The Holes in the Wall around Cuba
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso
HAVANA TIMES — Raul Castro is not likely to go down in history as a daring and innovative politician. He may in fact be remembered as one of the most fainthearted leaders ever to govern Cuba. The general and his retinue of octogenarian and fiftyish officials say they are making “slow but sure” progress, as though they had all of the time in the world to deliver the glass of milk promised every Cuban child, as though every delay didn’t have a huge impact on our society.
Every delay, in fact, prompts pessimism, deception, annoyance and many other negative feelings among observers, converging into a familiar idea: with the exception of a few, superficial changes, no significant transformations are taking place in Cuba.
That, however, is not my opinion. Though I acknowledge the highly capricious nature of Cuba’s political class, I do believe there have been concrete changes and that some are highly relevant and positive. In contrast to the system’s apologists – the soft, the hard-liners and the semi-critical – I also believe that a good many of these changes are a sort of unplanned “collateral damage,” and that a no less significant number of these are the result of the elite’s inability to govern the way it could two decades ago.
About 12 years ago, 75 dissidents were given long prison terms for writing critical articles in the foreign press. Today, they continue to do so and even have an online newspaper. Generally speaking, their private activities are tolerated, or harassed only minimally (at least when we compare the situation to the repressive brutality of years past).
As an example, the migratory reform is a relevant and positive change. It is insufficient, failing to recognize a number of civil rights, excluding the émigré community and several other things. It is also true that, in the short term, it serves to take social pressure off the regime and to increase its dividends. But it is also unquestionable that it favors family ties and helps Cubans come into contact with realities they have only been exposed to through caricatures published by Granma. The authorization of small private businesses is another incomplete measure, but I consider it vital that Cuban society begin to become acquainted with other forms of property, that the market should become a means of assigning value and that 20% of Cuban workers should no longer be State employees.
As I see it, the most important thing is that these measures – and others we could mention – point towards the strengthening of two social virtues that totalitarianism deprived Cubans of: diversity and autonomy. As a result of its own social and cultural sophistication and of the new circumstances created, the island’s society is today more varied and autonomous than it has ever been since the second half of the 1960s. For this same reason, and because the State is losing its capacity to control every aspect of society, Cuban society is freer today than it was twenty years ago – and not because the revolutionary leadership (the anti-democratic clique par excellence) wants it this way, but because it can no longer do things the way it used to.
About 12 years ago, 75 dissidents were given long prison terms for writing critical articles in the foreign press. Today, they continue to do so and even have an online newspaper. Generally speaking, their private activities are tolerated, or harassed only minimally (at least when we compare the situation to the repressive brutality of years past). Only their public presence is fiercely attacked, and less severely than in the past (through express detentions that last a few hours). This does not make the Cuban government noble or speak very highly of its legal structures, but we must acknowledge that the situation favors the development of an anti-establishment movement more than it did in the past.
The Cuban State is no longer capable of asking every citizen for their soul, and contents itself with requesting obedience. The totalitarian regime that, during the “Soviet” era, was sustained by the State’s monopoly over the economy, politics and ideology, today retreats to a less ambitious position…
Something similar is happening in the sector that I refer to as the system’s “critical accompaniment.” When the Catholic leadership dismantled the journal Espacio Laical (“Secular Space”), its main proponents sought other forms of religious support to found Cuba Posible (“A Possible Cuba”), a project that seeks to encourage debate among intellectuals and activists who harbor critical perspectives that would have met with a severe government response not long ago. The new journal is tolerated, as other small spaces for popular participation are tolerated.
To get a sense of the changes, suffice it to compare this situation with what happened in 1996 at the Center for American Studies and later with other autonomous projects, such as Habitat Cuba. If the system’s critical companions had declared they were a “loyal opposition” in the year 2000 (as they do today, wherever they can), they would have found themselves in the bitter situation of being dubbed the opposition plain and simple, or of exhausting whatever loyalty they had left in exercises in political obsequiousness.
The Cuban State is no longer capable of asking every citizen for their soul, and contents itself with requesting obedience. The totalitarian regime that, during the “Soviet” era, was sustained by the State’s monopoly over the economy, politics and ideology, today retreats to a less ambitious position and is forced to share spaces with the Catholic Church and the market, formally, and with society in general, informally.
In the now distant 90s, I heard Jorge Dominguez say that we were witnessing the transition from a totalitarian to an authoritarian regime, and it struck me as an exaggeration. But Dominguez was right and that transition is today more evident than it was at the time – and it will become even more so as social diversity and autonomy gain more and more ground.
That is why I consider positive developments the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, the lifting of the blockade/embargo and the complete normalization of relations. Not because I believe Cuba’s governing elite is going to liberalize the country politically of its own will (it won’t), but because the road to liberalization inevitably leads to the intensification of contradictions, the maturation of explicit forms of social diversity and autonomy and to broadening those spaces that the political class can no longer control or can control only marginally.
In short, it is true that the walls of government repression and intolerance still stand – but it is also true they now have holes in them, and, as I see it, the holes are sometimes more important than the wall itself.
We must take into consideration this huge reality: to fail the Cuban social experiment — the USA proudly invested; year after year — more money $$$$$$$$ (of their taxpayers) than needed to provide all its citizen with a decent healthcare — even, deprive educational upgrades to its children. Instead, they elected to use taxpayer funds to secretly sabotage, block, falsify, manipulate, maneuver, jail and torture — every detail (or person) that could/would deliver potential improvements to the tiny Island new course of approx the 10,000,000 Cubans. This, in contrast — while Cuba remained able to be consistent in providing excellent “Health Care For All of its Citizen” and university education — to all of high standards — as is officially recognized by many (other) Western nations.
My info is what no classical-republican-fascistoide wants to read: they wanted to starve Cuba to death and sabotage whatever Cuba ever wanted to do in its own territory — this, over a period of nearly 60 years (so far). Considering the huge amounts af money the USA poored in its sector activities to bring Cuba on its knees — the USA failed to slaughter this tiny nation. It is amazing that it still is functioning . The US spend billions of to lure people away from the Cuba — coercing them into dangerous overseas trips to a new paradise of glitter and fast-food: “New Havana.” Poor taste or what?
To expect this recurrently incompetent power-hungry clique of right-wing-nuts would ever be prepared to think outside of their tiny-brain box is an absolute no: they rather bring in Hitler-type of world leader than considering or one moment what the people want. Here, America has marked its history to be willing trample over a small people, a small island so it never would be able demonstrate there is an alternative to a society ruled by just egotistical self-absorbed motives the American Republicans are standing for..
“This from the guy who hates …strong fathers ”
I spoke of totalitarian male heads of household and you euphemistically call them ” strong” to justify your unjustifiable support of totalitarianism .
You unwittingly ( is there any other way for you) make my point for me .
Very revealing of how you think.
Thank you .
Suspicions confirmed.
Helpful hints: do not get in a pissing contest with a skunk or come to a gun fight with a knife.
Gordon, you are really uninformed. China has purchased US debt and US real estate in an amount far exceeding the entire Cuban budget. Most of China’s investment in Cuba is in the form of high-interest loans. The US economy is the most robust economy in the world at the moment. The flight of international currency is toward the USD. The world’s money managers believe the USD is a safe haven. Meanwhile, Cuba’s largest trading partner, Venezuela, is facing 80% inflation and the Bolivar, Venezuela’s currency, was recently devalued. Cuba’s economy grew at a barely measurable 0.6% in 2014. Economist predict 2015 to be worse and not better for Cuba’s economy. Do you just make that crap up in your head?
Hahaha! This from the guy who hates strong fathers? I still use “the Castros” meaning plural. Even with his stoma bag and adult diapers, Fidel continues to have an impact on the daily lives of Cubans.
If we gave all Cubans cash as per the US has debt Cuba would be the richest nation in the main land Americas. The US economy is in ” Humpty Dumpty ” mode and any Americans live in the land of ” rip Van Winkle
The US ” Rip Van Winkle ” economy is in the ” Humpty Dumpty ” mode and this is why China is investing mega DOLLARS in Cuba rather than the USA .
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A pretty silly post from someone who until reminded some 10 times or so that Fidel retired about sight years ago , was insisting that the “Castros”
(FYI, the “s” at the end of Castros indicates more than Raul) were running Cuba into the ground .
We will get to the point soon when any possible new direction for Cuba’s now undemocratic systems will become apparent IF …….IF Raul chooses begin creating a communist society by first making moves toward democratic socialism .
This necessarily involves bottom-up rule by a democratic majority of the working people and not top-down as it is now under the badly corrupted Poder Popular .
Big moves toward cooperative businesses and farms along with a reestablishing of the basic tenets of PP in which the people make the decisions their elected officials are supposed to carry out and not a system in which the people are told what to do at work and in government affairs.
If Raul goes the way the USA would like, he’ll go to free-enterprise capitalism and thereby ensure a totalitarian society.
If Raul follows the route of all other countries led by a “Communist” Party, he’ll retain the same totalitarian state capitalist form now in use and exactly as was used in the old Soviet union, China, etc and make no reforms in the now top-down electoral system.
The electoral system can best be served by keeping the PCC out of it as PP insists be done and IMO , the Cuban Communist Party needs to go away .
Contrary to common “wisdom” I do not believe that adding more parties will do anything more than spreading the authoritarian nature of the existing system a little wider and with no change in the lives of the average person in Cuba.
Political parties are just enormously powerful and corrupting organizations that wind up controlling societies in a totalitarian manner .
Like the priests, let them find a worthwhile occupation
This article says it all. Cuba is not a totalitarian country. North Korea is the only totalitarian country. When the Soviet Union disappeared Cuba through commercial deals linked its fate to global capitalism. If global capitalism fails, no one will buy Cuban nickel. Tourist numbers from capitalist countries will plummet. Cuba will no longer be able to offer medical services abroad.Cuba will share the fate of global capitalism. The same goes for Venezuela which is competing with Saudi Arabia to fuel global capitalism.
“A transition from a totalitarian to an authoritarian state” sounds quite right to me, but who would have guessed that it would be the Castros themselves fifty years later overseeing the slow transition back from Castroism to kleptocratic Batista-ism. A sad end to a sad business.
This group of revolutionary politicians now realise that they have not delivered on their revolutionary promises. The country is still in a time warp and the group of more mature politicians are starting to realise that they are also running out of time(Old Age waits for no-one, the grim reaper is calling) So do the decent thing and help the people prepare for a future without such repressive measures, go out like giants and give the people more freedom, power to make their own decisions. Cuba for the Cubans!
An excellent, thoughtful essay!
I like this last sentence:
“In short, it is true that the walls of government repression and intolerance still stand – but it is also true they now have holes in them, and, as I see it, the holes are sometimes more important than the wall itself.”
..as it reminds me of a lyric from the Canadian poet and songwriter, Leonard Cohen, from his song, “Anthem”:
“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.”
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics…
Raul “La China” Castro will be forgotten before the ink in his obituary is dry. Besides, people have to know who you are first in order to forget you. Most people around the world still think President Castro means Fidel Castro.
Soviet style central planned states just don’t work. Cuba is following a natural evolution dictated by natural economic forces. For the current regime to succeed they need to balance control with autonomy. As long as the regime meets a minimum level of societal goods such as health care, education and security they will maintain sufficient consent of the governed.
Cuba waits, and waits, and waits, and waits, and………………