By Manuel Alberto Ramy Read Spanish Version
This
commentary first appeared in the February 8 Ramy blog in Spanish.
(www.progresoblog.com/espanol)
On
Jan. 19, as part of the meetings that the candidates to the National
Assembly of the People's Power hold with the population, Ricardo
Alarcón, a deputy and member of the Political Bureau of the
Communist Party of Cuba, met with students at the University of
Computer Sciences of the City of Havana, an institution with 10,000
students.
One
of those students posed three questions to Alarcón, which
caused a stir abroad after being reproduced by foreign news agencies.
The young man identified himself as Eliécer Ávila, a student at School No. 2 and "leader of the Technological and Political Vigilance Project, which is one of the specialties of Operation Truth, which is engaged in the constant monitoring of the Internet."
His
first question was: “Why did the domestic commerce [...] migrate to
the convertible peso when our workers, our peasants collect their
salaries in national currency, whose purchasing power is 25 times
smaller?
“In
other words, a worker has to work two or three days to purchase a
toothbrush, for instance, personal toiletries, all the resources, his
clothing.”
His
second question: “Why don't the people of Cuba [...] the workers
and their relatives, have a viable possibility to go to hotels or to
travel to specific places in the world? [...] I don't want to die
without going to the place where Che [Guevara] died, in Bolivia,
[...] and I have, let's say, 30,000 pesos in the bank. That amount,
once converted, is, I don't know, 1,000 dollars. The round-trip to
Bolivia costs, I don't know, 200 to go, 200 to return, and I want to
go with my family, to take my children there, to pay homage at the
place where Che fell.”
Ávila
posited a similar situation. “For example,” he said, “a group
of us students who read history want to get together and go to the
pyramids in Egypt. [...] so I want an explanation of what is a
problem of the current situation and what is a problem of concept --
if we can now (or can someday) carry out this kind of thing.”
Another
question: “Why isn't there a more open and more constant exchange
between, for example, the Council of Ministers and the people, where
each can explain what projects exist to solve the objective problems
of the area, and the people can know at all times why they are
struggling and how and when the problems will be solved, and thus be
able to help more and in a conscious manner? [...]
“Let
us say that improving transportation in Cuba costs US$200 million, a
hypothetical number. It seems to us that a revolution, a socialist
project, cannot advance without projects. We are sure that they
exist, what we want to know is what they are. [...] I say this on
behalf of my father, my grandfather, I say it on behalf of a group of
people in my barrio who have lost their teeth working every day
behind a team of oxen and they still don't know what to expect, if
many of the dreams they had when they were children will ever become
reality. [...]
“We're
talking about US$200 million. Fine, that's the equivalent of eight
years of nickel production. The workers need to redouble their
efforts, the students need to do this, this other work sector has to
do that. You say, well, [...] this will be solved in 2013 and it's
going to be done this way, therefore [...] we have to work harder, we
have to struggle to make it come true. But I believe that things must
have a deadline, not obscurity in all sectors, in every sense.”
Ávila
criticized the dearth of information given to the public. “The
other day, I went to Havana and found out they had set up ‘ruteros,’”
he said. “They are taxis, minibuses that [...] cost 5 pesos. If you
climb aboard and get off at the corner, they cost 5 pesos; if you
climb aboard and tour all of Havana, they still cost 5 pesos. Fine,
that's an idea; I suppose an experiment is being conducted in the
City of Havana to solve the problem of transportation -- but I don't
know about it.”
The
young man also criticized the tortuous or evasive manner in which
many officials answer questions. During the penultimate session of
the National Assembly, “comrade Raúl [Castro] said: ‘Well,
let's discuss the topic of transportation.’ [...] The first deputy
who spoke [...] said: ‘Nine of I don't know how many children in
Latin America die of preventable diseases; I don't know how many
children in the United States don't have medical insurance...’ I
was truly disappointed not to hear about the topic of transportation
during the man's speech. [...] And we hope that each debate [...]
will resemble the debates that take place in parks, in stores, in
hallways, in the homes, in the schools, everywhere, debates that are
[...] one thousand times more centered on the pressing problems.”
The
next question had to do with the responsibility each functionary owes
the citizens who elected him or her.
“The
people we elect don't commit themselves to anything,” Ávila
said. In cases where a minister spends three years in his post
without solving a specific problem or initiating a project, he said,
the people have the right to complain and say to him: “Well, pal,
that's a responsibility the people imposed upon you, because in this
country the people rule. We asked you to solve this and [...] you
solved 80 percent, 85 percent, 90 percent of it -- or you did
nothing.ְ’
“We
don't really know, let's say, on what pursuits [an official] spends
his gasoline, what he does with the resources he is given, not just a
minister but the entire gamut of officials, from mid-level down to
the lowest level. Therefore, the people don't have an indicator
whereby they can gauge the quality of an issue, if [the official] is
using the car to go to the beach every day, or if he's using it to
visit the neighborhoods damaged by some weather phenomenon, or if
he's going to the neighborhoods with a lower cultural index, or if
he's visiting schools.
“We
don't know, because we don't know what they're doing; because, let's
say, the provincial president of the Assembly of the People's Power
or any of the other political or administrative organizations does
not dialog with the people with any frequency. There is no space
where the people can openly communicate to him what they think about
a specific problem, where they can propose solutions, and where they
can see if the man really has a standard of commitment to the masses.
It seems to us that the process and conception of that relationship
needs to be studied better.
“Everything
I'm now saying is more socialism, no one should doubt it. [...]
“Now,
what's happening with the Internet? We know and have said [...] that
the United States does not permit us to connect into the Internet's
fiber-optic cable, and that's the truth. In the map we were shown by
Vice Minister [of Computer Sciences Jorge Luis] Perdomo [...] we
could see that the fiber-optic cable runs along the Cuban coast [...]
yet what we have is 132 megabits in broad-band [...] which is a
pittance and that's why the people cannot massively access the
Internet.
“We
do not have enough broad-band; nevertheless, the two services most in
use worldwide -- the services supplied by Google and Yahoo, like
G-mail and such -- [...] were eliminated outright. We are forbidden
to use them in all state and other institutions in this country, and
they are not services that can be supplied by or replaced by a
national service. [...] Between using a national product and a
foreign product, I prefer to use the national version, [...] yet the
instant messaging functions, the voice communication functions, [...]
those things we cannot do with the national services.”
My
comment: In Miami, statements and questions such as those made by
this young man create a stir. And that's logical. Miami, the exile
community, the media, are 90 physical miles from Cuba but thousands
of miles away from the daily heartbeat of the island.
Opinions
like these have been voiced by millions of Cubans at meetings of the
barrio, the work centers, nuclei of the Party and the Communist
Youth. But let me point out to you that Eliécer Ávila's
statements are made from a socialist perspective. They do not seek to
return to the past but to correct the present and improve the future;
they seek a better linkage of the government-party-people
relationship and they want the people's participation and authority
in terms of supervision to become routine.
On
the other hand, I remind you that the expressions you have read are
in response to the call of the political authorities for the citizens
to express themselves with total sincerity. The students at the
School of Legal Sciences spoke along the same lines during a similar
encounter with Ricardo Alarcón.
This
is the Cuba of today, the Cuba that -- for more than a year and
through my column in Progreso Weekly -- I have tried to present to
the reader in Miami, to whom raising questions and debating within
socialism is a synonym for disaffection.
And
here's something to ponder. The concerns and opinions of this young
man (which in my opinion are held by almost the entire population of
the island) are part of the process of inevitable reforms, because
they are pressures that reinforce the evident need to make certain
changes. Some of those changes are structural, as Raúl Castro
said, and others are of mindset, involving the way to act. Aren't
these debates at the very least a change in mindset? An opening to
dialogue within socialism?
I
don't believe that what's happening is the product of happenstance or
improvisation. My opinion is that if the ability to provide gradual
but tangible answers did not exist, the debates would never have been
encouraged.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana correspondent of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly. To read the full transcription of Ávila's comments (in Spanish only) please access: www.progresoblog.com/espanol/
