Ramadan Cuban Style / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Women have a space separate from men. (14ymedio)
Women have a space separate from men. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 14 June 2016 – Mohamed turned to Islam while serving on a military mission in the Congo; Abdul when he realized that in 15 years of Christianity he had never really read the Bible; and Lazaro, who also adopted the name Abdul, when he served a prison sentence as a dissident. All are converts and celebrate Ramadan by fasting and praying in Arabic.

Ahmed says he as been a Muslim since he was 17 and it started in his native city of Camagüey where he was the only one; now there is a place of prayer there with 140 faithful on San Isidro Street. He is responsible for seeing to the visitors at the mosque located at 11 Oficios Street in Old Havana. He did not allow his interview to be recorded, but responded cheerfully to all questions. continue reading

Ahmed explains that it is not obligatory to wear clothing typical of Arab countries, but prophets dressed in this way and so many do. The same applies to the beard and the custom of wearing a head covering. “Because we are Muslims, our religion accepts that we can have more than one wife, as long as the husband can support them and the first wife agrees.” But he clarifies that, respecting Cuban customs, they do not permit marriages involving minors.

Among the customs, in addition to the clothes and the beard, some carry a kind of toothbrush called a “siwak,” made from the branch of a tree that grows on the Arabian Peninsula. Besides having therapeutic qualities, its use is recommended during the days of Ramadan.

This year, 1437 of the Hegira, the month of Ramadan began on 6 June and starting at dawn Muslims fast every day. They do not ingest solids or liquids, nor do they smoke or have sexual relations. Contrasted to what might be defined as a stereotype of the ordinary Cuban, it seems difficult to adopt this religion. However, every day more people do so. Women have a space for themselves separated from that of the men, and children scamper on the carpet of the spacious lounge, where it is an understandable requirement to remove your shoes.

“This is like a hospital,” says Abdul Karim, a young man who earns a living as a self-employed bricklayer. “We all have something that we must heal and Allah only asks for our submission to offer us spiritual peace.” His affirmation is evident when a young man whom everyone indulges appears in the mosque. They call him “the Russian” and he says he was a prince in Great Britain, that he speaks 25 languages and that Islam “came to Cuba with Christopher Columbus who was Muslim.”

The Muslims gathering here identify as Sunnis. In the Lawton neighborhood there is another place where the Shias go. The differences don’t generate conflicts, although those in Old Havana don’t recognize as Muslims those in Lawton, and vice versa, but “the blood doesn’t reach the river.”

Staring at 7 in the evening, just before dark, the flow of the faithful becomes more intense. At one point the loudspeakers are heard reciting the Koran in Arabic. Everyone approaches the wall at the side of the building facing Mecca, and gathers in front of a picture where the name of Allah is inscribed. They sit there, alternately leaning over and standing as the ritual demands.

When the sun outside has hidden itself, some sit at the tables, other on the floor, and they begin to share a dinner. Rice with beans, salad, sweet potatoes and lamb meat. In addition there are bread, dates and canned soda. According to what this newspaper was told, the costs of this ceremony are borne by the Saudi Arabian embassy in Cuba, which also made the largest initial investment to convert what was once an old car museum into an air-conditioned and well-lit mosque, with carpets and tapestries.

Like everything that happens in Cuba, Islamic activities are observed with a mixture of respect and suspicion. Lazaro Fresneda, a opponent of the government who turned to Islam several years ago and who answers to the name Abdul Radman, feels that there are always men snooping around who have “a tint of being people associated with the apparatus.” He says that during President Obama’s visit to Havana the mosque was closed and adds that recently Rene Gonzalez appeared there, he is one of the five Cuban intelligence agents who were released from the sentences they were serving in the United States. “He said he prayed with the Muslims in prison, but I did not shake his hand.”

The graying beard of Mohamed Alzain gives the impression of having been with him a long time, but he says it has only been a year since he last shaved. In response to the observation that he keeps his mustache, he smiles and says, “sometimes I forget to cut it.” He recalls that he was an official in the Armed Forces when he started to feel a religious inclination. “At that time,” he recalls, “being in the military was not consistent with believing in God, but in the Congo, where I served an internationalist mission, the Muslims believe in Islam from birth, as did their most remote ancestors. I had never seen any part of such a pure religion.”

Shortly before ten at night the faithful begin to retire. Tuesday they will continue the fast, unless they are ill; pregnant women, children and those who are traveling for more than three days are also exempted. They are counting the days until 6 July, when Ramadan will conclude “Cuban-style” and then they will celebrate with a big party.

Unknowns In An Illusory Debate / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 14 June 2016 — Under the signature of Dario Machado Rodriguez and with the title “An Environment of Discussion and Creativity is Essential,” the official Government-Party newspaper Granma published an article on its second page this Monday that, in some way, questions the narrow framework initially proposed for the discussion of the documents from the 7th Cuban Communist Party Congress.

What is curious is, on the flip side of the printed sheet, that is on the newspaper’s front page, there is a fragment of the Central Report, read by Raul Castro at that august partisan event, where it is established that both the Conceptualization, as well as the bases of the National Plan of Development, will be “democratically debated by the membership of the Party and the Young Communist Union (UJC), representatives of the mass organizations and broad sectors of society. continue reading

Darío Machado’s article introduces a variant: “It behooves the entire country to create an atmosphere of discussion and to stimulate wide social participation in the broadest democracy.” In support of this he evokes the debate of the “Call to the 6th Party Congress” and other similar processes whose results, he argues, “were decisive in the strengthening of the political consensus of the socialist revolution.”

It may not be idle to recall that the author of this article, the son of Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, was the person designated as the auditor of the American Studies Center (CEA) where, 20 years ago, Raul Castro, in the 5th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, lambasted the intellectuals who worked there, calling them nothing less than fifth columnists.

Given the credentials of the writer – completely above suspicion – it is appropriate to highlight some of his assertions. The most striking is his thesis that the text of the conceptualization of the Cuban economic and social model “should not be understood as something finished, but as ‘the theory’ [the commas are the author’s] of the construction of socialism in Cuba.” He then clarifies that these ideas are enriched by the debate and “putting them into practice” will continue “the process of theorizing about the construction of a socialist-oriented society in Cuban conditions.”

Fifty-five years after the socialist character of the Revolution was proclaimed, Dario Machado is trying to convince Cubans that it is still not time to have a theory of socialism based on their own experiences to clarify how socialism should be defined in Cuba.

Now that this intellectual has explained that Conceptualization is not trying to be ‘the theory,’ one can understand why in this document there is nothing about the first conquest of the socialist system, which is eliminating the exploitation of man by man, nor does it tell us that this is one stage of the transition to a communist society and it doesn’t even say, in a transparent and comprehensible way, if the country is still in or has already emerged from the “Special Period in times of peace.”

Opening the debate to anyone who wants to participate could be risky for those who want to restrict the discussion to points related to “how to construct socialism in Cuba.” Outside of the Party nucleus or its base committees or the UJC, someone could appear to question, from Marxist positions, the proposed models and others, from the opposite poles, might question whether it makes sense to continue the attempt.

Finally, Dario Marchado establishes a doubtful dilemma, placing on one side “the pretensions of reinstalling in Cuba dependent capitalism,” and on the other “the salvation of the Revolution, of our independence and sovereignty.” The enunciation of a dilemma doesn’t mean it exists.

It is not an abuse of the imagination to elaborate this other. One on side are the pretensions of a group of people to remain in power forever, and on the other the desire of an entire people to conquer the civil, political and economic rights that the current system represses. The discussion of which is the real dilemma would be a useful debate.

“You Have To Have Eyes To See The Wonder” / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Plaque commemorating of Havana’s declaration as one of the New 7wonder Cities of the modern world. (14ymedio)
Plaque commemorating of Havana’s declaration as one of the New7Wonder Cities of the modern world. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 8 June 2016 — As if it were a Michelin star, tour operators, hotel managers and those who rent private rooms will exhibit, starting Tuesday, Havana’s status as one of the “New7Wonder Cities” of the modern world. Although the rain intruded on the unveiling of the plaque a few yards from the Malecon that confirms the new title, popular humor has not ignored the designation.

This week, there has been an increase in jokes making the rounds about the “wonder” of traveling in deteriorating urban buses, the marvel of buying food in a city in the grip of a dual currency system, or the miracle of the many buildings that remain standing despite their advanced stage of deterioration. Regardless of their disbelief, however, Havanans try to make the best of the new categorization, as symbolic as it is promising. continue reading

The Cuban capital figures on the list of 1,200 aspirants from 220 countries that competed for the grandiloquent epithet. Online voting put the city among the 77 finalists, which were reduced to 28 official candidates by a commission of experts.

Successive selections ended to the pleasure of a cabal of seven cities, like musical notes, the principal colors, the seas and the sins. Along with Havana the cities are Beirut (Lebanon), Doha (Qatar), Durban (South Africa), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), La Paz (Bolivia) and Vigan (Philippines).

The big winners are the tour guides who, from air-conditioned buses, tell foreign visitors the history of the taking of Havana by the English and describe to them in epic tones El Morro lighthouse guarded by the fortress of La Cabana. In these stories, Havana’s “wonder” status blocks the view of everyday problems and improves the tips that end up in their pockets.

These chroniclers of a city that lives only in the pages of Lonely Planet consider it an impertinence to note that on the day the designation was made official rainfall occasioned a building collapse in Central Havana while in the ration stores in the Cerro and Marianao neighborhoods people were buying 11 ounces of “chicken for fish*” and there was an extended power failure in Vedado.

None of the guides will tie the unexpected award to the celebration this year of the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party, nor to the presence of the country’s president on the list of the seven oldest presidents in the world.

José María, a young hustler who knows a few phrases in several languages and specializes in dating tourists, was on the Malecón on Tuesday at the time appointed to unveil the plaque. He hoped to engage in some “business” with foreigners passing along the esplanade, but only found a small group of officials headed by Havana City Historian Eusebio Leal Spengler.

Under a piece of cardboard in lieu of an umbrella, José María heard the phrase of the city historian: “You have to have eyes to see the wonder.” Then the committee left in official cars and the young man “captured” a couple of tourists to whom he described the wonderful cigars, for a wonderful price, which he kept at home “very near here,” so that they could smoke them in this wonderful city the official guides don’t talk about.

A Laboratory Man: The Official Party ‘Cadre’ in Cuba / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

The Code of Ethics for Cuba’s Communist Party cadres. (14ymedio)
The Code of Ethics for Cuba’s Communist Party cadres. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 9 May 2016 – Marxist thinkers from the last century appeared to be convinced that the communist ethic could only work after the elimination of the different social classes or, and it’s the same thing, when the communist society triumphed in the economic plane. “How can stealing be ethically condemned when there is no property?” they asked with the same guileless eagerness medieval theologians brought to their debates about the carnality of the glorious bodies resuscitated after the final judgment. continue reading

In practice, politicians who have had to get their hands dirty in an attempt to implement different Marxist experiments have come to understand the length of this “transition stage” called socialism. They have confronted the contradiction of not being able to lay their principles in the already rejected “bourgeois morality” and, on the other hand, they have seen the impossibility of applying communist morality in anticipation, impractical without the support of the material base assumed in the scientific fulfillment of their inexorable laws.

In consequence, each “historically determined” model found its provisional ethics, negating the previous one but incompatible with those of the future. It was that ethic that enabled Joseph Stalin’s forced collectivization, Mao’s Great Step Forward, and Fidel Castro to decree the Revolutionary Offensive. From this moral relativism arose the Code of Ethics for the cadres of the Cuban State.

The original version of this little known document was promulgated on 17 July 1996, signed by the then all-powerful Carlos Lage Davila. It was called Agreement 3050 and was displayed as a “proposal presented by the Cadres’ Central Committee, concerning the need to define and systemize a code of standards that would rule the lives and conduct of the Cadres of the Cuban State.”

Among the purposes and forms of application summarized in seven points, is the need to alert and prevent cadres “facing tendencies that could arise in the face of economic transformations and aggressive enemy action.” Compliance with the principles codified would be obligatory for the heads of the state’s central administrative organs, national entities, and presidents of the provincial and municipal People’s Power Administrative Councils, among others, who will have to determine “within their respective systems, the positions to which the Code of Ethics will be applied.”

Once these functionaries know and accept the content of the new rules, they will have to express their willingness to comply with them “publically, in an official act at the acceptance of the position.” Not content with that, “in cases of promotions and transfers, in the process of preparation for the new position,” the cadre is obliged to update his or her knowledge of the document, as well as again publicly ratify the commitment to fully comply.

Through a table of commandments broken down into 27 points, the Code demands “high moral values, deep revolutionary sensitivity, and a clear sense of duty” along with other virtues that cadres must have, such as sincerity, honesty, modesty, austerity, simplicity and discretion.

At the same time, it condemns lying, deceit, demagoguery, fraud, apathy, indolence, pessimism, hypercriticism and defeatism. Among other harmful attitudes indicated are the spirit of justification, inaction in the face of difficulties and mistakes, lack of initiative, the features of ostentation and consumer habits. It warns that the performance of cadres should be stripped of voluntarism, vanity, improvisation, professional injustice and mediocrity as well as sectarianism, and contempt for the dignity of others. Cadres must combat boasting, self-sufficiency, conceit, intolerance and insensitivity.

Paradoxically, the inability to be consistent with such requirements has promoted a defect not mentioned in the text: simulation – that is, faking it – the only alternative to which has been, for many, desertion, an action not contemplated among the violations.

In the 20 years of the Code of Ethics’s existence, probably not a single one of the sins of listed here has ceased to be committed, nor has there flourished even one of the untarnished virtues advertised therein. Not only that, but sins have been abundant and virtues few at all levels of the government and political leadership of the country, and at all levels of administration.

In the wasteland of moral values there has been unleashed a plague of brazen cynicism, of sordid impudence that nobody knows how to stop. And not even mentioned is the advent of the New Jerusalem the communist utopia would suggest. There will be a final judgment where we all will have to be forgiven for something.

Patriotic Union Of Cuba Launches A Political Program / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

UNPACU leader, Jose Daniel Ferrer, believes that a new document integrates the entire opposition. (EFE)
UNPACU leader, Jose Daniel Ferrer, believes that a new document integrates the entire opposition. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 5 May 2016 — Since early this month, members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) have begun to disseminate the document Minimum Program and Projections, which outlines guidelines for the actions of the opposition organization, forms of struggle, and a proposal for the country ‘s future.

With the publication of this text, which summarizes the experience of the nation’s largest group of activists, UNPACU is demonstrates maturity and responds to criticisms about the Cuban opposition’s lack of a platform or agenda.

In nine pages, the program underlines the commitment of the opposition to use peaceful means to reach its goals. It also clarifies that the proposals contained are addressed to those living in the country and in the diaspora and proclaims the need for “a free, democratic, just, fraternal and prosperous Cuba.” continue reading

This inclusiveness is appreciated in a nation that for decades no longer exists only within the island, and where the phenomenon of emigration is growing in numbers rather than diminishing in recent months.

Jose Daniel Ferrer, national coordinator for UNPACU, is optimistic that the program’s reach to date. Speaking to 14ymedio he noted, however, that “the document is not final and is subject to changes or corrections.”

For this former prisoner of the Black Spring, the platform is a “more complete tool” in the work of the organization and has been received “very well,” mainly in Santiago de Cuba. Right now, he says, it is “being distributed throughout the province, we will continue to print it and send it to the rest of the country.”

The text has not been the result of improvisation or a race against time to publish a program. Several activists consulted confirmed that the text originated in March of 2013, when the UNPACU instructed the lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano, its chief legal adviser, to write the first draft.

That initial text was worked on by regime opponent Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz and Ferrer himself, who used as sources for the final wording of the document other texts, including: UNPACU, For The Cuba Of Your Dreams and We Are UNPACU. Only after the recent close of the 7th Congress of the Communist Party, with its disappointing results, did the organization publish its program.

Ferrer explained that the dissemination of the text was preceded by “many days of work and consensus in meetings occurring in several provinces of the country.” Technology was an ally in this effort, as they were also able to share opinions through “emails, Facebook chat and Twitter direct messages,” he says.

The organization describes itself in the pages Minimum Program and Projections as “a pluralistic and ecumenical effort of a union of activists and former organizations.” Its managers collected and summarizes in their ideology components ideology “of Christian belief and the liberal and social democratic doctrines.”

Their main proposal for the country is summarized in “the establishment of a democratic order that combines a social market economy, political pluralism and makes possible greater equity and solidarity between the individuals and groups that make up our society.”

Copies of the program will be delivered to the “different levels of the so-called People’s Power, and, why not, the oppressor Party,” said Ferrer, who is quick to note that the “the main audience is the millions of Cubans tired of living without rights, without freedom and in complete misery. ”

In its project for the economy, the program lists the current situation as “an authoritarian capitalism, combining the worst of a savage market and a state centralism,” and details the main problems affecting items such as wages, food, housing, transport, industry and agriculture, among others.

As a counterpart, UNPAC advocates a social market economy, where “both the State and the markets, open to citizen control and advocacy, serve as mechanisms to generate personal and public prosperity.” It is also committed to “the fertile combination of all forms of property and production: small, medium or large, national, foreign or mixed,” but rejects the existence of state or private monopolies.

The group claims the right of Cubans living abroad to invest and own property in the country and proposes the creation of “genuine agrarian reform that recognizes the full rights of those who work the land.” Detailing the need to respect the properties acquired after 1959, especially those used as living quarters, it intends to seek “compensation formulas” and the right to put forward impartial claims for confiscated property.

In the socio-political approach, the program calls for a new constitution and a new electoral law “to ensure free, fair and competitive elections,” and proposes the establishment of freedom of expression and association and the right to strike and unionize.

The document calls for respect for all religious beliefs and fraternal organizations, and the promotion of Internet access, freedom in art, academic freedom in teaching, university autonomy, the repeal of all laws in force today that violate human rights and the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.

For those who see this emergence of this platform as a possible cause of friction between dissident forces, Ferrer says that, on the contrary, the new text “enriches and strengthens the struggle for the democratization of Cuba.” A clarification that is worth taking into account is that the Democratic Unity Roundtable a coalition of opposition organizations to which UNPACU belongs, is about to publish its own program.

Ferrer does not believe in haste or improvisation, but stresses that UNPACU members do not “like to leave for tomorrow what you can do today.”

To End Censorship / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

The cover of “Censorship of the Press in the Cuban Revolution,” by Minerva Salado (Verbum Publishing)
The cover of “Censorship of the Press in the Cuban Revolution,” by Minerva Salado (Verbum Publishing)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, If the mid-seventies I had thought to tell Minerva Salado, then my chief editor at Cuba International magazine, that in some forty years she would write a book titled “Censorship of the Press in the Cuban Revolution,” I would have caused enormous problems for myself, only surpassed by that if I had predicted to her my current status as an “unofficial” journalist.

Unveiling the framework of obscenities and subtleties that was woven into the early years of the process called the Cuban Revolution in order to implement strict censorship on the media is a very complex task; what scholars would call “a multidisciplinary task.” Minerva knows this, as a writer, journalist and poet, so in the introduction she warns that her efforts “will have to address the documentary research, personal experience and memory of several generations of journalists and media.” continue reading

The theme of this testimonial essay is the magazine Cuba International, a medium that was designed to export a saccharine image of the country, similar to other publications produced by all the members of the so-called socialist camp.

To put makeup on the reality a team was formed where the reporters wanted to be writers and the photographers artists, and it was precisely in this situation that the contradiction arose between the militancy that was intended and the quality demanded.

It will be very easy to rebut what is stated in this book, both from the trenches of those who will call it a betrayal, probably paid for by the empire, as well as by those who, from the opposite extreme, will read it as a justification of the censorship imposed on the Cuban press. But those who are looking for good arguments, irrefutable data and convincing explanations will be grateful for its publication under the imprint of Verbum Publishing in Madrid.

The book needed after this one is the one where someone tries to demonstrate that in this last half century there has been no censorship of the Cuban media, or where they at least try to justify it as a necessary “loving gag.” I already know that it will not be Minerva Salado who will write that one.

New Prices, Political Will And Productivity / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Customers at the Carlos III shopping center in Central Havana this morning waiting expectantly for the reduction in prices on some products announced the night before.
Customers at the Carlos III shopping center in Central Havana this morning waiting expectantly for the reduction in prices on some products announced the night before.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 22 April 2016 – As the journalist Regina Coyula warned, in order to understand what the press in Cuba is saying you have to know “Granmática” (the language of the newspaper Granma) and, even though the note on the first page of the official organ of the Communist Party appears signed by the Minister of Finance and Prices, one has to have read a lot of official editorials, listened to enough speeches by Señor Machado Ventura and dedicated several days to studying what they say on the Roundtable TV program, to assimilate a single paragraph of a dissertation on the economy in its purest form.

The note says, “The final solution to this complex reality will be achieved with increased productivity and efficiency in the national economy,” but a few lines affirm that it has been “the political will of the Leadership of the Party and the Government (…) as well as the reduction in food prices in the world market” that have led to the adoption of “a set of measures aimed at gradually increasing the purchasing power of the Cuban peso in the short term.” continue reading

Every economic measure that has been taken from political will, be it to raise or lower wages, raise or lower prices, will be unsustainable if there is no increase in productivity. On the other hand, any increase in the purchasing power of the Cuban peso, subject to the fickleness of prices in the world market, will inevitably be impermanent unless we can count on an efficient economy.

So the official note is clear while confusing. Clear because it warns that there shouldn’t be many illusions that these price decreases will be lasting, because they are dependent on the capricious world market; confusing because it doesn’t explain the lack of political will to make the national economy truly efficient and productive.

Every time that there is a proposal from the heights of power to control prices, or when it is affirmed that there will never be shock therapies, or that no one will be abandoned, or that the accumulation of property and wealth will not be allowed, what is really being proclaimed is the populist and voluntarist posture that aims to put political decisions ahead of economic emergencies.

Now, the good and paternalistic State just realized that the wages aren’t enough to live on, something they apparently ignored all the times they mercilessly sent prices through the roof and perverted the concept of the “acquisitive power of the population” through dark and twisted paths of corruption, the diversion of resources and the absolute lack of belonging that workers have in relation to their workplaces.

Those who criticize the price reduction measure as insufficient will be labeled as ungrateful; those who suggest that it would have been better to raise wages will be considered irresponsible. Any proposal to remove the straitjacket from private entrepreneurs could be considered as a frontal attack on the socialist model of production, the state enterprise and certainly the Nation.

News From the Invisible 7th Communist Party Congress / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

The first vice president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, during the reading of the central report of the Seventh Congress of the PCC in Havana. (EFE)
The first vice president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, during the reading of the central report of the Seventh Congress of the PCC in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 20 April 2016 — The most notable departures from the Central Committee of the Party elected at the Seventh Congress are: Rolando Alfonso Borges, who until now headed the ideological department dedicated to controlling the media; Yolanda Ferrer Gómez, who served as head of the International Relations Committee of the National Assembly of People’s Power and who spent long years as a second to Vilma Espin, Raul Castro’s late wife, in the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC); Agustin Lage Davila, brother of ousted Carlos Lage — former vice president of the Council of State and member of the Politburo– and director of an important scientific center; Abel Prieto Jimenez, cultural affairs advisor to the president; and Harry Villegas Tamayo, survivor of Ernesto Guevara’s guerrilla actions in Bolivia.

To those who stepped down is added more than a hundred who died, destitute and retired, who were on the list of the 142 members of the Central Committee elected at the 5th Congress, which was the last time before the just completed conclave that elections were held, as in the 6th Congress they were not. From that list from 1996 there are now only 33 remaining. continue reading

From those who were handpicked over the last 19 years, 32 have keep their positions. It is noteworthy that Joaquín Bernal, the current Minister of Culture who is often presented as a member of the select group, has been left off the list, along with others unknown whom no one would miss. If the math does not fail us, we can assume that there are 77 new entrants, representing more than 50% of the total membership.

The perception of paralysis resulting from a reading of the documents adopted at the event contrasts with this remarkable injection of fresh blood, but it is reinforced by the fact that most of the members of the Politburo have remained in their positions, and especially by the presence of Raul Castro and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who have given the impression of being the only ones who know what can be changed in the so-called process of perfecting the system.

If something positive happened at the Palace of Conventions in recent days it is that the prediction that there would be a nepotistic trend, raising some of the heirs to the name of Castro to the highest Party structures, was not fulfilled. Everyone knows how the list of candidates that is “analyzed and discussed” by the delegates is drawn up. It has not transpired that anyone has objected to a name or questioned any absence from the list. So it is designed, and so it was approved by unanimous vote.

If they follow the new requirements established related to age, in the 8th Congress it could be that very few of the current members of the Central Committee will be reelected. But 2021 is too far away to make predictions, and in this game not everything is decided because the dominoes are shuffled face down.

Cuba, A Broken Toy / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Like the spoiled child who wants his turn with a toy to last forever, Raul Castro intends to remain in office until 19 April 2021. (CC)
Like the spoiled child who wants his turn with a toy to last forever, Raul Castro intends to remain in office until 19 April 2021. (CC)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 17 April 2016 — Among the many expectations raised by the Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) was the possibility that the expected generational change would be announced there. The prospect that young cadres would introduce bold changes and accelerate the timid reforms initiated with the departure of Fidel Castro from power, fed by the expectations among Cubanologists of different viewpoints.

Perhaps that is why, when the general-president proposed that the maximum age for joining the PCC Central Committee would be 60 and to hold senior posts one would have to be under 70, many had the momentary impression that the rule would begin to be applied at this Party Congress. Only a more sedate reading, stripped of all irrational optimism, was able to untangle the ambiguity of his words. continue reading

Raul Castro, First Secretary of the PCC, acknowledged that “the next five years, for obvious reasons, will be decisive.” Hence, the need “to introduce additional limits on the higher organs of the Party.” However, he declared that this would be a “process of transition that should be undertaken and concluded with the celebration the next Congress. Leaving for the future, “a five year transition so as not to rush things.” A phrase that reinforces Castro’s oft repeated premise of acting “without haste but without pause.”

The “additional limits” on age to be appointed to “the higher organs” had already been introduced, although not disclosed, at the first PCC Conference in January of 2012, when the concept of age was added to those to be taken into consideration at the time of filling leadership positions.

To Raul Castro it seems that having delayed four years and four months in defining the numbers that would mark the age limits would have been “not rushing things.” Although it is probable that his real concern has been that the Central Committee elected at the current 7th Congress would naturally dispense with the so-called “historic generation of the Revolution.”

The only obvious reason for not passing the baton in this Congress is reduced to an unhealthy addiction to power, especially to its obscene attributes of privileges and powers.

Like the spoiled child who wants his turn with a toy to last forever, the first secretary intends to remain in office until 19 April 2021, when he’ll be just 45 days short of officially becoming a nonagenarian.

By that time, should he survive, what would be left of the instrument of his amusement could be an useless wreck, and we’re not talking about the Party but about the country: a toy broken beyond fixing through the attempts to make it work capriciously. The blame for its destruction will then fall on those who inherit it.

Betting is Closed, Cuba’s 7th Party Congress Opens / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

The Palace of Conventions during the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (EFE)
The Palace of Conventions during the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 16 April 2016 — Five years after the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, the only agreement from that congress that had a fixed date will meet this Saturday: the celebration of the Seventh Party Congress. The event will begin at 10:00 am at the Palace of Conventions in Havana with the presence of one thousand delegates and 280 guests. The secrecy and speculation regarding a possible change of course or a frustrating continuity continues.

At the opening session, which will be broadcast live on national television, the main report will be read. The main documents – which were not disclosed to the public and are not even known by the mass of Party militants, which exceeds 700,000 people – will be discussed, probably behind closed doors, in four commissions. continue reading

Among the issues the delegates will address are the conceptualization of the economic and social model, the economic plan, and the analysis of the implementation of the guidelines agreed to in the previous congress. Of great importance will be the election of a new Central Committee, where changes are expected among senior positions on the Politburo.

The expectations have been many and diverse. If you follow the opinions collected by the newspaper Granma, the meeting, considered “the congress of all Cubans,” should be characterized by continuity and “improving the economic and social model,” at least that is what different interviews with some of the delegates elected to the conclave have reflected.

Within this line they insist on the anti-imperialist character of the process and have repeatedly alluded to the will not to cede a single inch in matters considered unshakable principles.

Some commentators have slipped less orthodox views into the digital pages of the official Party organ. Among these are suggested changes that exceed the limits of continuity, including greater openness in the economy with the more flexible creation of non-agricultural cooperatives, and allowing the formation of small and medium enterprises in the non-state sector. Bolder actions demanded include the elimination of the dual currency and greater flexibility in all matters relating to the ownership of property.

With regard to politics, those who are hopeful that the Congress could introduce reforms in this area have referred to the need to introduce amendments to the Constitution and to offer a new electoral law. In a general sense there is a demand for the amplification of rights related to freedom of association and expression.

However, for the opposition sector to expect anything from this meeting of communists is a delusion. The most extreme are offended by any analysis that expresses the idea that the event could result in something positive.

Most observers agree that the importance of the partisan congress is that it will be the last in which members of the “historic generation,” most of them octogenarians, are present, so this must be the occasion on which it is defined who should take over.

Speculations incline to those who would take steps to openings, based on the improvement of relations between Cuba and the United States, the difficult situation of the internal economy, and the trend of decline among Cuba’s main allies on the continent. Those who are betting on the stagnation option rely on the traditional attachment to power of those who have spent more than half a century at the helm in Cuba, and their fear that the slightest concession could lead to an undesirable outcome.

As part of the symbolic aspect to be imprinted, the opening of the Congress coincides with the 55th anniversary of the declaration of the socialist character of the Revolution, while the closing session announced for 19 April marks five and a half decades since the military victory at the Bay of Pigs, baptized in official discourse as the first defeat of imperialism in Latin America.

When the most important event for Cuban communists opens this morning, the fate of the whole nation will be hanging on what is said in front of those microphones. The delegates to the Seventh Congress, and especially the senior Party officials, might let this opportunity pass amid the applause and vacuous statements, or they could make decisions that remove the shackles from the wheel of history.

Party Congress: Neither More Of The Same Nor Surprising News / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

The Palace of Conventions during the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (EFE)
The Palace of Conventions during the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 April 2016 — Ruperto, the comedic character in Vivir del Cuento (Living the Story), woke up after a 28-year coma and still doesn’t understand Cuba’s dual currency system nor the end of the Socialist Camp. In this case, there are many “Rupertos” who will analyze the upcoming Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, who believe that everything will continue as before and the hardliners will have their way. For them, nothing has happened in the last decade since Fidel Castro left power and passed it on to his younger brother.

If, in fact, nothing happened, the great event of the Cuban communists would be a remake of previous congresses. Those who have not been in a coma since 2006 have seen that that axes around which Cuban politics revolve are not the same. The rampant reversal of paternalism, the preponderance of economics over ideology in decision-making, the failure of the monopoly on the media and culture, and a long list of reforms – classified by some as timid and by others as devious – paint an entirely different picture. To this should be added the change in the correlation of influences in the international arena and a growing and increasingly evident popular discontent. continue reading

Most of the delegates to this Congress have no memory of the first of January 1959 when “luminously dawned the morning,” as the poet Indio Nabori wrote. For the first time, when a new Central Committee, and especially a new Politburo are chosen, most of their members will have no responsibility for the executions of those first years and probably never even shouted the slogan “Paredón! Paredón!” – “To the [execution] wall!” None of them seized any properties. Those born after 1960 weren’t even old enough to vote when the first constitution was approved in 1976.

These delegates are no longer homophobic atheists who boasted of their machismo and the fact that they never passed the 9th grade because they were of humble origin. They have been politically shaped with an awareness that the system is not invulnerable and that the theory behind it is debatable. They have connected to the internet, studied marketing techniques and, although it seems a frivolity, passed a decade without listening to the speeches of Fidel Castro; and they did listen to Barack Obama’s remarks in Havana’s Gran Teatro.

And so this Party meeting cannot be more of the same.

However, this does not mean that General Antonio Maceo (b. 1845) is going to sit down to talk with General Martinez Campos (b. 1831), nor that the name “communist” will be removed from the Party. The hard core will impose its authority by dint of intimidation against the unruly and through the offering of perks and opportunities. It is also true that most of the delegates to this Congress should have participated at more than one repudiation rally, and it is probably that many have betrayed a co-worker or a neighbor, and that most of the time in the assemblies in which they have participated in they have dutifully raised their hands for what in the opinion of the nomenklatura is politically correct.

There will be no surprising news such as opening the door to a multi-party system, or launching a program of privatizations. No one will talk at this event about reconciliation among Cubans or dialog with opponents. There will be no decree of amnesty for political prisoners, nor recognition of the legitimacy of an alternative civil society, of freedom of expression or of an independent press.

However, those who rule Cuba know that they are forced to change something or at least to give the impression that they are willing to do so. They have their hole cards, but they should put them on the table. The secrecy with which they have managed the documents to be discussed can only indicate that they are preparing to change direction and we will have to wait for the closing remarks to see the course taken.

Because what has really characterized the Cuban Communist Party is not having its own theoretical base and, above all, not respecting the letter of its own agreements. Decisions made in a personal and specious manner by one or two people have always prevailed. And it is precisely this that would be the unpredictable essence of change. Will they recognize Marxism-Leninism as only a secondary source to be taken into account? In the hidden desires that fill the heads of these real men and women is the key to what to expect of the Seventh Congress.

One-Third of Cuba’s PCC Central Committee is Hand Picked With No Process / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Pages from the newspaper Granma with some members of the Cuban Communist Party Central Committee elected at the 5th Congress
Pages from the newspaper Granma with some members of the Cuban Communist Party Central Committee elected at the 5th Congress

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 8 April 2016 — In a country where, under the fifth article of the Constitution, the Communist Party is “the highest leading force of society and the State” members of the Central Committee of that organization should be known by all citizens and, of course, access to the highest authority should not be covered by any veil of mystery.

However, only a few remember the last time there was a formal election of the membership to this group, on 10 October 1997, just before the closing of the 5th Party Congress. At that conclave 150 members were elected. In the slightly more than 18 years since then, there have been 29 deaths and 36 separations, some of these latter as a result of disciplinary sanctions and others because the militant ceased to hold, for different reasons, the administrative or political post that warranted their membership on the Central Committee. Currently, there are only 42 members of that group of 150 remaining. continue reading

But the numbers still do not add up. The data presented here have been amassed by Julio Aleaga Pesant, who has spent years organizing a magnificent collection of names under the ambitious title: Who’s Who in Cuban Society?   The analyst has had the patience to fight against the government’s secrecy and find all references in the national and provincial press which mention a person’s name with his or her position.

Clearly, Aleaga inherits the errors and imprecisions of those official reports. Not all sanctions appear in the press and many die without an obituary. This is why there are 43 doubtful cases without any notices, at least in the last five years. They involve “compañeros” who ascended to the highest partisan level because it was necessary to have the chief of some sugarcane cutting brigade there, or the head of a municipal bureau, or a member of an agricultural contingent. As the media never focuses on their names, it is probable that in some of the cases we don’t know how to respond with exactitude regarding whether or not they are members of the Party Central Committee, if they are still alive, and if they remain in the country.

In these almost 18 years, 51 other Communists have joined the PCC Central Committe, but in that time there has not been a formal process of elections as God commands, i.e. as established in the statutes. Thus names like Miguel Barnet, president of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba; Gladys Bejerano, who heads the Comptroller of the Republic; Joaquin Bernal, newly-appointed Minister of Culture; Guillermo Garcia, a commander of the Revolution who was elected at the First Central Committee in 1965, but was not included in the elections of the 5th Congress.

None of them was proposed from the base; they did not come up from the ranks.

New wine has been filling old wineskins without these nominations involving the Party base, such that now a third of the members of the highest decision-making body has been handpicked from above.

The Seventh Party Congress has before it the task of renewing the Central Committee. Among the other things they will have to discuss the controversial issue of age, as it is not healthy for any organization to have in its membership individuals who do not have the physical ability to spend at least 10 hours a day resolving problems.

Cuba’s Communist Youth Union And The Devaluation Of Its Militancy / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Young people have lost motivation for being activists in the UJC
Young people have lost motivation for being activists in the UJC

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 5 April 2017 — Social stereotypes have their moment. In the Cuba of the 50s, being baptized, making one’s first communion, or being married in the church, were the rites of passage that identified “decent” people. To have a diploma, a university degree, or belong to a Masonic lodge, opened many doors; behaving with urbanity at the table or knowing how to knot a tie denoted good taste and distinction.

A decade later, the important thing was to have participated in the people’s harvests, to have walked 66 kilometers, climbed the five peaks, attended the Schools of Revolutionary Instruction and, especially, to have shot the enemy, whether at the Bay of Pigs or in the Escambray. For a young man of 20 who wanted his reputation to be positively valued social, the top prize was to be a militant of the Young Communist Union (UJC). continue reading

Parents asked their daughters if their boyfriend “belonged to ‘the youth’” and in schools and workplaces carrying the organization’s ID card was a point of pride, to the point that in some spheres it began to generate concern about the emergence of a phenomenon that some called “revolutionary vanity.”

It is difficult to know the precise moment when young Cubans began to show resistance to being captured by the UJC. Educational institutions and administrations of state enterprises almost forced UJC members to become informers and began using this “organized vanguard” to entrap a covert homosexual, sabotage a religious activity or, as in the 80s, to be part of the mob in repudiation rallies.

Now everything is different.  It is no longer possible to identify a militant communist youth by the way they style their hair or the clothes they wear. Boasting about the “merits” one accumulates or heroic tasks performed has irretrievably vanished. In fact, since the return of Cuban troops from Africa in 1991, 25 years have passed and the only opportunity to stand out is getting good grades or exceeding the plan targets at one’s workplace. What today’s parents want to know about the boy who dates their daughter is what business is he engaged in or whether he has a passport with a visa.

When you asked someone between 15 and 30 years if he or she is member of the UJC, the usual response is something like: “Yes, but …” or they raise their eyebrows in a gesture of resignation. Because when a stereotype is past its time, it can be taken as a stigma, or as Cuban-youth speak might say, a corny thing in need of a remake.

The Offended Swede / 14ymedio Reinaldo Escobar

Page of the Havana Tribune with the article ‘Negro, are you Swedish?' (14ymedio)
Page of the Havana Tribune with the article ‘Negro, are you Swedish?’ (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 31 March 2016 — The poet and literary critic Victor Fowler Calzada published in Sandra Abd’Allah-Alvarez Ramírez’s blog, “I had be to a Black Cuban Woman,” a protest and at the same time a call to solidarity in response to the publication of an opinion column titled, “Negro, are you Swedish,” that criticizes President Obama’s behavior during his visit to Cuba.

The article in question appeared in the printed version on Monday and was inaccessible in the online edition until this Wednesday, when the author himself published an apology. Victor Fowler’s indignation was justified not only because his ID card has the capital letter “N” to denote the color of his skin, but also because even if he were blond with blue eyes he would feel indignant at what he clearly classifies as a racist attack. continue reading

But if columnist Elias Argudín of the Havana weekly (who shares with Fowler the letter N on his ID) was just trying to make a bad joke when he said “There is no doubt, Obama overdid it. I can not help but ask – in the style of Virulo, a Cuban comedian and singer/songwriter – “But Negro, are you Swedish?”

Immediately following he does something which in my judgment is much worse, when he says, very seriously, “We were very courteous, including allowing [Obama] to speak alone (and at his ease) with the enemies in his own house,” a reference to Obama’s meeting with members of Cuba’s independent civil society at the US Embassy.

Anyone who does not like the adjective “black” to identify an African-American should also feel the stigma of “enemy” to refer to those who think differently from those who govern us, and not because among the thirteen Cubans who met with the US president there were three dignified representatives of dark-skinned people, but because, to paraphrase an argument from Fowler himself, we would have to say that along with racial differences, we should not let the some political offense go by without confronting it.

Victor Fowler can count on the solidarity of those thirteen Cubans, including those who are white or mixed-race, because the issue of racial discrimination is present in all the agendas of independent civil society. It seems much more serious that discrimination on political grounds enjoys public acceptance in our society and is a source of pride for those who disguise their ideological intolerance as revolutionary intransigence.

Cuban Communist Party Guidelines Will Not Be Changed, Only Updated / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

Closure of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (Youtube)
Closure of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (Youtube)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 28 March 2016 – Just 18 days before the start of the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC), the Party’s newspaper Granma tries to explain in an editorial dated this Monday the reasons why it is not envisioned, on this occasion, that there will be “a process of popular discussion similar to that undertaken five years ago on the Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution.”

The editorial in the official organ of the PCC says that questioning the absence of a debate, “is in no way not open to criticism… much less so when it comes from people genuinely concerned about the work of the Party and the destiny of the country.” Then it immediately emphasizes that over the last six decades almost all “the big decisions have invariably been taken in consultation with the people.” continue reading

The note coincides with the publication of an open letter to Raul Castro written by the official journalist Francisco Rodriguez Cruz, in which he communicates his concern and dissatisfaction with “the lack of discussion” of the central documents of party meeting. The Party militant says he has raised these questions on several occasions without having received “any direct or convincing answer.”

Rodriquez Cruz proposes postponing the event for “just three months” to “dedicate the months of April and May to discussing the central documents of the Congress with the entire Party membership, and also with the rest of the Cuban population.” This reporter for the weekly magazine Workers apologizes if the missive published is “mistaken in method” and could be considered “an unforgivable lack of discipline.”

However, the party authorities brandish, as their principal argument for not having opened a public discussion on the agenda of the conclave, the fact that the work of the Congress, this time, is to “finish what was begun, to continue the implementation of the popular will expressed five years ago, and to continue the direction charted by the 6th Congress.”

Near the end of the editorial the titles of six documents are revealed that will be considered in the most important Party event. The first three are the assessment of the performance of the economy in the 2011-2015 five-year period, the fulfillment of the Guidelines and the updating of them for the 2016-2021 period.

The remaining three documents that Granma believes do not have to be discussed with the population are the long awaited conceptualization of the Cuban economic and social model of Socialist development, the economic and social development program to 2030, and the evaluation of the completion of the work objectives approved at the First National Conference of the Party in January of 2012.

The 7th Congress is unequivocally presented as a continuation of what the Communists agreed on five years ago, with the declared purpose of “constructing a prosperous and sustainable socialism,” as least as indicated in the article published this Monday under the title “Less Than a Month From the Party Congress.”

Nothing is said about having to renew the Central Committee (chosen in the 5th Congress almost 19 years ago), nor is there reference to the consequences of reestablishing relations with the United States, nor is there any forecast related to the eventual repeal of the embargo.

There is no mention of the Party’s position on such important issues as the announced new Electoral Law, or the need to introduce changes in the Constitution of the Republic. As a warning, it has been made known from the pages of Granma that the Guidelines will not be changed, only updated, and outside of them nothing else is worth being discussed.