My Wish for 2012: Outraged People in Cuba / Miriam Celaya
My Wish for 2012: Outraged People in Cuba / Miriam CelayaMiriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting
Santana Cartoon illustrating the post in Penúltimos Days
A European friend who recently visited Havana asked me what my greatest wish for this year 2012 was. Of course, she expected me to express to her the same old litany: the end of the dictatorship, democracy, peace, freedom, etc. The wishes that tens of thousands of Cubans have made each New Year's and that, despite all the sorrows, have yet to come true. Maybe the propitiatory spirits, those that presumably participate or influence human aspirations need to perceive something more than the resolve in those who make the wishes… a signal indicating a little more vigor to make dreams achievable, something that can fulfill that old saying: "Help yourself, and God will help you."
So I simply said to my friend that, for 2012, I wish to see Cuba full of angry people, for it is on that day that we will be closer to such longed for rights and democracy. I'm not referring to childish protests of indignation on any corner or line, in different tones of voice and willing to be silent when some guy who looks like a political cop stares us down; for State transportation problems, or for the increasing reduction of so-called "subsidies" the national method, distributor of the parameters of poverty. Neither do I speak of the more or less biased comments about "how bad this is getting". For at least 20 years I have been listening to the phrase "what's so good about this is how bad it's getting", or "never is the night as dark as before dawn", and in all that time, there hasn't been the slightest improvement or light. What's more, everything around us is sure to be getting worse and darker, so it is obvious that a change is needed, but not on the part of an autocracy that clings to power and naturally resists change. What is needed is a change of attitude among Cubans.
My greatest desire for this 2012 is, therefore, that ordinary Cubans, those who in all the speeches are grouped under the generic term "the people" decide, once and for all, to make their outrage public and evident. We could, for example, protest in the streets, or in front of government headquarters, to demand an end to the dual currency, since wages are paid in one currency and most products are marketed in another. By the way, it would also be relevant to demand that wages dignify the job, be a source of well-being and not the object of a joke printed on paper money. We could demand the repeal of the retrograde exit permits and all limits on emigration that keep us prisoners, slaves of the Island-plantation. We could reclaim the sacred right to information, the right for the flow of ideas, to participate in making decisions about our destiny, to choose what kind of education we give our children. We could make demands, in short, about how and by whom we wish our country to be governed.
If you think that such claims exceed the heights of indignation of some, perhaps we could start by protesting the unstoppable rise of food prices, or stand up to the abuse of most public officials, or publicly denounce corruption, which ends up striking the needy the hardest. We could just ask to have the CDR's disbanded, (those that are still members of the CDR's [cederistas]) or stop attending accountability meetings and the utmost caricature of democracy: the constituency "elections". Because — beyond the protests taking place in the First World which the official media have the nerve to disclose here — and if there is one thing we don't have a shortage of in Cuba it's a reason to be outraged.
So I modified my wishes for this year, believing that, for democracy to finally emerge, we Cubans need to stop looking outward and upward, waiting for solutions from the solidarity of others, from the Cuban government, or from God, and assume our share, through responsibility and law. Recent statements by the President-General — on the occasion of his counterpart's farewell, the Iranian dictator visiting Cuba, to our shame — that the Communist Party's National Conference, to be held on January 28th, will be just the organizing of the inner life of that (political?) organization, presumably to comply with the guidelines of the past VI Congress, lends the coup de grace to the aspirations of large sectors that still had moderate expectations for a public debate about the decisions of the government, including some Catholic Church sites that have been voicing for an "inclusive and transparent" dialogue between the government and the Cuban people. It will be interesting, given the circumstances, to follow those sites' editorials to find out what new proposal they make us.
So, what I want for 2012 is this: indignant people. Thousands and thousands of Cubans angry about over half a century's worth of fraud, outraged, if only to salvage the spoils of our national shame that still remain after decades of dictatorship.
—–Work originally published in Penúltimos Days (http://www.penultimosdias.com) on January 13rd, 2012
Translated by: Norma Whiting
Between Indiscipline, Rudeness and Obscenities / Fernando Dámaso
Between Indiscipline, Rudeness and Obscenities / Fernando DámasoFernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated
To go out into the street is to be constantly tripping on social indiscipline, vulgarity and obscenity. It is not a problem of a neighborhood or an age, or even of sexes, as it happens in Old Havana, Central Havana, Cerro, Vedado or El Nuevo Vedado, both children and youth, adults and even elderly , whether one or the other sex.
The so-called bad words (some argue they do not exist, but it depends on how they are used), and when I say bad words I refer to the most vulgar and obscene imaginable are heard as part of any out loud conversation, as in a bus, in a shop, a clinic, school or just on the street, regardless of those present, be they women or children, as if in Spanish they were the only words that exist. Sometimes, poorly masked, they form part of the lyrics of some popular songs.
What's going on? Is it that the social deterioration is also bottoming out? A person who is very close to me often said: The material misery generates moral misery. I think he is right. What is the point of so many universities, institutes, schools, etc., if their graduates and students demonstrate every day, lack of civility (a little word of fashion) and extreme rudeness and vulgarity? The instruction may be good, but the education is abysmal. I must say that it not just a youth problem, but also adults who have fallen into the bad fashion. Among the many things lost, is it that we have lost the sense of shame?
To live in a civilized society we must respect social norms. Nobody has the right to violate them and, worse, to impose their violations of others. The shouting, marginality, vulgarity, disrespect, lack of discipline and many other social ills seem to be sitting squarely in the city, and given what you see (no one does anything against them), they have taken up permanent residence.
The authorities seem not to care about it: while containing no political implications, they look the other way. By this wrong path, the life of society becomes increasingly difficult, to say nothing of robberies, assaults in public and even physical assaults, which are not lacking in this vineyard of the Lord.
It seems that, for now, the only solution for the citizen is to stay home, become a hermit and go out as little as possible. But we all know that this can not be the solution. Some responsible people, for a long time, have warned of these negative phenomena, but have been ignored. So far it has been like plowing the sea, with occasional boring message on television, or a short article in a newspaper from time to time. At what moment do they foresee updating the social model to responsibly address these ills of our socialism?
December 10 2011
University Reform Without Autonomy / Dimas Castellano
University Reform Without Autonomy / Dimas CastellanoDimas Castellanos, Translator: Unstated
On the 50th anniversary of the University Reform enacted in January 1962, the newspaper Granma published on Monday, January 9, 2012, an article entitled University and Society by Armando Hart Dávalos, in which he proposes that "after the triumph of the Revolution university reform was essential to realizing the final link between the university and the people and the new national socio-economic reality … "
In the article he omits the most significant: the history that led to the loss of University Autonomy as the nerve center of civil society. This simplification of the antecedents allows Hart to confer a definitive character on the reform of 1962, as if social processes have a point of closure.
Jose Ortega y Gasset, in Mission of the University and other related essays, declared: "Man inherently belongs to a generation and every generation is not installed in any place, but with great precision on the previous. This means that it is forced live up to the times and especially to the height of the ideas of the time."
Between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Father José Agustín Caballero, Tomás Romay Chacón, Félix Varela, José de la Luz y Caballero, José Martí and Enrique José Varona, among many others, made strenuous efforts to situate education at the height of its times. It follows that education reform is an ongoing process that does not support "definitive" and that from this continuity emerged University Autonomy as unavoidable necessity of modernism.
In the Republic, Carlos de la Torre, in his inaugural speech as Rector of the University of Havana in 1921, outlined a program to reform the university and achieve University Autonomy, which for him was: "to authorize the University to manage in all its affairs in full independence, except as regards the management of its funds." The following year the Rector of the University of Buenos Aires, Joseph Maples, gave a lecture on "the evolution of Argentine universities," in which he explained the process begun with the manifesto of Cordoba, 1918, which led to a university reform whose centerpiece was the autonomy and the involvement of students in university government.
In this context a group of Cuban students published a manifesto in which they called for the formation of student association, which was founded in December 1922 under the name of Federation of University Students (FEU). Subsequently, on January 10, 1923, the fledgling federation issued the Document of the University Reform Program in Cuba, which called for "The status of the university and its autonomy in economic and educational matters." To remedy the situation, Enrique Jose Varona proposed creating a commission composed of professors and students to study the project, which upon acceptance led to the establishment of the Joint Commission, composed of the Rector, teachers and members of the FEU and recognized by Presidential Decree.
The project was analyzed by the Joint Commission, the Rector, the Board, teachers and students who went to the Presidential Palace and submitted to President Alfredo Zayas, the bases of the bill for University Autonomy. Zayas, before the force of the reform movement, legally recognized the FEU and authorized the creation of the University Assembly, composed of professors, graduates and students. The advance led reform in October 1923, at the First National Student Congress, which demanded the repeal of the Platt Amendment and agreed to establish the José Martí Popular University to open the doors of the higher educational establishment to the workers.
During the government of Gerardo Machado the University Assembly was dissolved and the FEU outlawed, but the struggle continued. Finally on September 10, 1933, after the fall of Machado, the Government of the Hundred Days, led by Ramon Grau San Martin issued Decree Law 2059 of October 1933, which enacted University Autonomy. Subsequently, the failure of the March 1935 strike, the University was taken over militarily and the government revoked the autonomy.
In 1939, under President Federico Laredo Bru, University Autonomy was restored and the Constituent Assembly was convened which adopted and drafted the Constitution of 1940, which, in Article 53, upheld the constitutionality of the Autonomous University as follows: "The University of Havana is autonomous and shall be governed in accordance with its Statutes and the Law by which they will be tempered." Thanks to this they could form the forces that faced the military coup of 1952, though Fulgencio Batista overthrew the dangerous University Autonomy with the repeal of the Constitution of 1940.
In January 1959, rather than the promise of restoring the 1940 Constitution, as we read in History Will Absolve Me, it was reformed, without consultation, to confer to the Prime Minister the powers of Head of Government and to the Council of Ministers functions of Congress, an amendment similar to what Batista had done with the statutes that replaced the constitution after the 1952 coup. It then proceeded to dismantle civil society and all its instruments, including the University Autonomy.
To accomplish this, the Supreme Council of Universities was created, made up of professors and students from three universities in the country and government representatives. This Council developed the draft University Reform presented on January 10, 1962. That same year, the Cuban Communist leader, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, in an article published in the press, stated that the new university would be governed jointly by teachers and students, but said, "to the extent that the university revolution is the work of a real revolution and that socialism presides over the transformations, we can not think of teachers and students as two opposing groups… A professor of revolutionary consciousness, guided by Marxism-Leninism and a member of that ideology for years [he was referring to Juan Marinello], will have no need of the watchful presence of students with him in the governance of the University, because he will have the maturity to approach problems of higher education with certain criteria. "
Thus, University Autonomy, without having been lawfully repealed, in fact ceased to exist. Since then the University, one of the most important sources of social change in our history, was rendered inoperable for that purpose. One of its worst consequences is that under such control, the State raised the slogan of "The University is for the revolutionaries," which resulted in the expulsion of hundreds of students and teachers who did not share the ideology of the system.
The result could be no other. With the intention of giving finality to a changing process, the University, with the loss of autonomy, ceased to be nerve center of civil society. Therefore, the changes that are taking place in the economy have to be complemented by changes in the rights and freedoms, including University Autonomy, which is an inescapable necessity to put the University in step with the times.
(Published in Diario de Cuba on Monday, January 16, 2012: http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/9112-reforma-universitaria-sin-autonomía)
January 20 2012
Apartheid in the Lyric Theater of Cuba? / Miguel Iturría Savón
Apartheid in the Lyric Theater of Cuba? / Miguel Iturría SavónMiguel Iturria Savón, Translator: Unstated
On September 12, 2011, the soprano Yoslainy Perez Derrick, a member of the National Lyric Theater Choir of Cuba (TLNC) sent a letter to the State Council, with copies to the Ministry of Culture and National Arts Council, complaining of irregularities hampering her artistic development within that institution, because for 15 years she has played only secondary roles without being evaluated as a solo artist, despite her record, high professional standards and broad curriculum.
In her extensive testimony she enumerates the requests to the director of the company, the pretexts used by him, the humiliations and the constraints that favor her exclusion. "They've been closing the fence on me every day, subtly forbidding the possibility to develop myself as an artist, I'm not scheduled even in roles that previously performed… I was evaluated as a first level singer with the choir in 2003, and since that date I have not been re-evaluated."
To amend the opportunities denied to the 38-year-old black singer of it would be enough to hear some of her recordings and concerts or read her bulging curriculum, but things are not so easy with the Master Adolfo Casas Chirino, director of TLNC, who upon receiving the complaint met with the Secretary of Nucleus of the Communist Party and the Arts Council before responding to Martha Orihuela, Director of Inspection of the Ministry of Culture, who sent arguments against the applicant, dated 31 October and 2 November.
The first alleges appreciation of "the interest of the compañera in excelling since she graduated at the senior level at ISA, and her intention to progress, aspiring to roles in the various titles of the works presented in the Grand Theater of Havana." She cites the roles performed by Yoslainy Perez in La Traviata, Cecilia Valdés, Maria La O and The Magic Flute, but warns that "she has already reached the maximum level to which she can aspire as a choir singer" and that to ascend to actress singer "would require a prior audition and a vacancy that matches her type of voice," lyric soprano. After which she cites other details and describes her as "disrespectful to the approach… we have a retrograde thinking, demagogue, favoritism, insubordinate and even patronizing …"
The second letter, signed by the Director and members of the Artistic Council members, is more of the same.
Yoslainy Pérez Derrick (Havana, 1973), graduated in Music Education from the Adolfo Guzman School (1989), has a Bachelor degree, studied English and German, art direction and production, vocal technique with Ricardo Linares Fleites, director of the Lyric Theatre Chorus, and with Martha Clarke, soloist of the company and professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), where she majored in Voice.
With the Lyric, she joined the cast of Porgy & Bess, under the general direction of Maestro Manuel Duchesne Cuzán and musician Enrique Pérez Mesa, which won success in Austria and Spain in the summer of 2000. She took on the characters Estrella in the operetta Amalia Batista, of Flora in La Traviata, of the Second Lady in The Magic Flute, and was a cast member in the operetta Cecilia Valdés.
She has been a soloist in in concert-tributes to G. Gershwin, Gonzalo Roig, Mariana Gonitch, Lyrics of the Future, la Sala San Felipe Neri, the Plaza de Armas with the National Concert Band, the Amadeo Roldan Auditorium, and the Catalan Society; as well as singing in Galas of closure and Master Classes of foreign directors such as the Austrian Hartmut Krones, George Backer, from Luxembourg, the Korean Jae-Joon Lee, and the Spanish soprano Elisa Belmonte. In 2009 she won 2nd place and the award for best performer of opera Gonitch Marian Competition.
Such a record belies the disqualification about the lack of skills and other pretexts used by the Director and the Arts Council to deny the place of the TLNC singer actress where she remains in the choir since 1996. Is the color of her skin the cause of marginalization at the elite institution?
Adolfo Casas argues that his company has no racial prejudice and that the staff includes significant actors of African descent, among them one of the leading sopranos. Yoslainy Pérez Derrick expressed otherwise and considers it "segregated" because she prefers to realize her aspirations without flattery or will not remain silent about nepotism and the abuse of power practiced by Casas.
Artists requesting anonymity say that all who claimed their rights or alleged irregularities in the "fiefdom de Zulueta 253″ (seat of TLNC), were shown the exit door with little in hand.
This "bureaucratic apartheid" enjoys the complicity of the State Council and the Ministry of Culture, agencies that sent Pérez Derrick's letter back to the slaughterhouse, without subjecting it to an impartial analysis with advice or views of experts not involved in the problem.
In the aftermath, the aspirations of the black soprano continue to be held back by the unilateral opinion of the Maestro Adolfo Casas and the Arts Council who bend their necks before its draconian codes. Undoubtedly, this mechanism will continue wasting the artistry of talented professionals.
The TLNC is losing ground to companies that exhibit greater force in their development and scene settings. The easy way is to recycle the same pieces, sets, actors, stage movements and concessions, but it only manages to bore fans of the genre and divert viewers to other companies that seek excellence.
For its human material, the Lyric Theater could multiply its proposals and present them in various locations. Its professionals need practice and freshness before the viewpoints of different managers and specialists, which provide opportunities for singers like Pérez Derrick.
For such purposes a competent director is needed, and not an overseer who cracks the whip on the slaves he develops. Despotic vices and styles turn Cuban culture into a victim of these mistakes.
December 13 2011
Cuba, Where Sheep Are Trained To Venerate Wolves
Op/Ed – 1/31/2012 @ 11:15AM
Cuba, Where Sheep Are Trained To Venerate Wolves
With the death of Cuban dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza, Cuba has lost one of its precious remaining brave souls. While a sputtering dissident movement shows occasional signs of life, reminding us of the hell the Cuban people endure, it casts a pale shadow compared to the fury of the Arab Spring. How is it possible that the Castro brothers have been able to run one of the world's most repressive and dysfunctional gulags for so long without their meeting the fate of the Ceausescus by now?
Their technique of how to introduce communism on an island scale is worth studying.
First, take a geographic area and build a firewall around it. Allow an elite group of monomaniacal thugs to subject the people trapped inside to five decades of brutal repression, privation, confiscation, and humiliation, all bolstered by relentless propaganda designed to convince victims and observers alike that this is necessary for the greater glory of the revolution.
Second, enlist an army of global intellectuals to manufacture a smokescreen of respectability for a governing philosophy that extols the virtues of equality and sacrifice, despite the fact that it delivers the equality of poverty and the sacrifice of self respect. Build a few Potemkin village medical facilities to fool the gullible into believing some noble purpose or higher achievement motivates the endeavor.
Third, make it is risky, but not impossible, for anyone who possesses the ambition and courage to rebel to escape instead.
Finally, marinate for two generations as you chase off the best and the brightest and observe what happens to the character of the people that survive.
Welcome to Cuba, where the human spirit has been so thoroughly crushed that a nation of sheep passively waits for their predatory wolves to die of old age, safely in their beds, not a hand raised against them.
Given the Cuban people's apparent resignation to their own fate, is it any surprise that the rest of us just shake our heads in wonder and go about our business, our political leaders impotently decrying the occasional human rights outrage that escapes the censors and makes it into the news?
When the nightmare runs its course and the complete story is finally told, there will be no redeeming chapters.
But what about the lower-than-average infant mortality and longer life expectancy touted by the Castro regime's boosters, if such statistics can be believed? Isn't living longer an end that justifies the means? Think about what living longer implies if you're forced to live under tyranny. America's founders—and indeed, the leaders of the Central and South American independence movements—preferred death to that sort of life, and said so with their words and deeds.
What about the famously low crime rate, where a midnight stroller is safer in Havana than in Washington, DC? Yes, violent crime is a government monopoly in a police state. Plus, in a country that has so little, there is nothing much to steal. After all, how many iPhones can get ripped off when nobody can afford one and posting the wrong thing on Twitter can earn you a visit from state security?
It'll be interesting to see what happens to a demoralized people after Castroism breathes its final breath. A new pack of wolves might try to keep the workers' paradise going, but at this point even the most devoted cadres may well be weary of the experiment. Look for them to enrich themselves by "privatizing" the economy Russian oligarch-style, as they carve up the island to remodel it into the Caribbean resort destination it has every right to be—so long as the "right" people profit.
A brief vintage car export market will likely open up as the world's largest living auto museum sells off its collection. Prostitution will return, or more precisely come out of the shadows, perhaps along with the revival of what once was a thriving pornography industry. It's hard to imagine a manufacturing base springing up to take advantage of the cheap labor as this needs to be coupled with a work ethic, something the Castro regime has made every effort to destroy. Surely, some unique comparative advantage will come to the fore. But having tolerated the intolerable for so long, will the Cuban people know what to do with their newfound freedom once liberated from their chains?
That is the experiment that awaits the return of capitalism.
One can imagine a scenario in which an influx of returning expats, rich in both human and financial capital, blow past the locals as they reintroduce the courage, entrepreneurship, and work ethic they took with them when they escaped. A two-tier society could easily emerge, with returnees and their children lording their success over the bewildered and resentful locals. Petty theft likely will make a comeback, so expect a vigorous market for alarm and security services.
Cubans who have managed to get an advanced education under Castro, like the many doctors staffing its medical system, will probably do fine, though many might move to the U.S. seeking better pay, filling our looming doctor shortage. Cigar exports will spike, although once Cuban cigars lose their naughty cachet they will have to compete with many excellent products produced by Cuba's neighbors. And the music industry will thrive once it is coupled with international distribution—some talents just cannot be stamped out.
But what will happen to the rest of the populace? Many might go to work as the cooks, dishwashers, waiters, and hotel maids that will surely be in demand when Club Med comes to town. They'll be much better off than they are now. But don't expect that to stop the mainstream media from running nostalgic stories about the equality that should have, would have, and could have been had Marxism only been implemented properly.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2012/01/31/cuba-where-sheep-are-trained-to-venerate-wolves/
Amnesty: Cuba Releases 3 Prisoners of Conscience
Amnesty: Cuba Releases 3 Prisoners of ConscienceBy PETER ORSI Associated PressHAVANA January 23, 2012 (AP)
Amnesty International said Monday that three Cubans held without charge for 52 days following their arrest at a protest were released last week, hours after the human rights group named them as prisoners of conscience.
The release of the three also came a day after a hunger-striking dissident died, prompting condemnation from island dissidents, rights watchers, the United States and other nations. Amnesty had planned to designate Wilman Villar, 31, a prisoner of conscience but he died in custody before it could.
Ivonne Malleza Galano, Ignacio Martinez Montejo and Isabel Haydee Alvarez were set free Jan. 20 but threatened with "harsh sentences" if they do not stop their anti-government actions, the human rights monitor said in a statement Monday.
It said all three were detained at a Nov. 30 protest in Havana at which Malleza and Martinez held a banner that read "Stop hunger, misery and poverty in Cuba." Alvarez was arrested for objecting when security forces took the other two into custody.
"Amnesty International had adopted them as prisoners of conscience, as they were detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, and had called for their immediate and unconditional release," the statement said.
Cuba considers dissident activity to be counterrevolutionary, and the dissidents to be mercenaries out to bring down the communist-run government. It denies holding any political prisoners in its lockups.
Amnesty, which has strict criteria for who constitutes a "prisoner of conscience" including a history of nonviolence, had not recognized any Cuban inmates as such since the previous spring, when the last of 75 dissidents jailed since a 2003 crackdown were freed.
Villar was arrested in November in the eastern city of Santiago following an anti-government protest.
The Cuban government denied that he had been on hunger strike or was even truly a dissident. It described him as a "common criminal" sent to prison for domestic violence, said he received all the medical attention he needed and alleged that his case was being manipulated for political ends.
Authorities' indignation continued Monday as official newspapers Granma and Trabajadores published an editorial titled "Cuba's Truths." Taking up the entire front pages of both publications, it attacked critics' own records on human rights and defended the island, citing achievements in health care, education and literacy, and calling the accusations a smear campaign by Cuba's enemies.
"The so-called political prisoner was serving a sentence of four years, following a fair process … and a trial according to the rule of law, for brutally and publicly beating his wife, threatening police and violently resisting arrest," the editorial said
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors detentions of dissidents in Cuba, sent an open letter to the government demanding access to the investigation.
It said it wanted to confirm or rule out its belief that Villar was unfairly and disproportionately punished for his political activities, held in solitary confinement and given inadequate medical care when he went on hunger strike. Signed by Commission founder Elizardo Sanchez, a dissident and former prisoner himself, the letter doubted that Villar was truly imprisoned for beating his wife.
"The family incident from July 2011 should be clarified, as well as the reasons why he would be freed and sent back to the family home despite the possible risks from a supposed situation of domestic violence," it read.
Cuban communists OK term limits for party and government officials
Posted on Monday, 01.30.12
Cuban communists OK term limits for party and government officials
At the Cuban Communist Party's first national conference, term limits are approved for government and party officials.By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuba's Communist Party Sunday cleared the way for a long-term renovation of its Central Committee that might hint at the island's future leaders, while Raúl Castro issued a strong call for openness within the party and mass media — but only up to a point.
Closing a first-ever National Conference of the party, Castro as expected also confirmed that party and government officials will be limited to two five-year terms. He and brother Fidel have ruled Cuba since 1959.
Conference delegates also unanimously approved replacing up to 20 percent of the 115 Central Committee members over the next five years, a move that could shine a spotlight on younger leaders that will succeed the 80-year-old Castro.
Overall, however, the two-day conference fulfilled Castro's caution earlier this month that Cubans should not have too many "illusions" about the two-day, closed-door gathering of more than 800 delegates.
Castro spoke several times about the need to support and carry out the ambitious open-market reforms approved in April by a party congress — its supreme form of gathering — to rescue the Soviet styled economy from the doldrums.
The Central Committee will hold two plenum meetings per year to watch over the reforms as well as the annual budgets and production goals and keep them from "falling into a broken bag," he announced.
Castro also punched away at one of his complaints at virtually every one of his public appearances — the corruption at virtually every level of Cuban life that has been undermining his efforts at reforms.
"Corruption is "one of the principal enemies of the revolution, much more prejudicial than the subversive and meddlesome programs of the U.S. government," he declared, referring to Washington's pro-democracy programs in Cuba.
"The party will definitively assume the conduct" of the fight against corruption, he added, without giving details. Castro created the post of comptroller general after he assumed power to crack down on the corruption.
He urged party members to become more "democratic" and openly debate Cuba's myriad problems, adding that to abandon the island's one-party system would be "to legalize the party or parties of the [U.S.] empire."
Cuba's mass media, all party or state controlled, need to report on the debate "with responsibility and the most strict veracity," he added, "not in the bourgeois style, full of sensationalism and lies, but with proven objectivity and without useless secretiveness."
During the 40-minute address, Castro also ground away at party issues like the need for hard work, ethics and discipline, and he told party officials to not meddle in decisions that should be left up to the government officials.
"The only thing that can defeat the revolution and socialism in Cuba would be our incapacity to correct the errors committed in the last 50 years … and those that we could make in the future," Castro declared.
Marino Murillo, the island "reform tsar" in charge of guiding and enforcing the economic changes, was quoted as acknowledging that more changes are needed but adding "that there's a limit — the socialist system is untouchable."
And delegate Yosvani Verdial was quoted as saying that while the party wants young members, "we want youths who are committed, who are patriots, who are unconditional" supporters of the communist system.
One intriguing report noted that Castro's daughter Mariela Castro, who was not a delegate but was invited to address a Conference working group, had proposed amending a document to use the word "dialogue," a word much disliked by the government.
Mariela proposed "including the word in a direct way, where it had appeared more implicitly," Arleen Rodriguez Derivet, a journalist who runs the nightly public affairs TV show Mesa Redonda, wrote in the government's CubaDebate Web page.
Rodriguez added that if she herself had been a delegate, she would have approved the change, but gave no details on whether the change was approved, or how the word would have affected the document.
Castro's daughter, who heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, has at times said she favors more and faster changes in Cuba, and at times fiercely defended the communist system and her father's rule.
In another odd line in her report, Rodriguez asked whether the work of the Conference could be seen as "social engineering?" Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's goals for creating selfless communists were often referred to as "social engineering."
José Ramón Machado Venture, No. 2 to Raúl Castro in both the government and the party, noted that nearly 43 percent of the delegates were women and 37.5 percent were black or "mestizo," percentages higher than in the party's 800,000 members.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/29/2614707/cuban-communists-ok-term-limits.html
A Chip Off The Old Block: Che’s Daughter / Ángel Santiesteban
A Chip Off The Old Block: Che's Daughter / Ángel SantiestebanAngel Santiesteban, Translator: Unstated
As if by agreement, Mariela Castro flatters the Dutch system of prostitution in the Amsterdam red light district, and Aleida Guevara (both without highlighting they'd come from the most advantaged sperm of their fathers who fertilized the eggs of their mothers), counsels the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, that he should nationalize the entire press. Their declarations do discredit to themselves. In each interview they gave they received a red card and a penalty.
To recommend such barbarism to the Caudillo shows an Olympian underestimation of him, as if it hadn't already previously occurred to him. Perhaps little Aleida didn't read about Chavez's closure of the newspapers and radio and TV channels? Couldn't she imagine that her uncle Fidel had already advised the same.
What is happening is that times now are not the same if we compare them to the decade of the sixties, and no one has informed this brat that she has lived in a bubble (having had the privilege of believing that socialism is effective because her table has never lacked filet mignon, nougat, apples and wine, all as a great concert of imports), and she is unaware that the world is watching and expressing its disagreement with such abuses and lack of democracy, and, precisely because of these follies typical of dictators, in recent times the most important political changes in contemporary history are taking place.
I'd like to note that this post has been the most difficult of all those written by me so far. I find Aleida so alien, so distant from the events of the world, that at times it seems to me as if she is mentally retarded. I saw her with her children in primary school many times, at 5th and 62nd Streets, with her arrogant airs and figure, looking at the rest of the parents over her shoulder at a prudent distance so as not to mingle with the plebs. I could also appreciate the sly contempt with which the parents responded. Listening to the teachers, after flattering her, cursing her and cataloging the ungratefulness and abuse of her position as "daddy's girl."
In addition to her caudillo-taliban education, you have to remember her genetic inheritance, hence Aleida Guevara's pose as a Court Aristocrat, nails bared as is natural. It doesn't take much imagination to know what she would be capable of if you put a little power in her hands.
I always remember the shocking testimony of Comandante Benigno, who may have known Che well, when they went to execute the peasant who told the enemy the coordinates where they could find Fidel Castro's guerrilla camp in the Sierra Maestra, and after a "summary trial," the accused was led by Che, William Galvez and Benigno, and as they left the camp, looking for a place to carry out the execution, they hear an unexpected gunshot very close to their ears. The shock made them take a defensive position, when they looked they saw the body of the peasant fall with his head exploded from a shot by Che, who, cold-bloodedly, put away the pistol and advised them to hurry back because it was going to rain. There's nothing more to say. To end this interminable story, on his arrival at La Cabaña prison, where he established his command post, he provoked a river of blood with hundreds of firing squads. He spent more bullets in La Cabaña than in the entire guerrilla war.
In Africa, after the battle in which an African soldier, in order to save his own life, had to abandon his machine gun because of its weight and the difficulty of moving it, Che called him a coward in front of everyone. And the African soldier refuted him, explaining that he had no other human choice. And Che, with the same coolness with which he destroyed the peasant's head with his bullet, said laconically, "you made a coward of yourself." And in the follow battles the soldier chose to lose his life rather than abandoning the machine gun again, and the same Che, later in his diary, recognized that it had been his fault. He had this gift of killing people, directly and indirectly, those who because of ideology and by chance ran into him.
And now his daughter, she takes after her father, doesn't know the reality of Cubans, lives in a house that she doesn't know how or by whom it got built and she's never had to pay the costs of it, drives a car without having earned it, at a cost which is the sweat of people who were never consulted about whether they would accept the sacrifice for her comfort, and now on her Trip to Peru she assures the press, thinking herself greatly conversant in the political and social world, that she has counseled the dictator Hugo Chavez to imitate her uncle Fidel. How ridiculous is this girl from the court? I can't forget when, as an adult, she went to Argentina for the first time, and in less than a month returned speaking with the intonation of her father. She was greeted at the airport before a world cringing in embarrassment, in front of her uncle Fidel, who timidly watched her butcher the accent, a capricious cadence at a desperate speed.
And now she comes to us with her know-it-all airs, wandering the world with the people's money and the memory of her father. I'll never understand how there can be people who are proud of a man who ordered executions and who, himself, with his own hand, carried out the sentences. It seems to me that the figure of Che has been the image most manipulated in our era.
Now we have to endure this daughter of her father and niece of her uncle, who comes to us with her extremist actions that reaffirm, in addition to her genetics, the sentiments of her biological family and the work of her in loco parentis Fidel Castro.
As my aunt would say, "God save us, and take us confessed."
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
January 10 2012
The Digital Divide Between the Education Systems of Cuba and Latin America / Dora Leonor Mesa
The Digital Divide Between the Education Systems of Cuba and Latin America / Dora Leonor MesaDora Leonor Mesa, Translator: jCS, Translator: Scott
One of the most relevant initiatives put forth by the Latin American community of nations in recent years is the project "Educational Goals 2021: the education we want for the bicentennial generation" (A look at education in Latin American (2011))
Its objective is to improve the quality of education and equity in education in order to confront poverty and inequality, and to promote social inclusion. It deals with an approach to as of yet unresolved problems such as illiteracy, students leaving school early, child labour, low student achievement, and the poor quality of public school offerings. It attempts to confront, at the same time, the pressing societal demand for information and knowledge: the incorporation of information and communication technologies (TIC) in teaching and learning, and the encouragement of innovation and creativity, and the development of scientific research and progress (page 8).
With the aim of elaborating the afore-mentioned benchmarks of progress, the promoters of the project "Educational Goals 2021″ considered it necessary to begin with an analysis of the present situation, that outlines the reality in which education finds itself in the Latin American countries in the areas defined by the 2021 Goals. The base year results of the study are from 2010. Some indicators include references to previous years as it was not always possible to find the appropriate data.
The overview offered by the OEI (Organization of Iberoamerican States) are solid enough to be taken as a point of reference with respect to Cuba and the rest of Latin America. The bulk of the information in the document is available from other institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations.
In the future, a number of diverse indicators will form the basis of a comparative analysis of the impact of the information age in Latin America and Cuba.
Average number of students per computer
The development of TIC indicators in the realm of education raises the need to quantity some dimension of this reality, beginning with a fundamental aspect of its functioning: that of structure. In this way, a common and generally accepted indicator to measure the extent of computer use in schools came to light – that is, the student-computer ratio. Among other things, comparisons between countries can be made using this ratio and one can see the extent of the gap that separates Latin America from developed nations.
With respect to the use of the computer and the ratio of students per computer, an initial observation is the existence of a general consensus as to the importance of using the TIC as learning tools. Upon weighing the present situation in Iberoamerica, however, some marked differences may be observed. Compared to countries promoting a policy of a 1:1 student-computer ratio (Portugal, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Spain, among others) some countries have a very high student-computer ration. Cuba reports a ratio greater than 30:1, one of the highest rates in Iberoamerica. (Miradas sobre la educación en Iberoamérica, 2011, page 177)
A first difficulty lies in the different purposes for which computers are used in schools. In general, most Latin American countries have opted to add the total number of existing computers in schools, whether they are used for administrative, educational or both. El Salvador specifically mentioned that decision, while limiting its response to the number of computers in the schools, without reference to the number of students. As an exception to that rule, we may cite the case of Spain, which calculates considering just the computers used for teaching and learning tasks.
On the other hand, in connection with the use most of Latin American countries are making of ICTs, it shows that in many cases it is primarily aimed at achieving technological literacy of students. Despite the diversity of situations in the region, a positive fact is that no country supports never using use computers within the educational environment, but in many cases use is limited to computer rooms, as happens in Cuba.
The MIRADAS report acknowledges that there are currently no standardized assessment systems that allow us to have concrete data about impact ICTs have on learning. The absence of these data is of concern, while more than 700 research efforts in the U.S. on the subject confirm the positive effect of ICTs in the learning of students with access to computers, either when they receive their instruction through them, or use learning technology systems in collaborative groups or networks (Schacter, J., 1999)
Strong evidence exists that learning with TIC is less effective when learning objectives are not well defined and the purpose for utilizing technology is controversial. Insofar as primary education is concerned, experts recommend that we think about education first and technology later. (Schacter, J. pg. 10).
Today, indicators need to be developed that can measure the effect or impact of educational objectives, an aspect that goes hand in hand with the development of other additional disciplines, such as cognitive psychology to assess learning processes mediated by ICT. This constant reformulation is part of the digital paradigm which, linked to the learning process, is continually generating new returns in terms of applications, content, competences, action plans, and, naturally, solutions.
Translated by: Scott and jCS
November 25 2011
“Discriminated“ Professions / Fernando Dámaso
"Discriminated" Professions / Fernando DámasoFernando Dámaso, Translator: Unstated
I'm not treading on thin ice if I argue that the legalization of self-employment — which never should have been outlawed — has been well received by most citizens and, for many, has become a significant form of subsistence for their families, despite the high taxes, the bureaucracy and the inspectors and other complications.
However, in the legalization, I want to call attention to a group of professionals who have been discriminated against because they have not been authorized to practice their professions on their one. I'm referring to doctors, dentists, professors, architects, engineers, lawyers and others. These, if they work for themselves, cannot exercise the professions for which they studied and gained work experience — but may work in other occupations such as parking attendants, taxi drivers, restaurant owners or workers, or repairers of eyeglasses, lighters or shoes, and so on, none of which they prepared for or have experience in. When a country can afford to ignore its professionals in this way, it is either because there is a surplus or because something isn't working. I think its the latter.
Photo Peter Deel
The argument for such a prohibition is that if they are authorized to work in their professions, the State would be without a great number of them, due to the miserable salaries they receive and their poor working conditions. I don't doubt it because it's very easy to check, but the solution is not to continue banning something that might come to pass in excess.
I think different possible solutions can be analyzed. I'll limit myself to two: the first, which could be difficult to apply in this time of economic crisis, would be to raise their salaries to make them competitive with what they would receive working for themselves, and to improve working conditions. The second, which could be a transition phase, would be to limit them to working part of the day for the State — with the associated wages — and part for themselves, at their own risk.
This would satisfy both interests: the State's and the individual's, with one as important as the other. It's nothing new: in the years of the Republic it worked this way in different sectors, such as health, education and others.
One or the other of these possible solutions, or some other approach, should be tried sooner rather than later, the full legalization of work, and every citizen engaged in whatever suits him, for which he is prepared, when he desires, without absurd prohibitions, within the framework of free competition.
This would result in economic improvement, bettering the services and developing the nation. What's more, we would not experience the bitter originality of having doctors driving cabs, architects making pizzas, or lawyers serving food. It's true that no decent work is a disgrace, but please, each one in his place. Good is good but not too much.
January 3 2012
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