Updating the Model Versus Comprehensive Changes / Dimas Castellanos

(Originally published on Monday, October 10, 2010 on the site www.diariodecuba.com)

In updating the model — a euphemism used to describe the changes that are taking place in the Cuban economy —  what is happening is the same thing that happened with Spanish colonialism in the late nineteenth century. Spain took so long to grant autonomy to the island that when it did, in 1898, the war for independence was about to exhaust its every last drop of blood and even its last penny, as required by the motto of the stubborn president, Antonio Canovas del Castillo.

Although the declared ideological underpinning of Cuba’s totalitarian system is Marxism, its leaders ignored that the foundation of the materialist conception of history is the law of correspondence between productive forces and the relations of production, which, in his Contribution to the of Critique Political Economy, Karl Marx summed up something like this: “The totality of these relations of production constitute the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.”

When you reach a certain stage of development productive forces come into contradiction with the relations of production, that is with the property relations within which they have operated hitherto. From this point forward, the relations of production, ways of development of the productive forces become its fetters, opening a time of social revolution.

In absolute inconsistency with its ideological framework, the Cuban government replaced the Marxist thesis by voluntarism and, in parallel, accommodated itself to support from overseas, which prevented the formation of a national business structure. After the removal of foreign companies and large national enterprises it proceeded to liquidate small and medium enterprises, the climax of which endeavor came with the Revolutionary Offensive of March 1968, when more than 50,000 manufacturing establishments and services were closed or taken over by the government.

With this “triumph” the Government delayed the necessary reforms to put property relations in correspondence with productive forces. The results were immediate: a poor economy, lack of labor discipline, lack of workers for a successful outcome, morals molded to the survival, hopelessness, disbelief, apathy and mass exodus, which was reflected in a long chain of failures, some thunderous as that of the sugar harvest of 1970, demonstrating the unfeasibility of a “model” based on absolute state ownership.

If, before the current disaster, it had been still possible to make limited changes to the productive sphere, after the damage caused — from economics to the spirituality of Cubans — it is now impossible to introduce reforms in the material base without simultaneously (following Marx’s thesis) making changes in the legal and political superstructure. Currently, any governmental action aimed at increasing production and productivity, delivered from the totalitarian mentality is doomed to failure, again.

If an expansion of self-employment is aimed at providing employment for the million and a half workers to be laid off, and at generating outputs and services that the state is unable to create, then the list of 178 activities permitted will need to be annulled and replaced with a list of only the few things that are not permitted. The rest will be taken care of by citizens’ initiatives which have given ample proof of their potential, much more so in a country like Cuba with such a high level of education.

To stimulate the growth of this sector, instead of trying to avoid the formation of a national business, we should add a policy characterized by low taxes and bank credits, creation of wholesale trade, implementation of the rights of association and free access to information, which involve the implementation of human rights, the basis of human dignity.

Only in this way can Cubans come to have an interest in the changes. However, despite the statements about changing whatever is necessary to change, the ideological bonds and the responsibilities and interest incurred for more than half a century act as an impediment to the Government with regards to the political will necessary to make the structural changes that our reality demands.

This limitation of the Government did not make light of the attempt to update the model, as the measures being implemented generate a scenario more promising than the stagnation that has prevailed until now. Ultimately, the process of democratization has to be brought forward with the reforms. The limitations of the proposed measures themselves reveal the absence of a genuine willingness to change, and are generating new contradictions, at a time when changes inside and outside the country prevent any going back, as has happened in the past.

The update of the model must come, on the one hand, from self-employment rather than the revival of small and medium enterprises; on the other hand, the process requires a variety of forms of ownership and management that would enable real participation of workers through service cooperatives, self-management and private property, which in turn implies the putting in place the rights and freedoms for citizens’ civic participation.

This is about a process, although the initial impetus may be the preservation of power, the evolution of limited changes could lead to real democratization for Cuba. It is a challenge for the Cubans, especially those for whom the nation is greater than ideologies and political parties. Therefore, the problem is not to oppose the updating of the model, but to turn it into a step toward comprehensive change and the democratization of Cuba.

Tropical Sakharov / Yoani Sánchez

Guillermo Fariñas with a few of the Ladies in White

It’s difficult to imagine that inside the frail body of Guillermo Fariñas, behind his face without eyebrows, is a willingness to confront discouragement. It is also surprising that at the times when his health was most critical, he never stopped caring about the problems and difficulties of those around him. Even now, with his gallbladder removed and painful surgical stitches crossing his abdomen, whenever I call him he always asks about my family, my health, and my son’s school. Such a way this man has of living for others! It is no wonder that he closed his mouth to food so that 52 political prisoners — among whom he personally knew very few — would be released.

There are prizes that impart prestige to a person, that shine a light on the value of someone who, until recently, was unknown. But there are also names that add luster to an award, and this is the case with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded to Fariñas. After this October, the next recipients of this highest laurel of the European Parliament will have one more reason to be proud. Because now the Prize has a higher profile, thanks to its having been awarded to this man from Villa Clara, an ex-soldier who renounced arms to throw himself into the peaceful struggle.

Who better than he, who undertook an immense challenge and accomplished it, who has given us all a lesson in integrity, who has subjected his body to pains and privations that will affect the rest of his life? There is no name more appropriate than that of this journalist and psychologist whose main characteristic is humility, to be included in a list where we find Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Cuba’s Ladies in White. A straightforward man whom neither the microphones, nor all the journalists who have interviewed him, nor the cameras’ flashes of recent days have managed to change. With a modesty so admired by his friends, Coco — because even his nickname is humble — has made the Sakharov Prize seem much more important.

October 22, 2010

Fidel’s Words Continue to Echo… Bitterly / Yoani Sánchez

A relic of crumbling Soviet era architecture along the Malecon, Havana’s waterfront boulevard and seawall

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Rarely does a person interviewed complain that a journalist has interpreted their statements to the letter; more frequently the opposite occurs, when, whether from negligence or malicious intent, a clear statement is ignored, mutilated or misinterpreted. So even though Fidel Castro has accustomed us to think of him as different from common mortals, we were surprised when he said he meant the exact opposite of what he said when he told Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic magazine that, “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

As if they were mutually exclusive arguments incapable of sharing space in the same brain, the once great rhetorician rejects the journalist’s interpretation of his words, arguing that, “My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system doesn’t work for the United States, nor for the world (…) how could such a system serve for a socialist country like Cuba?” Those of us who read Goldberg’s report of the interview, and then heard the verbal juggling from the Maximum Leader as he spoke at the great hall of the University, were left very confused.

If someone wants to get an idea of the uncertainty such declarations have generated in Cuba, imagine for a moment that after 50 years of marriage, a husband learns that his wife has told her best friend that their marriage doesn’t work. When asked to explain her indiscreet comments she responds, “What I think is that the marriage of the couple across the street doesn’t work… Who could possibly think that I’d now like to marry my neighbor’s husband?”

I don’t know who is best able to analyze this issue. A philosopher to dismantle its sophistry? A linguist to better organize the words? Or a psychotherapist to explore the Freudian slip hidden behind the declarations of el Comanadante. For those of us who were born and came of age under the social experiment he tried to shape in his image and likeness, to hear such self-criticism leaves a bitter taste that feels very much like betrayal.

I recall that when I first heard his words I wrote a little message and immediately published it on my Twitter account: “Fidel Castro joins the opposition.” A friend who read my brief opinion called me urgently at home to confess that, “If he has joined the dissidence, then I’m moving over to the government.” We Cubans have spent the past week living with jokes of this type, along with expressions of surprise, not to mention quite corrosive opinions about the mental health of the persistent orator. Even the worry about the economic problems, and the imminent layoffs of nearly 25 percent of the country’s workforce, fade in importance. No one has been able to remain indifferent to such a monumental slip of the tongue.

Since he dropped his official responsibilities because of ill health, Fidel Castro has barely spoken of our country and its problems. He frequently publishes Reflections on environmental matters and the threat of nuclear war. Now, since his recent “resurrection” he again appears in public wielding the microphone, his favorite instrument of the last half century. In the four years he has been out of power, he hasn’t addressed a single word to the way his brother Raul has performed for the country; and now, this ambiguous allusion, referring to the functionality of the Cuban model, is the first we have heard, after so much time avoiding the subject.

Nowhere in the interview did Goldberg interpret his words to mean that Fidel Castro is recommending American capitalism for Cuba; rather he simply respectfully transcribed the controversial phrase which the ex-president himself acknowledges having said, “without bitterness or concern.” And where do these enigmatic four words come from? Could it be that the bitterness and concern within the heart of the Maximum Leader are captured in that idea — which he assures us he wanted to express — that capitalism no longer works for anyone?

The bitterness is felt today: by the families of the internationalist who died trying to bring the Cuban model to so many countries in the world; by those who renounced the pleasures of youth, sacrificing the best years of their lives to make the model work; by the sincere members of the Party, expelled from the organization for much less severe criticisms; by those who lost their jobs for an inappropriate comment; by those who ended up behind bars for opposing the model; in short, by those who had the insight to see that things were no turning out as expected, who said so in good faith, and who received, in return, only disproportionate punishment. They all have the right to feel frustrated and above all fooled by the irresponsible man who assumed the post of wise clairvoyant marching in the vanguard along a path that led nowhere, and who now fears that alternative paths lead to dead ends or, even worse, back to the starting point of — oh! horror! — the capitalist past.

The concern that all of us who inhabit this Island share is that we will find we are a nation bereft; a nation where the programs, and the euphemisms of “to perfect” or “to actualize” the system, cannot explain clearly where we are going, although everyone knows by heart the meticulous description of the Utopia that we could never reach.

October 22, 2010

The Story of the Aboriginals / Fernando Dámaso

  1. Over the last years, “Indigenism” has taken center stage in Latin America. Indigenous leaders, whether real or virtual, demand the re-establishment of ancestral rights. They consider themselves, by right of seniority, as owners of the lands and bodies of water, and all the riches that these may have. Also, they’ve become defenders of the flora and fauna and, in tune with the times, ecological crusaders. Everything would be fine, and it would even merit applause, if it weren’t for the immobility it represents, and the obscurity to which they relegate the various protagonists of the growth of the nations they live in.
  2. Taking for granted they really were the original people of the various regions they inhabit (which is very questionable, given that we could ask, since when?, as before them there were others, and others, and others, until the time of the dinosaurs and stone age men, the only ones who are truly original), the current nations didn’t just come to be as a result of their pure and unique way of life and worldview, but of the mix of diverse peoples and races, who have, through time, contributed their virtues and defects, and also different levels of social and technological progress.
  3. To accept that indigenous peoples should govern the nations, just because they are the original inhabitants, excluding all the other citizens of such nations, is as racist and prejudiced as the historical injustice that is supposed to be healed. It’s an outdated remake of the old theory of the noble savage, which has been firmly discredited. Following that road will lead to societies fragmented by absurd rights, moving away from unity, inside the individual diversity that we need so much.
  4. It should be a well established fact that the wealth of the nation is not the property of any original group or people, but of all the citizens of each nation, and what is decided about it and its exploitation involves the representatives of the whole society (indigenous and non-indigenous). To try adopting extreme and violent positions to obtain some gain, is a stance that shouldn’t be supported by anyone on his right mind, nor allowed, nor permitted, by any responsible government.
  5. The immobility that some indigenous groups support, with respect to the natural resources found in their so-called original settlements, ties the hands of the nation to the interests of a minority which, during the course of history has not shown, for one reason or another, their capacity to grow, remaining in a primitive state and blaming everyone else for their situation.
  6. It’s OK to support the aboriginals, but not so they can become independent entities, but to integrate into the citizenry of their nations with all the rights, but also with all the duties, that entails. That is the only way to achieve growth and prosperity.

Translated by: Xavier Noguer

October 3, 2010

The Victim’s Fault / Rebeca Monzo

A very young friend, who recently graduated as a doctor, was traveling by bus with her boyfriend, also a doctor. They both were going to their respective workplaces, when all of a sudden she felt a burning in her neck. The shock of the assault paralyzed her, but not her boyfriend, who threw himself off the bus and ran after the thief. He was joined in the chase by two more young men and between the three of them they managed to capture the criminal. Hearing the screams, a policeman showed up, handcuffed the thief and returned the gold chain to the victim.

Days later the young doctor was summoned to the police station closest to these events, where she was asked to withdraw the charge. They had investigated the thief and found him to have no previous charges and to come from a good family. She told them she wanted to proceed with the complaint so that the situation would not be repeated. Then the prosecutor came to talk with her to try to get her to forget all about it, telling her she was partially at fault for being well dressed and wearing a gold chain, which aroused the greed of young people who didn’t have the means to dress as she did, and that was why she was robbed.

My doctor friend, very serious and offended, answered them, “So if a woman is raped or abused, she is also at fault for being beautiful and sexy? Does that mean the victim is the guilty one?” So things go on my planet; imagine for yourself when half a million people — forgive me, I mean victims — are unemployed.

October 20, 2010

Choosing the “Suitable” People Who Will Keep Their Jobs / Laritza Diversent

Photo: State watchman, by Orlando Luis Pardo

The meetings have started between the leaders of State institutions and their workers, to report on the process for reducing the payrolls, which is expected to be completed in the first trimester of the coming year.

The directors of the State agencies have announced to the workers that advisory committees are being created, charged with the selection of the qualified personnel who will keep their jobs. In the week just ended, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) in Arroya Naranjo, the poorest municipality in the capital, declared there to be 1,300 excess workers in the area of Culture.

The “Income Committees,” named such in the labor legislation, are composed of workers assigned by management, the union, the Cuban Communist Party, and the Young Communist Union.

The President of the Councils of State and of Ministers, General Raul Castro, warned in the last session of the National Assembly, that there would be strict “observance of the principle of demonstrated suitability when it comes time to decide who has the greatest right to occupy a position.”

According to the Labor Code, the state government may terminate the employment contract for, among other causes, ineptitude, lack of suitability, or a declaration of lack of need for the position. Resolution No. 8, “General Regulation on Labor Relations,” issued in May 2005 by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, governs the treatment of wages in these cases.

Trade unions and governments, by mutual agreement, decide on techniques and procedures used to determine the permanence of workers in their employment. The commission recommended, and the Chief of the entity confirmed, the loss of “Demonstrated Suitability.”

When a worker is declared unsuitable, the administration of the entity will facilitate their relocation and guarantee them a fixed salary for two months from the date they cease working at their job.

So far the relocations have been in agriculture and construction, sectors with a chronic shortage of workers and where the majority of Cubans refuse to work. If the worker doesn’t accept the offer, the labor relationship is terminated, without the right to receive any salary payments.

Workers are feeling insecure. Many say that the state salary, although insufficient, is the only source of income they have to pay their share of the costs of subsidized food and electricity.

Most families, some with debts to the bank over 10 years old, are paying a percentage of their salary in monthly installments for the appliances they received in the “energy revolution.”

Expected Prize / Iván García

It had already been leaked to Cuban dissidents that the journalist and psychologist Guillermo Fariñas enjoyed a big lead in the voting for the 2010 Sakharov Prize. Among the local opposition the distinction has received more applause than criticism.

Still, ‘Coco’ — as we call him — was surprised and the phone in his house in the La Chirusa slum, 150 miles east of Havana in Santa Clara, Villa Clara province hasn’t stopped ringing.

Fariñas told me that when the phone rang in the middle of the night he thought the worst. Usually when the phone rings at that unusual hour it’s for bad news. But this time it was not.

The Cuban poet and journalist Raúl Rivero, exiled in Madrid, was the first to congratulate him. Then pandemonium broke out. His cell phone didn’t stop ringing. From Australia, Prague, Moscow, Miami, Santiago de Chile, Reykjavik and even Greenland. While his friends started to invade the house.

People in the neighborhood, where ‘Coco’ is very popular, seeing the flood of people thought the worst. When Fariñas himself announced the good news,they erupted in celebration with a bottle of rum that some late night kids brought him from one of the discotheques in the city.

By nine o’clock the house was  already swarming with journalists, dissidents, friends and family. When we called from Havana, Coco interrupted the improvised celebration to say a few words.

“This award is for all those who have opposed, in one way or another the government of Fidel Castro. To the citizen rebellion. I’m thinking now of the opposition in the early years of the Revolution, they saw what we took time to understand. To the many anonymous people who do not bow to the will of a regime. ”

In his appreciation, ‘Coco’ did not forget Pedro Luis Boitel, a Cuban political prisoner who died in 1972 after a long hunger strike, and all his fellow independent and opposition journalists.

“To all of them, this award is dedicated. To the brave Ladies in White, who were granted the distinction five years ago. But most especially, I tell you frankly, this is a prize for Orlando Zapata and that giant among women, Reina Luisa Tamayo, his mother. Zapata is and will be a precursor. When, in the future, Cuba has a democracy, we will always remember his attitude and the path that was opened by Orlando,” he said, visibly moved.

Fariñas is the third Cuban to receive the Sakharov Prize. Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, founder of the Varela Project, won in 2002. And in 2005, the Ladies in White.

“I hope to go to Havana to celebrate the prize with my brothers in the opposition who live in the capital. There are only a few days left for the government to meet the deadline it gave for releasing all the prisoners. As I have already announced, if on November 7 the 12 prisoners from the Black Spring of 2003 have not been released, I will begin another hunger strike the following day,” Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, the psychologist and independent journalist warned.

Friends and family hope that another strike will not be necessary.

October 21, 2010

Fariñas and Sakharov: The Totalitarians Cannot Be Reformed / IntraMuros

Cuba dawned today in the monotony typical of these systems. But a text message broke into my room at 5 am: Farinas won the Sakharov Prize. The morning dawned differently for me and for many other Cubans who began to send from heart to heart — that is from cellphone to cellphone — the good news. The third Cuban had received this prestigious prize from the European Parliament. In 2002 it had been Oswaldo Paya and in 2005 the Ladies in White.

Farinas and Sakharov: What relationship could be found between these two men? Having wanted to be the person, in a system whose anthropological damage is precisely the blockade of freedom and of personal and social independence. They are men who breached their respective walls. Who, with their lives at death’s door, were a window for the light of freedom. Cuba is a blue-green island. Her soul is still free and supported when the world recognizes the value of men like Farinas who, with their solidarity, offer their lives for the freedom and rights of others.

Today official Cuba dawned as gray as ever, but the real Cuba is freer and happier with the Sakharov Prize for Santa Clara’s psychologist and journalist. As I was talking to Coco, as we call him, and asking him to say something for the magazine Convivencia (Coexistence), he said to me: Say that it is a prize for all the people of Cuba and that I dedicate it to Orlando Zapata Tamayo and to Pedro Luis Boitel.

We call on all other Cubans to ask ourselves, what can we do with our lives to make us worthy of men and women like Boitel, Zapata, Farinas and the Ladies in White, and all the others who continue, into the breach, peacefully, to bring on that day when this kind of sacrifice, and the prize given to those who offer themselves for others, are only a grateful memory of a sovereign nation.

Dagoberto Valdes

October 21, 2010

Nickel / Regina Coyula

So tell me that truth isn’t stranger than fiction. In Moa, the city of nickel, in Holguin province, the workers at one of the plants, faced with the impossibility of meeting an agreed delivery to China and the prospect of losing their pay in foreign currency, decided to send the agreed-upon number of tons… making up the weight with dirt and the dregs from the nickel processing. The Chinese were not very pleased.

October 21, 2010

A Speech and a Cyclone / Yoani Sánchez

A zinc roof tile flies off, performing an incredible choreography in the air before falling onto the roof of another building. The winds of the tropical storm Paula tore off branches, caused 22 buildings to collapse in Havana, and left us without power for more than a day. On an island accustomed to the passage of powerful hurricanes, this little meteor with a woman’s name has been a disagreeable surprise, keeping us semi-paralyzed for more than 24 hours. It was so unexpected because the media, not wanting to trigger an alarm, underestimated the effects of the wind and rain. Nor did they take into account the country’s housing stock, so deteriorated that any meteorological phenomenon can wreak havoc.

After Paula made landfall in the town of Artemisa, people were simply cursing the Institute of Meteorology and assessing the damage, obviously upset. The storm caught many of us off-guard — in the street, in schools, in workplaces — because the Civil Defense institutions never called for people to leave work or school and take cover. We all thought it would be enough to carry an umbrella that day, but we could barely open it in the midst of the gale. I myself was left stranded at the entrance to the tunnel on Linea Street, fearing that at any moment the waters would rise and cut the city in two. Fortunately a friend rescued me in his car but when I got home the situation was alarming. There, fourteen floors above ground, I could see things flying around, trees falling, and the dangerous dance of the palms, bent nearly double, on Independence Avenue. We hadn’t prepared ourselves for this. What was going on?

More than a cyclone, Paula was the evidence that our authorities couldn’t bear to add one more ounce of discomfort to our already tense reality. At other times, they would have announced, ad nauseum, that we should reinforce our windows, stay on top of the news, and buy candles and batteries to prepare for possible blackouts. But this time their silence revealed guidance coming from above not to create any kind of nervousness among the citizenry. But we have paid dearly for that silence and today the worry and distrust in the streets is on the rise, because for many it has become clear that a good part of the buildings that make up this city cannot withstand a stronger hurricane. The feeling of helplessness is growing.

Curiously, on the evening of that windy rainy Thursday, the television news spent almost half an hour reading the fourth part of a long reflection written by Fidel Castro. Under the title, “The Empire From Within,” the former president devoted himself to reeling off internal details of American politics, while in his own backyard we were all expecting news of the tropical storm. The announcer, in his pompous tones, read the lengthy text while hundreds of thousands of viewers lost patience on our side of the screen and got up from our chairs. It seemed that no danger was befalling us, to judge by the share of prime time occupied by the Maximum Leader’s diatribe against the United States government. We ended up knowing more about Barack Obama’s private conversations, than about the damage caused by Paula in her passage through our country. It might appear that we Cubans swallow such absurdities with patience and move on, but that’s not the case; what remains in us is the irritation. The annoyance caused by seeing how something so important and momentous in our everyday lives is whisked away by political discourse, and how empty phrases and the mania to always look for the mote in another’s eye, keeps us from feeling the enormous stick in our own that is blinding us. Disgust, yes, because even the mention of a storm coming is concealed by politicians who have determined that it is not convenient to deliver bad news.

It makes you want to urge the families who lost their homes to Paula — the phenomenon we didn’t see coming — to assemble at the same television studio where they hid the truth, or at the office where it was decided that it would be better not to alert people of the danger. Not one of those who cautiously held back the news this time has lost their roof, no one who ordered the newspapers not to contribute to the shock is sleeping under the open sky tonight. For them, it was just a tropical storm that faded away after it left Cuba; for many others it will always be the day they witnessed their home collapse, or the day on which, finally, they lost their faith in the official media.

Photo: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

This article originally appeared in Spanish in Penultimos Dias.

October 20, 2010

Demagoguery in Education Too / Miguel Iturria Savón


School Principal: So your daughter has come to start her schooling. And which do you prefer, the sea or the mountain?
Mother: The sea or the mountain?
Principal: Yes, the seas of mediocrity or the mountains of incongruities.

The school year is starting with the Cuban education system transforming itself to try to adapt its programs to the structural crisis affecting the country, which suffers from general despair, financial ruin, foreign dependence, and the old schemes that try to model the thinking and block the paths of children, youth and adults.

In these primitive days the official press interviews the leaders and managers of the Ministries of Education and Higher Education, who agree to speak about the rigor of the education, the rising educational level, state subsidies, and the need for political and ideological work.

They also speak of the importance of the mother tongue, educational assessments, continuity of studies and exams at higher level, and of the return to the classrooms of 10,000 retired teachers, and the incorporation of nearly 2,000 who worked in political and mass organizations.

The highlight of the transformations lies in the creation of 300 mixed centers where trade schools, technical schools, basic high schools and pre-university high schools coexist. The innovations include the reduction in boarding schools from primary through university; the opening of teaching schools in all provinces; the revitalization of Professional Technical Education; the elimination of the position of general teacher, the architects of which destroyed the middle schools; formation of double major professors in the middle and upper levels, who will be full time during the first and second courses and who will be teaching pedagogy from the third.

Some of these changes re old ideas warmed over, such as the reopening of schools teaching in each province, or the return of pre-university high schools to the cities, after decades of forced closure to put the kids in boarding schools where they work in the field, far from the family environment. There are still, of course, dozens of schools in remote locations and without conditions for the formation of the New Man conceived by the ideologues of the Communist Utopia.

And speaking of the past, we remember that in Cuba, since the educational reform undertaken by our teachers during the U.S. Occupation from 1899 to 1902, special importance was given to primary education and to arts and crafts, free and compulsory since 1901, six decades before the nationalization of education which did away with the coexistence of different models of education, abolished private schools and the prestigious Teachers Normal Schools and other institutions that shaped generations of Cubans.

The 2010-2011 school year begins with more propaganda than educational changes. As life is a continuous learning adventure, we hope that those who administer the axes of wisdom have learned that the keys of knowledge are passed on through rigor, freedom of conscience and the need to communicate and share in an environment of respect and acceptance.

September 10, 2010

Work For Yourself… Controlled by Others / Miguel Iturria Savón

Nearly half a century after the devastating “Revolutionary Offensive” of March 1968 — in which the State took control of virtually all private businesses remaining in Cuba — the same government officials that ended the small and medium-sized private ownership, approved a list of 120 activities people can pursue on their own. Nice! The measure becomes a door in the wall of intolerance, but is insufficient because it does not release the means of production now in the hands of the State, which preserves almost absolute control to the detriment of millions of people and the national economy.

Lately many Cubans have sought out the list of approved occupations, to photocopy it, or take notes about it, and distribute it among friends and relatives who were laid off from the inflated company payrolls, or will be laid off in the coming months. The document is a stimulus for the million unemployed that the government has sent home, finishing off the little game of giving everyone a job, but it does not come with sources of raw materials, transportation to distribute production, nor salaries that give dignity to those who work.

In reviewing the list I noticed that of the 120 occupations people can pursue on their own, subject to getting a license and paying taxes, 22 are essentially rural activities and 98 are urban. Thirteen relate to transportation, six to construction, fifteen to culture, five to education, two top public health and a number of agricultural tasks, the priority sector for the freeing up of carriers and carters, animal sellers, palm tree toppers, blacksmiths, diggers, shearers, herbalists and scalping grudge keepers of the army of agricultural inspectors and the officials of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), whose president speaks the new language of power.

The small hole in the wall of control does not preclude state surveillance, but opens a personal path in the totalitarian forest. So, for example, commerce will have messengers, tailors, hairdressers, watchmakers, florists, piñata sellers, barbers and others who will depend on themselves and contribute to the treasury, while employees of State bodegas, stores, cafes, restaurants, and garages will continue on the collective model, without competing with anyone, neither having to find the goods nor pay the taxes on local sales.

For their part, the construction sector will send its employees home to work for themselves as bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plumbers, electricians and decorators who, in a few months, will be licensed and paying taxes. Woodworking will be limited, however, because there is no wholesale supply of wood and the costs of tools and equipment is very high, all of it in the hands of government businesses.

Even culture has been freed up a bit with a list of approved activities for self employment. Among the trades authorized are musical instrument tuners, artisans who are both registered and not-registered with the Cuban Association of Craft Artists (ACAA), buyers-sellers of old records, bookbinders, engravers, photographers, art restorers, and language translators and interpreters.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing because the government still owns all the movie theaters, cultural centers, art schools, art galleries, bookstores and theaters, and the network of centers and businesses that control music programming, dance groups, and of course radio, television and the printed press. Hardly anything? Right?
Dozens of legitimate jobs have been released to thousands of drivers for hire, parking attendants, bicycle taxi drivers, boat captains, drivers, shoeshiners, manicurists, makeup artists, typists, language and music teachers, school cleaners, and chiropodists — all of whom can now work at their own risk in accordance with demand for their services.

There are those who are quick to associate this great List with profound changes in the model of State domination over individuals. The self-employed activities unleash the hope of independence and self-improvement; but Watch Out! Those who imposed the chaos and appropriated everything in the name of egalitarian ideals are still holding the reins. If they open a door in the wall, it is to retain their power.

September 30, 2010

Moderating Comments / Claudia Cadelo

There’s nothing better than a new day to demonstrate that our decisions are not infallible.  I’ve been watching my own evolution with respect to the moderation of comments.

First I swore I did not want to moderate them.

Then that I would like to but I could not.

And now, that I will, as I have found a way to do it through a friend.

I recently wrote that all I knew about my political leanings was that I was not a communist; thanks to the comments on Octavo Cerco I have discovered that I am not an anarchist. Little by little one comes to find oneself.

I have spent several days trying to flesh out the rules for the forum, and here they are.  Any suggestions, of course, are welcome.

  • Every commentator is responsible for his comments (even if he is a G2 agent and is following orders. Sadly, now with moderation, some will become “dispensable”).
  • Comments entirely in capital letters will be erased. In the language of cyberspace that means you are shouting and my blog is not a platform for virtual repudiation rallies.
  • Any offensive or insulting comments, or threats against other commentators, will be erased (exercising your right to privacy, do not publicly strip the skin off of others).
  • Comments that incite violence will be erased (my resistance is peaceful, if you want to rise up in the Sierra Maestra open your own blog before you take off for Pico Turquino).
  • Comments that contain more than two links will be moderated to prevent spam.
  • Repetitive comments will be erased (it’s bad enough with Granma having to read the same thing over and over again).
  • Comments that usurp someone else’s identity will be erased (I do not care for aspiring secret agents).
  • Comments that do not use the Roman alphabet will be erased (even if I could translate them, it takes too long).

I think that’s it and I hope you can live with it.

October 20, 2010

Occupational Therapy / Yoani Sánchez

Some make figurines out of paper, others string colored beads on a necklace that never ends, or paste pieces of fabric onto an infinite quilt. Occupational therapy they call it; keeping the hands busy so the mind doesn’t lose control, is what I would call it. Occasionally one of these repetitive occupations manages to divorce me from reality, though I don’t do it with needles and glue, but with the help of screwdrivers and clippers. I get to disconnect circuits, rebuild cables, open up every kind of appliance to see if their working diagram is more logical than our absurd reality. I make and remake technology.

Perhaps one day I will manage to create some gadget that not only will relax tensions, but will serve, finally, to connect us to the Internet.

October 20, 2010