Osmel Ramirez Alvarez

Another unfortunate chapter in Cuba’s migration crisis is unfolding in southern Mexico, in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas. And, it is receiving quite a bit of media coverage too. With letters of safe passage being suspended a few days ago (permits that allowed free passage for a month in this country), approximately 5,000 Cuban migrants have accumulated on Mexican soil.

To try and make the new president Miguel Diaz Canel “popular”, they have even planned several trips to the provinces, with contacts with the locals and TV cameras focused on him, giving his duties a great deal of coverage, as a president who takes action with new energy. They are selling us an image, that’s it.

Cuba’s housing situation and infrastructure on the whole are in a critical condition. This country is almost entirely falling apart. Of course, this is the result of many factors, but they all directly or indirectly relate to the country’s economic, political and social system which has proven to be dysfunctional.

A few days ago, on September 24th, the UN held a Peace Summit called the “Nelson Mandela Peace Summit” in honor of the centennial of his birth this year. Who doubts this wasn’t a fair tribute? Quite likely, not even his political adversaries, supporters of apartheid, did.

The new draft Constitution, which has been written up by the Communist Party to tweak Cuba’s Law of Laws, forces us to ask many questions: Does it have a future? Can it really solve our national problems? In order to answer these, we first need to define what our main problems and objectives are here in Cuba.

Flicking through the unattractive options on our TV channels on Tuesday September 18th, I stumbled across an interview with Cuban President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel. He showed he knows by heart, down to the T, every argument that is used to justify the Communist Party’s super structural power.

Religious opposition of same-sex marriage and same-sex couples being able to adopt children has been widely criticized on alternative digital media platforms. But, whether you like it or not, it is a homosexual’s right to want to change existing norms while it is also the conservative’s right to want to preserve these norms (for whatever reason they may have).

It would be foolish to propose political or economic changes to the Cuban Communist Party. However, I believe it would be good for us to take part in the debate and discussion relating to the draft Constitution. Of course, I don’t believe that this is a truly democratic exercise, it’s rather a simulation of constituent democracy.

Like its concise predecessor, this new Constitution, which the Cuban Communist Party is proposing to us via the National Assembly, continues to be full of contradictions regarding sensitive but key points. And you can pick up on this as early as Chapter 1.