tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44031736113518285712024-02-21T05:00:42.458+11:00Cuba's Socialist RenewalCuba, rigid for many years, shakes off the starch that immobilised it to change what is obsolete ... without compromising the solidity of the Revolution's power — Luis Sexto, Cuban journalistMarce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-76695757313340290122018-07-23T13:52:00.000+10:002018-07-24T08:16:57.398+10:00Harold Cárdenas on the Special Period This semester I'll have the pleasure of teaching, for one last time, 'Cuba: the Special Period', a subject offered in Spanish to second and third year Spanish language students at La Trobe University in Melbourne. In the second class we'll examine the crisis of the early 1990s, the harshest years of the Special Period, through the lens of the personal experiences, thoughts, feelings and reflections of Cubans who lived through those years. Searching for appropriate tutorial readings online, I came across the following commentary by Harold Cárdenas Lema (introduced to readers of my blog in my <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2018/07/harold-cardenas-revolutions.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>) and decided to include it. To help fill in any gaps in my student's comprehension, I translated it with the instruction: don't read the translation until you've tried to understand the Spanish text yourself. How many will succumb to temptation?<br />
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Harold's gritty reflection on the meaning of the Special Period is a good example of what raises the ire of Cuba's state censors and, more widely, what he terms the orthodox current of the Cuban Revolution. Many within that current will be upset or displeased that the draft of Cuba's new socialist constitution, which will be the subject of a public consultation process in coming months, opens the door to gay marriage. Activism, enlightened leadership—including that of Miguel Diaz-Canel—and a gently rising tide of Cuban public opinion have combined to make this possible.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">The special generation of the Fucked Period</span></b></h2>
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By Harold Cárdenas Lema<br />
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<a href="https://jovencuba.com/2014/09/19/la-generacion-especial-del-periodo-jodido/" target="_blank"><i>La Joven Cuba</i></a><br />
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September 14, 2014<br />
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Translation: Marce Cameron<br />
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The children who grew up in the Special Period knew only scarcity and nostalgia for an unknown past. I am one of those kids. We are the special generation. </div>
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There are things one doesn’t talk about, things one’s distorted memory tries to eliminate by any means or return to us wrapped in a blanket of longing. The Special Period is one of those “things”, because while it has a name, the name says nothing. It was a period that was neither left behind, nor all that special. Rather than sweetening it with that euphemism we should call it by its name: the Fucked Period. <br />
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I don’t find it surprising that in our family we have so few photos of these years. It’s as if at the end of the 1980s a lot of things happened and then, for most of the 90s, only some shameful things shyly captured in photos. In these images we see thin parents and grandparents, as if Valerio Wyler, the Spanish governor of Cuba, had returned to the country. We see faces with half-smiles and the innocence of those who were perhaps not fully aware of what was happening. A clarification: we Cubans are not so special. On the contrary, we could be Argentinians, but we did live in very unusual circumstances. <br />
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At home, we didn’t know how to prepare ourselves for the Fucked Period, but prepare we did. My dad used to travel overseas for work. After his second last trip he sat us down at the dining table and solemnly told us that the socialist bloc would go down the tube, that he had already seen the writing on the wall in Bulgaria. A year later he took his last trip: a few days before returning from Angola, a land mine left him dying in a Luanda hospital. My mum’s response in the months that followed was impulsive but correct: buy all the food and basic supplies for the long economic winter her husband had foreseen, thanks to which we survived the 90s a little better. <br />
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When the scarcity set in there was nothing of value left in the house. The toys disappeared and I learned to amuse myself with whatever I found lying around—old clothes racks, and cement blocks used in construction, fuelled my imagination for years. Something did remain. The little Russian dolls accompanied us stoically, and what they lacked in beauty they made up for with the nostalgia for the previous decade that they aroused in our parents.<br />
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The first signs of consumption were colourful. We kids learned that the high tech beer cans had value as collectors items, and plastic wrappers could be collected in albums that conferred status on their owners at school. We were indulgent onlookers. The real consumers were those who had family overseas and no longer had to hide it. A positive consequence was that necessity brought us closer to Cubans who had emigrated; we were able to subordinate politics to family ties. <br />
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New sounds emerged, such as the cry of joy in the <i>barrio</i> when the electricity came back on; and we learned geographic strategy. When the electricity went off at night we would search for a vantage point in the city from which we could see who had electric lights, and if we knew anyone from there we’d pay them “a visit”. Somewhere in my subconscious lay the memory of a fridge with raisins and enough little bottles of yogurt and condensed milk to get through the winter; but I’m not sure if this was a dream or a memory.<br />
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They were hard years which we kids and teenagers got through better than our parents, who gave us their food and saw many dreams dashed or subordinated to survival. Even so, the teachers were better, some social services functioned better, and there was something that kept us very united and sustained the social consensus. What was it? Maybe the belief that we could return to the 80s. But when the social stratification was very marked and we understood that an uncertain future lay ahead, the country began to change.<br />
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The special generation grew up in this context, without knowing—or with hazy memories of—the 80s, but living through a time full of contradictions. This explains a lot. It explains why many of my classmates were not interested in going to university, and why many others emigrated. We’re left with the memory of their empty chairs at school, symbolic of a imperilled future and an uncertain present. <br />
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The Fucked Period is always remembered for its sacrifices and the high degree of dignity that characterised it, but we paid a very high price for that dignity. Fortunately, the act of reliving through remembering works better for the good times than the bad times, because I’m not sure we could live through it again. Nor would we want to.</div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-29270291075357284972018-07-21T04:42:00.000+10:002018-07-22T06:58:09.085+10:00Harold Cárdenas: The Revolution’s illegitimate children<div style="text-align: left;">
What kind of president will Miguel Diaz-Canel turn out to be? It's early days, and time will tell. In the few months since he took office, Cuba's new president has set a blistering pace. He has toured the country, Fidel-style, talking to people in the streets, visiting factories, schools, hospitals, cultural centres and mountain villages to take the pulse of the country firsthand. Meanwhile, back in Havana, he has been busy assembling his ministerial cabinet and holding a seemingly endless series of high-level accountability meetings dealing with such pressing matters as hurricane recovery, housing construction and foreign investment. </div>
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Nobody can fault his work ethic. But while Diaz-Canel's closing <a href="http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2018-07-15/discurso-de-diaz-canel-en-la-clausura-del-x-congreso-de-la-upec-15-07-2018-11-07-42" target="_blank">speech</a> to the congress of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) on July 14 pleased some Cubans, it alarmed and dismayed others. What sent a small shock wave through Cuban cyberspace was the fact that Diaz-Canel quoted from a July 10 diatribe tapped out by one H. M. Lagarde, who runs the Cuba-based blog <i><a href="http://cambiosencuba.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cambios en Cuba</a></i> (Changes in Cuba). The target of Lagarde’s brief post, titled sarcastically “The ‘new revolutionaries’ of the internet in Cuba’, is certain unnamed “so-called ‘independent’ websites” based in Cuba and their unnamed authors. </div>
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According to Lagarde, those who write for these websites call themselves revolutionaries because they oppose the US blockade of Cuba; are “more revolutionary than Fidel”, yet have nothing but criticism for Fidel's key legacy, namely “today’s Cuba”; are harshly critical of state-centralism, yet never criticise the government directly; know that the blockade exists, yet blame everything on the bureaucracy; complain that they don't get published in Cuba’s state media, yet insist that that media is boring, repetitive and thus nobody reads it; claim that they are not “hirelings of official thought”, yet accept scholarships to study at US universities and take journalism courses in Holland, “where they are surely taught to defend socialism in Cuba”; are economic experts, so they advocate neoliberalism for an underdeveloped, blockaded country; are experts in Cuban history, so they hide the fact that Julio Antonio Mella founded Cuba's first Communist Party and they “turn him into a rebel without a cause, a kind of James Dean”; call on people to be disobedient, when what is needed is unity; are democratic and respectful of contrary opinions, so they call those with views different to their own, “submissive, sheep, obedient, mediocre, Talibanists, Khmer Rougers, Stalinists, officialists and repressors.” Their key aim, Lagarde concludes, is to cause division. </div>
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Lagarde's 510-word commentary is not a serious contribution to Cuban public debate. It is a crude, amateurish, unsubstantiated and nasty diatribe of the kind that abound on social media platforms. That Diaz-Canel, an intelligent, cultured and experienced politician—and Cuba's president—not only cited it approvingly at length, but urged his audience to read it in its entirety, is not merely surprising. It is astonishing. In the same speech, a few paragraphs on, he dropped in a cryptic Shakespearean reference: “To be or not to be, ever since the times of Shakespeare”. It's not entirely clear what Diaz-Canel meant by this, but some saw it as a further endorsement of Lagarde's line of demarcation between the real revolutionaries and the fake ones. Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban diplomat and academic whose essay '<a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/01/translation-cuba-continuity-and.html" target="_blank">Continuity and political change</a>' I translated for this blog, reacted to Diaz-Canel's speech by noting the striking similarity between Diaz-Canel's binary exclusive ‘to be or not to be’, and George W. Bush’s ‘you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.’ What is going to happen to those who, like him, disagree with Lagarde and Diaz-Canel, he wondered? He later withdrew the comment, saying it had been taken out of context and someone was putting words in his mouth. </div>
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One young Cuban revolutionary who accepted a merit-based scholarship to study at a US university is Harold Cárdenas, co-founder of the <i><a href="https://jovencuba.com/" target="_blank">La Joven Cuba</a></i> website. <i>La Joven Cuba</i> was set up by students at the University of Matanzas, in central Cuba, as a digital platform for young Cuban revolutionaries to both defend the Revolution and speak their minds. It publishes a wider spectrum of pro-socialist opinion and analysis than that permitted by the ideological gatekeepers—in the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party—who decide what can and can't be published in Cuba's mass media. With more than 4 million page views and a digital magazine that is emailed and passed around on USB drives, the website has a substantial Cuban readership. In 2013, university officials withdrew the site's internet access. The connection was only restored, and the website relaunched, after Miguel Diaz-Canel, then Cuba's first vice-president, personally intervened in support of the young revolutionaries. In comments to the Cuban media around the same time, Diaz-Canel said that with the development of information technologies, social media and the internet, "prohibiting something is almost a chimera". His comments were reported on the TV news but <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mundo/cartas_desde_cuba/2013/05/el_tiro_por_la_culata.html" target="_blank">did not appear</a> in print in Cuba's mass media. <i>La Joven Cuba</i> relaunched without fanfare, but with a photo that said a thousand words: a smiling Diaz-Canel, with his arms around the shoulders of the website's founders, with portraits of Fidel Castro and Raul Castro in the background.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_-9rdEqj9S2PA2AZ82oALqzRkkARqPadertJNQrebL3bfGxclqBYXbt5iRe6CnZ_0PtbDdaGuKUMmYFSGlptoacsCyekfjVO7KaGU0wI84l1ktr0F1nqoNBNleDdFsuNNjkSVWyTF8vY/s1600/ljc-diaz-canel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_-9rdEqj9S2PA2AZ82oALqzRkkARqPadertJNQrebL3bfGxclqBYXbt5iRe6CnZ_0PtbDdaGuKUMmYFSGlptoacsCyekfjVO7KaGU0wI84l1ktr0F1nqoNBNleDdFsuNNjkSVWyTF8vY/s400/ljc-diaz-canel.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miguel Diaz-Canel with Harold Cárdenas (right) in 2013</td></tr>
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The sharpest and best response so far to Diaz-Canel's endorsement of Lagarde's divisive rant is that of Harold Cárdenas in <i>La Joven Cuba</i>. I would like to thank Harold for taking the time to clarify a few points in the interests of translation accuracy. Please see my translator's notes at the foot of the translation.</div>
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<b>The Revolution’s illegitimate children</b></h2>
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By Harold Cárdenas Lema</div>
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<i><a href="https://jovencuba.com/2018/07/17/los-hijos-bastardos-de-la-revolucion/" target="_blank">La Joven Cuba</a></i></div>
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July 17, 2018</div>
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Translation: Marce Cameron</div>
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Heterodoxy is the least comfortable and most honourable stance for a revolutionary in Cuba. Ever since Julio Antonio Mella was expelled [in 1925] from the Cuban Communist Party he founded, innumerable revolutionaries have known friendly fire, the intolerance of their own comrades, <i>parametración</i> and labelling.[1] Pushed to the edge of the abyss, no few have fallen into the arms of the right, thus proving their accusers right. Others have taught their executioners a lesson in ethics, but it takes decades to clear one’s name of the mud thrown at it light-mindedly by some functionary or other for one reason or another. No few children of the Cuban Revolution have been rejected by what was considered to be the revolutionary vanguard at the time; in fact, the great heroes of the last century were at some point excommunicated from the communist movement or the party. To find oneself in these circumstances today is almost a tradition. </div>
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On Sunday, the president coined the new phrase to distinguish revolutionaries from non-revolutionaries in Cuba: ‘to be or not to be’. Perhaps our experience with ambiguous phrases is insufficient; perhaps we are not wise to the ways of enthusiastic functionaries who want to earn their stripes when they appear to have government approval for any excess. The allusion to Shakespeare could hardly be more inappropriate. In his third-act soliloquy, Hamlet refers to the dilemma of life or suicide, yet this phrase is now being used to talk about political definitions. I’d like to know who is exerting this influence on the president, who it is that is passing on nebulous notions and a distorted view of things, but we have no idea who his political collaborators and advisers are.</div>
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Socialism in Cuba has always had two roads: one of excesses and dogmas, the other of heresy and liberation. The president takes office inheriting distorted ideological institutions in a country that has been on the defensive for half a century. Moreover, he assumes the presidency in the context of a purging of national public life, led by a fundamentalist sector ensconced in the structures of power. Much of what is decided in terms of ideology is permeated by personal relations between functionaries and aspirants to political positions who, by rubbing shoulders at national events and private social gatherings, can act as a lobby group and influence decision-making. Those of us who are distant from these circles, thanks to our youth or the whims of geography, cannot compete with this day to day influence on the president. </div>
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The Cuban Revolution is not unique in having rejected its own. This is almost an historical norm of communist models, beginning with the Soviet Union where Trotsky was exiled but continued writing. Trotsky was assassinated because his very existence was a danger to the Stalinist current that aspired to impose a sole revolutionary road and model. From Siqueiros to Mercader, several people tried to assassinate him. It's noteworthy that the assassins always found sanctuary in Cuba, protected by the adherents to a hard line within the Cuban communist movement that is trying to survive today.[2] </div>
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If we were to enumerate the acts of heresy within the Cuban communist movement, we’d have to begin with the expulsion of Julio Antonio Mella. The sectarianism was such that [the Communist Party leadership] went so far as to write to the Mexican Communist Party claiming that Mella, who had just arrived in Mexico, was “a perfect and shameless saboteur of the communist ideals, someone you must have nothing to do with … a stray leader who does not rest in his efforts to sabotage our heroic work by myriad means.” It goes without saying that the Mexicans did not heed this advice, but the language of this letter bears a striking resemblance to the dog’s breakfast of epithets hurled at the disobedient in Cuba today by those who try to discredit them, lumping them all together whether they happen to be counterrevolutionaries, revolutionaries or others who felt that, until recently, there was a space for them within the Cuban political project.</div>
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After the 1959 Revolution, the debate between Alfredo Guevara and Blas Roca ended in a victory against dogma among the Communist Party membership.[3] These years were not error-free, but there was still an aspiration to build a distinctly Cuban socialism, Fidel kept the fanatical elements of the Popular Socialist Party on a short leash and Che Guevara spoke out against socialist realism. The young lecturers of the [Havana University] Department of Philosophy began to give classes in the Schools of Revolutionary Instruction, under the guidance of a Spanish-Soviet they soon left behind. The striving for a Marxist nationalism, distant from Soviet manuals and dogmas, coincided with the conflict between Fidel and the Soviets following the Cuban Missile Crisis. The fact that Fidel, too, was condemned by the Communist Party must have given him perspective.[4] From then on, he made sure to surround himself not only with political cadres, but also heretics—something that the current president could learn from. </div>
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When the Soviet model began to be installed in 1971, after the failure of the [1970] sugar harvest [to reach the ambitious target of 10 million tons on which Cuba’s industrialisation was staked], the orthodox current began settling old scores, and that was the end of the homegrown revolution. The closure of [the heterodox Marxist theoretical magazine] <i>Pensamiento Critíco</i> (Critical Thought) and the disbandment of the Department of Philosophy were a clear message to our grandparents’ generation. Luckily, José Miguel Miyar Barruecos (Chomi), as vice-chancellor of Havana University, had the good sense to make room for the philosophy department’s refugees at his own study centre. The fact that this would be impossible today, even if we had a Chomi, speaks volumes of how much ideological space has been lost in Cuban institutions. In the 1980s, other factors such as glasnost and perestroika ushered in new problems; then there was the crisis of the fine arts community. Many ended up emigrating. </div>
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In 1996, there was another purge with the closure of the American Studies Centre (CEA). The CEA was too penetrating and heretical at a time when the expectations aroused by the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party [in 1991] were already waning, and being politically incorrect was no longer sexy in the eyes of the authorities. They couldn’t do much more to them because the Centre’s coterie of devoted intellectuals had ways of surviving, but several of those who are today our finest thinkers were accused of being a fifth column of imperialism and of working for the CIA. Today, young film makers and the [Cuban state’s] cinematic institutions are at odds with each other, people are pushing for a film industry law that doesn’t materialise and there is no Fidel-like figure with the authority and willingness to take the bull by the horns and bring everyone to the table to find a solution. The current notion that flirting with the enemy, or the enemy’s influence, lies behind every disagreement is simply a convenient excuse to avoid debate. It’s shameful to look back on our history and see how, in years of invasions and nuclear crises [i.e. in the early 1960s], there was a greater capacity for internal dialogue. </div>
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The most conservative sectors of the ideological apparatus were never quoted by Raul [Castro]. Ever since the current president took office, these sectors have sought his support in order to utilise his symbolic capital. Now they have got what they wanted. That Diaz-Canel trusts in the functionaries and structures that surround him was to be expected, in fact, what he has just said will no doubt calm the hard-liners who feared they were out on a limb. Unfortunately, his words are, today, a green light for new purges and the repetition of old errors. To reduce the Cuban political spectrum to a ‘to be or not to be’ dichotomy, as do the most orthodox members of the government, is not only a radical departure from Fidel’s line of giving space within the Revolution to everyone other than militant counterrevolutionaries, it is also a serious theoretical and political error. </div>
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The text cited by the president lumps together real phenomena with [ideological] crusades and thinly-veiled personal vendettas. According to the text's author, Lagarde, ‘the hirelings of official thought’ do not exist. He finds the allusion so uncomfortable that he makes it seem as if Che were not referring to our [party-state] bureaucracy, and he tries to divert attention elsewhere.[5] Accustomed to bureaucratic funding allocations, he talks of ‘accepting’ a scholarship as if it were a gift from a superior. He has no idea just how many young Cubans are studying abroad, nor of the sacrifices involved in obtaining a scholarship on the basis of academic excellence. He talks about unity, yet calls for purges. He does not mention support and links with international left movements because he wants to make accusations of hypocrisy. His totalitarian stance is aimed at the annihilation of anyone who disagrees. He is unaware that Cuba needs both himself and the ‘new revolutionaries’ he denounces; that in the absence of either the one or the other, the jigsaw of the Cuban Revolution would have a piece missing. </div>
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Cuba’s ideological fundamentalists are experts in harming, marginalising, excluding and labelling others, insinuating that they are acting on behalf of the US. They do harm to not just you, but also your family and friends, so that you end up alone. All in the name of the Revolution. The modus operandi of Cuba's orthodox camp is to turn a person into what they are not, by radicalising them [i.e. pushing them into the arms of the counterrevolution] through marginalisation in order to demonstrate that their accusation was justified. Today, they enjoy the access [to the political leadership] and the insider information that come with institutional support. They want a public sphere with a military rather than a parliamentary discipline. When they are unable to impose their views, they appeal for those views to be legitimised via the president or the mass media to which they have access. They want a top-down blogosphere modelled on <i><a href="https://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">La Pupila Insomne</a></i>, a controlled blogosphere, and a left that they hegemonise.[6] To secure their influence, they ingratiate themselves with the holders of political power. </div>
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José Martí spoke of a republic ‘with everyone and for the common good’, a principle retained in the draft of the new Cuban constitution. In a Communist Party Central Committee meeting, someone heard the president suggest that everyone must do together what Fidel did alone. <i>La Joven Cuba</i> wants to be included in this ‘everyone’, but today they accuse us of each being our own Commander in Chief. In the past few months, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has been talking to the people in the streets, confronting corruption, promoting transparency on the part of public functionaries and he has now announced that there will be a presidential Twitter account. His closing speech was to congress in which journalists elected president of the Cuban Journalists Union the person whose promotion we have been proposing for years in <i>La Joven Cuba</i>. </div>
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I can live with the president becoming a mouthpiece for Cuban fundamentalism because he believes—or is led to believe—that this will bring about a degree of unity in Cuba. Reading his citation of Lagarde’s commentary brought to mind a young Abel Prieto [Cuba’s culture minister since 1997] admonishing Fidel: “you don’t know how seriously people take your jokes.” While this is not a joke, I have sufficient perspective and conviction to continue supporting the leader who I met as a child in Santa Clara. If they keep on making things more difficult for me: I am 32 years old, I am of the third generation of revolutionaries in my family and my life’s political purpose is to demonstrate that Cuban socialism need not be orthodox. Do what you will.* </div>
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<b>Translator's notes</b><br />
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[1] <i>Parametración </i>is the practice of setting certain narrow standards, or parameters, by which people are judged by the party and the state. They must conform to these parameters in order to be considered revolutionaries.</div>
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[2] Trotsky's murderer, Ramon Mercader, died in Cuba in 1978.'</div>
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[3] Blas Roca was a leader of Cuba's Moscow-aligned Popular Socialist Party. I have introduced Alfredo Guevara to readers of my blog <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/05/translation-alfredo-guevara-dialogue.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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[4] On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro led a group of young Cubans to storm the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba with the aim of seizing weapons and calling on the Cuban people to overthrow the Batista dictatorship. In military terms this audacious action was a failure, but it became the political catalyst for the guerrilla war and urban struggle that culminated in the 1959 revolution. The first Cuban Communist Party, founded by Mella in 1925, was later renamed the Popular Socialist Party (PSP). The PSP condemned Fidel's attack on the Moncada barracks as adventurism and distanced itself from his actions.</div>
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[5] In his 1965 essay 'Socialism and Man in Cuba', Che Guevara wrote, referring to the cultural and journalistic spheres: "we must not create docile hirelings of official thought".</div>
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[6] I have introduced readers to Iroel Sanchez and his blog <i>La Pupila Insomne</i> <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2016/09/struggle-over-cuban-press-intensifies.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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<br />Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-12315099766710611152016-12-03T23:49:00.000+11:002016-12-03T23:50:45.669+11:00Fidel: Dead or alive, a dangerous subversiveThis commentary is based on <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/fidel-time-to-reflect-on-his-legacy.html">something I wrote</a> in 2012. The updated version has just been published in <a href="http://ppesydney.net/time-reflect-fidels-legacy/">Progress in Political Economy</a> and in <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/daring-dream-%E2%80%94-reflecting-fidel%E2%80%99s-legacy">Green Left Weekly</a>.<br />
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Remember Elian Gonzales? Here's his 90 second <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIuhtyZP6dI" target="_blank">tribute to Fidel</a>. <br />
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For years, those who had hoped and prayed for his death were repeatedly disappointed by a photo, a newsclip or a commentary in that unmistakable style.<br />
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The rumours were always unfounded. Fidel Castro, who had dodged some 600 attempts on his life orchestrated by the CIA, was very much alive and making the most of his twilight years.<br />
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There were no rumours this time. His brother Raul, voice quavering with emotion, read out a brief statement on TV and a sombre stillness descended on the Cuban archipelago.<br />
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Outside Cuba, Twitter feeds buzzed and the corporate media saturated our inner recesses with words and images conveying, for the most part, how the global capitalist elite view Fidel’s life and legacy.<br />
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In US allies such as Australia, it will be difficult for those who admire Fidel and feel a sense of loss at his passing to be heard amid this din of demonisation.<br />
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A propaganda offensive against Fidel and the Cuban Revolution has been unleashed across the planet, and a new ‘battle of ideas’—a concept promoted by Fidel—is now raging over his legacy.<br />
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Some of this demonisation is of the relatively sophisticated, leftist variety. At the tabloid end of the spectrum is the Murdoch media empire, which <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/fidel-castro-liveda-lie-to-his-own-people-as-claims-about-his-wealth-start-to-surface/news-story/6e40f9baa962854f3d704500723575cb">claims</a> Fidel led a double life.<br />
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The austere revolutionary was just a front, you see, behind which Fidel lived a life of luxury with numerous mansions, a private island and a special room where he sated his lust for teenage girls.<br />
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Dead or alive, Fidel was, and still is, a dangerous subversive. He must be denigrated, demonised or—in the language of subservient Western academia—‘deconstructed’.<br />
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The battle of ideas over Fidel’s legacy must be joined by all those for whom Fidel has been a political compass and a spiritual guide in the secular sense, and our best weapon is the unvarnished truth.<br />
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In countering lies and half-truths, we should resist the temptation to idolise or idealise Fidel. Between the extremes of hatred and sycophantic adulation there is the need for critical, nuanced reflections on Fidel’s contributions to revolutionary thought and practice from his side of the struggle for socialism.<br />
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In this battle we are joined, first and foremost, by the millions of Cubans committed to the continuity and renewal of Cuba’s socialist project, the stage from which Fidel set out to change the world and, to a degree, succeeded.<br />
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Would a pregnant woman in a remote East Timorese village be seen by a doctor today if it were not for Cuban medical personnel and medical training?<br />
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How much longer might apartheid have dragged on in South Africa if Cuban blood had not been shed in the sands and jungles of Angola and Namibia? Would Venezuelan’s Bolivarian socialist revolution even exist? According to Hugo Chavez, probably not.<br />
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Cuba’s feats of socialist humanism are the work of multitudes, not an individual. But Fidel had come to symbolise those feats and their anonymous heroes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fidel's wake in Havana, November 29 </td></tr>
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Thus ‘Fidel’ is something more than an individual. Fidel, in this wider sense, is certain ethical and political principles and ideals; a cause and a devotion to that cause. It is adherence to principles but rejection of dogmatism and sectarianism in the struggle for a better, socialist world.<br />
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Fidel’s essential message is one of hope: that we can reverse the gradual descent of global capitalism into a 21st-century barbarism, besieged by ecological collapse, if we can only unleash the power of masses of ordinary people acting together with a shared vision and strategic compass.<br />
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‘Fidel’ is faith in humanity, in the noble side of our human nature; in our capacity for heroism, compassion and reason.<br />
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‘Fidel’ is, above all, solidarity in a selfish world.<br />
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It is asking what we can contribute and share rather than what we can plunder and hoard. It is worrying about the infant mortality rate in Western Sahara and the waves lapping at the doorsteps of Pacific islanders—and doing something about it.<br />
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‘Fidel’ is internationalism: the rejection of subservient seclusion behind our white-picket fences and national borders decked out in razor wire.<br />
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Australia doesn’t have a revolutionary tradition like that of Cuba. After the European invasion and dispossession of its Indigenous peoples, it developed as an outgrowth of British imperialism.<br />
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Relative stability and prosperity for most has blunted radical urges and channelled them into the English gentleman’s game known as parliamentary reformism.<br />
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Waves of progressive radicalisation have ebbed and flowed, but none has yet succeeded in placing the country under new management, as did the Cuban Revolution under Fidel’s leadership.<br />
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The next wave may just do that, opening the way to a very different kind of Australia. Call it socialism or call it whatever, it will have to bury capitalism.<br />
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‘Fidel’ is daring to dream of such a revolutionary transformation of our own society. And working patiently towards it in ways that are meaningful to each of us, respecting each other’s contributions and seeking the path of principled unity.<br />
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‘Fidel’ is contributing our little grain of sand to the revolutionary hourglass, recalling that he began his struggle with a handful of idealistic youth with hardly a cent among them.<br />
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-4136369124867843252016-11-26T17:02:00.001+11:002016-11-26T20:40:48.353+11:00FidelFidel is dead. But 'Fidel' is more than a person. He is an idea, an ideal, a cause, a struggle. Fidel lives on in the heart of insurgent humanity.<br />
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Hasta la victoria siempre.<br />
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Here's <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/fidel-time-to-reflect-on-his-legacy.html">something</a> I wrote in 2012 in anticipation of this painful moment.<br />
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Condolences to our Cuban comrades especially.<br />
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Marce CameronMarce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-14251491450657666622016-10-16T04:26:00.000+11:002016-10-16T11:15:54.588+11:00Reply to Jordan WilsonA reader of my blog, Jordan Wilson, posted the following criticism of my analysis of the struggle over the role and character of the Cuban press to <a href="http://links.org.au/struggle-cuban-press-intensifies-part-two-marce-cameron"><i>Links</i></a>, the Australian-based 'international journal of socialist renewal' (<i>Links</i> has kindly republished some of my blog posts).<br />
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Jordan's comment and my reply are posted here with Jordan's permission.<br />
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<a href="http://links.org.au/struggle-cuban-press-intensifies-part-two-marce-cameron#comment-334438">José Ramírez Pantoja deserves our full support</a><br />
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The struggle that is unfolding over the media is part of a wider struggle to renew the Cuban revolution. What is at stake in this wider struggle is Cuba’s ability to meet the many pressing challenges that it faces, most notably the attempt by Washington to impose “regime change” by maintaining its crippling economic blockade of the country while seeking points of leverage to divide Cuban society from within and undermine its resistance to U.S. domination.<br />
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Marce Cameron, Cuba’s Socialist Renewal, and Links are performing a valuable service in bringing the debate over the media in Cuba to the attention of English-speaking readers. The translations of the contributions of the protagonists are particularly valuable and Marce’s translation skills are first-rate. Another valuable resource is Fernando Ravsberg’s blog, <a href="http://cartasdesdecuba.com/">Cartas Desde Cuba</a>, which has reported extensively on this controversy. A selection of informative articles in English are available there.<br />
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In my view, the dismissal of Pantoja is a compelling story that tells itself, through the words of those involved. Very little presentation / background material is necessary. Marce has chosen a different approach, weaving his interpretations and opinions into the narrative at every opportunity. To be sure, he has every right to do so. But making this choice carries with it the additional responsibility of presenting the issues in their proper context, with objectivity and balance, and avoiding egregious characterizations that hinder readers forming their own opinion of the issues being debated. <a href="http://links.org.au/struggle-cuban-press-intensifies-marce-cameron">Part I</a> failed to meet this standard and contained a number of serious political errors. I pointed these out to Marce in a private email soon after the article appeared.<br />
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<a href="http://links.org.au/struggle-cuban-press-intensifies-part-two-marce-cameron">Part II</a> here avoids many of these pitfalls and fills out the next stage of the narrative in a relatively straightforward way. Readers will get an even better understanding of these matters when Marce publishes translations of the blog posts by Aixa Hevia and José Ramírez Pantoja, as I believe he intends to do.<br />
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Pantoja has paid a very heavy price for posting Karina Marrón’s comments on his personal blog – he has lost his job and been expelled from his union (UPEC – which also functions as the professional association of journalists). He has little or no prospect for finding work in his field. In today’s Cuba these are extreme economic and professional penalties. In mid-September the National Ethics Commission of UPEC rejected his appeal and ratified his exclusion from the organisation for the next five years.<br />
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It is plain enough that Marce sympathizes with Pantoja and considers him to have been unjustly victimized for his attempt to promote discussion of the issues facing the Cuban press. Marce clearly agrees, too, that Pantoja’s fate has acquired a special significance in the context of the struggle over the press and related issues.<br />
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Yet, astonishingly, in this article Marce suggests that Pantoja is a liar. In the first paragraph Marce “casts doubt on the sincerity of Pantoja’s innocence in this regard”. He states that Pantoja “must have known he was risking his livelihood and his professional reputation.” He declares that “almost certainly, Pantoja ran those risks knowingly.” Marce presents his suppositions – for that is what they are –without any supporting facts. Each of them directly contradicts Pantoja’s explanation of his actions and his motivations. They undermine critical elements of his defense. Moreover, at the time he wrote those lines Marce knew that unofficial sources were reporting that Pantoja’s appeal had been rejected. I sent those reports to Marce. Surely under those circumstances even greater caution and objectivity was required. (There is no longer any doubt about the UPEC decision, as Pantoja <a href="http://verdadecuba.blogspot.ca/2016/10/cronologia-del-caso-pantoja-jrp.html">posted</a> the text of the ruling on his blog a few days ago.<br />
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Pantoja’s explanation for his actions is straightforward and consistent. Having read everything that I have been able to find on the issue, for and against him, I find it completely convincing. Pantoja’s accusers have attacked him fiercely but have failed to undermine his account. Yet Marce for some reason does not even grant him the benefit of the doubt.<br />
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Moreover, given the sharp polarization that has developed over the related issues of Pantoja’s fate and radical reform of the media in Cuba, it is highly irresponsible to state that Pantoja “has succeeded not in creating, but in sharpening a conflict” over the press. Clearly, powerful conservative forces in Cuba are using Pantoja as a scapegoat in order to intimidate other reform-minded journalists. There is no evidence that Pantoja set out to sharpen this conflict and much evidence to the contrary. A statement like this further damages José Ramírez Pantoja’s chances of winning justice.<br />
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Thanks Jordan. Your appreciative comments and sharp criticisms are most welcome. <br />
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You frame your specific criticisms by saying that the Pantoja story tells itself through the words of those involved, so “very little presentation/background material” is needed. That’s true in your case, because you’re well informed: you’re familiar with the Cuban context, you read Spanish and you’ve been following this story very closely. That sets you apart from most readers of my blog. For the benefit of less well-informed readers, I preface my translations with introductory comments that contextualise the translated material. That context is both factual (e.g. biographical details) and political (e.g. identifying which current of socialist thought somebody belongs to). The political context is inevitably viewed from a particular standpoint: my own, because it’s my blog.<br />
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You worry that in expressing opinions of my own that you happen to disagree with (“egregious characterisations”, as you put it) I might “hinder readers from forming their own opinions”. I don’t share your concern at all. I assume, first of all, that at least some readers of my blog are interested in my opinion, because it’s my blog; and that if not, they can choose to ignore my ‘editorialising’ (as long as the distinction between translations and reportage, on the one hand, and editorialising on the other is clear enough). Secondly, I make the unpatronising assumption that all readers have the ability to form their own opinions; that I can’t possibly ‘hinder readers from forming their own opinions’ by expressing mine, because opinion-formation is spontaneous and irrepressible among thoughtful people. I assume that other readers, not just you, can read my posts with a critical eye. <br />
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<i>Cuba’s Socialist Renewal</i> is not limited to original translations preceded by introductory comments. From time to time I also post my own analyses, a format which gives more scope for contextualisation and synthesis. It’s also a format that happens to allow my opinions to come to the fore. In the case of ‘the Pantoja affair’, I decided to preface the translations with a series of my own commentaries. Why? Because I don’t think the translated material ‘speaks for itself’ for the typical reader of my blog. That material needs to be contextualised, synthesised and summarised, not only to introduce that material, but for the benefit of readers who don’t have the time to wade through extensive translations. <br />
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You concede that I have every right to express my own opinions, but you add that this imposes “an additional responsibility of presenting the issues in their proper context, with objectivity and balance”. As explained above, the purpose of my introductory comments, and of my editorialising, is precisely to ‘present the issues in their proper context’ as I see it. You may view that context differently. So be it. Of course, I do strive for objectivity and balance. You feel that Part 1 of my serialised commentary on the Pantoja affair “failed to meet this standard and contained a number of serious political errors”, which you pointed out to me “in a private email”. At the time, I invited you to express these specific concerns on my blog (and suggested that you do the same on <i>Links</i>). That invitation still stands. If you don’t wish to share these concerns publicly, that’s OK with me. But it’s not constructive, nor fair, to make a cryptic reference to a private email exchange. That’s not a responsible way to conduct a debate among comrades. I think you should either withdraw the claim (a bit late now) or justify it to readers of <i>Links</i> and <i>Cuba’s Socialist Renewal</i>. What are these errors and how can they be rectified?<br />
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Publicly, you make two specific criticisms here of my coverage of the Pantoja affair.<br />
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You dismiss my suggestion that Pantoja was almost certainly aware that publishing Karina Marron’s intervention unabridged, in the way that he did it, would risk his job and professional reputation. You claim that I offered no facts to support this supposition of mine. Actually, I did. Here’s what I wrote: “The <i>fact </i>that no other Cuban journalist who had heard Marron’s intervention made such a naive assumption casts doubt on the sincerity of Pantoja’s innocence in this regard” [emphasis added]. You cite only the second half of that sentence: “Marce ‘casts doubt on the sincerity of Pantoja’s innocence in this regard’”. The distinction deserves to be hammered home: it’s not ‘Marce’ that casts doubt on Pantoja’s innocence in this regard; it’s the fact that he broke ranks with his journalistic colleagues. <br />
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How does Pantoja explain that singular fact? In his interview with Ravsberg, he said he assumed that <i>all</i> of Marron’s comments at the plenum were ‘publishable’ because <i>some</i> of them (some relatively innocuous remarks, I pointed out) had been published on the UPEC website, and the event had been covered (again, selectively) in a Cuban TV news broadcast. So he just went ahead and uploaded his transcript to his blog, never suspecting that he might be fired from his job and suspended from UPEC. I don’t buy that explanation. It just doesn’t make sense. To see why, let’s draw on some other facts I included in either Part 1 or Part 2. The facts are there: it’s a question of interpretation.<br />
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1. The content of Marron’s intervention. That intervention, unabridged, was dynamite for the reasons explained in Part 1. It was, as I said, the kind of intervention that would arouse Cuban journalists’ well-honed instincts of self-censorship and thus self-preservation. “Wow. This had better not leave this room”, would probably have crossed the minds of all those journalists present, in a gathering of journalists, who wanted to keep their jobs and reputations. Pantoja among them. <br />
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2. The fact that <i>not one</i> Cuban media publication, nor any other publication of any kind, published Marron’s more incendiary comments, in part or in full, until Pantoja uploaded his transcript. They did not appear in <i>Granma</i>, the most authoritative litmus test of ‘publishability’ in Cuba. Nor did they appear on the pro-government <i>Cubadebate</i> website, which houses a broader spectrum of critical, pro-Revolution opinion. Nor on the personal blog of any of Pantoja’s journalistic colleagues. <br />
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Given this, it would be safe to assume that Marron’s more incendiary comments were ‘unfit for publication’. Yet bizarrely, inexplicably, Pantoja, a decorated and experienced journalist steeped in both the codified and unwritten journalistic rules of engagement in Cuba, drew—he said—the very opposite conclusion: namely, that because some of her (note: relatively innocuous) comments had been published on the UPEC website, her entire intervention was therefore ‘publishable’.<br />
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3. The fact that Pantoja didn’t seek his boss’s permission to publish the transcript on his personal blog. Pantoja told Ravsberg that as far as he knows, there are no official guidelines for journalists publishing journalistic content on their personal blogs. Given that there aren’t, which gives the censors a free hand to act arbitrarily, wouldn’t it have been prudent for Pantoja to have asked his boss for permission to publish the transcript? Had he done so and had permission been granted, Pantoja would no longer be solely responsible for any adverse consequences of publication. His boss would have shouldered some, perhaps all, of that responsibility. All Pantoja had to do was pick up the phone or walk down the corridor. But he didn’t. He must have had some compelling reason for not doing so. <br />
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That compelling reason may have been that Pantoja knew that permission would almost certainly be denied. Why would his superior, who had more to lose than Pantoja, run such a risk? If Pantoja asked for permission, and it was denied, yet he went ahead with publication despite an explicit directive not to do so from his boss, that act of insubordination would only serve to strengthen a likely case against him. Better to not ask for permission on the reasonable assumption that it would be refused.<br />
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4. The lesser, yet still significant, fact that Pantoja had doubts about publishing the transcript. Arnaldo Mirabal Hernandez noted in his interview of Pantoja that while Pantoja “had moments of doubt about the appropriateness of publishing the words of the deputy editor of <i>Granma</i>, he decided to click the mouse” (as I related with poetic license in Part 1). That admission of doubt, albeit passing doubt, sits uneasily with Pantoja’s telling Ravsberg he assumed Marron’s entire intervention was ‘publishable’. If he had doubts about the appropriateness, and thus the consequences, of publication; and if keeping his job and his reputation among certain colleagues was his overriding concern, then surely he would have sought permission from his boss (or from Marron herself) in order to clear up those doubts.</div>
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Evidently, then, his job and his reputation were not his overriding concerns. He succumbed to his desire to make public the whole of Marron’s intervention. As I put it in Part 2: “Almost certainly, Pantoja ran those risks knowingly, subordinating his personal interests to what he considered to be a higher purpose.” If true—and the evidence suggests it is—then we need to view the Pantoja case in that light. What was the basis of that strong desire to publish Marron’s intervention, a desire strong enough to overcome his momentary doubts and any concerns about his fate as a journalist in Cuba? <br />
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That’s no secret: he explained his motivation to Ravsberg: “[F]or the world to know that in Cuba, we journalists are capable of having a serious and responsible debate at the highest level. I also published it with the aim of sparking a debate on the content of the intervention itself, to stir up the controversy and the exchange of viewpoints that are always so necessary.”<br />
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This bring me to your other specific criticism, namely that: "[G]iven the sharp polarization that has developed over the related issues of Pantoja’s fate and radical reform of the media in Cuba, it is highly irresponsible to state that Pantoja “has succeeded not in creating, but in sharpening a conflict” over the press. Clearly, powerful conservative forces in Cuba are using Pantoja as a scapegoat in order to intimidate other reform-minded journalists. There is no evidence that Pantoja set out to sharpen this conflict and much evidence to the contrary. A statement like this further damages Jose Ramirez Pantoja’s chances of winning justice.”<br />
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It is never irresponsible to state a fact, and the fact is that Pantoja himself, in the citation above, says that one of his aims in publishing the transcript was to spark “a debate on the content of [Marron’s] intervention itself”—i.e. a debate on, among other things, the crisis of Cuba’s state-supported media. To “stir up the controversy and the exchange of viewpoints that is always so necessary”. In other words, to sharpen the conflict over the role and character of the press in Cuba by mobilising public opinion on the side of the pro-socialist reformers. That was Pantoja’s stated aim. You worry that “a statement like this further damages Jose Ramirez Pantoja’s chances of winning justice”. What’s important is establishing the truth of the matter. Because only the truth is revolutionary.<br />
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Your wrote: “Marce presents his suppositions—for that is what they are—without any supporting facts.” I think I’ve answered that criticism by restating and expanding on the factual basis of that judgment. I’ll now deal briefly with your other objections. 1) “Each of them directly contradicts Pantoja’s explanation of his actions and his motivations.” I’m guided by the evidence. 2) “They undermine critical elements of his defense”. That has no bearing whatsoever on the truth of the matter. 3) “Marce knew that unofficial sources were reporting that Pantoja’s appeal had been rejected”. I made a conscious effort to not allow those unconfirmed reports to influence my analysis.<br />
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In conclusion, it seems to me that you have allowed your sympathy for Pantoja, a sympathy I happen to share, to cloud your judgement. You take everything he says at face value rather than letting the evidence guide you. You admonish me for daring to point out that Pantoja, by his own admission, aimed to sharpen the public debate, and thus the conflict, over the role and character of the press in Cuba. That’s called shooting the messenger. That’s ironic, because Pantoja’s critics are also shooting the messenger—him—rather than directing their criticism and condemnation at the source of those ‘dangerous ideas’: the deputy editor of <i>Granma</i>.</div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-14088600891793606442016-10-04T00:35:00.001+11:002016-10-04T00:47:58.646+11:00Struggle over the Cuban press intensifies (2) This is the sequel to my <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/struggle-over-cuban-press-intensifies.html">previous post</a>. There'll be at least one more in this series. After that, I'll translate some of the most important contributions to this ongoing controversy. <br />
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<b>The dismissal</b><br />
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It was the Uruguayan-born former BBC journalist Fernando Ravsberg who broke the news of Pantoja's dismissal. Pantoja told Ravsberg he had worked for Radio Holguin since 2000 and had been a UPEC member since then. He had taken part in the June 28 UPEC plenum as a workplace delegate via video link and had recorded the proceedings in full view of provincial UPEC officials, who did not object. Seeing that the event had been covered in a Cuban TV news bulletin, and that some (relatively innocuous) fragments of Marron's comments had been published on the UPEC website, Pantoja assumed—he claimed—that the entirety of her remarks were 'publishable'. In other words, that permission did not need to be sought and granted from Pantoja's boss at the radio station. The fact that no other Cuban journalist who had heard Marron's intervention made such a naive assumption casts doubt on the sincerity of Pantoja's innocence in this regard. He must have known he was risking his livelihood and his professional reputation.<br />
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Almost certainly, Pantoja ran those risks knowingly, subordinating his personal interests to what he considered to be a higher purpose. He told Ravsberg that his motivations for transcribing and uploading Marron's unabridged remarks to his personal blog were "for the world to know that in Cuba, we journalists are capable of having a serious and responsible debate at the highest level. I also published it with the aim of sparking a debate on the content of the intervention itself, to stir up the controversy and the exchange of viewpoints that are always so necessary". Recall that (as noted in Part 1) veteran Cuban journalist Luis Sexto lamented earlier this year the inability of the Cuban press to "create and resolve conflicts". In light of this perceived deficiency, Pantoja's actions are laudable. He has succeeded not in creating, but in sharpening a conflict—i.e. a controversy and a struggle—over the role and character of the Cuban press. In doing so, he has contributed to an eventual resolution of this conflict.<br />
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Pantoja told Ravsberg that as far as he knows, there are no official guidelines for publishing on personal blogs. If permission must be sought then whose blog is it? "In my case, management alleges that when a journalist publishes on their blog or on social media, they do it in the name of the institution they work for". That notion is highly controversial, he added. According to Pantoja, the reasons given for his dismissal are that he made the recording without proper authorisation; that he selectively transcribed only Marron's intervention; that he gave no indication he would cover the event; and that he failed to abide by Cuba's press policy that content "must be in the public interest and the critics [i.e. sources who express unfavourable opinions] must be approved beforehand by the Editor of the press publication". Here, Pantoja was reading from the explanatory letter he had received.<br />
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The stipulation that criticisms may only be published if those making them are acceptable to the editor is not conducive to the press holding up a critical mirror to society. Arguably, it amounts to editorial interference in journalistic integrity and a systematic bias against criticism. As for what constitutes the public interest, that's a matter of opinion. Pantoja thought it was in the public interest to publish Marron's intervention in its entirety. Perhaps he assumed his prestige would shield him from any adverse consequences of publication. On March 10, Pantoja was one of 26 Cuban journalists awarded UPEC's highest accolade, the Felix Elmuza Distinction for "outstanding professionals with 15 or more years of uninterrupted work", according to the <a href="http://www.cubaperiodistas.cu/index.php/2016/03/reciben-la-distincion-felix-elmuza-destacados-periodistas-y-personalidades-en-la-capital/">UPEC website</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCCd9A26P0dQ7OURYOXkNhGkMuqckZCtQ6fwwKAieAuuFjpYivdY97HIV9bgtlDfi4n-pi2OvYzu_EO7YhamPmlcE9woRoGO89DhVYcNYNH4c6bGtZhVjmTwWGbFIHlZXz9erdIx5cwXG/s1600/pantoja.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCCd9A26P0dQ7OURYOXkNhGkMuqckZCtQ6fwwKAieAuuFjpYivdY97HIV9bgtlDfi4n-pi2OvYzu_EO7YhamPmlcE9woRoGO89DhVYcNYNH4c6bGtZhVjmTwWGbFIHlZXz9erdIx5cwXG/s200/pantoja.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jose Ramirez Pantoja</td></tr>
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On August 30, a fortnight after the Ravsberg interview, Pantoja was interviewed at greater length by Cuban journalist Arnaldo Mirabal Hernandez. Hernandez writes for <i>Giron</i>, the PCC newspaper in Matanzas province—the provincial equivalent of <i>Granma. </i>He interviewed Pantoja in a personal capacity and published the transcript on his personal blog, <i><a href="https://arnaldobal.wordpress.com/">Revolucion</a></i>. Pantoja recounted to Hernandez that after publishing Marron's intervention on his blog, and then on his Facebook page, he left a Facebook comment praising Marron's intervention as an example of how Cuba's revolutionary youth should speak: with courage and without mincing words. Then came "the finger-pointing and the dirty looks". Pantoja deleted the offending blog post, but it was too late: it had gone viral. His home internet connection was severed and he was dismissed. Pantoja turns 40 on September 12 but he's in no mood to celebrate, Hernandez observed.<br />
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Pantoja told Hernandez that he didn't blame Radio Holguin management for his dismissal. Initially they were conciliatory, asking him to immediately delete the post, which he did. When they cut his internet connection they said it would only be for a few days. But then the tone changed. On July 11, he was informed of his dismissal and told his internet connection would not be restored. He thinks management had received "a phone call from higher up".<br />
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<b>The union</b><br />
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More hurtful than the dismissal, Pantoja told Hernandez, was the decision of UPEC's provincial Ethics Commission to suspend his UPEC membership. It pained him because he holds his colleagues who comprise the Commission in high regard. “If there's something that wounds my soul, I swear by my mother who lies in the cemetery, it's the lack of support from UPEC, the organisation I've belonged to since 2006". Especially concerning and disturbing, he said, were comments posted by UPEC vice-president Aixa Hevia on her Facebook page.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5g1OR849I_hEKPMzhpiAFf6NHVDvGhyphenhyphenCHci-8Ee_Nwo73USRXe51CR0JI7V3MxWBummme3TKfnhRvPxpvzMfQQawcCKSdd0XqzG3m0_fkR1N2MGsfSawLyhNjquosV0bpzYmRciujtB0L/s1600/Aixa+Hevia.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5g1OR849I_hEKPMzhpiAFf6NHVDvGhyphenhyphenCHci-8Ee_Nwo73USRXe51CR0JI7V3MxWBummme3TKfnhRvPxpvzMfQQawcCKSdd0XqzG3m0_fkR1N2MGsfSawLyhNjquosV0bpzYmRciujtB0L/s200/Aixa+Hevia.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aixa Hevia</td></tr>
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Pantoja had appealed both his dismissal and his suspension from UPEC, exercising his right to seek to have the latter decision overturned or modified by UPEC's National Ethics Commission. That Commission is headed by Luis Sexto, the veteran journalist and columnist whose own criticisms of the Cuban press I cited in Part 1. On August 19, after Pantoja had initiated the UPEC appeal process, Hevia weighed in on the Pantoja case—on Facebook.<br />
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Hevia began by claiming that Pantoja had censored a comment that Marron had made, in passing, about Fernando Ravsberg (introduced in Part 1) during her UPEC intervention. In support of this claim, she embedded a hyperlink to a <a href="https://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/ya-sabemos-quien-es-por-iroel-sanchez/">scathing denunciation</a> of Ravsberg by Cuban blogger Iroel Sanchez (introduced in Part 1). Sanchez's source was 'a friend', whom he did not name, who had attended the UPEC plenum. The source was uncertain of Marron's exact words: "something like 'that now we know who he is'"—referring to Ravsberg. That was clearly an allusion to Ravsberg's behaviour, Hevia observed. Indeed, his agency [i.e. the BBC] cancelled his contract because of what he wrote on his blog, she added. She did <i>not</i> add that Ravsberg left the BBC because of the BBC's anti<i>-Cuba </i>bias (see Part 1).<br />
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She suggested it was inappropriate for Ravsberg to have interviewed Pantoja "in the middle of a workplace and ethical process that has not yet concluded", presumably because the publicity might prejudice the outcome. Ironically, her own public intervention via Facebook might also prejudice the outcome, given that the UPEC National Ethics Commission has been deliberating on Pantoja's appeal against his suspension from UPEC—of which Hevia is vice-president. Hevia then changed tack, raising the suspicion, without citing any evidence, that Pantoja's real motivation was to use the tale of his dismissal as a springboard to a media career in Miami, Florida, the citadel of the Cuban counter-revolution. "Colleagues have been asking themselves" if this is what he's up to, she informed her Facebook followers (her comments were then <a href="https://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/verde-con-puntas-es-guanabana-por-aixa-hevia/">republished</a> by Iroel Sanchez).<br />
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UPEC Congresses have been very critical affairs, Hevia stressed, but these and other UPEC fora are <i>our </i>spaces, those of the journalists. It's noteworthy, she said, that Pantoja, who said he recorded everything, and didn't ask for permission to publish something discussed in a professional association forum, didn't publish other, "more critical and proposal-oriented" interventions, and selected only that of the deputy editor of <i>Granma</i>—the PCC publication. Here, Hevia seemed to suggest that Pantoja's target might<i> </i>have been the Party itself. Like the suspicion that Pantoja <i>might</i> be planning to defect to Miami, this was a mere insinuation. It's apposite to note that the UPEC <a href="http://www.cubaperiodistas.cu/index.php/codigo-de-etica-del-periodista/">Code of Ethics</a> states that journalists "must foster and uphold fraternal relations and mutual respect among colleagues", and "refrain from public comment that denigrates or discredits them".<br />
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Hevia rounded out her intervention with another dig at Ravsberg, dismissing his apparent concern for the fate of a fellow journalist: "The problems of the press, which we recognise, we have to resolve among ourselves, we don't need anyone to give us recipes, let's not fool ourselves, that interest in defending Pantoja is false, they're trying to prejudice us, this is an objective that's abundantly clear."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6sbwf8-A855_cB1onEqwoCqItaehZVkipPblYhs_Wug7p_oLTweTQLYNl_tgzOxhaU2hiVFreKwIeWhACxrCKy_qHAfc2LBsfMHP6B9bmXshs9EwIyEcto3O6b-DTnn0PyZ4prgGWe9p/s1600/Ravsberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6sbwf8-A855_cB1onEqwoCqItaehZVkipPblYhs_Wug7p_oLTweTQLYNl_tgzOxhaU2hiVFreKwIeWhACxrCKy_qHAfc2LBsfMHP6B9bmXshs9EwIyEcto3O6b-DTnn0PyZ4prgGWe9p/s1600/Ravsberg.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fernando Ravsberg</td></tr>
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On August 26, Pantoja <a href="http://verdadecuba.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/donde-esta-la-etica-de-aixa-hevia.html">returned fire</a> in a blistering blog post titled, "Where are Aixa Hevia's ethics?" He let fly a volley of adjectives—"offensive, defamatory, slanderous, harmful and disrespectful"—at Hevia's Facebook intervention, which had been circulating in cyberspace. Had any other journalist cast judgement on me, Pantoja fumed, "I would have accepted it without any difficulty, at the end of the day it would have been a personal opinion. But Aixa Hevia is not just any journalist, we're talking about the first vice-president of the Cuban Journalists Union". His sole aim, he insisted, was "to spark a serious and professional debate, which without any doubt would have contributed something positive."<br />
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Responding to Hevia's claim that he had excised a criticism of Ravsberg's character ('now we know who he is') from the transcript of Marron's UPEC intervention, Pantoja explained that at 6 minutes and 44 seconds, Marron can be clearly heard to ask, 'And here we all know who Ravsberg is?' Another voice is heard to reply 'yes', then Marron says: 'and if someone doesn't know him, its because they just haven't wanted to see him' (i.e. they pretend he doesn't exist). Pantoja's explanation here, on the basis of his recording, casts Marron's passing reference to Ravsberg in a very different light: one favourable to Ravsberg.<br />
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Pantoja went on to explain that in editing the transcript, he had decided to answer Marron's question to the audience with an explanatory note: 'Fernando Ravsberg, Uruguayan journalist based in Cuba, former BBC World correspondent in Havana'. "At no point did I try to save Ravsberg from any allusion [to his character] because, first of all, I'd never said a word to him until now." Pantoja expressed his deep gratitude to Ravsberg "for the interest he has shown in my case, as well as that of a great many colleagues that in my Cuba and in various places around the world have spoken out against the injustice that in my view, and theirs, has been done to me".<br />
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[To be continued]<br />
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<br />Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-42324019171436899382016-09-12T10:15:00.002+10:002016-09-14T07:40:31.814+10:00Struggle over the Cuban press intensifiesOn August 4, I posted <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/esteban-morales-on-press-censorship.html">my translation </a>of Cuban intellectual Esteban Morales' response to the explosive intervention by the 37-year-old <i>Granma</i> deputy editor, Karina Marron, at a meeting of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) on June 28. I then translated Marron’s <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/karina-marrons-upec-intervention.html">leaked intervention</a> itself, followed by a blog post by <i>Granma's</i> young international editor, Sergio Alejandro Gomez, on '<a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/granmas-international-editor-on-press.html">The troubled relationship between journalism and politics in Cuba</a>'. This served to introduce another rising star of Cuban journalism and to contextualise Marron's remarks.<br />
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Much has transpired since then. In this long-overdue post and its sequel I’ll try to summarise this whole episode to date and comment on its significance for Cuba’s socialist renewal. The course of events since the June 28 UPEC plenum has generated a wealth of translation-worthy material, a selection of which I hope to share with readers over the coming weeks. This post and that which will follow are an extended preface to the next raft of translations.<br />
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On June 28, 37-year-old Karina Marron, the deputy editor of <i>Granma</i>, the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) daily, made some <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/karina-marrons-upec-intervention.html">candid remarks</a> at a closed-door meeting of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC). The Cuban media reported on the event, but airbrushed out of their coverage Marron’s more incendiary and newsworthy comments. That selectivity was a case of either actual censorship or self-censorship on the part of Cuban journalists and editors. <br />
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The story might have ended there had a Cuban journalist from Radio Holguin, Jose Ramirez Pantoja, withdrawn his index finger as he hesitated before clicking ‘Enter’ to upload his transcript of Marron’s comments onto his personal blog. That hovering finger was like the proverbial butterfly in the Amazon: it triggered a storm in Cuban cyberspace with real-world repercussions.<br />
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What did Marron say that set the cat among the pigeons? She spoke about the dire state of Cuban journalism: the difficulty of retaining young journalists repelled by Cuba’s propagandistic mass media and by pitiful salaries (a wider problem), bureaucratic controls (e.g. the recent prohibition on journalists freelancing for ‘independent’ Cuban or foreign media organisations to make ends meet) and UPEC’s own powerlessness. Congress after UPEC congress we've been saying the same things, yet nothing changes; we cannot repeat this cycle of impotence and inertia, she warned.<br />
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The PCC and the press itself had been turning a blind eye to the real problems and viewing things in isolation, she added. There may indeed be a concerted effort to bring about a rift between the PCC and the press. But "as long as we, the Party and the press, continue to look elsewhere rather than where our real problems lie, while we continue viewing things in isolation rather than as a whole, we'll never resolve the problems we've been discussing for years."<br />
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That devastating critique alone would have aroused well-honed instincts of self-censorship, and thus self-preservation, among Cuban journalists—to say nothing of the ire and alarm it must have aroused among the actual censors, i.e. the PCC Central Committee Ideological Department functionaries who set the limits on what can be written and said in the Cuban mass media.<br />
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Yet Marron went further, suggesting the existence of a concerted effort by young <i>Granma</i> journalists to change things at the paper, to keep piloting “the yacht”—a figurative allusion, it seems, to the yacht <i>Granma</i> in which Fidel Castro and his comrades sailed from Mexico to Cuba to launch the revolutionary war against Batista, the yacht after which the paper is named. Marron's comments were thus charged with youthful revolutionary defiance, the spirit that Esteban Morales applauded.<br />
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But Marron’s most explosive comments were not these. Elsewhere in her remarks, she violated a taboo not only of Cuban journalism but of the Cuban Communist Party itself: public criticism of Raul Castro (and before him, Fidel). Referring to Cuba’s difficult economic conjuncture, with Venezuela sending less oil, she warned: “A perfect storm is brewing”. But unlike in 1994, when Fidel’s powers of persuasion and personal intervention defused protests that broke out in Havana, “so far there hasn't been a figure in this country that faces the people to explain things to them as they're happening”. <br />
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Whether or not she intended it, this could easily be interpreted as a criticism of Raul Castro’s rather different leadership style. Unlike Fidel, Raul prefers to work quietly behind the scenes. Raul did address the economic situation in his mid-year report to the National Assembly in June (dismissing any comparisons to the early 1990s, the harshest years of Cuba's post-Soviet 'Special Period').<br />
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But Fidel's withdrawal from public life has left an informational void. Gone is that ubiquitous presence; those frequent, hours-long televised speeches Cubans were accustomed to in which Fidel informed, criticised, explained, persuaded. While many Cubans might appreciate Raul's brevity and bluntness—and his disinterest in dominating the airwaves—that void has not been filled. The role of Cuba's pro-Revolution media assumes particular importance in this context.</div>
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Marron's comments were explosive not only because of what she said, but because of who she is. As the deputy editor of <i>Granma</i>, Marron is next in line to take over the paper's editorship. That's a position of great responsibility and influence; and it will become even more important if her side of the struggle over the role and character of the Cuban press prevails. If the heavy hand of the PCC's Ideological Department is lifted, then <i>Granma's</i> editorial team will have more discretion to decide what is and isn't fit to print, and thus to shape public opinion. <br />
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<b>Press model and socialist model</b><br />
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Such a devolution of powers over the press (and by extension, Cuban TV and radio) from the PCC's Ideological Department towards the editors and the journalists themselves, would be a significant power shift in Cuban society. Some fear it. Others are clamouring for it. Both the defenders of the status quo and those who challenge it understand that the stakes are high. This is no mere difference of opinion among comrades, but a protracted and largely subterranean arm-wrestle that burst into the open when Marron's remarks went viral.<br />
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The prevailing Cuban press model is ever-more crisis-ridden. That's due to several converging factors, among them Fidel's withdrawal from public life; online connectivity and the rise of the Cuban blogosphere; low salaries and the inducement of the 'independent' media; the social differentiation and class polarisation taking place as the state promotes self-employment, small and mid-sized private businesses, cooperatives and foreign investment as complements to the dominant state sector, while the press remains that of a relatively homogeneous society; and a wider crisis of the prevailing Cuban socialist model as a whole, which embodies—among other things—decades of misguided revolutionary utopianism and the malign influence of Soviet Stalinism.[1]<br />
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The crisis of the press in Cuba is bound up, then, with the crisis of the prevailing Cuban socialist model; and the revitalisation of Cuba's pro-socialist mass media is bound up with the wider struggle for Cuba's socialist renewal. In this light, the present struggle over the Cuban press is an advanced front in that wider struggle. As Javier Gomez Sanchez, a contributor to the pro-Revolution Cuban youth website <i>La Joven Cuba</i> (see below) <a href="https://jovencuba.com/2016/09/05/ante-la-historia/">put it</a>: “This is the Gramscian moment that we Cubans have arrived at, in which there are things that are dying but not yet dead, and there are others that are being born but their birth is incomplete.<br />
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... The issue of the media has been perhaps the first of national scope that has reached the most critical stage of this process. All or nearly all of us are convinced that the media cannot continue to be run in revolutionary Cuba in the way it has been up to now. The journalists know it, the public knows it, we socialists know it, the counter-revolution knows it and the PCC knows it.</blockquote>
The struggle over the role and character of the Cuban press pits against each other two different conceptions of the relationship between the press and Cuba's highly concentrated political power. To <i>Granma</i> international editor Sergio Alejandro Gomez (see my <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/granmas-international-editor-on-press.html">previous post</a>), according to the prevailing, 'dogmatic' conception, that relationship should be one of rigid subordination of journalism to political power. In the 'anti-dogmatic' conception, by contrast, that relationship would be subject to negotiation and a striving for consensus. This is the alternative vision that "needs to be empowered", he argues.<br />
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In January, veteran Cuban journalist and columnist Luis Sexto—a recipient of Cuba's most prestigious journalism award in 2009 for his lifetime contribution to the profession—<a href="http://luisexto.blogia.com/2016/073001--la-prensa-no-puede-servir-para-que-nos-autoenganemos-.php">lamented</a> Cuba's "propagandistic journalism, incapable of creating and resolving conflicts" and the "dull and uncritical character of the Cuban press." If journalists "only write to defend the stance of the paper, or those behind it, [then] journalism has no purpose", Sexto added. He concluded: "the press cannot be a window through which enemy influences penetrate society, but neither can it serve our own self-deception".<br />
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If both the dogmatic and anti-dogmatic conceptions of the press contrasted by <i>Granma's</i> international editor are widely held in Cuban society as a whole, and tend to align with wider 'conservative' and renovationist currents of socialist thought and action, does this conceptual polarisation extend all the way to the top leadership of the PCC? Probably. But the PCC leadership's practice of thrashing out its differences behind closed doors then presenting a united front to society—which does make it harder for the Revolution's enemies to exploit differences of opinion at the top—makes it difficult to say without insider knowledge.<br />
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Perhaps there's a consensus at the highest levels on the need to empower the anti-dogmatic conception and the barriers exist at other levels of the PCC; perhaps not. What's clear is Raul Castro's orientations to the press, and thus the majority, if not the consensus, view of the PCC leadership. In his report to the 6th PCC Congress in 2011, Raul <a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/congreso-del-partido-comunista-de-cuba/informe-central-al-vi-congreso-del-partido-comunista-de-cuba-iii/">chastised the press</a> for being, not infrequently, "boring, improvised and superficial" and called on the media to "leave behind, once and for all, the habit of triumphalism, stridency and formalism". This was withering criticism. But whether the PCC leadership agree on a devolution of powers towards the editors and journalists, and a relationship between the press and the party apparatus based on negotiation rather than subordination, is another question. Time will tell.<br />
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<b>The debate</b></div>
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Within days of its publication (and hasty withdrawal) on Pantoja's personal blog, Marron's incendiary intervention went viral across Cuba's emerging cybersphere (and internationally). That virality had immediate repercussions. Within days Pantoja, 39, was sacked by his radio station. We'll come back to this dismissal later. In the Cuban cybersphere, public opinion quickly polarised, initially in response to the leaked transcript and then in response to the sacking of Pantoja.<br />
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A fierce debate erupted online. Key protagonists quickly emerged on both sides, each drawing in their wake legions of below-the-post commentators who created lengthy discussion threads. On the blog of Silvio Rodriguez (see below) one such thread has clocked up more than 250 comments. It's hard to gauge the full extent of this online controversy, but its nodes seem to be a handful of Cuban websites and blogs—spanning the pro-Revolution ideological spectrum—that each have relatively large readerships. Some of these nodes are the personal blogs of key protagonists. Others are online publications, such as the pro-government <a href="http://cubadebate.cu/"><i>Cubadebate</i></a> website.<br />
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One node is the blog of prolific Cuban blogger <a href="https://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/">Iroel Sanchez</a>. A former president of the Cuban Book Institute, Sanchez is a vociferous defender of the status quo, i.e. of Cuban socialist orthodoxy. His political line adheres closely to that of the government. Rather than seeking to push the boundaries of change in some desired direction (as does Esteban Morales for example), Sanchez tends to advocate only those changes in Cuban society that have become PCC policy. He is thus in the rearguard at best, rather than the vanguard, of 'changing everything that must be changed', as Fidel defined revolution in his May Day 2000 speech.<br />
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Another node of the online debate is the blog of Uruguayan-born former BBC journalist Fernando Ravsberg. Unlike most foreign journalists posted to Cuba, Ravsberg is intimately familiar with Cuban society. Married to a Cuban, he has lived in Cuba since the early 1990s and considers it home. His bilingual <i><a href="http://cartasdesdecuba.com/">Cartas desde Cuba</a></i> (Letters from Cuba), a mix of commentaries and interviews, occupy a niche for uncompromising journalism that the Cuban press has all but vacated. Consequently, his Cartas have a sizeable and avid Cuban readership.<br />
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Ravsberg left the BBC in 2014 because, <a href="http://cartasdesdecuba.com/eeuu-y-la-paja-en-el-ojo-ajeno/">according to him</a>, the broadcaster edited out his observation that the US had just criticised Cuba for human rights violations yet didn't mention that the largest concentration of political prisoners on the Cuban archipelago is in the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Ravsberg is no Marxist revolutionary, but neither is he a counter-revolutionary (as some of his detractors label him). Rather, he is a liberal leftist who harbours no prejudice, it seems, towards non-dogmatic Marxism—judging by his occasional appeals to the Marxist authority of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara and Vladimir Lenin to make his point. The real problem with Ravsberg seems to be that his brand of journalism is anathema to those schooled in the propagandistic style; and that he's not Cuban, and therefore suspect. (An admirer of Ravsberg has pointed out that Che Guevara wasn't Cuban either, but Argentinean).<br />
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Another debate node is the blog of legendary Cuban singer-songwriter <a href="http://segundacita.blogspot.com.au/">Silvio Rodriguez</a>, who makes no secret of his desire for a more transparent, pluralistic and participatory socialist model. Rodriguez is politically outspoken, but his prestige both within and outside Cuba make him almost untouchable. Were he to be demonised for his unorthodox views, when those views resonate with millions of Cubans, the demonisers would merely discredit themselves. That's prestige in the same league as that of the Cuban Five, or the late <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/search?q=alfredo+guevara">Alfredo Guevara</a>, another outspoken critic from within the Revolution. Rodriguez's blog has hosted some of the richest veins of the online controversy, and Rodriguez himself has made numerous pithy interventions, some of which I'll share with readers.<br />
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Yet another key debate platform is the website <i><a href="https://jovencuba.com/">La Joven Cuba</a> </i>(Young Cuba), an initiative of two Communist Youth activists from the University of Matanzas in central Cuba, Haroldo Cardenas and Roberto Peralo. LJC is pro-Revolution but critical, irreverent and unorthodox. It went offline for a few months in 2013 after the University of Matanzas <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mundo/cartas_desde_cuba/2013/05/el_tiro_por_la_culata.html">closed the site's internet account</a>, citing 'ideological problems'. It resurfaced thanks to the personal intervention, it seems, of none other than Raul Castro's designated successor, first vice-president Miguel Diaz-Canel. The photo of a smiling Diaz-Canel flanked by LJC activists, beneath portraits of Fidel Castro and Raul Castro, is telling. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miguel Diaz-Canel with La Joven Cuba activists, 2013</td></tr>
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The online debate has spilled over into the Cuban press itself, but cryptically and tangentially. For example, the Communist Youth daily <i>Juventud Rebelde</i> <a href="http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2016-09-03/un-dialogo-en-presente-y-futuro/">reported</a><span id="goog_1978829260"></span><span id="goog_1978829261"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a> on September 3 that Diaz-Canel had met with the paper's staff, who spoke of the need to "eliminate certain institutional hindrances", but the report did not elaborate. The Cuban mass media has been studiously silent on the three things that precipitated the online debate: the leaking of Marron's UPEC intervention; the content of her most newsworthy remarks; and Pantoja's dismissal. </div>
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Cuban journalists couldn't or wouldn't report on the dismissal of an experienced, decorated fellow journalist for publishing on his own blog what the deputy editor of <i>Granma</i> said at a meeting of his own professional association—and theirs—at which the Cuban media were officially present, and at which Pantoja represented his work collective. It was Ravsberg who broke the news of Pantoja's dismissal by allowing Pantoja to tell his side of the story in an interview that first appeared on Ravsberg's blog, followed by an <a href="http://cartasdesdecuba.com/how-a-cuban-journalist-got-the-axe-from-a-government-radio-station/">English translation</a>. </div>
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[To be continued]<br />
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Notes:<br />
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[1] See my master's thesis, <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/12538/5/cameron_ma_thesis.pdf">Statist Utopianism and the Cuban Socialist Transition</a>. There's a brief discussion of the Cuban press on page 78.<br />
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-77057958584606837902016-08-14T23:07:00.000+10:002016-08-23T08:20:38.557+10:00Granma's international editor on the pressSergio Alejandro Gomez is the international editor of <i>Granma.</i> He's just 29 years old. Like Karina Marron, the paper's deputy editor, he's part of a new generation of Cuban journalists moving into senior positions and shouldering heavy responsibilities. He's a familiar face on Cuba's premiere TV current affairs programme, the <i>Mesa Redonda</i> (Round Table), which calls him in for expert commentary on international affairs from time to time.<br />
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His <a href="https://medium.com/@sergioalejandrogmezgallo">personal blog</a> is his outlet for his own unsolicited commentaries, which are always incisive and on occasion sharply polemical. His more polemical ones would be regarded as unfit to print under the prevailing Cuban press model that is now in crisis. </div>
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A case in point is Sergio's commentary on the Chanel fashion parade and the filming of the latest <i>Fast and Furious </i>Hollywood blockbuster earlier this year. For <i>Fast and Furious</i>, Havana's iconic promenade, the Malecon, was turned into a giant film set; for the Chanel catwalk, a few blocks of Old Havana were sealed off for an invites-only, 'VIP' event. Two worlds collided with potent symbolism: elitist high fashion and the humble lives of the city's poorer residents, to the annoyance of the latter. To add insult to injury, the Cuban media barely mentioned either event. As Sergio pointed out, nobody explained why Chanel and Hollywood had been welcomed, how many millions of dollars they'd paid for the Cuban backdrop and how the Cuban in the street would benefit.</div>
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In the commentary below, Sergio takes up the relationship between politics and journalism in Cuba from the vantage point of his youth. It serves to contextualise some of Karina Marron's comments at the UPEC plenum (see my previous post).</div>
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A first draft of this translation was undertaken by a collaborator who, for reasons of modesty, does not wish to be credited. So I thank them without naming them. I'd always hoped this blog could be a collaborative project. Now it is.</div>
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<b>The troubled relationship between journalism and politics in Cuba</b></div>
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By Sergio Alejandro Gomez<br />
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June 7, 2016<br />
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Translation: Cuba's Socialist Renewal<br />
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<a href="http://tinyurl.com/gsudbqn">Source</a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sergio Alejandro Gomez</td></tr>
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I’m used to writing from the safety of the third person, but it would be hypocritical for me to take up the debate over journalism and politics in Cuba without making clear from the outset that the writer has a vested interest. <br />
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For some years now I’ve been getting up every day wanting to practice journalism. Yet not infrequently I go to bed wondering if it wouldn’t have been better for me to have studied engineering. Kapuscinski banished the cynics from this profession, but said nothing about the masochists.[1]<br />
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During a 1961 function in honour of the newspaper <i>Revolucion</i>, Fidel [Castro] issued an appeal to prepare for the imminent confrontation with imperialism.<br />
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“We must always keep in mind that the interests of the Revolution come before those of the newspaper. First the Revolution, then the paper.” He then clarified that he was not asking for “the variety, style, or characteristics of the newspapers” to be sacrificed.<br />
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I first read these words in the <i>Granma</i> [newspaper] library, on the back cover of a book from the 1980s about the profession. Later I looked for the place and the context in which they’d been said, only a few days before the Bay of Pigs invasion.<br />
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It seems to me that defending the collective project of sovereignty and justice begun [in the Revolution of] 1959, and at the same time addressing society’s problems honestly and as comprehensively as possible, are still the key objectives of a revolutionary press.<br />
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The conflict arises when [these twin objectives] appear to contradict each other. The way in which the debate has been resolved during recent decades is perhaps the main cause of the many problems that weigh heavily on the Cuban press—which is criticised just as much in the street as it is in the Council of State.<br />
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What we might call the ‘dogmatic’ conception [of the press] views the relationship between the political and journalistic domains as one of direct subordination [of the latter to the former], with no scope for dialectics or intelligent negotiation. Hence, political interests (or worse still, the interests of the politicians) would always stand above the honourable practice of the profession, and even above logic. From this flows the silences, the half-truths and the questions that everyone asks but which are never reflected in the media.<br />
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With few exceptions this is, I think, the dominant viewpoint at the present conjuncture—not only that of the press, but that of communication in Cuba.[2] <br />
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Some excuse these silences and omissions on the basis that they are precisely the reason why the Revolution has got this far, beset by a history of adversities too numerous to mention. Nevertheless, with every passing day I’m more and more persuaded of the opposite: that the Revolution has got this far ‘in spite of’ those mistakes; because it has other strengths, above all the genius of Fidel Castro.<br />
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But the accumulated distortions generate monsters here and there that can end up repeating the myth of Saturn, who devoured his own children.[3]</div>
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There are more and more journalists who don’t know how to ask questions and politicians who don’t know how to answer them, yet those are the basic skills required of each of them respectively. Such is the state of affairs that comic relief is called for, as in the already legendary tale of a president who got off the plane and approached a group of Cuban journalists, ready to be interviewed, but none of them had a question to ask him.[4] <br />
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On the other hand, the attempt to abolish the vices of cheap politicking [in the Cuban press] has aided the rise of the shadowy technocrat who is inept when it comes to accountability and has no real interest in being held accountable. All they care about are their superiors. They don’t know how to communicate with ordinary people, and when they try to do so they use the same jargon that is spoken in a meeting of specialists. </div>
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The recent lowering of the prices of some [basic food] products ended up creating confusion because the government ministries involved were unable to explain how people were going to benefit from the measure.<br />
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If the atrophy is such that it’s hard to come up with good news, one can perhaps better understand why no Cuban leader has stepped forward to publicly justify the astronomical cost of cars in the open market.[5] And the worst thing is when roles are mixed up. The media are asked to do the work that the politicians don’t do while the politicians devote themselves to doing the work of journalists.</div>
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The disconnect between the political agenda, what the media says and how the average citizen lives and what they say, is taking a heavy toll on the Cuban press and therefore on the Revolution. Though this is a recurrent theme of private conversations, time and again it gets minimized in the public debate. There’s a contradiction: while the press is the platform for the discussion of many social problems—not always successfully and insightfully—it’s almost impossible to find a critical analysis [in the press] of the role of the press itself. <br />
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The minutes of the congresses of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) testify to our profound dissatisfaction with the way that [journalistic] work is being done, but when the congress is over, we return to the editorial offices to read the news or put together tomorrow’s edition of the paper in the same way we did it yesterday [i.e. nothing changes].</div>
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I really don’t think this can be explained by fear of the repercussions of the debate. Rather, it’s the loyalty of a profession that has always been convinced that the solution will come ‘from above’, when someone finally heeds our solid and irrefutable arguments.<br />
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How does it go against the Revolution to expose a corrupt official? How is it counterproductive to know what sentence was imposed on someone who has been found guilty? Why do we not have the right to know what our foreign debt is and how much we’re spending each year on debt repayment? How can a citizen evaluate a minister’s financial management if their annual budget is not made public in a transparent way? Who established the regulation that prohibits taking pictures inside a store, a decision that in the final analysis could help those engaged in criminal activities? The list is painfully long.<br />
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Far from improving, the situation deteriorates every day. Just as in ‘Words to the Intellectuals’, after what Fidel said something is left hanging in the air: who decides the limits of what is revolutionary—what is within [the Revolution] and what lies outside—or how is it decided?[6]</div>
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The answer cannot be anything but a participatory, democratic approach, because the Revolution is all of us, including the journalists.<br />
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The ‘antidogmatic’ vision needs to be empowered. That vision rests on the assumption that there is an indissoluble relationship between politics and journalism that is, however, always subject to negotiation and a striving for consensus. It views information as a civil right and not a mere tool to achieve certain objectives, however altruistic they may be. It’s the vision that arises from internalising the revolution that has occurred in recent years in the ways in which audiences consume information.<br />
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The TV can be turned off and the newspaper can end up in the rubbish. The idea that controlling the media ensures an audience hasn’t been true for a long time. Furthermore, people can always choose not to believe. And there’s nothing more dangerous to a system than to lose its credibility. Nor can we be naïve. Journalism is an inherently political activity. Nobody speaks just for the sake of speaking. But trying to do politics—for political ends—through the media ends up undermining the essence of our profession.<br />
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Journalism must first of all <i>be</i> journalism. Only then can it orient itself towards its goals, with much wisdom and intelligence, always adhering closely to principles.<br />
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And this reflection is all the more urgent in light of the evident emergence of private media that use journalism—in the majority of cases quality journalism—to further their political interests.<br />
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I don’t wish to be ambiguous about this. I support the right of every Cuban to put forward a vision for the country that is different to the present one, as long as they act ethically and not in the service of foreign powers.<br />
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What I’m concerned about is the right to defend my own. <br />
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Translator’s notes:<br />
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[1] Ryszard Kapuściński (1932–2007) was a Polish writer and journalist.<br />
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[2] ‘Communication’ here appears to refer to the media in general and to the communicative style of political leaders and public institutions. <br />
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[3] Jacques Mallet du Pan was a French journalist who took up the Royalist cause during the French Revolution and coined the phrase “the Revolution devours its children”. It was later applied to Soviet Stalinism.<br />
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[4] Cuban journalists notably refrained from questioning Barack Obama during his state visit to Cuba. They were presumably directed not to do so by the Communist Party’s Ideological Department. Meanwhile, US journalists put Raul Castro on the spot during the presidents’ press conference. <br />
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[5] Refers to the prices of vehicles sold to the general public by state-owned dealerships.<br />
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[6] ‘Words to the Intellectuals’ refers to Fidel Castro’s landmark speech of June 30, 1961 in which he explained the state’s policy on freedom of expression to a gathering of writers, artists and other representatives of the cultural sphere. One line from that speech has been immortalised and variously interpreted ever since: ‘Within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing”. </div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-58486070016733106382016-08-08T07:51:00.001+10:002016-08-08T07:51:24.427+10:00Karina Marron's UPEC interventionAs promised, here is my translation of <i>Granma</i> deputy editor Karina Marron's intervention at the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) plenum on June 28. The global corporate media have seized on her comments, in the paragraph beginning "A perfect storm is brewing", to speculate that social unrest might be about to break out in Cuba as it weathers a difficult economic conjuncture. See footnote 5 below for further contextualisation of these comments. What shines through Marron's intervention is the sincerity of her revolutionary convictions.<br />
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<b>Karina Marron's UPEC intervention</b><br />
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June 28, 2016<br />
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Translation: Marce Cameron<br />
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<a href="https://kokacub.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/caliente-intervencion-en-el-vi-pleno-nacional-de-la-upec-cuba/">Source</a><br />
<br />In a meeting we had at the Journalism Institute with young people from all over the country, if there was one thing that pleased us it was identifying other young people from the press sector who also wanted to try to transform, to change [the press], who had the desire to work together to transform the reality. And it was said in this meeting that there's a concerted effort to bring about a rift between the [Cuban Communist] Party and the press; and we can't ignore this. But as long as we, the Party and the press, continue to look elsewhere rather than where our real problems lie, while we continue viewing things in isolation rather than as a whole, we'll never resolve the problems we've been discussing for years.<br /><br />And will Karina [a reference to herself in the third person] perhaps be the Rosa Miriam[1] of that era [i.e. of the new blood of Cuban journalism], and other people such as Sergio[2], saying the things that Raul Garces[3] has been saying for so many years, and others who are older than me; then they'll be the ones who'll do the talking, and we'll continue repeating the cycle. If we're fortunate enough to repeat the cycle, [because] what's happening, señores, is that we don't have time to repeat the cycle. [APPLAUSE]<br /><br />I sincerely believe that what we have to see when the young journalists quit on us, is simply that we have, in the youth, the expression of the society we have today, and it's just as Iramis said. We can't view this as purely an economic problem, at the heart of it there's a problem with the profession, because those youth who chose a career in journalism didn't choose to create propaganda, publicity, they didn't opt to just keep quiet and on the sidelines, because if so then they'd have chosen another profession. But we also have many young people studying who, when they graduate, are so disillusioned that they get a job in the media—I don't even know why, really, because sometimes one gives them the chance to do things, to make changes, to work, and it doesn't interest them, it doesn't matter to them one bit. Why? Because he or she belongs to that same generation of disengaged youth that we just didn't get to earlier on in their lives, and we can't pretend that now they're not interested in clothing, high heels, [brand-name] shoes, how to get online or have 50 or 70 convertible pesos, not to cover basic expenses, as we do know that there are some who work for our [Cuban government-supported] media who contribute [i.e. moonlight for better-paying, 'independent' Cuban or foreign media organisations] in order to pay the rent.<br /><br />They're young people who do it [i.e. moonlight] to keep up a certain standard of living, and deep down you can see this isn't bad, but this is where what Dario Machado said comes into the picture, and it's that consumer ethos which we've established in our society, which is also part of all these material deficits we've accumulated over years.<br /><br />So I think we can't just view this thing as solely and exclusively a matter of UPEC having to make an effort so that young people feel drawn to the organisation, because at the end of the day, if UPEC has no decision-making power, if UPEC has no impetus, if it wears itself out talking about the same problems congress after congress, then why would I want to belong to this organisation, why would it interest me, why does it matter to me? What am I changing, what am I transforming?<br /><br />In the end the only thing that one has in life is one's time, what one gives to the struggle is one's life, one's years, one's dedication and sacrifice. And this is done for an ideal, it's done for love, but there are those who simply decide that they're not willing to do it because they don't have faith in that future; because they don't they see that possibilities exist for changing it. What's sad is that among those who are today writing for foreign publications, there are youth who opt for this for different reasons, because they believe that that's where they'll accomplish their professional development, and it pains us that they don't see [that possibility] on our side or they don't try to change things on our side; or they do it out of the economic motivations we talked about, but it's never a sole motive, and that's what we cannot lose sight of. And I insist: if we keep looking away we're never going to see the blow that's going to land at precisely the spot where they're going to kill us. I don't have the answers.<br /><br /> In <i>Granma</i> [newspaper] there's a group of young people, we're doing what we can to keep rowing, we don't know if we'll really arrive at a safe port at some point, but there are youth who want to continue piloting the yacht[4] and I am convinced, because I know many of them, that there are many [such youth] in several places around the country who are also doing the same.<br /><br />So I invite all of you to join forces for this, but above all those who decide to avoid doublespeak, those who decide, when faced with this situation of people who know what happens every day on the editorial boards, in radio, in TV, in the most insignificant place in this country where there's a journalist trying to defend this society that is all of us, these people that maybe don't have that lofty culture to understand all the scenarios of phenomena, but where there's a journalist who simply knows that defending that institutionality of which Garces spoke means defending this Revolution, a journalist who may be able to change someone's mindset.<br /><br />That's something we have to care for, we have to defend it and we cannot disrespect the Cuban people, telling them things which one knows don't happen that way and promising them things that won't be fulfilled. So I think this is a debate that we cannot continue having among ourselves and looking at each other and telling ourselves the same thing and fooling ourselves, because there's no time.<br /><br />A perfect storm is brewing. We discussed it yesterday on the [<i>Granma</i>] editorial board, this phenomenon of the reduction of fuel, of the reduction of energy, señores this country won't tolerate another 1993, another 1994, if we don't want to see street protests, and there isn't a Fidel to go down to the Malecon[5]. Or at least so far there hasn't been a figure in this country that faces the people to explain things to them as they're happening today with this situation, and it's going to be very difficult to confront. And with the press, the situation we have today is going to get us nowhere.<br /><br />[Fernando] Ravsberg[6] was talking yesterday about these fuel reductions, as often happens to us there's someone who just does projects and things, accepts money and they sometimes do it wanting to look the other way.<br /> <br />I draw attention to this because we're in a situation in which 2018 is imminent and all hopes are being pinned on this date[7], and everything is being done so that that storm lands here in the worst circumstances for this country, so this is not a time for doubt, not a time for vacillation, not a time to lend our strength, our ideas to something that doesn't work—and that's why our youth often leave, and that's why our youth are often absent from the editorial boards, even when there are people that still have faith and keep trying to do everyday journalism. (APPLAUSE)<br /><br /> * * *<br /><br /> Translator's notes:<br /><br /> [1] Rosa Miriam Elizalde is a respected Cuban journalist and editor of the pro-Revolution Cubadebate website.<br /><br /> [2] Sergio Alejandro Gomez is the young Cuban journalist responsible for <i>Granma's </i>international coverage. <br /><br /> [3] Raul Garces heads Havana University's journalism faculty and is a member of the UPEC executive.<br /><br /> [4] This figurative reference to revolutionaries voyaging in a yacht might be an allusion to the legendary <i>Granma</i> yacht in which Fidel Castro's band of revolutionaries crossed the Gulf of Mexico. The newspaper is named after the yacht.<br /><br /> [5] The year 1993 was the nadir of Cuba's post-Soviet 'Special Period'. In August 1994 frustrations with economic privations boiled over into the streets along Havana's seaside boulevard, the Malecon. Having forbid the use of force, Fidel Castro arrived on the scene and reasoned with the restive crowd, after which it dispersed. In July this year Raul Castro told the National Assembly that cuts to the supply of Venezuelan oil and other adverse factors necessitated some belt-tightening—but stressed that fears of a Special Period 2.0 were baseless. <br /><br />[6] <a href="http://cartasdesdecuba.com/">Fernando Ravsberg </a>is a Uruguayan-born former BBC journalist who has lived in Cuba for more than two decades. <br /><br />[7] Raul Castro has announced that he'll not seek another term as president when his current term expires in early 2018. Here, Marron refers to the Revolution's enemies seeking to take advantage of that juncture.<br /><br /> Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-16129645866766106422016-08-04T00:18:00.000+10:002016-08-06T16:16:25.492+10:00Esteban Morales on press censorship<div>
Ever the canary in the coalmine, outspoken Cuban intellectual Esteban Morales (introduced <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/the-kind-of-congress-many-of-us-wouldnt.html">here</a>) alerts readers of his personal blog to a recent flashpoint in the largely subterranean struggle over the role and character of the press in Cuba. </div>
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Incandescent with indignation, Morales declares his solidarity here with young Cuban journalists, members of Cuba's Union of Communist Youth, who are in revolt against the strictures imposed on journalists by the Cuban Communist Party's Ideological Department, which oversees—i.e. censors and micromanages—the Cuban press, radio and TV. That oversight role, and how it is exercised by Department chief Colonel Rolando Alfonso Borges, is the biggest obstacle to the urgent and long overdue revitalisation of Cuba's pro-Revolution press.</div>
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One flashpoint in the struggle against Cuba's Stalinesque media overlords, and for a radical overhaul of the conception and practice of journalism and the media in socialist-oriented Cuba, was the 6th Plenum of the Cuban Journalists Union on June 28, which Morales refers to below. According to an unauthorised recording and transcript of her intervention—presumably genuine rather than concocted, since she has not challenged the attribution nor repudiated her alleged remarks—Karina Marron, the 37 year old deputy editor of <i>Granma</i>, told truth to power. </div>
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In an ironic twist, the Cuban media that answers to Alfonso Borges airbrushed her comments out of their coverage of the event, while the interventions of numerous other speakers were cited. Only the UPEC website's summary of the event includes a paragraph on Marron's comments, which lends legitimacy to the authenticity of the transcript. Initially published on a Cuban journalist's personal blog, the transcript was taken down hours later. But by then the genie was out of the bottle, and it is now <a href="https://kokacub.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/caliente-intervencion-en-el-vi-pleno-nacional-de-la-upec-cuba/">widely available</a> online. </div>
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I hope to translate Marron's intervention, or extracts from it, for readers of my blog. I'll also translate some material on other recent flashpoints in this important struggle—and more of the backstory—for future posts. Stay tuned. </div>
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<b>The present debate</b><br />
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By Esteban Morales<br />
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July 24, 2016<br />
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Translation: Marce Cameron<br />
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<a href="http://estebanmoralesdominguez.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/el-debate-actual.html">Source</a><br />
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Something must be said about the present debate which has flared up, which I think is a good thing. At last, what so many have tried to do during these years is starting to bear fruit, and rather high up too. Finally, it seems the critique of our 'bad press' is getting through.<br />
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From a Cuba in which critical or conflicting voices are barely heard, we've now entered another in which nearly everything is being subjected to criticism. Only it seems the ideological apparatus of the Cuban Communist Party [PCC] is nowhere to be seen. As has been said before, where is the Party's ideological apparatus when things happen such as that which just occurred at the recent plenum of the Cuban Journalists Union [UPEC]? Have they been there, and did they listen to the torrent of truths that were told? I think they must have been, but they haven't done anything yet. Will they do something now?<br />
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Undoubtedly, one of the consequences of the 7th Party Congress has been the subtle dismantling of the Party's ideological apparatus. We don't see the kind of ideological work that is needed given the situation facing the country. Fortunately, the comrade First Secretary [of the PCC, Raul Castro] made a timely rectification at the 7th Congress itself, which [had he not done so it] would have been the biggest mistake that could have been made, when the Congress documents were put to the Congress for debate and approval without the party membership as a whole knowing what was in them, nor participating in the discussion of them. Such was the criticism received in this regard that the First Secretary announced a different approach in his speech.<br />
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Now the Congress documents are even being debated by those outside the Party's ranks. That's encouraging, in that it wasn't a 'bottled' Congress or one solely for Party functionaries. Because I still think a mistake such as the one which was about to be made would have destroyed our Party's democracy.<br />
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What just took place in the recent UPEC plenum with the Communist Youth (UJC) members of the <i>Granma</i> newspaper staff, is symptomatic of the fact that the people are tired of censorship and no longer accept it, wherever it may come from and whatever the consequences of putting an end to this state of affairs.<br />
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This is called revolutionary courage. There's no other word for it.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Granma </i>deputy editor Karina Marron</td></tr>
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Anyone might think that <i>Granma</i> has been the cathedral. It was, but no doubt it's becoming less of one. Its youngest staff members, through their UJC base committee, have rebelled. The communist youth took the initiative, and when this happens the future is guaranteed.<br />
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In other times we've lived through, what the <i>Granma</i> deputy editor [Karina Marron], a member of the UJC base committee, has done would have left the newspaper without communist cadres. Those of the UJC because they 'opened fire', and the Party members for merely having heard the broadside even though they didn't express support for it. Which would have meant the newspaper being left without Party members too, because nobody with a sense of honour would have accepted such cowardice.</div>
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Warm congratulations to the UJC members at <i>Granma</i>, especially the deputy editor. Now we really can be confident that it's not only the numerous criticisms of our press, those of [Raul] Garces[1] in the UPEC Congresses and those of others, who have been saying for all these years that the press we have is a toothless tiger.<br />
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It's that now the monster isn't confronting us, but inside our 'stomachs', and we must digest it. As part of a cultural war that has already begun, and which threatens to take us back to the era of the Joint Resolution and the Platt Amendment.[2]<br />
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They got tired of suffering from what has been almost a sickness of our press. An epidemic which has been talked about several times, because it afflicts all of the provinces. It's that we adopted a 'Stalinist' press model, coming from the USSR in particular; I say this because I lived there, and more than 40 years later, we keep this up. How long are we going to wage war on the truth and transparency in our press? How long are we going to restrain the revolutionary initiatives of our journalists which would allow them to feel truly responsible and committed to what they do?<br />
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It's very good that the explosion didn't come from outside, the 'puncture' came from within; I think our press has 'imploded'. I am in solidarity with everyone who has defended those ideas which I just read. And if the inept functionaries were to respond in an aggressive manner, they'd simply confirm Fidel's words at Havana University, in 2005, when our Maximum Leader said: “We ourselves could destroy the Revolution”.<br />
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I think that in all honesty, what has happened to our press to date is not the fault of the journalists, nor even the newspapers, but of the superstructural apparatus that runs them and which has to be just 'smashed to smithereens'. Because we can't just keep doing the same thing for more than forty years, with the same people, and imagine that the problems are going to fix themselves. The distortions in our press can only be rectified by removing those who distorted it.<br />
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The evident incapacity to run our press is proven beyond doubt. The top Party leadership just needs to restructure this apparatus and appoint new people, trained, capable, who should be journalists themselves—of which there are many—who want to work and feel free to defend the country. Because it wouldn't occur to anyone that an engineer could perform a kidney transplant, or that anyone who has never been a journalist, nor written an article for almost their entire life, could run the press, in some cases at the highest level. For years, all they've been seen to do is reprimand, censor, approve or disapprove, criticise, even have people expelled from the Party, for an article or a presentation they didn't like, but never to actually run a newspaper.<br />
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Several journalists congresses have been held, dozens of meetings, but no such invigorating phenomenon as that which took place recently in that last UPEC plenum has ever happened. I'd say it hasn't only been a journalist's plenum, but an example, a methodological guide to how one must act in order to sweep away everything that threatens the survival of the Cuban Revolution.<br />
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Nevertheless, it must be said that while this debate has barely begun at the level of profundity it has now reached, there are others which already do so continuously, systematically, [and have done so] for a long time, such as those of the journal <i>Temas</i>[3]<i>,</i> <i>Espacio Laical</i>[4], <i>Dialogar-Dialogar</i>[5], and others, which have referred to the problem of the press, without the latter having taken its cue, which places it at an evident disadvantage. Our press cannot be aloof from what is being debated—especially when the press itself is the subject of debate—in other spaces.<br />
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The press has to debate, respond to the criticisms, confront, etc. That is, be part of a debate which, in taking place within Cuban civil society, affects the content and context of its informational and cultural work. The press cannot inform with objectivity, and to a high standard, unless it keeps abreast of the above debate, takes part in it and reflects it in its day-to-day work. Otherwise, a part of society, which is not involved in those debates, no longer informs itself about things that, in the end, do interest and affect it. In order to do its job, the press needs to have allies. It can get them from that same contact with the centres of debate, the academic and cultural sphere in general. This allows it to improve the quality of its informational work, taking advantage of the existing potentialities within the intelligentsia, academia, science and culture.<br />
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The revolutionary intelligentsia and the press should forge a strategic alliance capable of providing an intelligent, informed and specialised response, including to issues that concern political-ideological work. A press that does not interact with the intelligentsia, while being intellectual work itself; that does not participate in its activities and does not interact continually with the intelligentsia, is unable to hold up a mirror to the nation. Nor can it get feedback and nourishment from what transpires.<br />
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Intellectuals themselves must have more column inches in the press, providing content that allows it to better reflect the life of a country that is ever more cultivated, qualified and demanding. In this respect, the press must never lag behind.<br />
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The press has to be the centrifuge, always switched on, in which all of the national and international events are loaded, aimed and launched. Nobody is more compelled to be a good researcher than she who wishes to be a better journalist.</div>
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Translator's notes:</div>
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[1] Raul Garces is a member of the UPEC executive and dean of Havana University's journalism faculty. </div>
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[2] The US government's 1901 Platt Amendment and associated Joint Resolution formalised Cuba's status as a US neocolony. </div>
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[3] <i>Temas</i> is a prestigious Cuban journal, published under the auspices of Cuba's culture ministry, that hosts lively monthly debates on varied topics. </div>
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[4] <i>Espacio Laical</i> is a Cuban journal published by the Cuban Catholic Church's Felix Varela Centre in Havana.</div>
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[5] <i>Dialogar-Dialogar</i> is a Cuban website dedicated to furthering the political activism of the late Alfredo Guevara, a towering figure in Cuba's post-revolutionary cultural field and an outspoken intellectual of libertarian Marxist leanings. He was a member of the PCC and had the ear of Fidel Castro. </div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-63439371275430005742016-05-09T14:42:00.001+10:002016-05-09T14:42:33.370+10:00Cuban Communist Party to launch post-Congress debate<div>
This commentary was written for Australia's <i><a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/61736">Green Left Weekly</a></i>. It draws together the threads of my <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/search/label/PCC%20Seventh%20Congress">previous blog posts</a> on the Cuban Communist Party's 7th Congress. </div>
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Cuban Communist Party to launch post-Congress debate amid divergent visions</b><br /><br /><div>
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<br />In the wake of Obama's historic visit, the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) held its 7th Congress on April 16-19 in the Havana Convention Centre. Beneath a backdrop featuring a huge likeness of Fidel Castro, PCC secretary Raul Castro delivered the main report on behalf of the Central Committee.<br /><br />Fidel being Fidel, many Cubans would have been reassured by his surprise appearance at the closing session on the eve of his 90th birthday. Traditionally, PCC congresses are the culmination of a months-long process of consultation with the Party's activist base and the wider Cuban society.<br /><br />By contrast, an air of secrecy and anticlimax hung over the 7th Congress. Fidel's brief valedictory address, which moved some in the audience to tears and was received with a thunderous and prolonged ovation, served to stamp the Congress with a legitimacy that only Fidel can confer.</div>
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<br />While Fidel's appearance at the Congress and the content of Raul's report may have unruffled some feathers, the PCC's central leadership must now strive to reconnect with the Party's grassroots so that a disconnect doesn't harden into a dangerous rift. Having received a sharp rebuke from the party base, it seems the leadership has got the message.</div>
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<b>Controversy</b><br /><br />The disconnect between the Central Committee and the PCC base is evident in the preparatory process for the 7th Congress. The 6th Congress, held in April 2011, was preceded by a three month process of PCC-wide and public consultations on the draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines.<br /><br />While critics have noted the democratic deficiencies of that consultation—such as the fragmentary nature of the local debates, which hindered the emergence of possible alternative platforms for the election of delegates—the Guidelines adopted by the Congress bore the imprint of public opinion.<br /><br />Initially, the PCC leadership gave every indication that there would be a comparable consultation prior to the 7th Congress. Soon after the 6th Congress, the Central Committee began work—behind closed doors—on two strategic and programmatic documents to be presented to the 7th Congress.<br /><br />These two documents, the 2016-30 Plan and the 'Conceptualisation of the Cuban socio-economic socialist development model', would complement the Guidelines. As a set of concrete objectives based on certain principles, the Guidelines are neither a programmatic vision nor a socialist plan.<br /><br />As the 7th Congress approached, it became apparent that the drafting process was well behind schedule. Either the anticipated public consultation would have to be abandoned, or the Congress would have to be postponed. As late as February 23, the Central Committee's Tenth Plenum reiterated its commitment to a public consultation on the draft documents prior to the Congress.<br /><br />On February 14, Esteban Morales, a prestigious and outspoken Cuban intellectual whose party loyalty is beyond reproach, circulated an acerbic commentary on the Congress process. In 2010, Morales' PCC membership was suspended—one step short of expulsion—for warning that high-level corruption (and not US-sponsored 'dissident' grouplets) was “the real counterrevolution” in Cuba. He was eventually reinstated after receiving numerous public gestures of solidarity.<br /><br />Morales complained that “for months” he'd been asking for the Congress documents, to no avail. This would be a congress of party functionaries rather than the grassroots “which I consider to be the real party”, he added. He suggested the PCC was regressing in terms of party democracy, and described the mood among the party base as justifiably “indignant”. That perception was anchored in his “broad and continuous contact with Cuban society” as an intellectual and an ordinary citizen.<br /><br />In a similar vein, on March 27, PCC activist Francisco 'Paquito' Rodriguez published an Open Letter to Raul Castro on his personal blog. Rodriguez is an academic, a journalist for the Cuban trade union confederation's <i>Trabajadores </i>newspaper and a prominent gay rights activist. As a gay rights activist he is said to be close to Mariela Castro, Raul Castro's daughter.<br /><br />Rodriguez objected to “the lack of discussion of the key Congress documents—which are still shrouded in secrecy—in both the grassroots Party committees and among the rest of the citizenry”.<br /><br />He proposed that the Congress be postponed till late July to allow for a PCC base and public consultation during April and May. He noted that Raul Castro himself had often insisted that the reform process underway in Cuba must proceed 'without haste', and “I see no reason to rush so decisive a political process … if its preparation has not yet reached maturity”.<br /><br /><b><i>Granma </i>responds</b><br /><br />Also on March 27, the PCC daily, <i>Granma</i>, acknowledged the controversy in an editorial: “The <i>Granma</i> editorial board has received, through various means, concerns of Party activists (and non-members) who question the reasons why, on this occasion, no public discussion process has been planned, such as that carried out five years ago on the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines.”<br /><br /><i>Granma </i>made no mention of the Central Committee's earlier commitment to a public consultation. Its core justification for not holding such a consultation was that only 21% of the 2011 Congress Guidelines had been fully implemented, so the 7th Congress would be effectively a continuation of the 6th. The implication is that this is for the Central Committee, not the party as a whole, to decide.<br /><br />The <i>Granma</i> editorial, which expressed the opinion of the Central Committee, did not discuss the possibility that that same statistic (21%) might call into question the viability of the course set at the 6th Congress, or the party leadership's approach to its implementation. It suggested the leadership can assume an indefinite popular mandate until <i>it</i> decides a new course is desirable:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
[R]ather than launch a new society-wide debate process in the throes of implementation, we need to finish what we have begun, continuing to carry out the popular will expressed five years ago and advancing along the course set by the Sixth Congress.</blockquote>
<br />The 1000 Congress delegates elected by the Party base, the 612 National Assembly deputies and some 3500 other selected consultants had contributed to the elaboration of the two key documents, <i>Granma</i> stressed. Put another way, less than 0.05% of Cuban citizens had access to them prior to the Congress. No timeframe has been announced for their wider availability.<br /><br />As usual, readers submitted comments to the online version of the <i>Granma </i>editorial. Most touched on the controversy. A reader identifying themselves as 'Leandro' argued that a dangerous precedent is being set: a new generation of PCC leaders that lack the legitimacy of the historical leadership “would feel they have the right to hold Congresses without popular participation”.<br /><br />Cuban philosopher Jose Ramon Fabelo opined that the Conceptualisation of the Cuban socialist model aspired to “is not a task for experts and social scientists alone”. The most important congress “is that which takes place in the streets and workplaces of revolutionary Cuba. Let's not pass up the opportunity to give another lesson in democracy—genuine democracy, Cuban style—to Obama and all those who want to throw their discredited models in our faces”.<br /><br />Ernesto Estevez stressed the question of representation. How, he asked, can Congress delegates be said to represent the PCC membership when the vast majority of party members are unaware of the content of the draft documents? Delegates' opinions and votes should “reflect the consensus of those that elected them from the grassroots”. For that, the membership must have the documents.<br /><br />Estevez urged his party to “learn from the errors of the former Soviet Union”. All party members “should zealously uphold the democratic side of centralism, so that democracy operates in the right way and doesn't end up being held hostage to centralism, albeit with the best of intentions”. The lack of consultation is a regression, and “there should be no attempt to compensate after the fact”.<br /><br /><b>Congress shift</b><br /><br />Clearly in response to the rumblings of discontent from the party base, Raul proposed in his Congress report that the documents be adopted by the Congress only “in principle” rather than definitively. They would then be the basis for a “profound and democratic process of analysis by the membership of the Party and the Communist Youth, as well as by broad sectors of our society.”<br /><br />This wider consultation would be aimed at “improving and enriching” the documents. Raul further proposed that the incoming Central Committee be empowered to approve the final versions, which would be subsequently submitted to the National Assembly. Both proposals were adopted.<br /><br />Like the <i>Granma</i> editorial, Raul's report did not acknowledge the leadership's earlier commitment to a broad consultative process. It merely stated that there was no such process “given that what is involved is the confirmation and continuity of the line adopted five years ago”. Incongruously, it also said that given the theoretical intricacy of the draft Conceptualisation of the socialist model “and its importance for the future”, it should not be adopted by the Congress.<br /><br />What's missing from Raul's report is a logically consistent and persuasive explanation for the leadership's abandonment of the foreshadowed pre-Congress PCC base and public consultation process. That explanation can be inferred from Raul's account of the drafting process.<br /><br />Raul reported that the Conceptualisation document had been drafted no less than eight times. Work on the 2016-2030 Plan began four years ago. It was initially hoped a complete draft would be ready for the Congress, but due to its “great technical complexity” only its bases have been elaborated. A complete, final version is not expected till 2017.<br /><br />In December and January, the Central Committee redrafted the Congress documents on the basis of some 900 opinions and suggestions submitted by Central Committee members, Raul reported. If, as the <i>Granma</i> editorial claims, “the basis of these [two] documents is the content of the Guidelines”, why has it taken the Central Committee five years to draft them?<br /><br /><b>Divergent visions</b><br /><br />In reality, the Guidelines and their implementation open the door to not one, but several distinctly different socialist models and corresponding medium-term plans. They leave unresolved the vital question posed in 2011 by Havana University planning specialist Oscar Fernandez:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
From the traditional state socialism that characterises Cuba today, is it moving towards a more decentralised state socialism? An Asian-style market socialism? A self-managed socialism of the Yugoslav variety? To the so-called participatory socialism of the 21st century? There is an urgent need for a debate aimed at a consensus on the key features of the vision of the future society.</blockquote>
<br />Cuba's Marxist intelligentsia perceives competing poles of socialist thought in Cuba today. Each polarity corresponds to divergent conceptions of the socialist transitional society in general and in Cuba's conditions. Each is seen as influencing the evolution of Cuba's emerging socialist model, and each polarity is reflected to some degree in the content of the Guidelines.<br /><br />Veteran Cuban sociologist Juan Valdes and Cuban cooperatives proponent Camila Piñero both perceive essentially three such polarities: state socialism, market socialism and 'socialisation'.<br /><br />The first pole tends to view the socialist transition through the prism of state power; the second, through the lens of economic development, i.e. GDP growth; the third views progress towards socialism in terms of the socialisation (i.e. democratisation) of party-state power and property.<br /><br />The Central Committee's glacial progress in drafting the two key documents suggests that it has tried to reconcile, behind closed doors, divergent conceptions of the new Cuban socialist model that is aspired to. They had to be reconciled if the leadership were to present a more or less coherent programmatic vision to the party as a whole—rather than strive to involve the party as a whole in developing that vision from the outset over the five years since the 6th Congress.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Leaving the realm of speculation, opting for secrecy over transparency relegated the vast majority of the PCC's 680,000 members to the role of spectators rather than participants in the 7th Party Congress. Having won the right to be consulted on the socialist model that is aspired to, the party base has—consciously or instinctively—shifted the balance of forces a little towards the socialisation pole.</div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-29118381047236716402016-04-25T18:14:00.000+10:002016-04-27T12:18:00.043+10:00Reply to Walter Lippmann<a href="http://walterlippmann.com/">Walter Lippmann</a> is a Los Angeles-based Cuba solidarity activist and the editor in chief of the US-based <a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CubaNews/info">CubaNews email list</a>. The list has over 2000 subscribers worldwide. Walter has always encouraged me to share my translations and commentaries with his audience. As well as overseeing the list and posting his own translations of Cuba-related material, he editorialises as he sees fit.<br />
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Below is my paragraph-by-paragraph response to one such 'editorial' which Walter posted to his list on April 18. I'm sharing this spirited exchange here because it serves to clarify my own stance and because it concerns important questions of principle for the Cuba solidarity movement.<br />
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I'm open to persuasion and I presume Walter is too. I encourage you to share your thoughts either on Walter's list or by submitting a comment at the foot of this post—or both. (You can browse the discussion threads on this topic on Walter's list by typing 'marce' into the Search Conversations box at the top of the list's <a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CubaNews/info">homepage</a>.) <br />
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<b>Reply to Walter Lippmann (CubaNews editor)</b><br />
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By Marce Cameron<br />
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Walter wrote: <br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Marce Cameron has made a positive contribution in the past through his translations. However, he has clearly now decided to set himself up as a side-line critic of the Cuban leadership. He seems to be practicing a kind of latter-day Kremlinology on Cuba, reading between the lines, and finding fault after fault after fault. Cameron isn't just making observations. It's clear now that he has a political agenda.</blockquote>
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My 'political agenda' is the same as ever. I am in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Communist Party. But the Revolution should not be equated with the Party, nor the Party with the Central Committee. I plead guilty to finding fault with the Central Committee's approach to the Seventh Congress. Frankly, it's undemocratic. Esteban Morales said so, 'Paquito' Rodriguez said so, numerous <i>Granma</i> and Cubadebate readers said so, and I agree with them. Reading between the lines is a legitimate part of analysis (Walter's denunciation of me indulges in much 'reading between the lines').<br />
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Without even waiting for the English translation of Raul's report to be made available, Cameron launches into his critical English-language commentary on what's wrong with Raul's report to the PCC, which Raul and the Central Committee presented to the Cuban people, and the world public, just YESTERDAY. This is an extraordinary act of political presumptuousness for a young foreigner.</blockquote>
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I pointed out that Raul's speech made no mention of the Central Committee's prior commitment to hold a public consultation before the Congress, and that Raul did not acknowledge the rumblings of discontent from the Party's grassroots. I pointed out that Raul's report was inconsistent in that it claimed that a public consultation was both necessary and unnecessary. Walter doesn't challenge these points of mine because he knows them to be true. Anyone who reads Raul's speech carefully can see for themselves. Instead, he complains that I didn't wait for the full English translation to come out before making these points. Well, now that the full English transcript is available, does Walter have anything to say about the content of my analysis? Or is he only interested in shooting the messenger? And what is so "politically presumptuous" about noting an inconsistency (and what's not said) in Raul's speech? Does Walter hold up Raul's speeches as if they were holy scriptures rather than human creations? <br />
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Bitter opponents of Cuba's leadership, like David Thorstad and Cort Greene have leaped up to embrace Cameron's stance. Birds of a feather, after all, flock together.</blockquote>
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Walter accuses me of sympathising with or collaborating with bitter opponents of the Cuban Revolution because they and I agree that the preparatory process for the Seventh Party Congress was undemocratic. That's like saying that because Walter Lippmann has no objection to the Cuban state's promotion of small private businesses in Cuba (he tells his audience how much he enjoys eating at these establishments), and bitter opponents of the Cuban Revolution also favour this policy, that they and Walter have the same political agenda. That's both illogical and absurd.<br />
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Writing from the comfort of an imperialist metropolis, while Washington and its mediatic presstitutes are working 24-7 to impose capitalist "democracy" on Cuba, Cameron does Cuba a serious disservice, promoting himself as the island's virtual judge, jury and executioner.</blockquote>
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My personal circumstances are actually rather precarious. My casual employment is sporadic enough that I'm dipping into my modest savings to make ends meet. Perhaps Walter imagines me puffing on Cuban cigars. As for promoting myself as the island's virtual judge, jury and executioner, I think Walter may be guilty of polemical exaggeration here. I'm insignificant. I write on behalf of nobody but myself. I'm not the US government. <br />
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After all, <i>Granma</i> published the critical letters which Cameron translated and shared. <i>Granma</i> didn't bury those letters. They acknowledged them precisely by publishing them. Granma says the documents adopted by the Congress will be submitted to nation-wide discussion and consultation. But to Marce Cameron, none of this is worth mentioning, except to criticize and complain, from way faraway down under in Australia.</blockquote>
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Having <a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CubaNews/conversations/topics/157117">denounced me</a> for interfering in Cuban politics by merely commenting on Raul's Congress report (as every journalist and commentator covering the event did), Walter indulges in some 'interference' of his own here by defending the Central Committee against the criticisms of Esteban Morales, Paquito Rodriguez and other ordinary members who spoke out against the undemocratic way in which the Congress was organised. I wonder if they appreciate Walter's 'interference' from afar? From Los Angeles, to be precise, i.e. from the belly of the beast? As a matter of fact, I did mention the post-Congress discussion: I translated and posted that part of Raul's report. I also commented that this was putting the cart before the horse.<br />
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Paquito praised Raul's decision, but Cameron chose not to publish <a href="http://https//paquitoeldecuba.com/2016/04/16/una-decision-sabia-o-congreso-partidista-dejara-pendiente-de-aprobacion-dos-documentos-esenciales/">Paquito's support</a> for Raul's decision. Instead, Cameron prefers to complain about Raul and the PCC Central Committee. Paquito's views evidently don't coincide with Cameron's agenda for criticism of Cuba and its leadership.</blockquote>
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I did not choose not to publish Paquito's brief comments on the post-Congress discussion that Raul announced. I simply wasn't aware of them at the time of writing. In any case, I don't let Paquito or anyone else do my thinking for me. I think for myself. <br />
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Let us keep in mind that Paquito is Cuban, a member of the PCC, a staff-writer at <i>Trabajadores</i>, and an open and activist gay militant in Cuba, while Cameron is a graduate student writing from the comfort of the imperialist metropolis of Australia. Because Paquito lives and works in Cuba, he has to live with the consequences of his actions, while Cameron is only responsible to the man who looks out at him from the bathroom mirror when he brushes his teeth.</blockquote>
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I plead guilty to not being Cuban and not living in Cuba, and to being answerable only to myself. Walter is answerable, it seems, to the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee.<br />
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Of course, anyone with a computer and Internet access has the RIGHT to say anything about anything, but political experience and judgement would suggest a sense of modesty and caution before passing judgement on the Cuban political system. It's that incredible chutzpah and presumptuousness which is most striking with Cameron.</blockquote>
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I didn't pass judgement on the Cuban political system. All I said was that the preparatory process for the Seventh Party Congress was rather undemocratic and suggested why this may be the case. Does Walter wish to put forward an alternative explanation? Or is he only interested in shooting the messenger? <br />
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The world imperialist media is in a frenzy of attacks on Cuba and the alleged secrecy and lack of democracy in the PCC and this Congress. This mediatic terrorism is part of the blockade, whose existence and reality go completely unmentioned in Cameron's list of grievances.</blockquote>
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The secrecy in which the Seventh Congress resolutions were drafted is not an allegation. It's a fact. According to <i>Granma</i>, only the Central Committee, the National Assembly deputies, selected expert advisors and some 3,500 other consultants have seen these documents, officially. I'm not aware of any leaks. Let's say that comes to 5,000 people. That's about 0.05% of Cuban citizens. I made no sweeping claims about democracy in the PCC. The series of posts that Walter objects to focus solely on the Congress (in comparison to previous PCC Congresses). The US blockade was in existence during the public consultation that was carried out in the lead-up to the Sixth Congress, so that hasn't changed. If Walter wants to defend the Central Committee's decision not to organise a comparable public consultation prior to the Seventh Congress on the basis of the blockade, he needs to explain his reasoning.<br />
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Cuba has an endless litany of problems, not all of which can be attributed to the US blockade. And the blockade can be used as an excuse for some people to hide from the discussion of Cuba's many problems. If you read the letters column in <i>Granma</i>, it's obvious that public criticism is acknowledged and being addressed. More and better would always be more and better, but to fail to take account of the context in which Cuba and the revolution's leadership functions, shows an extraordinary poverty of political judgement, in my opinion.</blockquote>
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Walter says that I have failed to take account of the context in which the Revolution's leadership functions. How so? Here's what I acknowledged in <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/this-is-fourth-of-cluster-of.html">my post</a> on <i>Granma</i> readers' responses to the <i>Granma</i> editorial: "[T]he PCC leadership is—of course—far from infallible. Beset by great difficulties on all sides and by new challenges, from Obama's shift to 'soft power' subversion to a generational leadership transition at the highest level, a lapse into old habits that die hard, such as the very secrecy that Raul Castro has repeatedly denounced in recent years, is perhaps understandable." </div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-26072368253285158702016-04-18T20:12:00.000+10:002016-04-18T20:22:03.339+10:00Raul Castro's Congress report This is my fifth post (the others are archived <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/search/label/PCC%20Seventh%20Congress">here</a>) on the controversy sparked by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) leadership's approach to the Seventh PCC Congress, which is now underway in Havana's Convention Centre. Perhaps Fidel will make a surprise appearance at the Congress, as he did last time; perhaps not. His likeness adorns the backdrop as if to suggest he's there in spirit.<br />
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Raul Castro opened the Congress with the Main Report, which was broadcast live on Cuban TV and radio and published in <i>Granma</i>. Importantly, the official transcript includes his numerous departures from the prepared script—diversions delivered with characteristic bluntness and good humour. Raul, 84 years young, was lucid, sharp, combative and demanding. He received a standing ovation.</div>
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I'll return to the content of the Main Report report when the official English translation becomes available, to avoid duplicating this translation effort. For now, let's see how Raul dealt with the vexed question of the preparatory process for the Congress. Inconsistencies in his account suggest another, more plausible explanation for the absence of a broad public consultation process.</div>
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Like the <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/granma-editorial-on-congress-concerns.html"><i>Granma</i> editorial</a> on March 27, Raul made no mention of the PCC leadership's earlier commitment to consult the party membership and the wider public on the draft Congress documents. Nor did he refer to the rumblings of discontent from the party base. He simply <a href="http://www.granma.cu/septimo-congreso-del-pcc/2016-04-17/el-desarrollo-de-la-economia-nacional-junto-a-la-lucha-por-la-paz-y-la-firmeza-ideologica-constituyen-las-principales-misiones-del-partido-17-04-2016-02-04-53">stated</a> that:<br />
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Unlike the previous Congress, when the draft Guidelines were submitted to a broad consultation with the Party membership, the Communist Youth and the wider public prior to the Congress, after which they were approved by the National Assembly, on this occasion that procedure was not followed, given that what is involved is the confirmation and continuity of the line adopted five years ago regarding the updating of our economic and social model. </blockquote>
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Note that Raul's explanation here for the absence of a broad consultative process does not involve the timing of such a consultation—before or after the Congress, for example—but the leadership's view that the draft documents are compatible with, and merely refinements of, the line adopted at the previous Congress. Yet six paragraphs on, Raul implies that a broad consultation is in fact necessary:</div>
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We have conceived that both documents, that is, the Conceptualisation [of Cuba's emerging socialist model] and the bases of the National Development Plan be debated democratically, after they have been analysed in the Congress, by the Party membership and the Communist Youth, representatives of the mass organisations and broad social sectors, with a view to enriching and improving them. </blockquote>
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There's a logical inconsistency here. The Central Committee can't have it both ways. Either a broad consultation is necessary or it isn't. If it isn't, because the Seventh Congress won't overturn the political line of the Sixth, then why hold a consultation after the Congress? And if it is in fact necessary, then wouldn't it have been far more democratic to hold it prior to the Congress? Convening the Congress prior to the consultation is putting the cart before the horse. </div>
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Raul continues:<br />
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To this end, we ask the Congress to empower the incoming Central Committee to modify [the Congress documents] on the basis of the consultation process and to approve the final versions, including the corresponding amendments to the [updated Sixth Congress] Guidelines that the Congress may approve.</blockquote>
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The Central Committee has argued that the Seventh Congress is a continuation of the Sixth, held five years ago. A more cogent argument could be made that the post-Congress consultation process that Raul projected in his report will be, or at least should be, effectively a continuation of the Seventh Congress. This suggests that the appropriate mechanism for deciding on the wording of the final drafts of the Congress documents would be to recall the 1000 Congress delegates, rather than cede the higher powers of the Congress to the Central Committee. <br />
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It seems that the real reason for the lack of a broad consultation process prior to the Seventh Congress is not that the Central Committee regarded such a consultation as unnecessary. As recently as its Tenth Plenum on February 23, the Central Committee reiterated its commitment to a broad consultation (which will now take place, belatedly, sometime after the Congress). The likely explanation is implicit elsewhere in Raul's Congress report, where he stresses the complex and protracted nature of the drafting process that took place behind closed doors.</div>
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Raul reported that work on the Conceptualisation document began soon after the Sixth Congress and has involved no less than eight drafts. Meanwhile, work on the economic and social development plan to 2030 began four years ago. It was initially hoped that a complete draft would be ready for the Congress, but due to its "great technical complexity" what is being debated by the Congress is only the bases of such a document. A complete, final version is not expected till 2017.</div>
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As late as December and January, the Central Committee redrafted the Congress documents on the basis of some 900 opinions and suggestions submitted by Central Committee members, Raul reported. By January, it would have been too late to launch a public consultation process like that which preceded the Sixth Congress, which spanned three months from December 2010 to February 2011. Obama's impending visit may have been another factor that loomed large in the Central Committee's deliberations. How much might it distract and disorient?</div>
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The Central Committee could have postponed the Congress to allow for a broad consultation process, but evidently decided against it. In his Congress report, Raul said that holding the Congress on April 16-19, exactly five years after the previous Congress, complies with the PCC Statutes in this regard. It also fulfils Objective No. 17 of the <a href="http://www.granma.cu/granmad/secciones/1ra-conferencia-pcc/objetivos.html">First National Party Conference</a>, which states that the five year interval should be adhered to (there was a 14 year interval between the Fifth and Sixth Congresses). Yet arguably, not postponing the Congress to allow for a broad consultation clashes with Objective No. 1, which states that the PCC's activist base should play a "decisive" role in the "discussion and adoption of the party's most important decisions".</div>
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If, as the Central Committee suggests, the Conceptualisation of Cuba's emerging socialist model is just the theoretical expression of the Guidelines, which are more a set of concrete objectives than a programmatic vision statement, why then has it taken the PCC leadership five years to draft it? Here we enter the realm of speculation. It seems likely that the PCC leadership has tried to reconcile, behind closed doors, quite different conceptions of the new Cuban socialist model that is aspired to (see the Introduction to my <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/12538/5/cameron_ma_thesis.pdf">Master's thesis</a> 'Statist Utopianism and the Cuban Socialist Transition'). These divergent conceptions had to be reconciled if the leadership were to present a more or less coherent programmatic vision to the party as a whole—rather than strive to involve the party as a whole in developing that vision from the outset over the five years since the Sixth Congress. Leaving the realm of speculation, opting for secrecy over transparency has reduced the vast majority of PCC members to the role of spectators rather than participants in the Seventh Party Congress.</div>
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In his Congress report, Raul stressed the cardinal importance of the Conceptualisation document:<br />
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The principal objective of this document is to clearly set out the key features of the [Cuban socialist] model [that is aspired to], in such a way that it serves as a theoretical and conceptual guide to the building of socialism in Cuba, in correspondence with our own characteristics and efforts, taking as its basis the history of the nation and of the revolutionary process, the national culture, the internal conditions and the international situation as well as the experiences of socialist economic and social development in other countries. The principles that underpin the Conceptualisation are based on the legacy of Jose Marti, Marxism-Leninism, the thought of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, and the work of the Revolution itself.</blockquote>
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Raul then elaborated on the post-Congress process of refinement and adoption: <br />
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As I said earlier, the theoretical and practical complexity of this draft document and its importance for the future suggest that it should not be approved in the framework of this Congress. What we propose instead is that the delegates continue the debate and adopt this draft in principle, so that it may serve as the basis of [a] profound and democratic process of analysis by the membership of the Party and the Communist Youth, as well as by broad sectors of our society. The results of this debate will then be presented for final approval by the Central Committee. In other words, for the reasons I have explained, to continue discussing it in the municipalities, and with the democratic participation of the Party as a whole, the Communist Youth, representatives of the mass organisations, etc., with the aim of concluding its elaboration and with the Central Committee being empowered to approve it. It would then be presented to the National Assembly, the highest institution of state power and the one with the authority to grant it legal status.</blockquote>
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<br />Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-60883731242179018852016-04-15T18:20:00.001+10:002016-04-15T20:55:37.195+10:00Granma readers respondThis is the fourth of a <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/search/label/PCC%20Seventh%20Congress">cluster of translations</a> on the controversy sparked by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) leadership's approach to the Seventh PCC Congress, which gets underway on April 16.<br />
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I began this series with Francisco Rodriguez's Open Letter to Raul Castro and Esteban Morales' earlier commentary on the Seventh Congress. The significance of these two interventions is that such pointed public criticisms of the PCC leadership by such prominent PCC members whose party loyalty is beyond reproach, are rare. Responsible party members, especially well-known and widely respected ones, don't make such criticisms lightly. They would feel a heavy obligation to weigh up the likely consequences of such criticism for the party and for themselves. </div>
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For example, as Rodriguez acknowledges in his Open Letter, one must allow for the very real possibility that the party leadership may be better placed to judge the wisdom of what is urged, in this case delaying the Congress to allow for a public consultation process. If political principles clash with political expediency then the party leadership may be confronted with a genuine dilemma. On the other hand, the PCC leadership is—of course—far from infallible. Beset by great difficulties on all sides and by new challenges, from Obama's shift to 'soft power' subversion to a generational leadership transition at the highest level, a lapse into old habits that die hard, such as the very secrecy that Raul Castro has repeatedly denounced in recent years, is perhaps understandable. </div>
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It is nonetheless disturbing.</div>
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On March 27, <i>Granma</i> <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/granma-editorial-on-congress-concerns.html">editorialised</a> on the rumblings of discontent from the PCC base. As usual, readers submitted comments to the online version, 38 of which appear at the foot of the editorial. Most touch on the controversy, and all but a few of these are expressions of that discontent among the PCC's grassroots. A <i>Granma</i> reader identifying themselves as 'Leandro' points out that:<br />
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This would be the only Congress held to date in which core matters dealt with by the Party are not discussed with the whole population, at a time when in my judgement we need more consensus. What's more, it's one of the last Congresses to be led by the historic generation and this would set, I believe, a bad precedent for the future leaders, who would feel they have the right to hold Congresses without popular participation.</blockquote>
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The<i> Granma </i>editorial makes no mention of the leadership's earlier commitment to hold party-wide and public consultations on the Seventh Congress draft resolutions. 'Leandro' reminds readers that: </div>
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On December 20, 2014, in the closing session of the Fourth Ordinary Period of Sessions of the Eighth Legislature of the National Assembly of People's Power, General Raul Castro said: "Next year we will initiate the preparatory activities for holding the Seventh Party Congress in April 2016, prior to which there will be a broad and democratic debate with the Party membership and all of the [Cuban] people on how the implementation of the [Sixth Congress] Guidelines is progressing". On February 23, 2015, Cubadebate website published a report on the Tenth Central Committee Plenum in which an assurance was given that "... the Seventh Party Congress will be held in April 2016. Consequently, from now and during the first quarter of the year, municipal and provincial Party assemblies will be held, Party functionaries and members will be briefed, a popular consultation will be carried out and the final versions of the [Congress] documents will be processed and approved."</blockquote>
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'Leandro' notes that among the six resolutions to be put to the vote of Congress delegates are the 'Conceptualisation of the Cuban Socio-Economic Model of Socialist Development' and the 'Economic and Social Development Programme to 2030—Vision of the Nation, Strategic Axes, Objectives and Sectors'. "Given their importance, these matters should, in my judgement, be submitted to popular opinion", 'Leandro' concludes.</div>
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Another <i>Granma</i> reader, PCC activist Arturo Menendez, thinks the necessary deepening of Cuba's socialist democracy should have begun with a party-wide and public consultation in the lead-up to the Seventh Congress. The fact that such a consultation was last held five years ago is precisely the point, he adds in a second post: "The context has been changing, the world's complexities have deepened, we face new challenges now and ahead of us. There is much to be gained from the broadest discussion and analysis with the Party as a whole and with all of the [Cuban] people."</div>
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Reader 'Alzugaray' (perhaps the same Carlos Alzugaray whose essay, 'Cuba: Continuity and Political Change' I translated <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/search?q=continuity+and+political+change">here</a>) responds: "Thanks. Very descriptive information. But the question remains: why not publish the documents so that we can all see them and at least follow the Congress discussions? There's still time to remedy this deficiency". </div>
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Cuban philosopher Jose Ramon Fabelo, who participated in a panel discussion on work in Cuba that I translated <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/translation-bohemia-panel-on-economy-1.html">here</a>, concurs: </div>
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The Party Congress in Cuba is the Congress of the Cuban nation and people. Those who participate in it as delegates are only our representatives. But for those delegates to be able to fulfil this function properly, they must have at their disposal the opinions of those they represent: party members and non-members, the people in general. That there may be continuity with respect to the previous congress is no justification for not discussing the materials of this new congress with the people, with society as a whole, the historical subject whose mission and destiny will be discussed by the congress. The conceptualisation of our economic and social model is not a task for experts and social scientists alone. What should distinguish our theory is its inherent connection with revolutionary practice, and the grand subject of this revolutionary practice is the whole people, a people more than capable, thanks to the Revolution itself, of being also the subject of its own theory. Holding the congress on the date decided on (exactly five years after the previous one) should not take priority over the need to ensure its success in terms of the Revolution's social bases themselves. The most important congress is that which takes place in the streets and workplaces of revolutionary Cuba. Let's not pass up the opportunity to give another lesson in democracy—genuine democracy, Cuban style—to Obama and all those who want to throw their discredited models in our faces. Let's immediately publish all the materials, let's organise for them to be debated by all of our people. Let's hold the Congress when we've created the conditions to do it in the best way possible: without delay, yes, but without failing to do any anything that a true congress of the Cuban nation demands. That is my proposal. </blockquote>
Like Fabelo, Ernesto Estevez Rams stresses the question of representation. How, he asks, can the delegates be said to represent the PCC membership when the vast majority of party members are unaware of the content of the draft resolutions? He then poses the question in terms of democratic centralism:<br />
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It's not convincing. I understand all of the context that the article explains, but that context does not justify the lack of consultation at the base level [of the PCC]. One could use the same argumentation about context to defend [the need for] the consultation. In particular, as a Party member and a citizen, I want to be able to read and express my opinion before the approval of a document that conceptualises the economic and social (and by extension, political) model of my country. I also believe I have the right to read and express my opinion on the [economic and social development] plan to the year 2030 before it is adopted. ... The delegates are, by definition, representatives of those who elected them. This is at the heart of the democratic centralism that, we should not forget, has two sides. The congress is one of the most important democratic moments of the PCC, when our delegates express their opinion and decide, with their vote, in the name of those who elected them. Thus their opinion and vote in the Congress is not that of themselves as individuals, not those of the leadership bodies. It should be and must be the opinion and vote that reflect the consensus of those that elected them from the grassroots. How can they be elected delegates, defend the opinion of their electors on such documents, if their electors have not had access to them and therefore cannot reach agreement on what the delegate should argue for? The decision to not consult is a significant regression in terms of democratic participation and it feels like a dangerous precedent, for which there should be no attempt to compensate after the fact. Let's learn from the errors of the ex-Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party. All party members should zealously uphold the democratic side of centralism, so that democracy operates in the right way and doesn't end up being held hostage to centralism, albeit with the best of intentions. We must continually strengthen the democracy of our party so that it is the guarantor of the Revolution, in so far as it is the democratic reflex of the revolutionary vanguard of our society. </blockquote>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-53257726485237706992016-04-11T01:41:00.000+10:002016-04-15T10:30:47.666+10:00Granma editorial on Congress concerns<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This is the third of a cluster of translations on the controversy sparked by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) leadership's approach to the Seventh PCC Congress, which gets underway on April 16. The first two translations in this series are <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/open-letter-to-raul-castro-on-communist.html">here</a> and <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/the-kind-of-congress-many-of-us-wouldnt.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
On March 27, the same day Francisco 'Paquito' Rodriguez went public with his <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/open-letter-to-raul-castro-on-communist.html">Open Letter to Raul Castro</a>, <i>Granma </i>newspaper, which is published under the editorial guidance of the PCC's Central Committee as its official publication, responded to rumblings of discontent from the party's activist base with the following unsigned editorial. As usual, readers submitted comments, 37 of which appear at the foot of the online version. We'll return to these comments in a future post. </div>
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The editorial's purpose is to explain and justify three decisions of the Central Committee or perhaps its executive body, the Political Bureau: to not involve the party membership as a whole in the elaboration of the Congress documents; to not go ahead with a public consultation on these documents, which was also foreshadowed by Raul Castro on at least two occasions; and to not make any of these documents publicly available prior to the Congress.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The editorial is noteworthy both for what is says and for what it doesn't say, or doesn't mention. Its line of argument may be summarised as follows. </div>
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<br /></div>
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First, it points out that holding the Seventh Congress on April 16-19 embodies strict fulfillment of the party's <a href="http://www.pcc.cu/pdf/documentos/estatutos/estatutos6c.pdf">Statutes</a>, which state that congresses are to be held every five years except in the event of war, natural disasters or other exceptional circumstances. This is a procedural rather than a political argument. There was a 14 year interval between the Fifth Congress in 1997 and the Sixth in 2011. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The second and core argument is that a party-wide or public consultation on the Congress documents is unnecessary, because such a public consultation process was held five years ago and the decisions of the Sixth Congress are still being implemented. So the Seventh Congress will effectively be a continuation of the Sixth. In denying the membership as a whole (and the wider Cuban society) the ability to participate in the elaboration of the Congress documents, the party leadership is exercising the mandate it received in the late 2010 to early 2011 consultation:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... rather than launch a new society-wide debate process in the throes of implementation, we need to finish what we have begun, continuing to carry out the popular will expressed five years ago and advancing along the course set by the Sixth Congress.</blockquote>
<br />
The principled objection to this argument is simple and, I think, irrefutable. Shouldn't it be the party as a whole—through a delegate election process in which delegates are elected on the basis of platform documents made available to the entire membership—that decides whether the Seventh Congress will be a continuation of the Sixth, rather than a Congress in its own right?</div>
<br />
The editorial argues that because only 21% of the 2011 Congress Guidelines have been implemented to date, the Seventh Congress must necessarily be a continuation of the Sixth. Yet that same statistic could be wielded in favour of a profound reflection by the party as a whole on the viability and desirability of the course set at the Sixth Congress.<br />
<br />
The editorial seems to suggest that the draft programmatic vision document—the conceptualisation of the Cuban socialist model—is just the theoretical expression of the content of the Guidelines. If so, then why has it taken so long for the party leadership to come up with such a document? Perhaps because the Guidelines, as a set of concrete objectives more than a programmatic road-map, open the door to not one but several distinctly different socialist models.<br />
<br />
They leave unresolved the vital question posed in 2011 by Havana University planning specialist Oscar Fernandez Estrada, who asked in a footnote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
From the traditional state socialism that characterises Cuba today, is it moving towards a more decentralised state socialism? An Asian-style [i.e. Vietnamese or Chinese] market socialism? A self-managed socialism of the Yugoslavian variety? To the so-called participatory socialism of the 21st century? There is an urgent need for a debate aimed at a consensus on the key features of the vision of the future society. (See the Introduction to my <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/12538/5/cameron_ma_thesis.pdf">Master's thesis</a> 'Statist Utopianism and the Cuban Socialist Transition'—Marce Cameron)</blockquote>
<br />
That urgent and necessary debate has now happened, but behind closed doors. Its outcome will be presented to the Seventh Congress as a fait accomplit. Unable to seek a mandate for alternative resolutions from the party's activist base, which has not seen the Conceptualisation (or any other) document, delegates will have little choice but to vote for whatever the leadership has proposed.<br />
<br />
Another argument also cuts both ways. The editorial stresses the protracted nature of the drafting process, noting that some documents took longer than anticipated. Yet this leaves the Central Committee vulnerable to the suggestion that it could indeed have postponed the Congress for just a few months in order to allow for a public and party-wide consultation process.<br />
<br />
The editorial claims that the Congress delegates, elected democratically by the Party's grassroots, "represent the Party membership and the Cuban people as a whole". That's a dubious assertion, because neither the party membership nor the Cuban people as a whole have seen the documents that these delegates will be asked to vote on. How, then, can the delegates be said to represent them in any meaningful political sense?<br />
<br />
The only basis for electing delegates in the absence of one or more platform documents is personal merit and representativeness in the purely sociological sense. Thus the editorial notes the percentages of women and youth delegates. Likewise, it stresses the breadth of expertise drawn on in the party leadership's elaboration of the Congress documents. Impressive though this may be, the underlying message is surely pernicious: "Trust us and trust the experts".<br />
<br />
Finally, what this editorial doesn't say is equally striking. No mention is made of the Central Committee's previously stated intention to organise a party-wide and society-wide consultation on the draft Congress documents, nor does it explain when and why it was decided to not go ahead with the consultation. That leaves the 'when' and the 'why' open to corrosive speculation. <br />
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</div>
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<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Less than a month
till the Party Congress</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7W4ULbhTWmT4amz4FMIhvwNK8iT7v0ckUvKIPHUj17Qdky1I7v4yitmhLsfhWWcNcq2sLCidDSVcDajqOwbHfRS_HYyHmVtDxxNw-RU5pQ5rVVlO2JWNmMdSRqkIxeG35_NW0_e4Zxu86/s1600/PCC+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7W4ULbhTWmT4amz4FMIhvwNK8iT7v0ckUvKIPHUj17Qdky1I7v4yitmhLsfhWWcNcq2sLCidDSVcDajqOwbHfRS_HYyHmVtDxxNw-RU5pQ5rVVlO2JWNmMdSRqkIxeG35_NW0_e4Zxu86/s400/PCC+logo.png" width="292" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Granma </i>editorial</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
March 27, 2016
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.granma.cu/septimo-congreso-del-pcc/2016-03-27/a-menos-de-un-mes-del-congreso-del-partido-27-03-2016-21-03-54?page=1">Spanish text</a></div>
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<br /></div>
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Translation: Marce Cameron</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>The Seventh Party
Congress will convene on April 16, on the 55</i><sup><i>th</i></sup><i>
anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the
Revolution and exactly five years after the opening of Sixth
Congress. It will continue the work of the Sixth Congress and that of
the First National Party Conference [in January 2012]. </i>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Seventh Party
Congress is less than a month away. It will begin on April 16,
marking the 55<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the proclamation of the
socialist character of the Revolution and exactly five years after
the opening of the Sixth Congress, and conclude on April 19. It will
thus comply, strictly, with one of the Objectives (No. 17) adopted by
the First National Conference: uphold the interval between Congresses
that is established in the Party Statutes.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
On February 29, <i>Granma</i>
carried a detailed report on the process of electing the Congress
delegates, and reported the following day on the initiation, in all
provinces simultaneously, of the consultation meetings on the
documents that will be submitted for debate at the Congress.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The <i>Granma</i> editorial
board has received, through various means, concerns of Party activists
(and non-members) who question the reasons why, on this occasion, no
public discussion process has been planned, such as that carried out
five years ago on the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4q5Tdo3QJGZYmZlMWI2OGYtM2E5YS00MzkyLWI2OWEtZjQxZTRkMjU2ZTAz/view?pli=1">Economic and Social Policy Guidelines</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The fact that opinions
or doubts on this issue are being expressed is not at all
reprehensible, even less so when they come from people who are
genuinely concerned about the work of the party and the destiny of
the country. On the contrary, this is a reflection of the democracy
and participation that are intrinsic characteristics of the socialism
we are building. Raul Castro himself, in closing the the First
National Party Congress, made an appeal to “foster a climate of
maximum confidence and the creation of the necessary conditions at
all levels for the most inclusive and frank exchanges of opinions,
both within the [Party] and in its links to the workers and the
population (…)”.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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It has been a tradition
(or rather, a political right that has been conquered) that,
throughout the history of the Revolution, the people have always been
consulted on the big decisions. In the 1960s, the First and Second
Declarations of Havana were adopted [by dint of mass demonstrations]
in the Jose Marti Plaza of the Revolution, as well as in Santiago de
Cuba with such popular participation. The overwhelming vote of the
immense majority [of citizens] gave our republic a socialist
Constitution. And during the harshest years of the [post-Soviet]
Special Period, the Workers Parliaments, throughout the length and
breadth of the country, confirmed that Cuba would continue to be an
eternal Baragua [translator's note: an allusion to a historical event
that evokes Cuban defiance in the 19<sup>th</sup> Century war of
independence from Spain].
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fresh in the memories
of all of us is the exemplary way in which the first draft of the 291
Guidelines, which were published on November 9, 2010, were discussed.
Over three months (from December 2010 to February 2011), they were
debated by the whole population in 163,079 meetings with 8,913,838
participants. There were 3,019,471 contributions to these debates,
which were grouped into 781,644 opinions, all of which were analysed
in detail. As a result, 94 paragraphs were unchanged (32%), 197 were
amended or incorporated into others (68% of the remainder) and 36 new
guidelines were added. The 311 resultant guidelines were discussed
initially in the provinces and then in the Congress sessions by the
delegates and invitees. Two new guidelines were added and 86 (28% of
the 311) were amended. This is how the final 313 guidelines took
shape, as a genuine expression of the popular will that was ratified,
after the Congress, by the National Assembly.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Congress agreed on
the means to avoid its decisions being shelved. It recommended that
the Government set up a Permanent Commission for Implementation and
Development [of the Guidelines] which, without diminishing the role
of the Central State Administration Institutions, would ensure the
coordination and integrality of the complex process of updating the
[Cuban socialist] model. The Congress also tasked all levels of the
Party with controlling, impelling and demanding compliance with the
adopted Guidelines.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Since then, both the
Central Committee and the National Assembly have analysed the
implementation of the Congress decisions twice annually. These
evaluations have received ample media coverage, as have the meetings
of the Council of Ministers, where policies to ensure the
implementation of the Guidelines are approved.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It clear from the
outset that it would not be easy [to implement the Guidelines],
because this is not a laboratory experiment but fundamental changes
at the level of society as a whole, based on the inviolable premises
of avoiding the shock therapies of the capitalist countries and not
abandoning anyone to their fate. All of this against the backdrop of
an international economic crisis and the omnipresent, malicious [US]
blockade.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In his Main Report to
the Congress, <i>Compañero</i> Raul [Castro] warned of the
difficulties that lay ahead: “We are convinced that the task ahead
of us in this and other matters related to the updating of the
economic model is full of complexities and interrelations that touch,
to one degree or another, on every facet of society as a whole. Given
this, we know that it is not a question of one day nor even one year,
and that it will take at least five years for the implementation to
unfold with the necessary harmony and coherence...”.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Indeed it has. The
balance sheet of what has been achieved in the past five years shows
that 21% of the Guidelines have now been implemented, while 77% are
in the process of implementation. The other 2% (five guidelines) have
not been carried out for various reasons. We must take into account
the fact that an important part of the most complex transformations
began to be implemented in 2014 and 2015, and are only now beginning
to bear fruit.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Given all this, rather
than launch a new society-wide debate process in the throes of
implementation, we need to finish what we have begun, continuing to
carry out the popular will expressed five years ago and advancing
along the course set by the Sixth Congress. Accordingly, the Seventh
Congress will take place after the evaluation meetings of the Party's
base committees, as well as those of the municipal and provincial
Party Committees. The reports presented in the provinces were
published in full in the local press, and their contents were debated
by hundreds of collectives nationwide.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The documents that will
be taken to the Congress are the result of a collective elaboration
in which dozens of functionaries, economic and social science
researchers and professors participated. They were analysed in the
advisory Scientific Council of the Implementation Commission, which
comprises more than 130 highly qualified specialists.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The documents were
later discussed in the Central Committee Plenums in December and
January, having been refined by successive approximations. The
observations and proposals made by the members of this party
leadership body were taken into consideration in the new versions of
each of the six documents that were then subjected to profound
scrutiny in the [provincial Party leadership] consultation meetings
that took place, simultaneously, in all of the provinces.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Present in these
meetings were the thousand Congress delegates, proposed by the
grassroots elected democratically, which represent the Party
membership and the Cuban people as a whole. Women make up a large
proportion (43%) of the delegates, and while it is logical that, as a
rule, women and men who have accumulated considerable experience are
elected to participate in an event of this nature, among the
delegates are 55 young people under 35 years of age.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Also attending the
consultation meetings were more than 3500 invitees, who also made
proposals to enrich the documents. Among them were the deputies to
the National Assembly, representatives of the Central State
Administration Institutions, university professors, researchers from
scientific institutions, local leaders of the mass organisations
[translator's note: e.g. the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution, Federation of Cuban Women], representatives of our civil
society, religious leaders, students, peasants, intellectuals and
artists. Not all invitees were Party members.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of the documents
assesses the progress of the economy in 2011-15. Another assesses the
implementation of the Guidelines. A third document updates the
Guidelines for the period 2016-20.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The fourth document, of
great theoretical importance, is a conceptualisation of the Cuban
socialist economic and social development model. The fifth is the
economic and social development Programme to 2030. Both documents
focus on the country that we aspire to: they set out the nation's
economic and social strategy, and the tactical means to achieve this
aspiration is precisely the Guidelines and their implementation. The
basis of these documents is the content of the Guidelines approved by
the Sixth Congress, and they reflect the Guideline's continuity and
development. They do not, then, depart from the path set out on. They
take what was consulted on and discussed [prior to the Sixth
Congress] with the whole of the Party, and with the people, to the
next level.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The sixth document
assesses the degree to which the Objectives approved by the First
National Party Conference in January 2012 have been fulfilled. In
general the evaluation is positive, and the document projects their
continued implementation.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One can imagine the
complexity of the elaboration of these documents, which in some cases
took longer than initially expected.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The documents are
closely interrelated. They analyse what has been achieved to date,
what remains to be done, and orient to the future in the
socio-economic and political-ideological spheres. They cannot be
viewed as static documents: they will be debated in the Seventh
Congress and, like their predecessors, will have to be submitted to
periodic evaluation.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Seventh
Congress will continue the work of the Sixth and that of the First
National Party Conference. It will allow for the path ahead to be
sketched out with far more precision, so that our nation—sovereign
and truly independent from the triumph of January 1, 1959—may build
a prosperous and sustainable socialism. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-23023364927666588862016-04-08T16:04:00.000+10:002016-04-15T10:30:29.757+10:00The kind of Congress many of us wouldn't have wanted<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj3MeprIPeIBHwhMBFFoOpfVX_ptfhhS17M2ORv6LD0VKVWzY1nws8DYleIbSnWOIsasAMUp7AWXX2MLkTFx1bD67g1FcvC_sWoCa-9TvGyXjcvzSJfGLP47FsQ2wnHl4coHTS3JREwqlX/s1600/7MO-Congreso-PCC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj3MeprIPeIBHwhMBFFoOpfVX_ptfhhS17M2ORv6LD0VKVWzY1nws8DYleIbSnWOIsasAMUp7AWXX2MLkTFx1bD67g1FcvC_sWoCa-9TvGyXjcvzSJfGLP47FsQ2wnHl4coHTS3JREwqlX/s400/7MO-Congreso-PCC.jpg" width="400" /></a>This is the second of a cluster of translations on the controversy sparked by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) leadership's approach to the Seventh PCC Congress, which gets underway on April 16. The first translation is <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/open-letter-to-raul-castro-on-communist.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Esteban Morales Dominguez is a prominent and prestigious Cuban intellectual. He is an authority on US-Cuba relations and, especially, race relations in Cuba. He is also a PCC activist and one of Cuba's most outspoken intellectuals, very much in the tradition of the late <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/search?q=alfredo+guevara">Alfredo Guevara</a>.<br />
<br />
In June 2010, Morales' membership of the PCC was suspended—one step short of expulsion—for warning, in a candid <a href="http://progresoweekly.us/corruption-the-true-counter-revolution/">commentary</a>, that high-level corruption (and not US-sponsored 'dissident' grouplets) was the real counterrevolution in Cuba. In doing so, he was merely echoing and expanding on Raul Castro's own such warnings as president, and complying with his repeated appeals for Cuban communists to speak their minds. Morales appealed the suspension by his PCC municipal committee, and was eventually <a href="http://estebanmoralesdominguez.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/mensaje-mis-lectores-y-amigos.html">reinstated</a> by the party's appeals commission after receiving numerous public gestures of solidarity.<br />
<br />
Here, Morales expresses his disappointment at the way the Seventh PCC Congress is being organised. One senses his fury behind the acerbic bite.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The kind of Congress many of us wouldn't have wanted</b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By Esteban Morales<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cubasays.com/politica/congreso-muchos-no-lo-hubieramos-deseado/">Spanish original</a><br />
<br />
Translation: Marce Cameron</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Havana, February 14,
2016</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxRNAWo2UeZbwooBrLVlmvPK0wW1nhxVjGhhrKAxm2hsIiRe-wqtFrW6eauUjt2sHWat1nUed9zmxo_G6UN4_tXZ0DzK8NNnSeDYvq_bwFIGCsAOhtZWsi7zGwn__ILaUKtYw-jCJeohv7/s1600/Esteban-Morales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxRNAWo2UeZbwooBrLVlmvPK0wW1nhxVjGhhrKAxm2hsIiRe-wqtFrW6eauUjt2sHWat1nUed9zmxo_G6UN4_tXZ0DzK8NNnSeDYvq_bwFIGCsAOhtZWsi7zGwn__ILaUKtYw-jCJeohv7/s200/Esteban-Morales.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
For months I've been
asking for the Congress documents. Especially given the contribution
we've all made towards the “Conceptualisation” [of Cuba's
emerging socialist model]. Yet we've received no information at all. In the same way that they have informed us that the discussion process is moving forward, we grassroots party activists will have no information other than that published in <i>Granma </i>or, at the end of
the day, what we are told about the Congress decisions.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I certainly regard it
as unfortunate, to put it mildly, that we, the party base, will have to inform ourselves about the documents given the procedure adopted.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I ask myself: How democratic is our party? Have we advanced? What about
everything that the highest leadership of the party has so often reiterated about changing the methods and styles of party work? If the work
methods are going to change, then I assume it will be to
advance—rather than to regress, as I believe is happening to us
now.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Not long ago, I said in
a meeting of my party branch that the way we were going, this would
be a “Bottled Congress”, since only those present would drink from it.
Now I'd say: “It'll be a Congress of Cadres” [i.e. of party
officials rather than ordinary members].
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What are the
circumstances that have led us to hold a congress such as the one
we're going to convene? Was it a question of principle to do it in
April [i.e. exactly five years since the last Congress]? Could we not
have waited a few more months so that the activist base as a whole
would have an opportunity to read and express opinions on the
documents, before they go to the Congress? I must say that I see no
justification whatsoever for us committing the 'grave political
error' of convening a Congress without the mass of grassroots
activists—which I consider to be the real party—having access to
the documents to be approved by the Congress in order to discuss
them. Have we given up on being a Leninist party? I am yet to hear anyone tell me that.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think the
consequences of convening a congress in this way are not going to be
wholly positive. The activist base is indignant, and rightly so.
Undoubtedly because we've regressed in terms of party democracy,
because we've disregarded the activist base, which struggles and
grapples with our daily difficulties; which has given its all and
even its blood for this country, this Revolution and our party.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's not that we can't
feel represented by the very large delegation that will be at this
congress. I think they all deserve to be there. But the activist base
also has the right to participate in the congress. Not as
delegates, which would be absurd; but as voices which, from the
remotest corner of the country, would have wished and still desire to see these documents, to read them, think about them and express opinions on them in order to enrich them. Not to receive something
already decided on, which they cannot make any changes to. I don't
believe there would be even one grassroots party activist who could
feel pleased with how this congress will be [organised]. Maybe it's a
subjective judgement on my part, but my broad and continuous contact
with Cuban society—as an intellectual but also as a common citizen,
going to the produce market, riding the bus and walking around
Havana, talking with many people on the street, every day—tells me
this.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
An important mass of
revolutionaries, people who are intelligent and capable, selfless,
will participate in this congress. There will be much revolutionary
spirit and much merit embodied in this congress. But outside it, there
will also be hundreds who could have felt that the party has confidence in them, however humble they may be, to do what will be done at the
congress, which is to decide the destiny of our country. That's
something we all have the right to. Otherwise, what is the point of us being Party activists?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<br /></div>
Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-76227260799883378362016-04-07T22:19:00.000+10:002016-04-15T10:30:17.366+10:00Open letter to Raul Castro on the Communist Party CongressAfter a hiatus of more than a year, during which I have been grieving the tragic death of my beloved comrade and partner of fourteen years, Maria Voukelatos, I feel ready to return to my translations and commentaries. Maria would have wished me to do so. In taking up this blog again I honour and cherish her memory, especially her commitment to Cuba's communist cause.<br />
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The Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) is scheduled to begin on April 16. The cluster of translations I hope to complete and share with readers in the coming days, beginning with the open letter to Raul Castro that follows, relate to the controversy surrounding the preparations for this congress.<br />
<br />
In contrast to the six previous congresses, neither the vast majority of the PCC's 700,000 or so members, nor the wider Cuban society, have been consulted on the content of key programmatic and strategic documents that will presumably be approved by the one thousand Congress delegates that have been elected by the party's grassroots committees. What's more, only the delegates themselves, plus National Assembly deputies and some 3500 consultants, such as high-level PCC cadres and academic experts, have been given access to the draft documents, which have not been made public prior to the Congress.<br />
<br />
Precedent aside, concerned PCC activists have pointed out that the PCC's Central Committee had foreshadowed both a discussion among the membership and a wider public consultation on the content of the Congress documents, leading to an expectation among the membership that such a debate would take place. As late as February 23, the PCC daily, <i>Granma</i>, <a href="http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2015-02-23/efectuado-x-pleno-del-comite-central-del-partido-comunista-de-cuba">noted</a> (in a report on the Central Committee's Tenth Plenum) that pending preparatory tasks included municipal and provincial party assemblies and "a popular consultation" on the documents.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, also known as 'Paquito', is a PCC activist based in Havana. On his personal blog he describes himself as a disciple of Cuba's national hero Jose Martí, a communist, an atheist and gay. He is also an academic, a journalist for the Cuban trade union confederation's <i>Trabajadores</i> newspaper and a prominent gay rights activist. As a gay rights activist, he is said to be close to Mariela Castro, Raul Castro's daughter, who heads Cuba's National Centre for Sex Education—an institution that under Mariela's leadership has lent itself to the struggle against homophobia.<br />
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* * *<br />
<div>
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<div>
<b>Open letter to Raul
Castro: Postpone the Seventh Party Congress till July</b><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
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By Francisco Rodriguez Cruz<br />
<br />
<a href="https://paquitoeldecuba.com/2016/03/28/carta-abierta-a-raul-castro-o-aplazar-hasta-julio-el-vii-congreso-del-partido/#more-2683">Spanish original</a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Translation: Marce Cameron</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Havana, March 27, 2016</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Year 58 of the
Revolution</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To: <i>Compañero </i>Raúl
Castro Ruz,<br />
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist
Party</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is now two months
since I first raised my concern—mostly within the Party, as is my
right as a Party activist—regarding the preparatory process for the
Cuban Communist Party's Seventh Congress, which is scheduled for
April 16-19.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In essence, my
dissatisfaction is founded on the lack of discussion of the key
Congress documents—which are still shrouded in secrecy—in both
the grassroots Party committees and among the rest of the citizenry.
I have publically expressed my view that this constitutes a backwards
step in relation to previous political processes.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To date, not only have
I not received a direct or persuasive response to my concern, but I
have received, through various channels, opinions and support from
other people, Party members and non-members alike, who share my dim
view of this process.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Moreover, I am aware of
at least one municipality in Havana where this topic was discussed
seriously by the local Party secretaries. However, it is not my
intention to speak on behalf of anyone, because I do not really know
how widely my concerns are shared. In any case, the Party and you
yourself have taught us that concerns of citizens, even those of only
one person, can, should and must receive all the attention and
analysis they deserve. With this in mind, not long ago I made a
concrete proposal in my local Party committee: postpone the convening
of the Seventh Party Congress till July 24-27.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This postponement of
only three months would allow for the key Congress documents to be
discussed by the Party membership as a whole, as well as with the
rest of the citizenry, during April and May. This would still leave
June to process the discussion, study it, improve the documents and
incorporate proposals.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It is a strategic
advantage that the documents are already known to the one thousand Congress delegates and to the National Assembly deputies, as well as to
hundreds of Party leaders in their various intermediate-level
leadership bodies. Those who have seen the documents could prepare
and lead this grassroots analysis, and do so quickly and in depth.
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There is no doubt a
debate such as this, broad and participatory, would allow for the
refinement of such programmatic documents and would confer on the
Congress, and its decisions, even greater legitimacy on the basis of
a wider social consensus.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I understand that this
could complicate things in terms of practicalities, but you yourself
have often insisted that we must proceed 'without haste, but without
pause'. It is true that I do not have all of the information that the
leadership of the Revolution has at its disposal; yet I see no reason
to rush so decisive a political process for the future of our country
if its preparation has not yet reached maturity.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finally, I ask you and
the Party leadership to forgive me if I have gone about this in the
wrong way by making public this suggestion. If the Party considers
this an inexcusable breach of discipline, then I am willing to
shoulder responsibility for it.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My modest intention
here is to try to convey this concern to the Party leadership without
intermediaries, and to perhaps contribute to sparking a debate on
this question among the rest of the Party activists and in Cuban
society as a whole, when so little time remains—less than a
month—before the date initially set for the Congress.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In doing all I can to
convey this serious concern to you, I am also keeping my word. I made
this promise to a fellow Party activist, an experienced comrade with
an impressive revolutionary biography. With heartfelt words and revolutionary fervour, he had been looking forward to a more grassroots-oriented Congress of his lifelong Party.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Revolucionariamente</i>,
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Francisco Rodríguez
Cruz<br />
Communist Party activist<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
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Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-17727419654816071002015-03-02T11:24:00.000+11:002015-07-25T15:44:22.650+10:00Obama's Cuba calculus An edited version of this commentary has been published under the heading 'Obama's plans for Cuba' in this week's edition of Australia's <i><a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58402">Green Left Weekly</a></i>. This is the second commentary in a series on Obama's December 17 announcement on US-Cuba relations and its implications. The first is <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/obamas-new-cuba-policy-mcdonalds-in-old.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Obama's Cuba calculus </b><br />
<br />
By Marce Cameron<br />
<br />
A second round of talks between US and Cuban diplomats was held in Washington last week with the aim of restoring diplomatic relations. In what he termed the most significant Cuba policy shift in more than fifty years, Barack Obama has announced that he will pursue diplomatic relations and urge Congress to dismantle the US blockade of Cuba.<br />
<br />
Rather than siege and isolation, the US will now pursue a policy of "freedom and openness", based on Obama's belief in the transformative power of "people-to-people engagement." In other words, US citizens would be free to travel to Cuba and US corporations would be free to trade with and invest in Cuba. "We are taking steps to increase travel, commerce, and the flow of information to and from Cuba", Obama said in his December 17 announcement.<br />
<br />
Obama's concept of freedom does not embrace the sovereign right of the Cuban nation to pursue its socialist commitment free from US interference. Quite the opposite: Obama hopes that an influx of American tourists and, eventually, US corporations will gradually erode that commitment from within. Rather than implode, the Cuban Revolution would fade away.<br />
<br />
<b>US isolation</b><br />
<br />
Ironically, the prevailing US policy of siege and isolation—which dates back to the early 1960s—has failed because the US has merely succeeded in isolating itself. As Obama noted, "no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions". Cuba's allies, especially Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, have thrown Cuba's besieged post-capitalist economy a lifeline.<br />
<br />
When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Cuba lost some 85% of its foreign trade almost overnight. The Cuban economy contracted 35%, the US ratcheted up the blockade and some predicted the imminent collapse of Cuba's government. Today, the diversification of Cuba's trading partners softens the impact of the blockade and renders it increasingly ineffective. <br />
<br />
US allies such as Canada and the European Union resent the fact that their own citizens can be prosecuted in US courts for doing business with Cuba. On the other hand, Cuba is one of the very few countries where foreign investors face no competition from US corporations—thanks to the blockade. US corporations "should not be put at a disadvantage", Obama said.<br />
<br />
On the diplomatic front, the isolation of the US is glaring. When the US severed diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1962, then used its influence to coerce other countries to do likewise, every state in the Western hemisphere—except for Mexico and Canada—followed the US lead.<br />
<br />
From Chile to Honduras, the US has helped overthrow elected governments and has propped up client dictatorships in the region. Cuba has been excluded from the US-led Organisation of American States (OAS) on the basis of its supposed lack of democracy and human rights.<br />
<br />
Today, the US cannot even exclude Cuba from its own hemispheric forum. After Ecuador threatened to boycott OAS summits unless Cuba is invited, Obama bowed to Latin American pressure. Cuba's President Raul Castro will now attend the OAS summit in April.<br />
<br />
Obama tried to salvage something from this diplomatic humiliation by insisting that Cuba's ''dissidents" (i.e. US-financed opposition grouplets) be represented at the OAS summit. At the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit in Costa Rica in January, Raul Castro countered: why not then invite representatives of the hemisphere's indigenous peoples, peasants, workers, women, students and the other popular sectors?<br />
<br />
CELAC is an initiative of Venezuela and Cuba. All Latin American and Caribbean nations are members, while the US and Canada—the imperialist superpower and its regional sidekick—are excluded. CELAC, which overshadows the OAS, could well condemn it to irrelevance.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wyGX5ylYQMu39whucaZgSfWYVYnuMvMt0CDeabRXhpLbqeRaZDm4VdZ-IBhFjeOmGi3fztfHykLs9kFedxZ1A6me3yo95qoEZRB-oCn4M-dzK50Pl0QDZ-PgI4yXDBx8qbtRpg-vO5b5/s1600/cuban+delegation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wyGX5ylYQMu39whucaZgSfWYVYnuMvMt0CDeabRXhpLbqeRaZDm4VdZ-IBhFjeOmGi3fztfHykLs9kFedxZ1A6me3yo95qoEZRB-oCn4M-dzK50Pl0QDZ-PgI4yXDBx8qbtRpg-vO5b5/s1600/cuban+delegation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">US-Cuba talks: the Cuban delegation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Obama's Cuba policy shift is partly, then, a response to waning US hegemony in its own regional 'backyard'. Opening a US embassy in Havana has taken on an air of urgency, with US officials keen to demonstrate to the OAS summit in April that Obama is serious about a new era in US-Cuba relations. This urgency stacks the negotiating cards in Cuba's favour. <br />
<br />
<b>Elite divisions</b><br />
<br />
There is a consensus among the US capitalist elite and its political representatives that the Cuban Revolution must be undermined and defeated. Addressing opponents of his new Cuba policy, Obama said that he shares their "commitment to liberty and democracy [i.e. to capitalist restoration in Cuba]. The question is how we uphold that commitment."<br />
<br />
The failure of the US blockade to achieve its core objective—a concatenation of misery, demoralisation, social unrest and political upheaval leading to the installation of a US client regime—is evident to the realists within the US ruling class, Obama among them. As Obama put it, one cannot do "the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result."<br />
<br />
Supporters of the blockade counter that dismantling it would only play into the hands of "the Castro regime". Cuba will hail the US rapprochement as a propaganda victory, they point out. Revenues from US tourism, trade and investment would fill the coffers of Cuba's communist state. Obama wants to unilaterally relinquish his biggest bargaining chip: the blockade.<br />
<br />
When it comes to imperial strategy, deep divisions remain. Yet the tide is clearly turning against the blockade, and its demise—however incremental—now seems only a matter of time. Obama's December 17 speech marks, in all probability, the beginning of its end.<br />
<br />
Behind these strategic divisions lurk powerful material interests. The anti-Castro lobby, led by a coterie of Cuban-American millionaires and billionaires, still wields a considerable yet waning influence in Washington's corridors of power. Old dreams—of returning to Cuba to take possession of mansions, factories and farms—die hard. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, powerful sectors of US capital want Congress to scrap the blockade, so they can get on down to Cuba and make big bucks. The US oil industry wants a piece of the action in Cuba's deep-water oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico; from Vermont apple growers to Mississippi rice farmers, US agribusiness wants to sell more food to Cuba. <br />
<br />
US airline and tourism companies drool over Cuba's pristine beaches, colonial facades and cultural effervescence. Southern US port operators and shipping firms are preparing for a post-blockade scenario in which Cuba is the vibrant hub of Caribbean trade and tourism.<br />
<br />
Cuba's vast new port facilities at Mariel, some 40km west of Havana, point to that possible future. For the time being at least, the sectors of US capital that stand to gain most from a dismantling of the blockade can only watch as their competitors submit investment proposals for the Mariel Special Development Zone that surrounds the new port.<br />
<br />
<b>Changes in Cuba</b><br />
<br />
While Cuba has yet to fully emerge from the post-Soviet 'Special Period', crisis management has given way to establishing the bases—political, economic and ideological—for what Raul Castro terms a prosperous and sustainable socialism. Realists among the US elite no longer believe that another few years of blockade-induced privations and suffering might precipitate social unrest and a political crisis in Cuba. Cuba's working people endured far worse, in the early 1990s, without rising up against their own government. <br />
<br />
Instead of seeking to undermine Cuba socialism by blockading it, the pro-'engagment' wing of the US elite seek to take advantage of, and influence, the changes to Cuba's socialist model under Raul Castro's presidency. These changes—such as the promotion of self-employment, small businesses and cooperative management of state property—do not respond to US demands that Cuba adopt a 'free-maket' economy and 'free' elections.<br />
<br />
Rather, they respond to the need to revitalise Cuba's socialist project if it is to endure long after Fidel Castro's generation has departed the scene. As veteran Cuban journalist Luis Sexto has aptly observed: "Cuba, rigid for many years, shakes off the starch that immobilised it to change what is obsolete ... without compromising the solidity of the Revolution's power".<br />
<br />
While not in response to US demands for change, some of these changes do coincide, if only partially, with US demands. For example, Obama said in his December 17 speech that under his new Cuba policy, the US would seek to support "the emerging Cuban private sector" and noted, approvingly, that "Cuba has made reforms to gradually open up its economy".<br />
<br />Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-3356517275202838392015-02-02T14:22:00.000+11:002015-02-03T16:33:31.678+11:00Obama’s new Cuba policy: McDonald's in Old Havana?This commentary was written for and first published in Australia's <i><a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58169">Green Left Weekly</a></i>.<i> </i><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Obama’s new Cuba policy: McDonald's in Old Havana?</b><br />
<br />
By Marce Cameron<br />
<br />
“I want to see Cuba before everything changes,” is how many reacted to Barack Obama’s surprise December 17 announcement that he would restore diplomatic relations with Cuba — severed by the US in 1961 — and urge Congress to lift the US blockade.<br />
<br />
Seeing Cuba for oneself can only be encouraged, but those who fear that it will soon be transformed by American tourists, US corporations and commercialism need not rush to book flights.<br />
<br />
Hordes of American tourists and a hotel boom to accommodate them may well be inevitable, but a US corporate invasion is not. Fears or hopes that Obama’s new Cuba policy will unleash a US corporate take-over and cultural recolonisation are unfounded. These fears and hopes are based on the dubious assumption that what holds back the tide of capitalist restoration on the Cuban archipelago is, ironically, the US blockade.<br />
<br />
Were this assumption to hold Caribbean water, we would have to credit the US blockade with Cuba’s tenacious independence and dogged commitment to socialism. That would be absurd: the blockade is a gross violation of Cuba’s right to self-determination.<br />
<br />
It has succeeded in undermining, distorting and stunting Cuba’s socialist project. This is why Cuba’s socialist government has always demanded the lifting of the blockade.<br />
<br />
In reality, what holds back the tide of capitalist restoration that presses in from outside (and wells up from within) is not the US blockade. It is the Cuban Revolution.<br />
<br />
<b>Obama’s stance</b><br />
<br />
Obama knows this, which is why he pledged that lifting the blockade — which, he pointed out, has failed to bring US-style "democracy" to Cuba — will be accompanied by US efforts to subjugate Cuba by other, less confrontational means. One such means is coopting the emerging small business sector.<br />
<br />
Whether Obama’s new approach to undermining the Cuban Revolution turns out to be more effective than the policy of siege and isolation remains to be seen. As Havana University’s Jesus Arboleya argues, it is far from inevitable that the owner of a pizza shop, a flower stand or a beauty salon will abandon their commitment to Cuban independence, social justice and solidarity for the siren song of US imperialism. They are natural allies of the working class and can make a positive contribution to Cuba’s socialist transitional economy.<br />
<br />
What is clear is that restoring US-Cuba diplomatic relations and lifting the blockade will not, in and of itself, allow US corporations to dominate Cuba once again. Nor will it trigger a wave of privatisations of Cuba’s socialist state property, or an end to Cubans’ constitutional right to health care and education at all levels free of charge.<br />
<br />
That would require the demolition or degeneration of two institutional pillars of the Revolution: the Cuban Communist Party and the socialist state it leads. This is precisely what the blockade has failed to achieve.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNu-7lKqdx2mHS90RIoczt6oD520wfTBAuELdirDLKZyYHobUCzkdDhiztp1A-fnoDSGHdHDG2CRG_kpOjjN9U-f4Hdxz15MYVQNsonlLrhvuJj8yqrYAtgtNjOmcGyNTFWuzpcClrlqXA/s1600/old+havana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNu-7lKqdx2mHS90RIoczt6oD520wfTBAuELdirDLKZyYHobUCzkdDhiztp1A-fnoDSGHdHDG2CRG_kpOjjN9U-f4Hdxz15MYVQNsonlLrhvuJj8yqrYAtgtNjOmcGyNTFWuzpcClrlqXA/s1600/old+havana.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a>The failure of the blockade to destroy the Revolution — and Obama’s decision to act on the recognition of this failure — should be seen for what it is: a triumph of Cuba’s working people over half a century of brutal siege by the mightiest empire in history. Rather than recognise this inconvenient truth, Obama repeated the myth that the blockade has failed to bring about Iraq-style regime change because it has “provid[ed] the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people.”<br />
<br />
The myth that the Revolution is propped up by the blockade is widespread among both liberal critics and admirers of socialist Cuba. In reality, the blockade has failed to bring about regime change for two fundamental reasons: millions of ordinary Cuban citizens remain deeply committed to the Revolution’s core principles; and the calibre of Cuba’s communist leadership. Obama wasn’t going to congratulate his adversaries.<br />
<br />
Obama lied about the aims of the blockade: “Proudly, the United States has supported democracy and human rights in Cuba through these five decades … primarily through policies that aimed to isolate the island,” he claimed.<br />
<br />
This is demonstrably false. The blockade’s real objectives have nothing to do with democracy and human rights. A declassified US State Department memo dated April 6, 1960 explains: “Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba … to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of [Cuba’s revolutionary] government.”<br />
<br />
This has always been the blockade’s core objective, but admitting it would oblige the US — morally if not legally — to compensate Cuba for the US$117 billion in damages to the Cuban economy caused by the blockade in the 54 years to 2014, according to Cuban government estimates.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere in his speech, Obama let slip the real objective of the blockade. It serves neither “America’s interests, or the Cuban people,” he said, “to try to push Cuba toward collapse … Even if that worked — and it hasn’t for 50 years — we know … that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos.”<br />
<br />
In other words, the US will now seek to undermine Cuban sovereignty by other means.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSMj_RXS0lWHf1CIqmZmXqd4T-_bBpwBmDlyrQEu79wg-8RioG0aLFD56ak6jkE5_zwyWms2jD4mL9Bet0JmyFHhunw6LLHd_7E_haMSMbwoisl-xXIuNakLuHDzKRTvqw007E1RdZSOTg/s1600/mcdonalds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSMj_RXS0lWHf1CIqmZmXqd4T-_bBpwBmDlyrQEu79wg-8RioG0aLFD56ak6jkE5_zwyWms2jD4mL9Bet0JmyFHhunw6LLHd_7E_haMSMbwoisl-xXIuNakLuHDzKRTvqw007E1RdZSOTg/s1600/mcdonalds.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a>Obama neither acknowledged nor apologised for acts of terrorism and sabotage for which the US state is directly or indirectly responsible, among them more than 600 plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and the blowing up of a Cuban civilian airliner in 1976 with the loss of 73 lives.<br />
<br />
He described the Cuban Five anti-terrorism heroes, three of which were sent home to Cuba as part of a prisoner exchange agreed to with Cuban president Raul Castro, as “spies”.<br />
<br />
Announcing that he had ordered a review of the State Department’s classification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism — a status that obliges the US to impose financial sanctions — Obama stressed that the review “will be guided by the facts and the law.” This was a tacit admission that branding Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism is politicised and baseless.<br />
<br />
Obama thanked the Pope for urging the US and Cuba to resolve their differences through dialogue, and the Canadian government for hosting secret high-level talks between the US and Cuban governments. These talks culminated in a phone conversation between Obama and Raul Castro, on December 16, in which the details of the prisoner swap were finalised.<br />
<br />
<b>No concessions</b><br />
<br />
The fact that the Cuban and US governments engaged in a discreet dialogue prior to Obama’s announcement does not mean that Raul Castro’s government is caving in to US pressure and negotiating the terms of the Revolution’s surrender.<br />
<br />
In return for Obama’s pledge to restore diplomatic relations and urge Congress to end the blockade, Cuba has made no concessions whatsoever to long-standing US demands for ‘free’ elections and a ‘free-market’ economy.<br />
<br />
Some conservative critics of Obama are incensed at the unilateral nature of the US policy shift. The US should use the blockade as a bargaining chip, they argue. Any steps towards the resumption of diplomatic relations and any easing of the blockade should be tied to Cuban concessions to US demands for changes to Cuba’s political system and property regime.<br />
<br />
Unlike his conservative critics, Obama recognises that this approach hasn't worked for more than five decades. Cuba refuses to negotiate on matters of principle and has proved immune to bullying and blackmail. Given this, the only realistic approach is a unilateral one. (The prisoner swap was not a concession by either side, but a mutually beneficial exchange.)<br />
<br />
On the same day that Obama announced his new Cuba policy, Raul Castro reiterated that Cuba has always been open to “respectful dialogue” with the US, but only on the basis of “sovereign equality” and complete respect for Cuban self-determination. He noted that as president, Fidel Castro had conveyed to the US on numerous occasions Cuba’s “willingness to discuss and resolve our differences without renouncing any of our principles.”<br />
<br />
<b>'Co-existing'</b><br />
<br />
Cuba would continue to uphold these principles. Meanwhile, the US and Cuba “must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilized manner”. In a speech to Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power on December 20, Raul Castro noted that Cuba has “strong convictions and many concerns regarding what happens in the US with respect to democracy and human rights” and would like to discuss these concerns with the US.<br />
<br />
Castro stressed that Cuba would not, in order to improve relations with the US, “renounce the ideas for which it has struggled for more than a century, for which its people have shed much blood and run the greatest of risks. In the same way that we have never proposed that the United States change its political system, we will demand respect for ours.”<br />
<br />
To thunderous applause, he continued: “It is necessary [for the US] to understand that Cuba is a sovereign state whose people, voting freely in a [1976] referendum to approve the Constitution, decided on its socialist course and political, economic and social system.”<br />
<br />
[Marce Cameron is president of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society (Sydney) and blogs at Cuba's Socialist Renewal.]Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-79516665319319851102015-01-23T18:02:00.000+11:002015-01-24T20:06:34.152+11:00Finally, my Masters thesis on Cuba<div style="text-align: right;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8xFw-PI0tbAgEn0SlwbB16ZH4L5AZnP8t5lzUkMdB2F2dAimMQ5crxwzcyHC1GTk-enEU5LGAqfVCNHhyphenhyphenSU4CSwHVbQoF-SNk7QGl5gQPuhW4GKQJ-LNxaQF_EfVIw5JcuoC4UMYtNUo/s1600/thesis_image_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8xFw-PI0tbAgEn0SlwbB16ZH4L5AZnP8t5lzUkMdB2F2dAimMQ5crxwzcyHC1GTk-enEU5LGAqfVCNHhyphenhyphenSU4CSwHVbQoF-SNk7QGl5gQPuhW4GKQJ-LNxaQF_EfVIw5JcuoC4UMYtNUo/s1600/thesis_image_2.jpg" height="320" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>You can read my thesis by clicking <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/12538/5/cameron_ma_thesis.pdf">here</a></b></td></tr>
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Dear readers of Cuba's Socialist Renewal,<br />
<br />
After a two-and-a-half year hiatus, I'm pleased to announce that I'll resume posting original translations and commentaries in 2015, beginning with this post.<br />
<br />
As explained in my last post in August 2012, I began work on a Masters thesis on Cuba's socialist transition, under the auspices of Sydney University's Department of Political Economy—a thesis that would build on the translations and analyses that I've shared with you via this blog. At the outset, I had no intention of setting aside the blog to write the thesis, but the need to focus intensely on the thesis conspired against my best intentions.<br />
<br />
Other life commitments also had to take precedence for a while, and what I had misunderstood to be a one-year time frame for research, writing and coursework was actually a two-year submission deadline. Naturally, I made the most of that extra year to delve deeper, refine the argument and polish the exposition. I was rewarded for this effort with a most unexpected (yet most gratifying) High Distinction grade.<br />
<br />
I began the thesis under the supervision of Dr Tim Anderson and completed it under the supervision of Dr Damien Cahill, both from the Political Economy department at Sydney University. I am indebted to them for their encouragement, guidance and patience. The whole process was a steep learning curve for me: I joked with my supervisors that I had to undergo my own 'socialist transition' to academic writing, which differs from blog commentaries in structure, style and rigour.<br />
<br />
As you can see from a glance at the references list, I made extensive use of original translations posted to this blog as source material. Those of you inclined to read the thesis itself will find that key themes and threads of argument elaborated here are woven into the thesis. In other words, the thesis is a continuation of the work shared with you here since December 2010. As noted in the thesis Introduction, my thesis is a work of conceptual synthesis, historical analysis and reinterpretation.<br />
<br />
While it stands alone as an academic thesis, it was not written in pursuit of an academic career. Rather, its primary purpose is to serve as a contribution to the wider debate—above all among partisans, solidarity activists and sympathisers of the Cuban Revolution—on the past, present and future of Cuba's socialist project. While I had to make certain unavoidable concessions to academic style, it is written with this wider audience in mind—avoiding, I hope, any lapses into unexplained Marxist jargon or into arcane or incomprehensible 'academese'.<br />
<br />
I would love to translate this thesis into Spanish, but a golden rule of translation is 'never translate your own work'. Besides, I can translate from Spanish to English reasonably competently, but the other way only crudely. Only a native Spanish speaker with a keen grasp of the Cuban context and of Marxism could do it justice.<br />
<br />
That's enough about my thesis, except to say that it's freely accessible <a href="http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/12538/5/cameron_ma_thesis.pdf">here</a> by anyone anywhere; and that I welcome any feedback and constructive criticism you may have via email or, if you like, as comments posted below this post. Please feel free to forward the above link (or the associated PDF file) to anyone who may be interested.<br />
<br />
Over the coming months I will resume translations and commentaries on Cuba's socialist renewal, as I see it, and the context in which this renovation process is now unfolding: the beginning of the end of the US blockade signalled by Obama's December 17 statement on US-Cuba relations. In other words, the Cuban Revolution's triumph over half a century of siege and isolation, and the pursuit of US imperialism's historic objectives by other, less confrontational means.<br />
<br />
Before concluding this post, I should also mention that I had the honour of being elected president of the Sydney branch of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society in June. As part of the global Cuba solidarity movement, the Society welcomes the return of <i>all</i> of the Cuban Five to Cuban shores after their long, unjust incarceration in US prisons.<br />
<br />
Their stoic and dignified resistance symbolises Cuba's epic struggle.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year to you all.<br />
<br />
Marce Cameron<br />
Sydney, Australia <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-35673228987352709482012-08-21T14:59:00.001+10:002012-08-21T15:32:30.969+10:00Translation: Report on Guidelines implementation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On a personal note, readers may be interested to know that I'm beginning a Master of Arts (Research) in Political Economy, under Dr. Tim Anderson, at Sydney University. It's a one-year research thesis on Cuba. Specifically, where is Cuba headed? Perhaps when it's finished I can post a link to this blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is my translation of a summary of an important address by Marino Murillo, head of the Cuban government's permanent commission overseeing the implementation of the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines, to Cuba's National Assembly in late July. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was able to watch a telecast of his address on Cuban TV. It was a very thorough report that took up about two hours, accompanied by a Power Point presentation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Murillo used his report to announce two major new initiatives in the implementation process: an experimental phase in the projected overhaul of central planning and state enterprises, and the establishment of 222 experimental non-agricultural cooperatives that will manage small and medium-sizes state-owned entities. Note that state-owned entities will not be privatised but handed over, under various leasing arrangements, to work collectives to manage on a cooperative basis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's also worth drawing attention to what this progress report indicates about the status of the Guidelines. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Raul Castro has repeatedly stressed that they cannot be allowed to be shelved and forgotten, as as often happened in the past. In his <a href="http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=75083">closing speech</a> to the same National Assembly session, Raul explained that "</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the updating of the economic model has entered a qualitatively new phase with the drafting and approval of the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan for implementation of the Guidelines, with a corresponding timetable for comprehensive, step-by-step measures." He added:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"You have no doubt noticed that in the various reports presented to the Assembly, and in my own address, repeated mention is made of specific guidelines when matters relating to them are being discussed. I must say that this is not by chance, it is intended to firmly establish in our minds a determination to fulfill these Guidelines and to not to allow decisions of the utmost importance for the future of our nation to, once again, become a dead letter."</span></blockquote><br />
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The country will continue advancing in an organised way in the implementation of the Guidelines </b><br />
<br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By various authors </span><br />
<br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /> <i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Juventud Rebelde</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, July 24, 2012 </span><br />
<br style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Translation: Marce Cameron </span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv8_yo1GosDn-6tY9gYLzzKrvG5duEaM6u-po-BQdqkmbQJ2niwG5NhPVZ_QJrsd7WO7zgLCYssBi2kmIqmdhgneNMUH14mhs0G8lzJN-GYQTy5LOyZmNfXUFBMVu4Py4paH_OH9NbjyIy/s1600/marino-murillo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv8_yo1GosDn-6tY9gYLzzKrvG5duEaM6u-po-BQdqkmbQJ2niwG5NhPVZ_QJrsd7WO7zgLCYssBi2kmIqmdhgneNMUH14mhs0G8lzJN-GYQTy5LOyZmNfXUFBMVu4Py4paH_OH9NbjyIy/s320/marino-murillo.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The country will continue advancing in an organised way in the implementation of the <a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4q5Tdo3QJGZYmZlMWI2OGYtM2E5YS00MzkyLWI2OWEtZjQxZTRkMjU2ZTAz">Economic and Social Policy Guidelines </a>approved by the 6th Communist Party Congress, based on the principle of acting without haste but without pause, as Raul [Castro] has called for. <br />
<br />
This was affirmed on Monday by Marino Murillo, vicepresident of the State Council and head of the Commission for the Implementation of the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the Party and the Revolution, who gave deputies a broad and detailed report on the measures, actions and results of the implementation process from December to the present, in line with a decision of the previous ordinary session of our National Assembly. <br />
<br />
He said that for the implementation of the decisions of the 6th Party Congress in this period, a total of 55 objectives belonging to five groups were defined whenever the Guidelines are of a strategic nature and it is virtually impossible to view them in isolation, since they are interrelated. <br />
<br />
The first of these groups, he explained, focuses on the most complex task — that of the conceptualisation of the socio-economic model, based on the Guidelines — that would allow us to strive for maximum efficiency within the framework of the socialist system and favour the development of the country’s productive forces. <br />
<br />
Elsewhere in his report on progress in the transformation and updating of the economic model, Murillo stressed that the most important sector of our economy will always be the socialist state enterprise. We are now beginning to do certain things in the state enterprises in the search for a new approach to central planning. The idea is to launch it on January 1, 2013 and to train those involved between now and December. <br />
<br />
The first thing to be established is a new system of relations between the enterprises, the superior bodies and the Central State Administration agencies. He explained that governing bodies will be set up to watch over their functioning. <br />
<br />
It is a new category of enterprise planning, he said, and these leadership bodies will only have to monitor the functioning of the entity, focusing on the measurement of basic indicators. The enterprise will have the authority to do its job. <br />
<br />
Murillo added that the enterprises to take part in the trial are being selected now. They will operate solely in regular [rather than convertible] Cuban pesos, and will be allowed to make their social objectives more flexible and to set prices according to production costs, taking into account international parameters. <br />
<br />
He considered this an important step in the transformation of the socialist state enterprise, as the basic unit of our economy, in the search for maximum efficiency. <br />
<br />
<b>Expansion of cooperative sector </b><br />
<br />
Another important step, he said, is the experimental creation of non-agricultural cooperatives. This should be considered the preferred option among the non-state forms of employment because it is more social and more in harmony with the conceptualisation of the new economic model. <br />
<br />
Certain state entities will pass over to this new form of cooperative, comprised of persons who do not own [productive] property but contribute only their labour. <br />
<br />
The assets will be handed over in the form of a lease, in usufruct[1], as a loan or otherwise for up to ten years, without ceasing to be state property. The premises will always continue to belong to the state via one of these arrangements, though certain equipment may be sold, such as the refrigeration equipment in the case of a cafeteria. <br />
<br />
The enterprise will have a collective character that will be reflected in the distribution of the earnings, which will be according to the labour contribution [of each cooperative member]. However, if some of the participants contribute [financial and other] resources the cooperative will later reimburse them via its earnings, but always with the consent of the cooperative’s management committee. The legal framework is now being drafted and an initial step will involve the establishment of 222 cooperatives, in a gradual manner, in the final three months of this year. <br />
<br />
This entails the need to draw up a General Cooperatives Law, because such cooperatives cannot be separated from those that have been established in agriculture. <br />
<br />
<b>New thinking in agriculture </b><br />
<br />
With regard to the wholesale commercialisation of agricultural products, Murillo stressed it must be governed by the fulfilment of contracts. <br />
<br />
Having fulfilled their commitments to the state, the producer may sell the surplus at an agreed price, he said. What cannot occur is that they don’t comply with their commitments and the produce is sold on by other means. This can’t be rectified after the fact, it has to be dealt with through the signing of appropriate contracts. <br />
<br />
He also announced that next year, the list of products with prices fixed centrally will be reduced, and noted that this year 53% of agricultural produce had been contracted while 47% had been sold at prices agreed between the buyer and seller. <br />
<br />
Regarding the sale of agricultural products in Havana, Murillo said that the city has 310 state markets, the majority of which are undersupplied, as well as 29 markets where prices are set by supply and demand, 400 produce stalls and more than 900 points of sale. We’ve filled the city with micro-outlets, we’re going to put them all together in the marketplaces and lease the market to a cooperative. <br />
<br />
The majority of these micro-outlets say they’re cooperatives selling their produce, but this not true. If you want to sell then get a self-employment permit, as we’ve established. <br />
<br />
Regarding self-employment, Murillo stressed that some regulations must continue to be made more flexible and we should cease doing things that embody certain contradictions. <br />
<br />
He noted that the leasing of workspaces for personal and technical services had been generalised, and that in this [non-state] sector there are more than 62,000 workers hired by other self-employed workers[2], which has created jobs, the majority in food processing and sales. <br />
<br />
In September 2010, there were 157,000 self-employed workers, while as of June of this year there were 390,000. There have been illegalities, he said, but self-employment is being adjusted with a view to flexibility and had become a source of employment. <br />
<br />
Elsewhere in his report Murillo referred to the inevitable aging of the Cuban population, which has two basic causes: the low birth rate and increasing life expectancy. <br />
<br />
This is now unavoidable, he said, it’s happening and it cannot be turned around in the short term. What we have to do is take measures to encourage births and also to care for the elderly, as well as adapting economic development. <br />
<br />
The key difficulty is those entering and those retiring from the workforce. In 2021, more will leave the workforce than enter it. In 2026, for example, 120,000 will reach working age and 170,000 will reach retirement age, a difference of 50,000. <br />
<br />
Given this, the productive processes must be improved in order to make them more efficient and require a smaller workforce. <br />
<br />
The current Labour Code will also become obsolete and at the appropriate time a new one will have to be drafted and approved by this Assembly, he stressed. <br />
<br />
Murillo also mentioned the national entities that are now being overhauled. Among them are the ministries of Information and Communications, Finances and Prices, and Work and Social Security; as well as the creation of two new ones: Energy and Mines, and Industries. <br />
<br />
In addition, he said, they will have their own enterprise groups. These will be attended to by the ministries but not managed by them, since state and enterprise functions are being separated, he explained. <br />
<br />
He announced that the overhaul of the ministries of Justice and Foreign Trade, the [urban land use] Planning Institute and the National Statistics Bureau has begun, and that the unification of the Civil Aviation Bureau and the Ministry of Transport is underway. <br />
<br />
Murillo also noted the merging of the University of Computer Science, belonging to the Ministry of Information and Communications, with the Ministry of Higher Education, and the integration of the [West Havana] Scientific Complex with the Cuban Pharmaceutical Group, which will remain directly subordinated to the Council of Ministers, through which an important [state] enterprise group with great scientific capability will be created. <br />
<br />
Regarding the Ministry of Agriculture, he explained that the second phase of its overhaul is underway while its productive base has been transformed. <br />
<br />
With respect to the means by which Cuban households cook food, he said that the repair or replacement of such devices will be guaranteed. <br />
<br />
Consideration will also need to be given to a system of credits for those who need to purchase cooking equipment, he said, although it’s complicated because some still have debts previously incurred.[3] <br />
<br />
In this connection he emphasised that 69% of Cuban households cook with electricity, and that it’s necessary to maintain this proportion because it’s the most rational for the country. <br />
<br />
He also announced the setting up of the Technical Advisory Council, which will undertake to organise all of the scientific work being carried out in the universities and scientific research centres that can be drawn on in the implementation of the Guidelines. <br />
<br />
The idea is to involve institutions, rather than individuals, and to give them specific tasks, so that all of this accumulated scientific knowledge can be harnessed in the search for practical solutions to problems.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">_________________</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Translator's footnotes:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[1] Usage rights to state-owned productive property rent-free on a medium or long-term basis and under certain conditions. <br />
<br />
[2] An obvious contradiction: if one “self-employed” person hires another, then one becomes a boss (a petit-bourgeois in Marxist terminology) and the other is no longer self-employed, but an employee. Official Cuban discourse glosses over this fact by labelling it all “self-employment”. <br />
<br />
[3] To state entities for the mass distribution of stovetops and other kitchen devices, on credit, to Cuban households as part of the comprehensive “Energy Revolution” launched in 2005. </span><br />
<div><div id="ftn3"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><br />
</div></div></div>Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-48273207621447805622012-08-12T20:28:00.003+10:002012-08-12T20:56:06.622+10:00Fidel: Time to reflect on his legacy<div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was written for Australia's <i><a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/">Green Left Weekly</a></i> to promote the conference "<b>Fidel in the 21st Century: His Contribution and Ideas for a Better World</b>", to be held over August 18-19 weekend at the New South Wales Teachers Federation building, 23-33 Mary St, Surry Hills, Sydney. Further details are <a href="http://sydney-acfs.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/fidel-in-21st-century.html?spref=fb">here</a>. An edited version is published in the <a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/51869">current issue</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll be speaking alongside the Cuban Ambassador to Australia, Mr. Pedro Monzon, in a session titled "Fidel and the renewal of Cuban socialism", on Sunday at 2.30pm.</span><br />
<div><br />
</div><div><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fidel: Time to reflect on his legacy</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Marce Cameron </span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkBN0-S54Y_QvgUkMWQFkW4mUKZFl9QnGLmH271nkecV_7VrmJVoDtf6aQ-oVp5HFuiF6a8aKhiM3ptCi5FSDpLCHM_1qMYLHbmpk9dpKW5CzNawCxVd9N9KGVpjtr91dACMga3CxW7BvJ/s1600/Fidel-Castro-Cuba-Communist-Leader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkBN0-S54Y_QvgUkMWQFkW4mUKZFl9QnGLmH271nkecV_7VrmJVoDtf6aQ-oVp5HFuiF6a8aKhiM3ptCi5FSDpLCHM_1qMYLHbmpk9dpKW5CzNawCxVd9N9KGVpjtr91dACMga3CxW7BvJ/s320/Fidel-Castro-Cuba-Communist-Leader.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This isn’t an obituary. If Fidel Castro had died I’m sure you would have heard about it. </span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Every now and again those who hope and pray for his death spread yet another rumour, only to be disappointed by a photo, a newsclip or a commentary in that unmistakable style, confirming that Fidel is very much alive and making the most of his twilight years. <br />
<br />
When the inevitable does happen, the world, admirers and detractors alike, will pause for reflection. The corporate media will saturate our inner recesses with words and images that convey, for the most part, how the 1% appraise his life and legacy. Just imagine the gloating on Fox News. <br />
<br />
I suspect it will be harder, and take longer, for those who admire Fidel and feel a sense of loss at his passing to be heard amid this din. <br />
<br />
The hundreds of millions of the 99% for whom Fidel has been something of a political compass, and a spiritual compass in the secular sense, will want to reflect and recommit to our shared visions of a better world — a world without Fidel, but nourished by his presence in our struggles. <br />
<br />
Thus will begin a new battle of ideas, a concept promoted by Fidel. Between the extremes of hatred for the man and sycophantic adulation lies a broad field for critical, nuanced reflection from Fidel’s side of the struggle for socialism. <br />
<br />
But why wait for the inevitable before undertaking this task? Better to begin it now, while Fidel is still among us and before the corporate vultures descend on his tomb. <br />
<br />
In this necessary, timely endeavour we are joined, first and foremost, by millions of Cubans committed to the continuity of Cuba’s socialist project, the stage from which Fidel has set out to change the world and, to a degree, succeeded. <br />
<br />
Would a pregnant woman in a remote East Timorese village be seen by a doctor today if it were not for Cuban medical personnel and medical training? <br />
<br />
How much longer might apartheid have dragged on in South Africa if Cuban blood had not been shed in the sands and jungles of Angola and Namibia? Would Venezuelan’s Bolivarian socialist revolution even exist? According to Hugo Chavez, probably not. <br />
<br />
In this sense, “Fidel” is something more than an individual. Fidel is certain ethical values, ideas and ideals; a cause and a devotion to that cause. It is adherence to principles but rejection of sectarianism and dogmatism in the struggle for a better, socialist world. <br />
<br />
Fidel's essential message is one of hope, that we can reverse the gradual descent of global capitalism into a 21st-century barbarism, besieged by ecological collapse, if we can only unleash the power of masses of ordinary people acting together with a shared vision and strategic compass.<br />
<br />
Fidel is, above all, solidarity in a selfish world. <br />
<br />
It is asking what we can contribute and share rather than what we can plunder and hoard. It is worrying about the infant mortality rate in Western Sahara and the waves lapping at the doorsteps of Pacific islanders, and doing something about it. <br />
<br />
It is internationalism: the rejection of subservient seclusion behind our white-picket fences and national borders decked out in razor wire. <br />
<br />
Australia doesn’t have a revolutionary tradition like that of Cuba. After the European invasion and dispossession of its Indigenous peoples the continent developed as an outgrowth of British imperialism. <br />
<br />
Relative prosperity for most, thanks to a combination of circumstance and struggle, has blunted radical urges and channelled them into the English gentleman’s game known as parliamentary reformism. <br />
<br />
Waves of progressive radicalisation have ebbed and flowed, but none has yet succeeded in placing the country under new management, as did the Cuban Revolution under Fidel’s leadership. <br />
<br />
The next one may just do that, opening the way to a very different kind of Australia. Call it socialism or call it whatever, it will have to bury capitalism. <br />
<br />
Fidel is daring to dream of such a revolutionary transformation of our own society. And working patiently towards it in ways that are meaningful to each of us, respecting each other’s contributions and seeking the path of principled unity. <br />
<br />
Fidel is contributing our little grain of sand to the revolutionary hourglass, recalling that he began his struggle with a handful of idealistic youth with hardly a cent among them. </span><br />
<div><br />
</div>Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-16657586490847051012012-07-05T13:57:00.001+10:002012-07-22T18:46:09.286+10:00The Economist: wishful thinking on "transition"<div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was written for Australia's <a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/"><i>Green Left Weekly</i></a>. </span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>Cuba: Corporate press wishful thinking on 'transition'</b><br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/51516">Green Left Weekly</a></i>, Sunday, July 1, 2012</span><br />
<div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
By Marce Cameron<br />
<br />
“Under Raul Castro, Cuba has begun the journey towards capitalism. But it will take a decade and a big political battle to complete, writes Michael Reid”. So began the lead article of the London <i>Economist </i>magazine’s March 24 special issue on Cuba, under the heading “Revolution in retreat”.<br />
<br />
It's a familiar refrain, but how much truth is there to it? Unfortunately for the credibility of <i>The Economist,</i> authoritative mouthpiece of the Anglo-imperialist ruling class, it’s a dog’s breakfast of factual errors, illogical arguments and wishful thinking.<br />
<br />
“When on July 31st 2006 Cuban state television broadcast a terse statement from Fidel Castro to say that he had to undergo emergency surgery and was temporarily handing over to his brother, Raul, it felt like the end of an era,” Reid observed.<br />
<br />
“In the event Fidel survived, and nothing appeared to change. Even so, that July evening marked the start of a slow but irreversible dismantling of communism (officially, ‘socialism’) in one of the tiny handful of countries in which it survived into the 21st century.”<br />
<br />
Had Reid read Marx, he would understand that communism has never existed, let alone in a small number of countries. According to Marx, it could only be achieved on a world scale on the basis of socialist revolutions in the most developed capitalist societies.<br />
<br />
So whatever is being dismantled in Cuba, it isn’t communism. Or even socialism, if this is understood to mean the consolidation of a first stage in the transition to a classless society. Even this would require socialist revolutions to take hold in developed capitalist countries.<br />
<br />
For Reid’s argument to hold water he would have to demonstrate that Cuba is abandoning its socialist <i>orientation</i> and gradually restoring capitalism, or that the economic reforms that have been implemented and decided on will inevitably lead to capitalist restoration.<br />
<br />
<b>Privatisation?</b><br />
<br />
Since Cuba’s socialist state is the owner and manager of the bulk of the Caribbean island nation’s economic resources, the restoration of capitalism, however gradual, would require the transfer of ownership to individuals of large swathes of productive property that belong to Cuba’s working people. In a word, privatisation.<br />
<br />
Reid seemed to imply that this is what’s happening in Cuba today: “Raul Castro, who formally took over as Cuba’s president in February 2008 and as first secretary of the Communist Party [PCC] in April 2011, is trying to revive the island’s moribund economy by transferring a substantial chunk of it from state to private hands, with profound social and political implications.”<br />
<br />
Here, Reid should have clarified that what is being transferred to “private hands” ― that is, to the self-employed, small private businesses and cooperatives ― is not ownership, but the management of socially owned productive property.<br />
<br />
The distinction is crucial, yet Reid glossed over it.<br />
<br />
“The leadership shuns the word ‘reform’, let alone ‘transition’,” Reid said. “Those terms are contaminated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, an event that still traumatises Cuba’s leaders.<br />
<br />
“Officially, the changes are described as an ‘updating’, in which ‘non-state actors’ and ‘cooperatives’ will be promoted. But whatever the language, this means an emerging private sector.”<br />
<br />
Perhaps, but this is not the kind of Cuban “private sector” that those who dream of capitalist restoration would like to see. Take, for example, barber shops and beautician’s salons with one to three chairs.<br />
<br />
Until recently, these were centrally managed by Cuba’s 169 Peoples Power municipal governments following the nationalisation of retail trade and services in 1968.<br />
<br />
Today, they are being leased to their workers, who purchase their own supplies, set their own prices, maintain the premises and pay income taxes and retirement contributions to the socialist state. Public ownership of the premises is retained and leases specify how they are to be used in the public interest: a barber shop is for hair cuts, not handicrafts.<br />
<br />
The Economic and Social Policy Guidelines, adopted by the Sixth PCC Congress in April last year after an extensive public debate, made it clear the privatisation of social property and the emergence of a new Cuban capitalist class is not on the agenda.<br />
<br />
Guideline No. 3 is explicit: “In the non-state forms of management [of socially-owned productive property] the concentration of property [ownership] by juridical and natural persons [that is, by enterprises and individuals] shall not be permitted”.<br />
<br />
Other than joint ventures between the socialist state and foreign investors, the scope for private capital accumulation in Cuba will be limited to what can be achieved on the basis of the management under lease ― rather than ownership ― of small and medium-sized economic entities by individuals, small businesses and cooperatives.<br />
<br />
And such arrangements will occur where they are considered economically viable and socially desirable.<br />
<br />
In the main report to the PCC Congress, Raul Castro said: “Some opinions were not included [in the final version of the Guidelines] … because they openly contradicted the essence of socialism, as for example 45 proposals advocating the concentration of [private] property [ownership].<br />
<br />
In the same speech, Castro said: “The growth of the non-public sector of the economy, far from an alleged privatisation of social property as some theoreticians would have us believe, is to become an active element facilitating the construction of socialism in Cuba.<br />
<br />
“It will allow the state to focus on raising the efficiency of the basic means of production, which are the property of the entire people, while relieving itself of those managerial activities that are not strategic for the country.”<br />
<br />
Reid acknowledged: “The new president often says his aim is to ‘make socialism sustainable and irreversible’. The economy will continue to be based on planning, not the market, and ‘the concentration of property’ will be prohibited, Raul Castro insisted in a speech to the National Assembly in December 2010.”<br />
<br />
Yet Reid doesn’t acknowledge that what has been implemented to date, and what has been projected in the guidelines, is consistent with what Raul Castro said then ― and that the PCC leadership’s words and deeds refute his own baseless assertion that Cuba “has begun the journey towards capitalism.”<br />
<br />
<b>Clutching at straws</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead, Reid insinuated that Raul Castro’s speeches were aimed not at the Cuban people but at placating Fidel: “He is careful not to contradict his elder brother openly: his every speech contains several reverential quotes from Fidel, who despite his semi-retirement is consulted about big decisions …<br />
<br />
“Fidel’s frail and ghostly presence … doubtless checks the speed of reform.”<br />
<br />
Doubtless. And if Fidel Castro is consulted on strategic decisions, doesn’t this suggest that he endorses the PCC’s reform agenda, a course that Reid describes as the “irreversible dismantling of communism”? In this surreal light, Fidel appears as Cuba’s reclusive Deng Xiaoping, a reluctant convert to Deng’s best-known contribution to “communist” ideology: “To get rich is glorious”.<br />
<br />
Just in case readers were not persuaded that the PCC leadership under Raul Castro (with or without Fidel’s approval) is intentionally setting in motion a process of capitalist restoration, while feigning socialist continuity, <i>The Economist</i> fell back on the hope that capitalism will inevitably return to Cuba no matter what anyone does.<br />
<br />
Capitalism, you see, is the natural order of things, and the odds are stacked against Cuba’s socialist project. “Whatever the intentions of Cuba’s Communist leaders, they will find it impossible to prevent their island from moving to some form of capitalism”, said Reid.<br />
<br />
“What is harder to predict is whether they will remain in control of the process of change, or whether it will lead to democracy.” In other words, the only question for <i>The Economist</i> is whether Cuba will adopt Chinese-style “market socialism” or evolve into a typical Third World capitalist “democracy”.<br />
<br />
Reid notes that capitalist ideologues such as himself have predicted the end of the Cuban Revolution before, and got it wrong. “When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,” Reid pointed out, “many outsiders believed that communism in Cuba was doomed”.<br />
<br />
Today, however, there can be no doubt: “This time, Raul has insisted, there will be no turning back: the reforms will happen <i>sin prisa, pero sin pausa</i> (slowly but steadily)”.<br />
<br />
So, when Raul Castro insists the economic reform agenda adopted by the PCC’s sixth Congress will be implemented, <i>The Economist </i>takes his word for it. But when he says that the reforms will strengthen Cuba’s socialist project, rather than lead to capitalist restoration, it dismisses this without offering either facts or arguments to refute it.</span></div><div><br />
</div>Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-53642612204194046092012-06-26T20:48:00.001+10:002012-06-26T21:25:30.957+10:00Translation: A magnifying glass on the 'updating'<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note the emphasis in this brief report on the internal, rather than external, challenges and the emphasis on "bureaucratic, centralising and administrative obstacles" to the implementation of the <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/p/further-background-reading.html">Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the Party and the Revolution</a>. </span><br />
<div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Below the online version of this article on the <i>Juventud Rebelde</i> website are 16 comments submitted by readers. One of them, "Rogelio", wrote:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm worried about this attention given to the economic transformations in Poland, one of the countries where the ruling class sold the country to the capitalist class and this same class restored capitalism. I think the trajectory should be towards the working class. </span></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The author replied as follows:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rogelio: I'll explain because I was there, reporting on the seminar. The fact that Señor Polaco had given a lecture there, and the same goes for the Vietnamese specialist, doesn't mean that they're handing out recipes to the Cuban scholars. If you read the brief report I published, it is noted that the approaches of the Cubans are aimed at improving and advancing our socialist economy, which it sorely needs. Kind regards. </span></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A magnifying glass on the economic updating </b></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br />
By José Alejandro Rodríguez <br />
<br />
<i>Juventud Rebelde</i>, June 23, 2012 <br />
<br />
Translation: Marce Cameron <br />
<br />
The Annual Seminar on Cuban Economy and Management 2012, held over three days in Havana, was a bold academic introspection on the challenges that confront the current process of updating the Cuban economic model, to consolidate it firmly in the face of much external and domestic resistance so as to secure the wellbeing of the nation and the future of socialism. <br />
<br />
In the gathering, organised by the Centre for Studies on the Cuban Economy (CEEC) at Havana University, the pressing problems that limit the country's economic growth, and the urgency of radical structural changes that would overcome bureaucratic and top-down obstructions and favour the socialist state enterprise — in harmony with the cooperative and non-state[1] sector — were debated, with a view to freeing up the economy from restrictions and the lack of incentives and initiative that entrench low levels of productivity. <br />
<br />
The academics took stock of the transformations that are brewing following the adoption of the<i> Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the Party and the Revolution</i>, and weighed up the decisive factors and the external uncertainties of the Cuban economy, in particular the prolonged US economic blockade. But even more so, they pointed to the internal obstacles that still limit the efficacy and efficiency of our economic management, and that make us more vulnerable to so many pitfalls.<br />
<br />
The bureaucratic, centralising and administrative obstacles were also emphasised, as well as the lack of systematic approaches, that still limit and slow down the growth of the productive forces in Cuban agriculture, make it more difficult for the workers to feel a sense of ownership, and don't recognise in reality the role of the market together with planning. <br />
<br />
Two keynote lectures, with very different approaches, were presented in the seminar: the Vietnamese experience of foreign direct investment and international trade by Mai Thi Thu, Director General of Vietnam's National Centre for Information and Socioeconomic Forecasting; and the economic reforms in Poland by Grzegorz Kolodko of the Research Institute on Transformation, Integration and Economic Globalisation at Poland's Kozminski University. <br />
<br />
The seminar also launched the multi-volume publication <i>Perspectives on the Cuban Economy</i>; <i>The Updating Process — Cuba</i>; <i>Towards a Development Strategy for the Beginnings of the 21st Century</i>; and<i> Elements of Econometrics — Applications for Cuba</i>, by CEEC researchers and other study centres. <br />
________________<br />
Translator's footnote<br />
<br />
[1] A reference to self-employment and small private businesses</span><br />
<div><br />
</div></div>Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403173611351828571.post-37547710169451073362012-06-26T19:02:00.000+10:002012-06-26T19:02:34.831+10:00Translation: With neither subsidy nor explanations<div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My last post referred to the new housing subsidies Cuba, whereby low-income individuals and households can apply for grants to repair or extend their homes. Priority is given to those whose homes have been damaged by hurricanes and flooding. The scheme is funded by the sale of construction materials by state entities at retail prices. A percentage of the proceeds are allocated to subsidies at the municipal level.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, enlightened policies might look nice on paper but their effectiveness depends on implementation. Here, the enemy is what Cubans call "the bureaucracy" — corrupt, incompetent or simply uncaring administrators and, sometimes, entire institutions. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is not simply petty-mindedness on the part of individuals and an administrative culture that fosters such a mentality. The root cause seems to be hyper-centralised decision-making, in both the political and economic spheres, and a lack of accountability of administrators and institutions to popular constituencies, i.e. "from below". The theme of decentralisation is taken up in <a href="http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/translation-country-in-miniature.html">another commentary</a> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've translated </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by the author of the fragment below, Jose Alejandro Rodriguez.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rodriguez has a regular column in <i>Juventud Rebelde</i> newspaper titled <i>Acuse de Recibo</i> (Acknowledgement of Receipt) in which he summarises and comments on selected letters sent in by readers, most of which deal with specific cases of administrative corruption, incompetence, arbitrariness or insensitivity. As well as exposing and publicly shaming those responsible for such injustices, <i>Acuse de Recibo </i>provides a sober counterpoint to the triumphal style of much Cuban journalism. It arms and emboldens those who struggle against administrative arbitrariness and injustice.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The online version of <i>Juventud Rebelde</i> allows readers to submit comments. These are moderated, of course, but highly critical opinions are often accepted, including from Cubans living abroad who don't support Cuba's socialist order. The regular feature that attracts by far the most commentaries is Rodriguez's column, which has evolved into a forum in which Cuban revolutionaries debate each other and, on occasion, the Revolution's hostile critics. The case below is one of two that appeared in <i>Acuse de Recibo </i>three days ago. It burns with indignation. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Little wonder, then, that the online commentaries occasionally draw attention to instances in which <i>Juventud Rebelde </i>journalists, or those from other Cuban pro-Revolution publications, have been turned away by officials who probably have something to hide. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>With neither subsidy nor explanations</b></span><div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVzdvZ2LJT-LU7kQ4sSMTolxjNBnnbXqLKomFjPw8ERZ8h64dA3djoG_b1LbT0xCxmkchF60oX2HXI5R8uTuinEFDsXetHDh6EmIW-u_SgkuK7YsmqXThEj6pzsImetvoL3UIPL7-d-hw/s1600/Jose-Alejandro_R091404.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVzdvZ2LJT-LU7kQ4sSMTolxjNBnnbXqLKomFjPw8ERZ8h64dA3djoG_b1LbT0xCxmkchF60oX2HXI5R8uTuinEFDsXetHDh6EmIW-u_SgkuK7YsmqXThEj6pzsImetvoL3UIPL7-d-hw/s1600/Jose-Alejandro_R091404.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By José Alejandro Rodríguez <br />
<br />
<i> Juventud Rebelde</i>, June 23, 2012 <br />
<br />
Translation: Marce Cameron <br />
<br />
What's worst of all, in some of the tales related in this column, is not the lack of resources or unavoidable objective impediments. No, what's inexcusable is that authoritarian style, blind and deaf to human problems; drastic decisions being taken without even those affected being offered an explanation. A name is crossed out and that's that. <br />
<br />
Félix Revilla Castillo of 12th Street, No. 97, between 7th and 14th Steets in the Mármol neighbourhood of Santiago de Cuba, was very upset when he wrote to me. He told me that the mother of his two children, Miosotis Hechavarría, lives with them together with her own mother, now elderly and infirm, in an old and very run-down house at No. 50 Brigadier Marrero, between Calvario and Maceo Streets, in that city. <br />
<br />
Miosotis has found it necesary to leave her job, due to health problems, and is a social welfare recipient. Given her precarious economic circumstances, and faced with the urgent need to get to work on the house, she applied for a subsidy to repair it. This she was granted by the [local government] commission established for this purpose, after a monumental effort given that there was always something missing: either a signature or a statement from the People's Savings Bank (BPA) that lacked a name or this or that surname of one of the requisite officials... <br />
<br />
Then, at the construction materials distribution centre, the first time they gave her 65 metres of reinforced steel rod, a sink, two towell racks, electrical cables, two soap dishes and the set of components for the toilet cistern. <br />
<br />
That was all she got. There were no other kinds of materials assigned to those with subsidies, even though such items were being sold freely[1] to the population. Yet Miosotis has a subsidy precisely because she can't efford to pay for them... <br />
<br />
The following week they went back to the distribution centre to ask for the windows, doors and interior lighting. To their astonishment, at the Bank[2] they were told that the subsidy had been suspended as instructed in a letter sent by the Municipal Administration Council, in which they didn't even explain why. <br />
<br />
Félix asks: "Why was that subsidy cancelled or suspended? Can anybody, whatever their level of authority, stop a process that up to now has been going well, despite its ups and downs?" <br />
<br />
The saddest thing of all is that no offical from the Peoples Power municipal government has written to this family to inform them that the subsidy in question was cancelled, and why. Are these the methods of our society? <br />
_________________</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Translator's footnotes <br />
<br />
[1] At retail prices</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, i.e. without subsidies, and in unrestricted quantities </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
[2] Once granted, housing subsidies are deposited in a bank account. The bank is supposed to ensure that the funds are only used for their stated purpose, i.e. the purchase and transportation of building materials and the labour of registered small private businesses or self-employed workers (construction cooperatives have been foreshadowed).</span></div><div><br />
</div></div></div>Marce Cameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339699632687498324noreply@blogger.com0