China and Vietnam no longer so far away
By Aurelio Pedroso
HAVANA – Nobody told me about it. I read it in Granma and, in my carelessness, I lost the copy of the newspaper where I had underlined the statement in red. It was an article about a report given to the Cuban Parliament by the then executive secretary of the Council of Ministers, Carlos Lage Dávila, about a trip he had just made.
I’m not trying to make firewood of a downed tree because I’m not a woodsman. And many of those who were present at that session never raised their voices; today, they hold important public posts.
The revelation was that China and Vietnam were very far in geography from Cuba, as well as far in their respective peculiarities. The distances, Lage said, made it difficult for Cuba to take their economies as examples of what to do.
The article, published in small type, lost in the page, without a grandiose headline or pictures, was a cautionary notice to those “reformers” or “updaters” who for a long time – going back to the Russian perestroika – had been thinking about looking at the Asian examples, whose economic output was so noteworthy.
As surely as one day follows another, the island is taking a course that points to the Chinese and Vietnamese experiences in the economic field, in addition to the homegrown ingredients.
Reliable sources tell me that Raúl Castro sent (almost secretly) trustworthy emissaries to explore both experiments because, even before he became president, he saw in the distance the course the island should take after the crash of European socialism.
In the late 1980s, as Vietnam’s renewal process was in full swing, a Vietnamese colleague and friend explained to me that the happiness of a farmer with total autonomy and the happiness of a prosperous self-employed entrepreneur were due to the policies of the Communist Party. The Vietnamese Communist Party, led by young people, guided the changes, he said, rather than censored the new ways in the wake of crushing economic disasters.
The Cuban revolution of 1959, which ranked seventh in a London Times list of the most transcendental events of the past century, is not going through its best period, not because of political crises but for economic reasons. In other words, its economic policy is at fault. Doubters should lift their heads from the sand; ostrich-like behavior ended a long time ago.
Not to mention that corruption and discontent come together in attitudes that are not at all helpful to the renewal of the socialist model.
Believers and nonbelievers agree with a suggestion that emanated from the Cuban Catholic Church, which did not come from High Heaven but from ordinary people who observe and suffer the daily toils on the island: “In haste but with pauses.”
Haste should not lead us to the abyss or to measures that provoke the people’s displeasure, such as the new regulation on customs tariffs, a classical example of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
And the pauses should not be excessive, out of consideration for the biological clock of the more than 11 million people who inhabit this island. Life is short, very, very short.
Vietnam and China are not so far away that we shouldn’t take them into account. Nor should we disregard that excellent and well organized farm warehouse outside nearby Guatemala City, where no tomato ever rots. And if there is no budget for exploratory trips, well then, let’s look at ourselves in other moments of our history.
Let’s look at whatever is advantageous. Without fear or criticism. For the health and well-being of an entire nation. Let’s see what President Raúl Castro says about his trip abroad when the next Parliament session begins.
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