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FREEDOM AND FRATERNITY FOR CUBAEditorial 21. May-Jun-2011. Convivencia Magazine. www.convivenciacuba.es“The Greek Democracy had conquered for the citizen theright to participate in public life. Modern democracyinverts the relation: the State loses the right to intervenein the private life of citizens”.Octavio PazTo change but not to change the essence:This could be the diagnosis of what ishappening in Cuba. To regret in the middleof the disappointment and the indifferenceor to bring the future forward: they are twoof the doors through which we continueliving.In order to get out of the structuralimmobilism it is better to think and bringforward the future we want for Cuba. Asignificant number of Cubans ask for greaterdegrees of freedom in its diversemanifestations: personal freedom to beourselves without fear, freedom ofconscience, of expression, freedom to meetand associate ourselves, economic andpolitical freedom, religious freedom,freedom for artistic, literary and scientificcreation, freedom for communication andaccess to Internet, freedom to travel insideand outside the country and many otherways to exercise individual freedom.However, freedom not only has the personaldimension to satisfy the needs and rights ofhuman beings but it is a way to break downthe walls of selfishness, rivalry and violenceas a solution to diversity and discrepancy. Itis the freedom that helps the egos and thetake divisions of the only and plural humanfamily to transcend.Freedom cannot be a trench to take coversone in front of the other or to lock up tootherness and much less to attack, discredit orviolently confront the others in the name of afreedom without boundaries or ethicalregulations. That’s not personal freedom butbarbaric licentiousness. That is not human rightbut offensive wildness ethically unacceptablewhen it’s about some citizens against othersand even worse when it’s about the Stateagainst the citizens.Individual liberties as all human rights havetheir dialectical pair in duties that areinseparably correspondent. For example: to theright to express ourselves freely correspondsthe duty to respect the others when we expressourselves. To the right of economic initiative,the duty of sharing and redistributing therichness obtained through the tax systemcontribution corresponds. The right to religiousfreedom has a correspondence in the duty torespect the right to profess other religions orthe respect for the atheism of the others. TheStates have the right to look after the order andthe gobernability but their duty is to protectand take care of their citizens as well as toguarantee its right to its own governance. Thatis what we want for Cuba in the present and inthe future.Likewise, the rights of the modern States canonly reach the public range and never the scopeof the private life of their citizens. To controlthe private life of the citizens is not only anabuse of the rights of the State but a flagrantviolation of the rights of persons, even more ifthe way of organizing the State intends tocontrol all dimensions of the human existence:the family, the neighbourhood, the friends, theassociations, the labor and the public one. Thisis the extreme way to exercise the rights of theEdiciones ConvivenciaPinar del Río. 201285