Untitled - Convivencia

IN THIS HOUR OF CUBA: BREAD OR FREEDOM?Editorial 3. May-Jun-2008. Convivencia Magazine. www.convivenciacuba.esThe answer is very easy according to theoryand good will: We want both. The Cubanpeople wants bread and freedom. Morebread and more freedom.But in practice, facts say something different;strategies and tactics seem to switch the turnsignal on to go one way but they irremissiblygo the other way around. It seems that eventhe ones who want the best for Cuba, wemean, for Cubans, suddenly see themselvesmaking a pragmatic choise, away from theethical policy they claim to defend, awayfrom the life they demand in their owncountries, away even from the rights andvalues they teach in their philosophicallectures, political schools or religions.This inconsistency, often unconcious, othertimes clearly assumed and in not a fewoccasions covered by the best of wills, couldbe found in the decisions of ordinary citizensin their daily lives as well as in the strategiesand calculations of the ones who have anykind of power or influence. We could findthis inconsistency even accompanied by acertain amount of amnesia and some doublestandardmanias, in the behaviour of someinternational observers and officials and inthe behaviour of the ones who care abouttheir economic and comercial interests aboveall and without conditions.The “bread or freedom” manipulatedalternative could be updated in other actionsmore subtle but no less deceitful: “politicalmanouvers or human rights”. Or also: “theso-called “intelligent” strategies or growingjustice”. Or even more, “advantageous stanceor ethical and risky stances”. We state thatsuch alternatives contain a trap difficult toperceive and more difficult to evade andovercome.Behind those trick alternatives, deepreasons could be hidden. For example, anexclusive and amoral conception of politics,as if politics didn’t have anything to do withthe rights of citizens; the will to subordinateand separate the human, civil and politicalrights from the inseparable economical,social and cultural human rights; a mania ofcalling intelligent strategies to the selfinterestedcircumstances; a hemiplegicprofile of justice subordinated to thedilemma of: “the money or the life”. Apragmatism with no ethics and no longtermperspective. These manouvers place usin the false dialectical position of beingobliged to choose between the materialdimension of the person and socialcoexistence and other human and socialdimensions which are equally necessary,inalienable and urgent.Some argue the criterion of “gaining time”with the purpose of not changing anythingor consolidate themselves in power. Theyforget or conceal the fact that whenever acountry is living any crisis in which anychange in structures can change the natureof the system, prolonging changes andgaining time only lead to the worsening ofthe situation, the deepening of the crisisand eventually the door is open to chaos.Let us not think of a noisy, spectacularchaos only. In most of the occasions, as ithappens in Cuba, the chaos is deaf, mute,Ediciones ConvivenciaPinar del Río. 201210