Still Lacking a Great Deal

Still Lacking a Great Deal / Fernando Dámaso
Fernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated

Several months have passed since the First National Party Conference
and, as expected by the thinking part of the population, few remember
it. In its basic draft document there are no plans, no agreements,
nothing about the important problems which one would assume must be
their reason for being, and it's all diluted by generic declarations and
internal adjustments to maintain their monopoly on power, trying to
leave behind the deadly exercise of voluntarism and the strong-man rule
of prior years, which cost the institution so much credibility and prestige.

They maintain and defend the absurd equation of
nation-country-revolution-party-socialism, unnatural and unscientific,
like the only unity possible, leaving no space for the emergence and
development of civil society, the real guarantor of the present and
future of the country.

The greatest straggler on the government's agenda — the democratization
of the political system — which is also the greatest challenge for the
authorities, continues to be ignored, as if as long as they don't talk
about it or deal with it, it won't exist. Most people agree, although
they are still afraid to say publicly that the political, economic and
social structure have to change, and that updating the model isn't
enough, as it's an action that is only skin deep, more to gain time than
to solve existing problems.

To continue to ignore the political plurality of the nation, hiding
behind a supposed virtual unity very few actually believe in, instead of
facilitating the peaceful, orderly and civilized transition we all
crave, will generate violence and confrontation that no one wants.

New times require new answers, different models and the participation of
citizens in the decisions taken and their implementation. To defend,
despite multiple failures, obsolete and outdated concepts that divide
Cubans into hostile camps, is both unintelligent and immoral.

To emerge from the current crisis it's necessary to share political
power, allowing all political tendencies to participate, each being as
Cuban and patriotic as the other. Before imposing a project from the
monopoly of power, you first must ask citizens, "What project do you
want for the country?" If true power lies with the people, as they
constantly repeat, then power is made up of citizens with different
political, ideological, economic, social, sexual, artistic, viewpoints,
all valid and respectable, and they can not be excluded, must less can
someone impose themselves as the only representative at the expense of
all others.

The path to solving the national crisis does not run only through a
process of slight economic reforms, but through a true political and
social democratization, that opens the roads to citizen initiative
without restrictions of any kind, allowing Cubans, all Cubans without
exclusions, to responsibly build their present and future.

Photo: Peter Deel

June 21 2012

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