The street wonders: Any answers?

By Elsa Claro

HAVANA – A decisive semester begins this month. Amid dynamics that go from the street vendor of anything under the sun to the street buyer of “any little piece of gold” to the private restaurants of all categories, the government adopts measures of great size and meaning – but in perspective. In other words, they’re slow to come.

The number of people who are self-employed has risen above 370,000 and private activities will account for one half of all the economic activities on the island. Those figures indicate an evolution but don’t satisfy those who are expecting “wholesale” changes.

New measures are doled out with an eye dropper: authorizations for the purchase and sale of automobiles and houses, the unrestricted inheritance or transfer of telephone numbers, the release of idle land in usufruct (so far, 1.5 million hectares leased out to 163,000 farmers), bank credits to farmers, microentrepreneurs or families for the construction or repair of houses, etc.

But a good many of the millions of Cubans who passionately debated the economic program being enacted think that it needs a push. Above all, they want to know what the press is not reporting.

Efforts to broach sensitive, complex or compromising topics are obvious in the various reports in the media, which used to skimp on criticism. At present, they touch almost always on the most obvious issues but do not deal with the touchy ones, which are vented in angry e-mails or neighborhood debates that are not always friendly.

When will the much-touted urban cooperatives be created? Will there be autonomy for the entrepreneurial sector or not? What happened to the underwater cable to Venezuela? When (approximately) will the wages rise or the price of food drop? The statement that something can’t be done until productivity rises is hard for young and qualified people to accept – and we lose them.

The rigorous economic centralization was loosened and we dimly see the arrival, expansion and consolidation of a mixed economy in productive and service sectors, but the process is slow. Is the caution excessive?

When we see that the repeal or amendment of some laws does not take into account the skein of previous prohibitions that hinder the liberalizing purpose without making the necessary changes; when we see that functionaries are opposed to introducing those amendments, we must assume that the government has reservations – and so does the ordinary citizen.

Much was done to detect and punish corrupt officials, no doubt, but the latest session of the Council of Ministers revealed that “among the deficiencies we find an excessive number of actions of control often lacking in totality and profundity, and plans for formal measures that generally don’t allow for follow-up.”

“In the 1990s, the goal was to make some adjustments to the model in order to stay afloat. This time, changes are being made in the model,” opined Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute in Virginia, to whom the endeavor of the government presided by Raúl Castro “is more profound, has a bigger reach and a more ambitious objective.”

“Fidel is to blame,” an anonymous house guest tells me. “He got us used to talking with the people about what would be done, what couldn’t be done or what went wrong. And I don’t criticize Raúl’s more reserved style, but why doesn’t the press assume its responsibility as a communications medium? Does it have its own kind of negligent workers, or worse, opponents to change?”

“What worries me is that young people don’t have the patience we had,” says an occasional interlocutor, softly and almost downcast. “They think that their time is running out and therefore make decisions that are often wrong.”

“There should be another mass discussion of the Guidelines. What was done, what wasn’t. Put a deadline on what needs to be done and, if the deadline is not met, assign responsibility.” That comment comes from a woman in her 30s, who speaks boldly and not without reason. Someone tells her she’s right, but she’s not satisfied.

Haste can kill. But silence can hinder or asphyxiate.

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