Opinion

Are we Cubans now divided between those who are “prepared politically” and those who are not? Are we in the presence of a new type of elite, a new class, a new form of exclusion? Is it that we no longer exclude people on the basis of race, gender, age, sexual orientation or social origin, but on the basis of political preparation? And what does having a good political preparation consist of exactly? Who determines which person has adequate preparation in this sphere?

In our country, it seems a “revolutionary” is —solely— a person who agrees with the official discourse all the time. The concept of revolution is not the one included in the dictionary, but the one coined by officialdom. We’ve lost the concept of what a genuinely revolutionary position is.

Haiti bleeds and the international community searches for ways to help amid the chaos so that the immediate needs of the population of Port au Prince can be met after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake destroyed the city. On Saturday night former Cuban president Fidel Castro wrote his second post-quake commentary on the desperate situation in the Haitian capital and the participation of Cuban medical personnel in the relief effort.

Pedro also asked who exactly had made the decision about distributing the scant resources for apartment building repairs – but he didn’t receive an answer; the delegate talked the whole time using the impersonal “they,” without directly identifying anyone.

These mechanisms take the form of Report-back Assemblies (Asambleas de Rendición de Cuentas), biannual meetings in which local delegates (previously elected by community residents) meet with their constituencies. These neighborhood delegates report on policies implemented by the Municipal Assembly (city council) and steps being taken to resolve problems identified by the community. Alternately, residents can present new concerns to these representatives.

It will not be some imperialistic policy that reverses this revolution. If this occurs, as Fidel Castro expressed (in Nov. 2005), it would be by its own revolutionaries, whose inabilities offer the fuel that feeds the anti-socialist fire. The main danger is from within, from those “revolutionaries” suffering from blindness, authoritarianism and bureaucratic sclerosis.

I am not nor do I pretend to be an intellectual, much less a specialist in racial issues. I’m simply a person who lives and works in this country. Nor do I believe the fact that I’m a black person is relevant, because the debate on the racial question in our country is a matter that has to do with everyone; what happens is that this question is almost immediately associated with black people.