Beware of Saying What Many Think

Yusimi Rodriguez

HAVANA TIMES, Jan. 19 — Over the days following the Alamar community Report-back Assembly, which was abruptly broken up by the delegate, Pedro noticed that residents avoided any interaction with him.  They didn’t stop to chat, and they greeted him from a distance.  This was logical: they had to safeguard themselves.

It was like what’s recommended against contracting the AH1N1 influenza: Avoid normal kisses and hugs with people who are infected (in fact, the virus is transferable even from telephones and bus handrails, because these spread the contagion.)

Pedro had been accused of conducting a campaign that was described by the delegate as “counter-revolutionary,” which is equivalent to being infected with some viral strain.

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.

A few days after learning about the highlights of what happened in the two Report-back Assemblies in Alamar, I read a letter titled “The Contrary Opinion” in the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Granma newspaper (the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba).

The author was advocating the position that small food-service operations (like all small-scale economic activities) should be organized into cooperatives instead of under the overly centralized State.  In fact, the writer proceeded to propose a debate around this different point of view…this contrary opinion.

The person who wrote the letter then asked who had listened to all of those people who had disagreed with transferring all small businesses to State ownership, to the point of even taking over “timbiriches” (food stands).  Who heard the opinions of those people who were not swept away by the “revolutionary fervor” that many supported during the “Revolutionary Offensive” of 1968?

I’d also dare to ask who heard those people who at the end of the 1960s argued that sowing Caturra Coffee wouldn’t work, and that the consequences of that attempt could be disastrous for the country.   Who could hear those who stood up to say the 1970 campaign to harvest 10 million tons of sugar would not be reached, and that the idea was senseless.

Was it that those decisions were absolutely unanimous and didn’t have any opposition?

The author of the letter in Granma asked, “How many times have we refused to add ourselves to the false unanimity —though this would genuinely support what Raul is struggling for so vigorously— to avoid getting into problems by holding a contrary opinion?”

What problems can someone run into for expressing a contrary opinion?  What was demonstrated by what happened to Pedro, at least, is that they can be branded counter-revolutionary and accused of conducting a counter-revolutionary campaign.  To be called a counterrevolutionary implies running the risk of receiving insults and even physical aggressions by the so called Rapid Response Brigades.  Cases like this have recently occurred.

But there are also more serious risks such as losing our job, depending on where the person works and their duties.  Or perhaps nothing happens, but there will always be an uncertainty, a fear of what could happen, the paranoia and the sensation of being isolated.

Something interesting that took place in the case of Pedro was that a few days after he was branded, some of the residents came up to him, in more private settings, and told him things like: “You’re right, but it is not worth getting into trouble”;  “After all, we’re not going to solve anything; they (the government?) laugh at all that,” and “What you’re saying is what everybody thinks, but nobody has the guts to say it.”