The Arm Over the Shoulder, the Metastasis of Power in Cuba

In the ranks of the PCC and the UJC, opacity, mediocrity and the absence of authentic leadership reign. It would be enough to look at the character who has been placed at the top of the visible pyramid: the first secretary, Díaz-Canel. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 19 July 2022 — For millions of Cubans it is clear that sovereignty does not reside in the people, but in the Communist Party. We could even say that Article 5 of the Constitution is the Platt Amendment of our times, although in this case it is not a simple removable appendix, but a tumor embedded in the body of the nation.

Article 5 establishes that the single party is the superior force of society and of the State. Any initiative, proposal, idea or solution that opposes this totalitarian power is automatically branded traitorous or anti-Cuban. The main enemy of Cuban authoritarianism ceased to be external a long time ago. Today, all the cannons of the regime are aimed against its own citizens.

Even in supposedly cultural organizations the omnipresence of the Party is confirmed. The statutes of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, from the second article, establish their full obedience to the PCC. And the same thing happens, although with an even more fundamentalist tone, with the Hermanos Saíz Association(AHS). Its statutes read: “The AHS recognizes the political direction of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and the Union of Young Communists (UJC), the leading organization of the Cuban youth movement. For what is established as a principle, the strongest will of all its members in defense of the ideals of the Cuban Revolution.”

It is clear why both organizations turned their backs on their own members after the 27N (27 November 2020) and 11J (11 July 2021) protests. It is more than evident that this is not about civil society organizations that promote the creations of their artists, but crude control mechanisms by the State to monitor and control the guild related to culture.

It is difficult to understand the magnitude of ridicule when one is immersed in that broth of indoctrination and propaganda that normalizes the absurd. But it is unthinkable that, in democratic societies, a cultural association would have to swear allegiance in its statutes to a political party in order to exist.

Nor can Cuban citizens cannot freely choose their representatives, rather these are carefully selected by the Candidacy Commissions, which in turn are controlled by the Party and State Security. The Platform Otro18 [Another2018] convincingly demonstrated how the political police operate to prevent opposition candidates from running as delegates in their constituencies.

On the other hand, the cadre policy of the single party is designed so that it is not the most capable who climb the rungs, but the most obedient. In the ranks of the PCC and the UJC, opacity, mediocrity and the absence of authentic leadership reign. It would be enough to look at the character who has been placed at the top of the visible pyramid: the first secretary, Díaz-Canel. If this individual was the best choice of the dictator Raúl Castro to occupy his position, we can already imagine what the rest of the troops were like.

It seems that in the Ñico López (Higher School of the PCC) they are in charge of annulling individualities. When listening to the president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power, José Ramón Cabrera, speaking after the protests in Los Palacios, you feel you are facing a pioneer news presenter. Most of these “cadres” or “community factors” have the same gestures, emphasize the same words, are trained in the most simplistic demagoguery: that of placing an arm on the shoulder of the dissatisfied, without offering any concrete solution, just justifications.

The Party’s cadre policy cannot be fixed, because its architects do not tolerate competition. Its victims are chosen from an early age, and the casting takes place in school assemblies. From there, the young cadres begin a career of self-nullification. The continuous, endless and useless meetings will prevent them from frequently attending classes, but their absences will be justified. They will never be able to perform as a good professional sin their field, because the “Revolution” takes up all of their time.

Thus we have Pedro Jorge Velázquez, a young promise of official propaganda. The young man promotes himself as the super “cool and sexy” journalist, although in reality he is a student without many lights, repeating, with an exaggerated need to be taken into account by the nomenclature, but with very poor professional results. And the height of that policy is the “president” himself. The paradox of Díaz-Canel is his being nothing less than an electrical engineer, while under his mandate Cuban is suffering the worst energy situation in the last 30 years.

The only party is a tumor that has already metastasized.

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