Castro: Speak with candor so we can get feedback," in Progreso Blog, Sept. 23, 2007.)
Catalina spoke out because "I don't want to waste this opportunity or the
good things we have accomplished." She has been a militiawoman, has been mobilized many times. "I fell in love with the revolution," she says with feeling. "It hurts when you lose a great love; to save it, you must make changes." Divorced after 20 years of marriage, she says: "I don't want to lose my other great love -- the revolution."
In other CDRs and many workplaces, the debates have been brisk. Topics have ranged from opening spaces to service cooperatives "that can solve something that has not been solved for as long as the revolution has lasted" -- an allusion to efficiency and quality -- to the instability and improvisation that afflict the ongoing projects.
On the subject of improvisation, multiple references have been made to the repair of household appliances and electronic equipment in general.
"People buy without taking into account the repair parts needed per
appliance, so what happens is that you go to the service center and they
tell you there are no parts available," Luis says. He points to the column
in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde called "Acknowledge Receipt," which, he says, "is full of such cases."
In my previous article, I wrote about the discussions in academic forums
open to the public. In this article, I deal with the life experiences of the
people in some places of the capital, with the participation of the
physician, the engineer and the humblest worker.
"I don't know what a 'structure' is, as a comrade called it," says
Arístides. "But, yes, we must be practical and look for whatever works and solves problems." Moreover, "I read the newspapers and listen to the
speeches and I want someone to tell me why the private farmers produce more than the state-run farms. Fidel has said that revolution means changing everything that needs to be changed. So?"
For most Cubans, the problems are perfectly identified. "The challenge is to take the bull by the horns and change," says CDR member Manuel. "But without losing political control. That, never."
The government must "give more autonomy to the companies," he says, "explore other forms of property ownership -- cooperative or communal -- that, well regulated by the law, can fill the holes of state inefficiency." And that inefficiency "is historical."
Guillermo, from the Playa municipality, cautions not to give the wrong
answers to the problems. "On many occasions, we give an administrative
answer to a political problem. On others, we respond juridically to problems whose solution is economic."
Public health was another topic held up for discussion, apparently in a
balanced manner. While the citizens acknowledge the quality of the doctors' work, they wonder why resources like X-ray film are rationed in specific clinics. Or why family doctors are not available in areas or hospitals whose condition leaves much to be desired, whereas they are plentiful in other areas.
"I agree that we should help other countries, but we should ration that
solidarity," Catalina suggested at the assembly in her neighborhood.
As the readers see, there is a little of everything: incredulity and faith;
apathy and participation; love and separation; silences and proposals. It is very likely that Raúl Castro's statement last Sunday will motivate the dumb to speak and that, in the end, many of the suggestions will be enshrined in new policies.
All the opinions are being collected and listed by topics, municipalities
and provinces. There is ample material for feedback, as Raúl Castro said.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
Monday, October 1, 2007
A Cuban Overview of the Process of Change
One Tune, Two Interpretations
http://progreso-weekly.com/
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com September 27, 2007
I had promised this article to the many readers who told me they were interested in precise explanations about my latest writings and wondered if my opinions were an island inside the island. Well, I hope they'll find the answers here.
In Cuba, we are living a generational transit in the revolutionary process, and are also shaping the indispensable changes in structure and mentality that can no longer be postponed. It is a passing of the baton, but on a different track/reality. Perhaps because of the complexity of the situation and the accumulation of problems that still require solutions, this race is being run on a muddy track.
The generational transit is a biological fact that corresponds to the human composition of society; the shaping of changes is an exigency of reality. There are structures (as well as mentalities) that do not respond to the current requirements.
Cuba and Cubans remain the same, yet they are different. They have an excellent technical and professional formation and technical preparation, so the answers must be not only valid and different but also novel, to fit the circumstances. They must also be able to travel along new channels.
We are witnesses to the struggle between the needs imposed by the stubborn reality, the needs of the citizens, the paradigm of society, the man we want to build, and the official line of thought -- a body of ideas and practices that have ruled for a long time.
All this is being debated in homes, in nuclei (grassroots organizations) of the Communist Party of Cuba and in work centers. The debate also is waged in magazines and academic forums open to all ordinary Cubans.
Some of the readers who wrote to me said that the young people and freedom of thought are "hamstrung by the structures to which they obligatorily belong." To answer them, let me quote some of the presentations by ordinary people and intellectuals at the recently held symposium "Socialist Transition in Cuba," sponsored by the magazine Temas (Themes), published in Cuba.
"The process of change and adaptation undergone by [the Revolution], in addition to the recourse to means that respond to the present state of affairs, is characterized by positing a transformation in the way of thinking and building the Cuban socialist project," said Carlos Lage Codorniú, national president of the University Students Federation (FEU).
"It commands us [...] to rethink the way of articulating our model and participating in it," he adds, which necessitates "the strengthening of credibility in institutions and organizations and their reconversion in real spaces of participation."
Are the need for structural changes, participation and institutional credibility the exclusive opinion of the new generations?
Ramón de la Cruz Ochoa, a judge who for years served as Attorney General of the Republic, believes that "the weakness of the institutions is manifest" and the role of the institutions of justice is to augment and serve as guarantor ("with the necessary autonomy") to the citizen, "in the face of any illegality or arbitrariness," regardless of its source.
De la Cruz does not remain on the margins of the legal institutions and, when he opines about the need to strengthen the People's Power and allow it to play "the role assigned to it" (because without it "there is no socialist democracy"), he agrees with the president of the FEU on the functioning of institutionality.
The topic of the market, as well as the forms of property ownership, were discussed. To Jorge L. Acanda, professor of philosophy at the University of Havana, "the market must have a place, be it central to, or at the periphery of, the system."
Acanda then wondered why there is so much talk about the socialization of property. His answer? "Because the existing socialism has been a model of core-state that equated the elimination of capitalist private property with state control of property and social property with state property."
Professor Acanda recalls that "both Marx and Engels made it clear that state control of property does not mean socialization." And he added: "After what happened in eastern Europe, it has become clear that the State cannot be confused with society as a whole, and that state property does not have to be a synonym for the property of society as a whole."
I expect that a good many readers are surprised at the fact that these topics are being discussed publicly and openly in today's Cuba. But let me continue, with some of the opinions expressed by sociologist Aurelio Alonso of House of the Americas.
"Socialization has a greater sense. A socialist economy must not be a state economy outright. The socialist State has to perform a regulatory function, has to be an investor in, and an owner of, the natural resources, the major public services -- electricity, gas, water. But a mixed economy should also be legitimized, including not only foreign investment but national investment as well," Alonso said.
"It is necessary to foster, for example, a sector of family economy in those productive and service activities where [that sector] is most efficient to solve the problems of society," he said.
According to Alonso, "private initiative must include spaces that are not limited to 200 self-employment activities," a clear reference to the current legislation, which regulates the types of activities that citizens may engage in as private individuals.
Alonso favors trying out new forms of property ownership; if they work, they should be validated, if they don't, go back to state control. In his view, practice should be a requirement for the truth. But -- and he raises this "but" -- no one should hinder or raise obstacles to the ongoing experience, in an effort to invalidate it.
Why does he say this? Because, according to Judge Narciso Cobo, president of the Economic Law Society of Cuba, "if we look at the Cooperatives for Farm Production (CPA) and Credits and Service Cooperatives (CCS), we find that both are afflicted by a high degree of interference from the state structures that control agriculture and the sugar industry."
In other words, the state structures limit the cooperatives' attributions and decision-making capacity.
Judge De la Cruz favors "expanding the meaning of that type of property, to make it stronger and extend it beyond agriculture to other sectors of production-and-services -- gastronomy, for example -- that have not been developed in Cuba. There, pure state ownership has not been successful. Community ownership has not developed either, yet it's a social ownership."
No aspect was left out of the debate. The relationship between the economy and the market; the indispensable presence of ethics in both economy and the market; whether the island will copy some model of socialism -- all of these topics were discussed. It became clear, both explicitly and implicitly, that the process must be national, Cuban.
Let me insist, dear readers. Isn't it remarkable that these events are happening in Cuba practically every month, at various levels and to various degrees? Articles on these subjects are published regularly on the Internet, but the Miami media publish only those that are most convenient for their editorial concept of info-comics. Why the silence?
Because, I think, the approaches, analyses, criticism and possible solutions, without exception, depart from socialist positions and are designed to ease the transit on a socialist track.
It is not a question of dismantling the system but of rebuilding it with the effective participation of all citizens, through the established institutions. As I mentioned in a previous article, these institutions are in a process of reorganization and refitting, so they may serve as conduits that guarantee that the changes will not go off-course.
In the essence of the debate, we can appreciate that the greater the economic democracy, the greater the political democracy, which is one of the objectives of a genuine revolutionary process. (If some reader does not understand this relationship, I refer him to the reality of representative democracy, as it exists and functions in the United States. He will see that, in practice, economic power supplants the will and needs of the population.)
No doubt, someone will ask how much weight these symposia, forums and debates carry in the official political decisions. I could give a long answer, but I'll simply say that when the life experience of the people, the intellectual sector and culture in general are in harmony, failure to take them into account is the equivalent of a divorce between government and society.
I don't think that's the situation here. Rather, I perceive that these debates and publications help create a climate that will facilitate the creation of measures that will come in stages.
No offense, but when a tranquil reader looks at the Cuban reality from a critical perspective (and this symposium was critical, as others were), he will come to the conclusion that the mindset that prevails in Miami is unable to deal with the Cuban reality.
Miami is disqualified, not only because it doesn't understand and doesn't wish to understand, but also because it acts as a conscious instrument of foreign intervention. It couldn't be otherwise. As the saying goes: "[A tune] sounds one way on the violin, another way on a guitar." Interpretation is all.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
http://progreso-weekly.com/
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com September 27, 2007
I had promised this article to the many readers who told me they were interested in precise explanations about my latest writings and wondered if my opinions were an island inside the island. Well, I hope they'll find the answers here.
In Cuba, we are living a generational transit in the revolutionary process, and are also shaping the indispensable changes in structure and mentality that can no longer be postponed. It is a passing of the baton, but on a different track/reality. Perhaps because of the complexity of the situation and the accumulation of problems that still require solutions, this race is being run on a muddy track.
The generational transit is a biological fact that corresponds to the human composition of society; the shaping of changes is an exigency of reality. There are structures (as well as mentalities) that do not respond to the current requirements.
Cuba and Cubans remain the same, yet they are different. They have an excellent technical and professional formation and technical preparation, so the answers must be not only valid and different but also novel, to fit the circumstances. They must also be able to travel along new channels.
We are witnesses to the struggle between the needs imposed by the stubborn reality, the needs of the citizens, the paradigm of society, the man we want to build, and the official line of thought -- a body of ideas and practices that have ruled for a long time.
All this is being debated in homes, in nuclei (grassroots organizations) of the Communist Party of Cuba and in work centers. The debate also is waged in magazines and academic forums open to all ordinary Cubans.
Some of the readers who wrote to me said that the young people and freedom of thought are "hamstrung by the structures to which they obligatorily belong." To answer them, let me quote some of the presentations by ordinary people and intellectuals at the recently held symposium "Socialist Transition in Cuba," sponsored by the magazine Temas (Themes), published in Cuba.
"The process of change and adaptation undergone by [the Revolution], in addition to the recourse to means that respond to the present state of affairs, is characterized by positing a transformation in the way of thinking and building the Cuban socialist project," said Carlos Lage Codorniú, national president of the University Students Federation (FEU).
"It commands us [...] to rethink the way of articulating our model and participating in it," he adds, which necessitates "the strengthening of credibility in institutions and organizations and their reconversion in real spaces of participation."
Are the need for structural changes, participation and institutional credibility the exclusive opinion of the new generations?
Ramón de la Cruz Ochoa, a judge who for years served as Attorney General of the Republic, believes that "the weakness of the institutions is manifest" and the role of the institutions of justice is to augment and serve as guarantor ("with the necessary autonomy") to the citizen, "in the face of any illegality or arbitrariness," regardless of its source.
De la Cruz does not remain on the margins of the legal institutions and, when he opines about the need to strengthen the People's Power and allow it to play "the role assigned to it" (because without it "there is no socialist democracy"), he agrees with the president of the FEU on the functioning of institutionality.
The topic of the market, as well as the forms of property ownership, were discussed. To Jorge L. Acanda, professor of philosophy at the University of Havana, "the market must have a place, be it central to, or at the periphery of, the system."
Acanda then wondered why there is so much talk about the socialization of property. His answer? "Because the existing socialism has been a model of core-state that equated the elimination of capitalist private property with state control of property and social property with state property."
Professor Acanda recalls that "both Marx and Engels made it clear that state control of property does not mean socialization." And he added: "After what happened in eastern Europe, it has become clear that the State cannot be confused with society as a whole, and that state property does not have to be a synonym for the property of society as a whole."
I expect that a good many readers are surprised at the fact that these topics are being discussed publicly and openly in today's Cuba. But let me continue, with some of the opinions expressed by sociologist Aurelio Alonso of House of the Americas.
"Socialization has a greater sense. A socialist economy must not be a state economy outright. The socialist State has to perform a regulatory function, has to be an investor in, and an owner of, the natural resources, the major public services -- electricity, gas, water. But a mixed economy should also be legitimized, including not only foreign investment but national investment as well," Alonso said.
"It is necessary to foster, for example, a sector of family economy in those productive and service activities where [that sector] is most efficient to solve the problems of society," he said.
According to Alonso, "private initiative must include spaces that are not limited to 200 self-employment activities," a clear reference to the current legislation, which regulates the types of activities that citizens may engage in as private individuals.
Alonso favors trying out new forms of property ownership; if they work, they should be validated, if they don't, go back to state control. In his view, practice should be a requirement for the truth. But -- and he raises this "but" -- no one should hinder or raise obstacles to the ongoing experience, in an effort to invalidate it.
Why does he say this? Because, according to Judge Narciso Cobo, president of the Economic Law Society of Cuba, "if we look at the Cooperatives for Farm Production (CPA) and Credits and Service Cooperatives (CCS), we find that both are afflicted by a high degree of interference from the state structures that control agriculture and the sugar industry."
In other words, the state structures limit the cooperatives' attributions and decision-making capacity.
Judge De la Cruz favors "expanding the meaning of that type of property, to make it stronger and extend it beyond agriculture to other sectors of production-and-services -- gastronomy, for example -- that have not been developed in Cuba. There, pure state ownership has not been successful. Community ownership has not developed either, yet it's a social ownership."
No aspect was left out of the debate. The relationship between the economy and the market; the indispensable presence of ethics in both economy and the market; whether the island will copy some model of socialism -- all of these topics were discussed. It became clear, both explicitly and implicitly, that the process must be national, Cuban.
Let me insist, dear readers. Isn't it remarkable that these events are happening in Cuba practically every month, at various levels and to various degrees? Articles on these subjects are published regularly on the Internet, but the Miami media publish only those that are most convenient for their editorial concept of info-comics. Why the silence?
Because, I think, the approaches, analyses, criticism and possible solutions, without exception, depart from socialist positions and are designed to ease the transit on a socialist track.
It is not a question of dismantling the system but of rebuilding it with the effective participation of all citizens, through the established institutions. As I mentioned in a previous article, these institutions are in a process of reorganization and refitting, so they may serve as conduits that guarantee that the changes will not go off-course.
In the essence of the debate, we can appreciate that the greater the economic democracy, the greater the political democracy, which is one of the objectives of a genuine revolutionary process. (If some reader does not understand this relationship, I refer him to the reality of representative democracy, as it exists and functions in the United States. He will see that, in practice, economic power supplants the will and needs of the population.)
No doubt, someone will ask how much weight these symposia, forums and debates carry in the official political decisions. I could give a long answer, but I'll simply say that when the life experience of the people, the intellectual sector and culture in general are in harmony, failure to take them into account is the equivalent of a divorce between government and society.
I don't think that's the situation here. Rather, I perceive that these debates and publications help create a climate that will facilitate the creation of measures that will come in stages.
No offense, but when a tranquil reader looks at the Cuban reality from a critical perspective (and this symposium was critical, as others were), he will come to the conclusion that the mindset that prevails in Miami is unable to deal with the Cuban reality.
Miami is disqualified, not only because it doesn't understand and doesn't wish to understand, but also because it acts as a conscious instrument of foreign intervention. It couldn't be otherwise. As the saying goes: "[A tune] sounds one way on the violin, another way on a guitar." Interpretation is all.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
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