Haroldo Dilla

If those who emigrated before to the 1970s were characterized as “scum,” ever since that decade there began to take shape a more sophisticated ideological and a growing economic use of Cuban emigrants.

It has become fashionable to talk about the so-called revolutionary social pact and its crisis. Flowing from that, according to one’s likes, people refer to the revolution’s reformulation, completion or “upgrading”.

With their gaze fixed on the north, the Cuban managerial technocracy — civil and military — prepares for its entry into the world of big business.

The post societies (post-industrial, post-communist, post-liberal, etc.) are always quite confused culturally because they tend to be defined more for negating than affirming. Or, better said, they affirm by denying.

We are now marking 15 years since that repressive act which spelled the end to the boldest and most competent center for social research that existed in Cuba after 1959.

“Bureaucratic control” is not one simple feature, nor is it reminiscing a past to which Janas could bid farewell with the blink of an eye; instead, it is a basic component of the Cuban model.

Today it is exceedingly difficult to know what is going on, who’s who in the new political and administrative matrix, or in what direction the policies of the island are moving.

Our societies have always required heroes. But curiously, they have required them as ideological constructions, as imaginary figures based on a series of virtues, more than as real and concrete people. I’m sure that if our heroes came back to life they’d be very upset with the way we describe, imagine and supposedly want them to be.

I am among those who are saluting the recent decision by President Barack Obama to take another step to bore through the embargo/blockade. In this case it involves the easing of some restrictions on travel and remittances.

A few weeks ago we learned through the Cuban minister of Labor of a plan to retrain workers being laid off; its objective is to export these individuals. The idea is simple: if there is an excess here, they can be exported to other countries (technically this is called the “export of professional services”). This would solve two problems: unemployment and the chronic shortage of hard currency.