Dmitri Prieto’s Diary

Reserved Seats on the Bus

Every time I take the bus, I take a close look at the other passengers. If I am seated, I try to see if there is an elderly person, someone with disabilities or a pregnant woman close by to give them my seat. Sometimes I am tired and do it reluctantly.

New Education Changes in Cuba

I realize that all these changes are controversial (in addition to their not getting at the root of the problem), but I’m pleased that they’re taking place. I believe that the key is the diversification of the educational system in conformity with the interests, aptitudes and motivations of the students.

Offerings to Yemayá?

On occasion adherents of the Yoruba religion make offerings to the Orishas: deities of African origin. Each deity is related to some element or force of nature, which is why the Yoruba religion is often celebrated as a medium for communion with the environment, with those entities for which modernity, in its ascent, has lost respect.

Stalinist Cubans Fighting Revolutionary Criticism (III)

Stalinist Cubans are the applied and persevering artisans of a possible capitalist transition within OUR country. Socialism doesn’t need smokescreens. The only way to confront precipices is to uncover them. To look into the abyss and see the abyss looking back, as Nietzsche once said. Only the brave – socialist or not – extend their eyes into the abyss.

Stalinist Cubans Fighting Revolutionary Criticism (II)

Stalin is defended by loads of Cubans nostalgic for the Soviet era, and those who love the rattle of weapons. These are Cubans whose minds did not transcend the events of 1985-1991 in the USSR. They are people who have no compassion for the millions of dead, because for them political power is justified in itself by its own existence.

Award for a Unique Cuban

Desiderio Navarro is a legend. I’m not sure how many languages Desiderio speaks, but they’re quite a few. He’s translated Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, French…15 different languages in all-making him probably one of the most competent and industrious translators in Cuba.

Taxes in Cuba

The majority of us Cubans work for state-owned companies or institutions and, beginning in the 1960s, the workers have received net salaries. We never see the taxes deducted by the state and so technically, in the legal sense, we are not taxed.

Law and Popular Participation (II)

The questions posed were these: Is the State the only entity in society that produces law? Or can there be others? Can there be several effective bodies of law in a society? And how do we know which law should be applied in each case?

Law and Popular Participation (1)

As for Cuba, much was said about how the Municipal Assemblies depend upon their superior instances for the realization of local projects, since – despite new possibilities – municipalities in Cuba still don’t enjoy real autonomy.