It comes from all of us
By José Alejandro Rodríguez
pepe@juventudrebelde.cu
From Juventud Rebelde – Oct. 4, 2009
“It comes from above.” “It has already been established.” Those habitual excuses, which chill opinion and silence debate, usually have an openly counter-revolutionary effect, in the fullest sense of the word. Let nobody be scared by the adjective. There are many different ways, from the inside, to hamper the advance of our socialist democracy.
There are some who utter these paralyzing statements in response to a complaint in a public assembly or to a demand for a right, or at least an explanation. Flatly, brazenly, cuttingly. You’d have to respond, with all the meaning your response can have: “Well, this comes from below.” “And it’s what I’m dreaming and thinking.”
I am not calling for an uncivil rebellion or anything like it, because Cuban socialism needs to restore the legality and discipline that were eroded for years. But, precisely to strengthen our institutionalism we must give priority to a conscientious analysis of the imperfections, obsolescences and absurdities in our laws and the entire fabric of our society. In our life, as such.
What’s legal is not always fair. There may be something that remains established yet it is inoperative because of obsolescence, or because it has been overtaken by the social praxis itself. That’s when we need to be dialectical and, with sincerity and transparency, review and rectify. “Change everything that needs to be changed,” said Fidel. Many repeat it yet, lamentably, it is not always applied.
Now that all of us, militants or not, have been called to elaborate and enrich the agenda of public discussion, it is worthwhile to reflect on the transcendence of debate and consensus, in the light of the experiences (both positive and wrong) of a 50-year-old sustained revolution.
I say this because I can still perceive the heavy head of dogmatism and uncontrolled verticality, as a kind of uncrated mummy in the midst of 21st-Century Cuba. There are some who applaud Raúl when he defends healthy discrepancy, yet get tense and dig in their heels when their subordinates differ from them. And then they end the dialogue.
Sometimes I get the impression that we waste our time in soliloquies of opinions. Infrequently, amid the processes of debate and popular enrichment that are so important today, people with responsibility and hierarchy dialogue with their interlocutors with the necessary interactivity. Sometimes we have no information about how much of what has been proposed, suggested or criticized will go on to the kingdom of decisions and concrete deeds.
If the Revolution has come this far, it has been because of the people’s leading participation, notwithstanding the many stumbles on the way to build our own democracy. That is why we mustn’t underestimate the need for consensus or believe that it is at hand. Let us not be carried away by interests that are other than those of the motherland: spaces for polemics, debate and criticism, as sharp and wise tools for improvement.
The solutions to our own problems, the structure of 21st-Century socialism, must be constructed with the consensus of everyone, no matter what his creed. An intelligent balance between what’s vertical and horizontal. An interaction from the bottom up, and from top to bottom, so that no one may try to silence us with “that comes from above.” No, it comes from all of us.
