I have observed that errors in our country have a tendency to become orphans and fall into oblivion. It’s as if they had never happened. They are simply not mentioned. When there is no other remedy than to point these out, the passive voice is always used: “it was performed poorly,” or “an incorrect method was used.” It’s not said who made the error or who was behind a mistaken policy; while successes are always attributed to a person.
There are too many issues in Cuba than deserve intensive, probing, critical assessment and debate to move the country forward toward socialism; Yoani Sanchez Inc.’s explicit championing of a push to move Cuba back to capitalism is not one of these.
The bureaucratic apparatuses, interested in maintaining centralized control, will oppose the development of proposals for self-management, which would develop labor and social collectives to obtain their own resources. However, this would run counter to the general strategic line of the country’s leadership, which -still with its contradictions- is beginning to lean toward the decentralization of the control of resources and decisions.
In a previous piece I wrote about the many tasks that a State gastronomy, or food service, worker has to perform in this country in order to carry out their job. This isn’t an isolated instance. The service and the quality of the products that are offered by the State food establishments leave much to be desired, although we should recognize that things have improved in relation to the decade of the nineties.
Pepe gets up every day at five in the morning so he can use the bathroom before everyone else in the house does (three adults and a child), and he leaves before eight. His work, a cafeteria for construction workers, is four or five bus stops from his home. Most of the time he prefers to walk and gets to the job by nine o’clock at the latest.
Formerly serving as a warehouse in the port of Havana, the facility was rescued and restored. By redesigning and dividing it into cubicles, it now has ample space for the exhibition of artwork and the circulation of visitors – without crowding. The gallery even has cafes and restaurants with views of the bay, which offer an attractive panorama for relaxation, recreation, and meetings between friends or business contacts.
The Copenhagen Summit is now knocking on our doors. However, due fundamentally to the irresponsibility of the major powers (those both imperial and emerging), who are the principal emitters of polluting gases, world leaders have not reached the necessary consensus prior to this conference.
These were nothing other than acts of volunteer labor, for which I will receive no money or medals – nor does that interest me. When participating —of my own will— in each of those activities, I felt it was worthwhile when it was really voluntary and the objective was to do something useful, without fear or opportunism behind it.
I think that the governments of Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua let down the entire Tamil population in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as well as the “exploited…all over the world”, by extending unconditional political support to Sri Lanka’s racist government.
The problem of racism was, and is, essentially a problem of power. This is especially in the sense of power being an element in the capacity for decision-making and action. In this manner, the existence of hierarchy and the concentration of power condition the possibility for the existence of discrimination. Dispersed power, distributed power and -especially- distributed and socialized economic and political power would eliminate the conditions that facilitate racial discrimination (as well as other social problems).