One tune, two interpretations
By
Manuel Alberto Ramy
I had
promised this article to the many readers who told me they were
interested in precise explanations about my latest writings and
wondered if my opinions were an island inside the island. Well, I
hope they’ll find the answers here.
In Cuba,
we are living a generational transit in the revolutionary process,
and are also shaping the indispensable changes in structure and
mentality that can no longer be postponed. It is a passing of the
baton, but on a different track/reality. Perhaps because of the
complexity of the situation and the accumulation of problems that
still require solutions, this race is being run on a muddy track.
The
generational transit is a biological fact that corresponds to the
human composition of society; the shaping of changes is an exigency
of reality. There are structures (as well as mentalities) that do not
respond to the current requirements.
Cuba and
Cubans remain the same, yet they are different. They have an
excellent technical and professional formation and technical
preparation, so the answers must be not only valid and different but
also novel, to fit the circumstances. They must also be able to
travel along new channels.
We are
witnesses to the struggle between the needs imposed by the stubborn
reality, the needs of the citizens, the paradigm of society, the man
we want to build, and the official line of thought — a body of ideas
and practices that have ruled for a long time.
From
Havana Read Spanish Version
One
tune, two interpretations
By
Manuel Alberto Ramy
maprogre@gmail.com
I had
promised this article to the many readers who told me they were
interested in precise explanations about my latest writings and
wondered if my opinions were an island inside the island. Well, I
hope they’ll find the answers here.
In Cuba,
we are living a generational transit in the revolutionary process,
and are also shaping the indispensable changes in structure and
mentality that can no longer be postponed. It is a passing of the
baton, but on a different track/reality. Perhaps because of the
complexity of the situation and the accumulation of problems that
still require solutions, this race is being run on a muddy track.
The
generational transit is a biological fact that corresponds to the
human composition of society; the shaping of changes is an exigency
of reality. There are structures (as well as mentalities) that do not
respond to the current requirements.
Cuba and
Cubans remain the same, yet they are different. They have an
excellent technical and professional formation and technical
preparation, so the answers must be not only valid and different but
also novel, to fit the circumstances. They must also be able to
travel along new channels.
We are
witnesses to the struggle between the needs imposed by the stubborn
reality, the needs of the citizens, the paradigm of society, the man
we want to build, and the official line of thought — a body of ideas
and practices that have ruled for a long time.
All this
is being debated in homes, in nuclei (grassroots organizations) of
the Communist Party of Cuba and in work centers. The debate also is
waged in magazines and academic forums open to all ordinary Cubans.
Some of
the readers who wrote to me said that the young people and freedom of
thought are "hamstrung by the structures to which they
obligatorily belong." To answer them, let me quote some of the
presentations by ordinary people and intellectuals at the recently
held symposium "Socialist
Transition in Cuba," sponsored
by the magazine Temas
(Themes), published in
Cuba.
"The
process of change and adaptation undergone by [the Revolution], in
addition to the recourse to means that respond to the present state
of affairs, is characterized by positing a transformation in the way
of thinking and building the Cuban socialist project," said
Carlos Lage Codorniú, national president of the University
Students Federation (FEU).
"It
commands us […] to rethink the way of articulating our model and
participating in it," he adds, which necessitates "the
strengthening of credibility in institutions and organizations and
their reconversion in real spaces of participation."
Are the
need for structural changes, participation and institutional
credibility the exclusive opinion of the new generations?
Ramón
de la Cruz Ochoa, a judge who for years served as Attorney General of
the Republic, believes that "the weakness of the institutions is
manifest" and the role of the institutions of justice is to
augment and serve as guarantor ("with the necessary autonomy")
to the citizen, "in the face of any illegality or
arbitrariness," regardless of its source.
De la
Cruz does not remain on the margins of the legal institutions and,
when he opines about the need to strengthen the People’s Power and
allow it to play "the role assigned to it" (because without
it "there is no socialist democracy"), he agrees with the
president of the FEU on the functioning of institutionality.
The
topic of the market, as well as the forms of property ownership, were
discussed. To Jorge L. Acanda, professor of philosophy at the
University of Havana, "the market must have a place, be it
central to, or at the periphery of, the system."
Acanda
then wondered why there is so much talk about the socialization of
property. His answer? "Because the existing socialism has been a
model of core-state that equated the elimination of capitalist
private property with state control of property and social property
with state property."
Professor
Acanda recalls that "both Marx and Engels made it clear that
state control of property does not mean socialization." And he
added: "After what happened in eastern Europe, it has become
clear that the State cannot be confused with society as a whole, and
that state property does not have to be a synonym for the property of
society as a whole."
I expect
that a good many readers are surprised at the fact that these topics
are being discussed publicly and openly in today’s Cuba. But let me
continue, with some of the opinions expressed by sociologist Aurelio
Alonso of House of the Americas.
"Socialization
has a greater sense. A socialist economy must not be a state economy
outright. The socialist State has to perform a regulatory function,
has to be an investor in, and an owner of, the natural resources, the
major public services — electricity, gas, water. But a mixed economy
should also be legitimized, including not only foreign investment but
national investment as well," Alonso said.
"It
is necessary to foster, for example, a sector of family economy in
those productive and service activities where [that sector] is most
efficient to solve the problems of society," he said.
According
to Alonso, "private initiative must include spaces that are not
limited to 200 self-employment activities," a clear reference to
the current legislation, which regulates the types of activities that
citizens may engage in as private individuals.
Alonso
favors trying out new forms of property ownership; if they work, they
should be validated, if they don’t, go back to state control. In his
view, practice should be a requirement for the truth. But — and he
raises this "but" — no one should hinder or raise
obstacles to the ongoing experience, in an effort to invalidate it.
Why does
he say this? Because, according to Judge Narciso Cobo, president of
the Economic Law Society of Cuba, "if we look at the
Cooperatives for Farm Production (CPA) and Credits and Service
Cooperatives (CCS), we find that both are afflicted by a high degree
of interference from the state structures that control agriculture
and the sugar industry."
In other
words, the state structures limit the cooperatives’ attributions and
decision-making capacity.
Judge De
la Cruz favors "expanding the meaning of that type of property,
to make it stronger and extend it beyond agriculture to other sectors
of production-and-services — gastronomy, for example — that have
not been developed in Cuba. There, pure state ownership has not been
successful. Community ownership has not developed either, yet it’s a
social ownership."
No
aspect was left out of the debate. The relationship between the
economy and the market; the indispensable presence of ethics in both
economy and the market; whether the island will copy some model of
socialism — all of these topics were discussed. It became clear,
both explicitly and implicitly, that the process must be national,
Cuban.
Let me
insist, dear readers. Isn’t it remarkable that these events are
happening in Cuba practically every month, at various levels and to
various degrees? Articles on these subjects are published regularly
on the Internet, but the Miami media publish only those that are most
convenient for their editorial concept of info-comics. Why the
silence?
Because,
I think, the approaches, analyses, criticism and possible solutions,
without exception, depart from socialist positions and are designed
to ease the transit on a socialist track.
It is
not a question of dismantling the system but of rebuilding it with
the effective participation of all citizens, through the established
institutions. As I mentioned in a previous article, these
institutions are in a process of reorganization and refitting, so
they may serve as conduits that guarantee that the changes will not
go off-course.
In the
essence of the debate, we can appreciate that the greater the
economic democracy, the greater the political democracy, which is one
of the objectives of a genuine revolutionary process. (If some reader
does not understand this relationship, I refer him to the reality of
representative democracy, as it exists and functions in the United
States. He will see that, in practice, economic power supplants the
will and needs of the population.)
No
doubt, someone will ask how much weight these symposia, forums and
debates carry in the official political decisions. I could give a
long answer, but I’ll simply say that when the life experience of the
people, the intellectual sector and culture in general are in
harmony, failure to take them into account is the equivalent of a
divorce between government and society.
I don’t
think that’s the situation here. Rather, I perceive that these
debates and publications help create a climate that will facilitate
the creation of measures that will come in stages.
No
offense, but when a tranquil reader looks at the Cuban reality from a
critical perspective (and this symposium was critical, as others
were), he will come to the conclusion that the mindset that prevails
in Miami is unable to deal with the Cuban reality.
Miami is
disqualified, not only because it doesn’t understand and doesn’t wish
to understand, but also because it acts as a conscious instrument of
foreign intervention. It couldn’t be otherwise. As the saying goes:
"[A tune] sounds one way on the violin, another way on a
guitar." Interpretation is all.
Manuel
Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and
editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso
Weekly.
