Untitled - Convivencia

This proposal could seem not very political,not very effective, weak and not very defined.To think that this is a naïve proposal could bea reflection of the violent and aggressivementality we are used to through the media,the harangues, the condemnation acts.However we are convinced that if there is nota change in mentality, a change in languageand violent methods, the changes in Cuba cantake an ethically unacceptable road.A good gesture of change would be toreprieve and grant amnesty to the mentality ofinternal enemies, to that language and thosemethods of confrontation among Cubans justbefore the visit by the Pope Benedict XVI toCuba. That is why we would like to cite whatthe Church Social Doctrine Compendium saysregarding the dynamics between the fairclaiming for human rights, the role of theState and the cultivation of civic friendship asthe foundation of pacific coexistence:“The deep meaning of the civil and politicalcoexistence does not emerge immediately fromthe catalogue of duties and rights of theperson. This coexistence is based upon civilfriendship and fraternity… Civil friendship isthe most authentic acting of the fraternityprinciple which is inseparable from freedomand equality”. (CF. Santo Tomás de Aquino,Sentenciae Octavi Libri Ethicorum”. lect. 1)The French Revolution brought into the worldthe struggle for these three universal valueswhich should be interrelated in an allembracingand balanced way. The evils thatthe world has suffered after 1789 are deepdown a result of an unbalance between thesethree values or the absence of some of them.Ultra-liberal capitalism has given priority tofreedom of market above equality andfraternity and this has led to a visibledetriment of them or to the absence of themin the lives of the majority of citizens. “Realsocialism”, on the other hand, gave priority toa downward equality dictated by anauthoritarian State thus leading to freedomand fraternity serious violations. An era mustcome when the mutual balance and theintegration of freedom and fraternity shouldbe the way for civic friendship and pacificcoexistence both built with responsibilitythrough the conscious exercise of citizensovereignty.The change in civic habitat: principle andfoundation of all political and economicchangeCuba is a nation that has suffered the evils ofboth systems so the change of age will notcome if this change is not sustained on achange of concepts, mentality, language andmethods so that the totalitarian egalitarianismdoes not kill equality, so that exasperationand violence don’t’ kill fraternity and so thatfreedom without ethics does not kill its twosisters at the same time: equality andfraternity.The cultivation of civic friendship could be adoor to guaranteeing the other changes. Sostates the father of contemporary Christianhumanism, Jacques Maritain:“If society structure emerges, above all, fromjustice then the vital dynamism and theinternal creative force of society emerge fromcivic friendship. Friendship creates theconsent of wills demanded by nature butfreely carried out and found in the origin ofsocial community”. Civic friendship “is theencouraging force of society”; Aristotle knewthis well. Justice and Law are not enough; theyare indispensable pre-required conditions”. Butjustice and civic friendship require inclusionand equal opportunities for all citizens: “It’sfor friendship to use the already existingequality among men, in an equal way. It’s forjustice to carry equality to the ones who arealready different. When this equality has beenreached (through civic friendship) the task ofjustice is carried out.” (Jacques Maritain. Losderechos del hombre y la ley natural, p. 43-44).Even Marxist philosopher Agnes Heller statesthis the same way:“In the best possible socioeconomic world thegood life depends exclusively on the existentialchoice and the fundamental choice made bythe individual… the goodness of every personincludes the virtue of justice and the exerciseof this virtue in the public sphere, in achievingpublic happiness. Empathy, sympathy, thewillingness to help, to comfort and adviseothers, magnanimity, forgiveness; all of theseare virtuous attitudes and acts that arebeyond justice… citizens of the present world,Ediciones ConvivenciaPinar del Río. 2012103