Dismantle? You must be crazy!

By Luis Sexto

The gamblers who bet that, at the first Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba, the party leaders would go bonkers and begin to dismantle the socialist process or set up the machinery to impose capitalism on Cuba will have to throw in their chips and say to themselves: I must have been crazy!

Or, at the very least, in a show of feigned realism, they’ll temper their frustration with the sacramental phrase: “There was an opening, but not enough.”

Between those two extremes we can find the opinions of those who insist on their crusade to push events in Cuba toward the right, even to the far left, which, though it doesn’t show it, seems to be an ally of the right. 

The glass through which we look at the words and acts has never been as multicolored as it is today. People in the opposition (basically entrenched abroad) will feel so frustrated that they’ll continue to poison the virulence of the media plots. And they’ll deny reality, accusing Cuba of being a huge prison, among other things, without mentioning that a few months ago the government freed more than a hundred political prisoners and 3,000 common criminals before they even served their sentences.

The nationalists in the émigré community, who apparently don’t feed – like “the exiles” – on federal money to develop a U.S.-style democracy in Cuba, might grumble when they see their hopes to become part of the solution in the strategy of changes a bit weakened.

But the plaintive sounds, either from the bastions of subversion or from those who seek cohabitation with Cuba more than coexistence, suggests that the origin of the problems with Cuba lies in the United States and, by extension, in allied cities, like Madrid. One need only to read the speeches of the main Republican candidates to the White House, as they campaign in Miami, or the statements of Spain’s Popular Party government, to understand why threats can force us Cubans to move cautiously before modifying issues as reminiscent of the Trojan Horse as emigration and immigration and investments from Cuban-born entrepreneurs.

On the other hand, those on the island who rationally believe that the best thing for the country is to refound and perfect the traditional organizations and principles created by the 1959 Revolution were not frustrated because they knew in advance (thanks to their knowledge of the local political practices and rules) that after the economic and social guidelines formulated by the Sixth Congress, the Conference would make decisions only on old and tired theories and practices, so as to regain the discipline lost in the past two decades and forever reestablish in the Party the political sense of defending and promoting the socialist program, without mixing its tasks with those of the government or the administration.

If we assess it from a responsible (if not impartial) point of view, the Conference has drawn a line between the Communist Party and the recalcitrant party that opposes it, as it feeds from U.S. hamburgers and Galician chicken soup. And the difference favors the Cuban party, because it tears down the fences and interior obstacles that until now have worked in tandem, without realizing it, with the economic, commercial and media siege conducted from abroad.

Didn’t the Conference agree to boost people’s voices, to increase their rights to opine and criticize? Didn’t it reinforce the measures banning discrimination against blacks, mestizos, women, homosexuals and religious believers? Didn’t it invoke ethics and exemplariness as fundamental resources? Didn’t it refer to dialogue as a method between politicians and citizens?

To discredit us, some say that in Cuba there is an excess of words and papers. But if we recall that the Judeo-Christian book of Genesis uses the words “Let there be,” it does not seem foolish to believe in the urgency to democratize and shed all bad examples, complicities, double standards, orders, elitism and impunity.

Of course, reaching agreements is easier to do than turning words into deeds. And the government and Party will have to rigorously continue the process of debureaucratizing society, so as to disinfect the common mentality of the viruses of pseudoeconomics and opportunism, which are two of the diseases that hinder a change to a flexible order as a pivot for growth, development and a more participatory democracy.

As I see it, at the heart of the conflict between diverse and opposing ways of loving Cuba is the concept of patria – motherland. In the revolutionary sector, the definitions of Félix Varela and José Martí predominate: motherland is an environment of independence, social justice, equality and brotherhood. That concept of motherland is at odds with the topographical concept of “the soil our feet tread on,” practiced by the sugar-driven slavery of the 19th Century and semibourgeois of the 20th Century, whose ideology favors cooperativism of classes, even the loss of sovereignty, to enforce one principle: my interests are worthwhile only if they are the dominant interests.

With Varela and Martí, the motherland is, above all, the altar before which Cubans must bow, not the altar on which the few sacrifice the many. From this oppressive concept we should exclude the émigrés who oppose the restrictions on travel to Cuba and the ban on remaining in touch with our families and our native culture.

While the Communist Party Conference did not provide “much of an opening,” as a Miami newspaper reported, it did leave the impression that the caretakers continue to oil the door hinges. At some point in time, they’ll stop squeaking.

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