‘They bark, Sancho, a sign that we’re moving’

By Luis Sexto

The dogma, which its original Greek roots defines as “the right road,” now means, in modern political language, quite the opposite – the wrong road, the road not to tread. Its effects are well known: irrational intransigence, ankylosis, a recurrence of the vicious circle.

That is why it appears that one of the most relevant references in Raul Castro’s speech at the Congress of the Union of Communist Youths on April 4 is the one dealing with the need to “break dogmas.”

It has not been common to officially admit the existence of a dogmatic mentality in Cuba. And perhaps we could recognize something else in the text read by the Cuban president: a considerable part of its contents tends to attack dogmatism.

What else does it mean to recommend that the new leaders of the UCY (Union of Communist Youth) – and, by extension, the nation’s leaders – be capable of maintaining dialogues with an open mind, reject the repetition of slogans, and listen to (and argue rationally against) the nonantagonistic discrepancies that should be viewed not as the source of problems but of solutions?

Whoever refuses to see may be a blind or dogmatic person. But, according to an accurate criterion, the first step to solve a problem is to admit it, then to express a willingness to try to solve it. And both requirements, in my opinion, were met by Raúl Castro in his recent speech.

But that avowal of antidogmatic faith does not necessarily work like a spell, like a magical formula that opens doors, demolish walls, or washes ears. The same caution he again defined as a tactical norm in the “actualization of the Cuban economic model” is directly related to that rigid mentality, set on pre-established truths, that many in Cuba – citizens or leaders – use as a shield.

The palpable bureaucratic resistance to renewal in effect intertwines with the dogma, with the superstitious cult of certain untouchable “truths.” Let us, for now, push away the skein of organic interests that may prompt an individual, or group of individuals, to persist on a dead-end road that has been called “the right road.”

And let us note that the stubbornness of certain tendencies to bar or delay (sometimes unconsciously) a policy of reform, even rectification in economic matters, joins a doctrinaire focus that converts ideas and principles in a kind of code, a manual as irrevocable as the posture of an idol.

This type of left-wing fundamentalism is noticeable even in some of the letters to Granma. That newspaper usually mixes the opinions it publishes on Fridays in its popular section on readers’ mail. It does not lean to any extreme; rather, it establishes a balance between the opinions, some of which are opposed to each other.

The more orthodox letters denounce the dangers of capitalism as a wolf in grandmother’s clothes. In practice, their warnings throw into the same bag the private property of the basic means of production and the cooperative property, or the private property that produces small handcrafts, or domestic services.

Which shows that an excess of zealotry not only defines an attitude of adherence to the letter but also conceals a partial lack of knowledge of the socialist theory and the thinking of the classic Marxists and Leninists.

Other, more balanced letters, defend the survival of socialism and political independence vis-à-vis the United States. But they are not extremist. They suggest creating an opening, taking risks, because they prefer the risk of moving ahead, instead of perishing in a socio-economic scheme that has lost its significance because it fails to operate under circumstances qualitatively different from the ones surrounding its emergence.

That dichotomy, that desire to achieve the same by following roads that are not right for the dogma fuels today debate in Cuba. And within that contradiction, which is clearly not antagonistic, moves the actualization, the renewal of Cuban socialism, which presupposes a readjustment that has distanced itself from the legacy of the so-called real socialism.

How much doubt or disconformity might be provoked by the elimination of the state subsidies, the rejiggering of a State that heretofore has been the sole adviser and supplier? These unavoidable measures tend to raise suspicions about the dogma that assigned the socialist State the mission of pleasing, giving and rewarding without demanding correspondence.

For the past several months, I have seen confirmation of my views on the Cuban reality. I have been concerned, like other compatriots, about what one calls delays, the danger of arriving late, which is as impolitic as arriving early. In turn, I have admitted the endogenous shoals that go beyond a virtual domestic opposition whose artificial force does not degrade the nation’s interior peace.

Shoals that presuppose the idea of changing by utilizing the old and ineffective formulas, compared with the urgencies of actualizing by seeking a somewhat heterodox road to socialism – basically a desire to live in peace, equality and freedom, as well as independence. An unfinished aspiration of socialism, because it still lacks a creative concretion in its structure and renewed concepts about efficiency, efficacy and effectiveness, despite every enriching contribution it has made to the Cuban nation.

Let us be honest and notice that another dogma in the form of a shoal pretends to gain belligerence, influence inside Cuba. It is the dogma dictated by the bitter opposition that, from abroad, pours onto the Cubans on the island the poison that is cooked in the laboratories of secret services.

We are the planet’s Ugly Duckling, according to the language of Slander International. A daily look at newspapers, TV programs, statements by politicians and rulers with media savvy reveals to us some truths. And one of the most recent is that those people who devote themselves to denigrating the Cuban government and the principles of the Revolution of ’59 have a vulnerable point. They have an Achilles heel that drains their credibility.

Because it doesn’t make sense to believe those who deny any virtue in the target they attack with such dedication. Why does something worthless deserve so much hot air, so much attention?

Of course, they wield the formulas of geopolitics, a cybernetic programming of a general mentality they assume to be globalized. Doesn’t this canned fury remind you of a quote from Don Quixote?

Let us remember that episode when the Knight and his aide rode down roads that didn’t make sense, guided by the lucid brain of a man branded as a madman. When dogs blocked their road with a dogmatic growl that meant “Ye shall not pass,” Don Quixote said: “They bark, Sancho, a sign that we’re moving.”

From what I see and hear, the dogs don’t want Cuba to move.