Debate, dialogue, differentiate. Travel notes
Without expanded communication across multiple channels, it’s difficult to have interaction or mutual influence, which are vital for politics to work on both sides.
I remember the first time I published an article in El Nuevo Herald. It was titled “La Perla de las Antillas” (NH, June 10, 1991). It was a disquisition on the differences between the cultural codes of Cubans in Miami and Cuba at that time. I commented on the impression of having again heard the radio programs of my childhood, of visiting Little Havana, and its replicas of iconic Havana sites, from La Carreta Restaurant, to the Caballero Funeral Home, to the Quinta Avenida clock.
That article ended with an anecdote about my daughter, who was then studying at the university. I had thought of giving her a “Cubanness test” brought from Miami. Of the nearly 50 questions (What was Chencha like? What happened to Chacumbele? What was the “corner of sin”? What’s best for dried yuca?) she had only been able to answer one: What is Cuba of the Antilles? The Pearl, she had told me with a smile.
After my article in the NH, a barrage of fire ensued, with about seven replies, for almost two weeks. I remember one titled “Pan con ají,” which reproached me for the decadence of post-Revolution Cuba, manifested in the vulgarity of Cuban pizzas. Etc.
One of the responses, however, published in none other than the Diario de las Américas, “Carta abierta a un académico cubano” (Open Letter to a Cuban Academic), disagreed with mine, but did so with a different tone and arguments. So I decided to respond only to that one, with a second text, “¿Podemos hablar?” (Can We Talk?) (NH, August 18, 1991). Its author, Uva de Aragón, a writer from the first wave of exile, responded to me in the same newspaper with a commentary titled “Podemos y debemos hablar” (We can and should talk).
Although the debate ended there, the fact is that Uva and I began to forge an intellectual exchange from that point on, which would later blossom into a lasting friendship. Many years later, during a tribute that the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) paid to Uva, while she was visiting Havana, I had the opportunity to publicly recall that first exchange.
I began my account with this foray into the NH, but in fact there was an earlier one, 35 years ago, in The Miami Herald, which seems like the same newspaper, but isn’t.
Related Posts
During my academic travels through those lands in the 1980s, I had met journalists from the MH who shared our views on the U.S. intervention in the Central American wars. So I sent one of them an article titled “End Threats, Begin Talks,” in which I argued in favor of dialogue, explaining the new context, the geopolitical changes, the end of the war in Angola, Cuba’s concern about the crisis in the Eastern European socialist bloc and its repercussions for the Third World, the interpretations that predicted a debacle in Cuba, and the dangers of these visions in terms of national security. I argued that destabilization and force could lead to more threatening and counterproductive scenarios for the United States than seeking dialogue and agreement with the island.
They finally published it (MH, April 17, 1990), accompanied by an article by Georgie Anne Geyer, titled “Castro’s Isolation Portends Civil War,” on a single page that read “A Two-Voice Counterpoint on Cuba” at the top.
Gayer concluded her Cuban apocalypse by predicting that Fidel had a couple of years left in power unless a military rebellion occurred first. The following year, this journalist published The Guerrilla Prince, a biography of the “Cuban dictator” based largely on stories collected among exiles, infused with imagination.
When my article appeared in the MH, the socialist bloc was crumbling, and the first blows were already being felt in Cuba. Peace had not yet been achieved in Central America, and the first billboards were appearing in Miami announcing “Next Christmas in Havana.” So for me, it was like bringing off a coup.
With the arrival of the Clinton administration, I tried my luck again at the NH, this time with a piece titled “La política de EE. UU. hacia Cuba: ¿un vaso medio lleno?” (U.S. Policy Toward Cuba: A Half-Full Glass?). In it, I interpreted some signals issued by the State Department as favorable. In addition to not harping on “post-Castro Cuba” or the commitment to the Cuban exile community, they welcomed the good relations between Caribbean countries and the island and their potential influence on internal changes. They acknowledged that there was no Cuban threat to the U.S. and favored academic and cultural exchanges.
I was trying to map factors in the complex dynamics of relations, such as businesspeople and the emergence of attractive economic sectors in Cuba, and I noted that even conservative think tanks, like the Rand Corporation, were claiming it was time for a different policy. An expectation, of course, that others also had at the time, after twelve years of Republican governments; and a Clinton administration that was only eight months old.
That exercise about the half-full glass didn’t predict or provoke anything, of course; but its outcome was different from the previous ones. Once again, it was published by NH (September 1993); however, unlike two years earlier, there was no cascade of responses. The best part of all was that, around the same time, it had been published by one of our outlets called Juventud Rebelde. Although it wasn’t a home run, hitting those two bases with a single hit wasn’t bad.
As I’ve mentioned many times right here, I began visiting the United States frequently, as part of my academic work, starting in the early 1980s. That was undoubtedly an experience that contributed to my ability to debate ideas very different from my own, to construct arguments to make myself understood, and to engage in dialogue with those who held other ideologies — and would likely continue to hold them.
I was able to learn that, despite these distances, not only ideological but cultural, it was possible to convey what I knew — or thought I knew — about Cuba. That exchange helped me analyze, document and construct this knowledge about Cuba and our relations with the United States in a different way.
In addition to being an intellectual learning experience, it was, above all, a cultural and human experience. At Columbia, Harvard and the University of Texas, I had Cuban-American students whose families had lost property in Cuba, participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, led exile organizations; who had arrived in Operation Peter Pan or had been taken via Mariel. Some of them had worked at the Cuban-American National Foundation, in television and the press in Miami, and on the staffs of politicians in Florida or New Jersey. And they came to my graduate programs on U.S.-Cuba Relations and Contemporary Cuba because they had never taken courses on Cuba in their undergraduate studies. At first, they were hesitant, unsure whether I was truly an academic in addition to being a communist.
However, after our first weeks of seminars, dialogues and debates in class, our relationship warmed up, until we began to meet on weekends. By the end of the semester, we discovered that, despite our differing political views, we had all learned a lot, and that some of us were already friends. And we would remain so to this day.
During those trips to the North, I also participated in events with military personnel from across the hemisphere at the Defense University, gave lectures on the Missile Crisis to cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, discussed Cuba with the Latin America team at the Rand Corporation (“You’re the first Cuban from Cuba to visit us,” the Cuban in charge told me), and spoke and debated about civil society in the series on Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations at the Council on Foreign Relations.
I don’t need to point out that 90% or more of those participating in those sessions didn’t think like me. Not even remotely.
I remember once when I was invited to speak about Cuba, at the dawn of the Special Period, before an audience of 100 people at Americas Society. There were too many Cuban faces in the audience to distinguish. It was the time when every Friday a group of protesters would gather for an hour or two on a corner in front of the Cuban Mission to the UN. However, despite the furrowed brows and the questions with taglines, the conversation ended peacefully.
A few weeks later, as I was entering the Mission to pick up letters from home, I heard voices outside shouting: “Rafael Hernández, when you return to New York, we’ll be waiting for you.” That tension was also part of the climate, and it could emerge anywhere, not just in Miami.
So, outside of classes and panels, one had to be prepared to deal with intransigence and rigidity, with stereotypes of anti-communism and anti-Castroism, where one least expected it. This contingency did not diminish the intellectual and political interest of being able to discuss, both publicly and privately, with former Secretaries of Defense, former CIA chiefs, Undersecretaries of State for Latin America, Wall Street Stock Market moguls, Coast Guard commanders, members of Congress, and generals who earned their ranks in Vietnam. And sometimes I discovered that some of them cultivated respect or even admiration for Fidel Castro, and for the Cuban Revolution’s ability to survive, despite all their objections and our shortcomings.
I like to say that if I’m invited to preach in Hell, I’ll go there. And in a way, that’s what I’ve done most in my life. Because I harbor the notion, perhaps fanciful, that one or two of my reasons may linger in the minds of some demons, even if unconsciously. If not, having tried it will have been worth it to clarify my own way of thinking.
Needless to say, I harbor no illusions about sworn enemies, much less about allies on the other side. I’ve known them for far too long, and even had them very close, before they switched sides to the camp of those Isaac Deutscher called renegades. He said that renegades and heretics were two very different species; and it’s necessary to learn to differentiate them. Like Jews converted to Christianity during the Inquisition, dissenters from their former beliefs can be, and often are, the most recalcitrant, dogmatic and sectarian, the most hostile toward those who continue with their former faith. That’s why dialogue with them is often very difficult; and attempting debate often proves unproductive.
Finally, I’m also under no illusion that debate and dialogue are the magic wand that will solve everything, nor that politics can be reduced to that. Reasons of state, the cultures of organizations and government apparatuses, the logic and complexities typical of transition processes, inertia in ways of thinking, habits of leadership and interests, crisis situations and defeatism — all of these, along with other factors, are part of the political process. Believing that rational dialogue and open debate will dissolve them is also a fantasy.
However, the mere fact that diverse social subjects feel identified and are active participants in this process would allow for the building and maintenance of bridges between institutions and consensus. Without expanded communication across multiple channels, it’s difficult to have interaction or mutual influence, which are vital for politics to work on both sides.
Although many friends and acquaintances sometimes tell me they wish I would be heard from above, I confess that I have never had the vocation of being a government advisor. Some of my associates feel frustrated, with good reason, because they are ignored. I would also like them to be listened to, as I personally share many of their proposals. But in my case, it’s enough for me to be able to publicly share my reflections on society and politics.
No recognition is greater than hearing someone, often a stranger, tell me I’ve helped them understand a problem, even if they haven’t found a solution.
Feeling that inner usefulness makes it all worthwhile.
Rafael Hernández: Democracy and Reform
Transcription of chapter six of La Sobremesa
[Music]
Mariana Camejo (MC): Hello to everyone watching or listening to us via audio platforms. Welcome to a new episode of La Sobremesa, a podcast from La Joven Cuba, where we speak with the lightheartedness and self-confidence of someone sitting in their living room.
Jorge Bacallao (JB): And as always, with your usual hosts, journalist Mariana Camejo and yours truly, Jorge Bacallao.
(MC): Bacallao, you know something's been happening to me lately. People are asking me questions on the street, and I don't know how to answer anymore. People say, "What's La Sobremesa?"
(JB): The million-dollar question. Well, let's see what I'm saying: La Sobremesa is a podcast from La Joven Cuba, where we have conversations, essentially conversations. They're not interviews, they're conversations with guests, experts in their field.
(MC): Yes. Of course, I always say that, that's what I say, but then people come back: "No, but, what are you talking about there? What topics are you talking about there?"
(JB): Ah, well, I get asked that too. We talk about everything as long as it's socially relevant. Do you like that? Socially relevant topics, relevant to the world we live in, like that subject.
(MC): That's exactly what I'm saying, really. And speaking of topics and social significance, you'll see what we have prepared for today.
(JB): Well, then don't move from there because the principle is lost.
[Music]
(MC): Today we have with us political scientist, researcher, and director of Temas Magazine, Rafael Hernández. Welcome to La Sobremesa, Rafael.
Rafael Hernández (RH): Thank you very much for the invitation.
(MC): Rafael, let's get right into the nitty-gritty of this conversation. Cuba is said to be a socialist democracy. So, I'd like to ask you, first of all, what conditions must a country meet to be considered a socialist democracy, and are we really one?
(RH): Well, Article 1 of the Constitution begins by saying: "Cuba is a state of law and social justice," and immediately afterward it says "democratic." It then adds that the objective, the goal of the State, is to preserve the freedom, equality, and equity of all citizens, and ends by saying that it is to develop a prosperous society and a society in which everyone has a space for recognition.
If we recall the Congress that initiated the reforms, which predates the Constitution in 2011, the Sixth Party Congress stated that the socialism being built is a prosperous and sustainable socialism. In other words, by calling socialism "prosperous" and "sustainable," it is drawing attention to our deficit. We are not prosperous enough and we are not sustainable enough.
Five years later, the Seventh Party Congress added, in addition to prosperous and sustainable, "independent and sovereign," just in case that had been forgotten, which is important, although no one disputes that we are independent and sovereign, and added "democratic." In other words, these are traits that the socialism we are building must have. Clearly, these are traits, key aspects of that socialism that are not fulfilled, that are not fully realized.
If we look at the description of popular power in that Constitution, which is perhaps the most complete description of how a socialist democracy works, it says it's a... here's the note: "They are elective and renewable positions." These positions are revocable, meaning that at any time, you don't have to wait for four years to pass, you don't have to wait for five years to pass, they can be revoked. That's a key mechanism. The other key mechanism...
(JB): Any of them?
(RH): Any of them. The other key mechanism of this socialist democracy is the need for accountability. That is, accountability, not at the end of the term, but throughout the term. Accountability, recall at any time, in addition to election, is key. Mass organizations—that is, what we call mass organizations, which are unions, women's organizations, peasant organizations, etc., youth organizations, student organizations—are incorporated into this system, into this institutional framework. And finally, he speaks of freedom of discussion, criticism, and self-criticism. He adds that they must act with transparency.
(MC): Interesting concept.
(RH): Obviously there is a set of qualities there, some of which are more fulfilled than others, but in any case we could say that, if that is socialist democracy, that is how it should be, but not how it is.
(JB): On paper it sounds wonderful.
(MC): The point is that it becomes effective.
(JB): Well, Rafael, look, there's a... I think everyone agrees that right now we're living in a crisis, probably one of the worst the Cuban people have gone through in recent years. It's a crisis with one aspect that I think is one of the most complicated, which is a crisis of confidence. In other words, many young people, above all, are losing confidence in the government's ability to make Cuba, with this project we have, a place where they can live with dignity. The key is that many people are leaving, a mass exodus; others don't leave because they can't. And there's one thing that happens very frequently, and that is that you find people who stop believing in the viability of the system after a long time, but what you don't find are people who begin to believe at this moment, let's say, people who abandon ship. My question is the following: if that's the case, if this crisis of confidence exists, why aren't greater efforts being made to achieve popular change? Because we do have changes to try to reverse many economic aspects, but there are changes that the people ask for and that are known, economists say so in
In many instances, there's a resistance to these changes. First, I want you to tell me if you think this resistance exists, and second, why?
(RH): Well, we'd have to identify exactly what these changes are that you think most people are asking for. In any case, since the 16th century, Machiavelli has talked about how political reform encounters resistance. It's a natural part of change that there is resistance to change. Even those who might benefit from some of the changes resist change, according to Machiavelli, because they don't know how they'll fare in the new system, in the new order.
So until this new order occurs, becomes effective, and is established, it's still impossible to know how many people will feel compelled to do so. The reformer always has a difficult task. If we assume that we have a government committed to reforms, but that not all the structures of that government and its components have the same level of commitment to reforms, we're going to find ourselves in a situation of logical, expected contradictions—I mean, not justifiable, but expected. When we talk about changes, we're talking about changes that benefit some sectors of the population more than others.
(JB): There is nothing that improves everyone.
(RH): Exactly. So, the answer can't be, well, changes always have social costs, because by doing so, we can make changes that have enormous social costs for many people, and those social costs won't be repairable simply because the State, something called the State, will intervene and mitigate those costs.
(MC): I feel like in some sense we're going in that direction.
(RH): Well, I think that, if that's the case, if we're moving in the direction of making changes that may have higher costs, it's about reacting to that. I think that the population, as you say, in the same way that it expresses itself by leaving, I have my opinions about the factors that influence people to leave, that it's not simply discontent with the situation they're in. Many times the poorest people, people in the worst conditions, don't leave anywhere, and it's not because they don't have money, because people raise money here on a quarter of a square meter of land, and we can verify that experimentally, enough to get out of here.
The conditions under which Cubans emigrate are relatively favorable. There are factors that contribute to this on both sides. Of course, the lack of expectations, the lack of a clear vision of where we're headed, has an impact on this, and the government can't ignore that. I don't think the government is ignoring it. The issue is what measures need to be taken, and indeed, those measures can't wait any longer.
The fact that restrictions, for example, on travel, previously existed may have made sense at a certain point. They ceased to make sense over time, and the freedom to travel expanded—not just to travel, but to travel and return—which is still a factor in the migratory flow. It's not the same as you leaving thinking the door has closed behind you forever. And that you had to leave your lifelong home without being able to sell it, for example.
That you can return, that you can afford to sell your house, leave, because you think you're going to make money and with that money if you wanted to return, you can go back and buy another house, even a cheaper one.
(MC): We have an example where, for example, opening up freedoms has been delayed due to fear. It's been shown, as in the case of housing, as in the case of travel, that after opening up, nothing happens. I mean, where did the fear come from? So the question is, where does this resistance come from and why? When so many people need changes. I wonder, even beyond emigration, what is the opportunity cost of postponing, of always delaying reforms and changes that are necessary?
(RH): I believe that reforms, by their very nature, encounter resistance, not only because of what Machiavelli said, but because in real experience they have been delayed and have encountered resistance. That was the case in China, that was the case in Vietnam. That wasn't a walk in the park; it was a struggle, and it was a forced struggle. The Vietnamese and the Chinese opted for reform because they definitely had no other choice. They tried to do other things before, and they didn't succeed. It's not that rational, golden path where everything was clear from the beginning. I'm not saying this to console ourselves with our own problems, with our delays. I'm saying this so we understand the nature of a reform process. What produces dizzying and radical changes is a revolution. We're talking about reforms. The reforms that are necessary, that are essential, are reforms that have been adopted even as a concept, as a vision of what they are, what the process is, what the path is, what the measures to be taken are. Along the way they have been abandoned, along the way they have been patched up, along the way they have been corrected.
It's logical that trial and error lead to corrections, but at a certain point, commenting on your question, for me the problem isn't so much that they've been delayed, but that the ones adopted so far haven't been effective, that they've had counterproductive results. Like the recent ones related to the Ordinance, not only have they been delayed, but they haven't had good results, they haven't been effective, they've been counterproductive.
The Ordering Task was counterproductive. The Ordering Task ultimately triggered inflation. Cubans, unlike other peoples of the world, were not accustomed to inflation. Inflation was a shock that shook family life. Of course, we complained about the existence of two currencies before, but for 20 years we managed to assimilate the convertible peso and the regular peso into the family basket, into the family budget. Now that no longer exists, that no longer works. We were accustomed to that dual currency. Now we have a multiplicity of currencies that is impossible to get used to because it has inflationary effects.
(JB): These types of ineffective measures accumulate one after another and become unpopular. This banking system, with people selling something and not being able to use their money stored in the bank, is terrible. And they have to understand that it's for their own good. And the other thing is that there are other measures that are actually taken on paper, from small things to very large ones. And, for example, I'll say two: all these issues with the Animal Protection Law, where people continue to mistreat animals and nothing can be done about them, or all these laws regarding media advertising that are approved but not enforced. So, we have that history, and I still think that influences, let's say, people's feelings.
(MC): But now, Rafael, what changes do you think we should be making that aren't being made right now?
(RH): I believe the most important economic change is to achieve coordination between the public and private sectors, because until they do, they won't be able to develop as they should. Separately, they won't be able to develop. The purpose of the reform, supposedly, as formulated, is to coordinate the private sector and, within that private sector, a cooperative sector, which is relatively less developed. More private companies are being created than cooperatives. And the cooperative is closer to the idea of socialism, of collective ownership, of collective decision-making, than private ownership. Community ownership, the management of community ownership. All of this is in the Constitution, all of this is in the conceptual framework, in the framework of ideas and legal, authorized things that should be done, but in practice, they're not encouraged, and we let cooperatives fail and we let community ownership and its management not grow. So, it seems to be about the state and the private.
(MC): And the private one as complementary, which is always that tagline.
(RH): The issue can only be resolved through concrete practice of coordination, by getting state-owned companies and private companies to interact with each other, to get used to interacting with each other, because there is resistance to that happening.
(MC): So do you think the fundamental change we need to make today is about the economy, that is, in the economic area?
(RH): I believe that any change we make is a change of a political nature, because it has to do with power. Everything that has to do with the distribution of power and the use of resources and means and decision-making is political. The most important of all for me is decentralization, which is giving, granting, truly ceding, as the Constitution says, political power to the local government and ensuring that the local government does not replicate, does not reproduce the vertical relationship between the central government and the current local government, but rather develops on a horizontal basis, as the Constitution says, involving all municipal stakeholders in the decisions that are made. And, of course, it is also political in nature. Naturally.
Thinking that decentralization is an economic issue is a way of misunderstanding what it's all about. Thinking that the resistance to the coordination, expansion, and granting of the role that the private sector should have is ideological is also a way of misunderstanding it. Giving up power isn't ideological. Giving up power means not wanting to give up power. There are interests associated with having power and not letting it go. With having power and not wanting to let it go. When you have powers and you're forced to give them up, you don't resist for ideological reasons; you resist for reasons of the management of power itself. What managing power means is 100% political.
(JB): Everyone in the house likes to have the TV remote in their hand.
(RH): Perfect example. It's not ideological, right?
(JB): Rafael, it's said that Cuba needs every Cuban who can contribute something, but sometimes we feel like that remains a slogan. My question is this: shouldn't a "skillful" government involve all stakeholders, even those with diametrically opposed interests, and engage them in whatever controlled and appropriate way possible. In other words, shouldn't it make concessions to engage in dialogue and reach a common goal, which is to overcome this crisis and make life better for the Cuban people?
(RH): Look, I think the government, this government we have now, engages more with scientists, more with academics, more with entrepreneurs, more with entrepreneurs, more with private enterprise. It engages more with sectors like the Church, even churches that are not at all aligned with the government. That dialogue is there. It engages more with artists, even with artists who challenge censorship in their works and do so and succeed.
I always say that it's not possible to understand Cuba, it's not possible to understand the space for expressing different ideas, if one doesn't go to the theater. And that hasn't been happening since 2014; it's been happening for many years because those who work in the theater world have fought for a space for expression and have achieved it. They've been successful in that space for expression, and fighting means they've faced resistance; it's not something that has fallen from the sky. So, that dialogue with artists, with intellectuals, with academics, that dialogue with sectors that aren't very aligned with the government, I believe it exists, I even believe it exists more than ever. The question is how, and the question is what effect it actually has.
Today, I believe there is more awareness than ever in the government of the importance of generating and renewing dialogue with Cuban emigrants. The issue is that we are so far from achieving effective dialogue. It is not simply a dialogue that brings economic benefits, it is not simply a dialogue that allows a Cuban living abroad to invest here—because according to Cuban law, it makes no sense to argue that they cannot invest here—but rather a dialogue that creates a common space for understanding and a call to action so that those who leave Cuba do not leave completely. I believe there is a big difference in the current emigration, not because I am happy that people are leaving Cuba, nor because I justify or ignore the family disruption that people's departure causes, but I believe that they occur in very different social and family circumstances than those of previous emigrations.
People who leave don't leave completely. People who leave even leave as part of a family operation, where one family member will leave, the others will stay, they won't leave, and the one who is away will continue to help those who are here. That communication is also an interesting phenomenon.
(MC): Rafael, do you think that capacity for dialogue is sufficient in political terms, even to include those who are leaving?
(JB): Well, we'll see what Rafael says, but one of the things is that dialogue must be effective. Right now, connected to the previous question, you can engage in any dialogue with economists if the measures you take have nothing to do with what the knowledgeable economists are telling you should do...
(MC): It has to do with the outcome of the dialogue. I was going in that direction. Do you think that's enough, or are there any pending issues?
(RH): I believe, naturally, that it's not enough, and naturally that this is a political problem, not an economic one. This dialogue has to generate what dialogue is supposed to do: trust between the dialogue partners. Build trust. The Cuban government engages in dialogue with the United States government when the United States government is willing to do so.
So, if you're talking to someone who has a hostile attitude, who has had a hostile attitude for so long and continues to have it, if this Donald Trump administration wants to talk to us, aren't we going to talk to them? We're going to do so with a lot of justifiable distrust, of course, but we have to develop the capacity to talk to interlocutors other than just the solidarity groups on that side. Only.
We have to develop the capacity to generate exchange, generate dialogue, expand the existing one, because not all artists, not all businesspeople who come here are sympathetic to the Cuban government, to the Cuban system.
(MC): Nor do they have to be.
(RH): They don't have to be. That's why I give the example of extreme dialogue, dialogue with the United States government itself or with other governments that are very sympathetic to socialism, to any socialism, not the one we have today, but to any possible one.
I think that's key: being able to generate that as a means, as a way of doing politics differently, listening, and exchanging ideas. Nowhere in the world do they listen to economists and do what economists say 100%.
(JB): Yes, but if we rank them, I think Olympic champions…
(RH): Who knows? Ask economists in the United States, ask economists in France to see what they think about what the government is doing, ask economists in other countries about what the government is doing. I'm not saying this to console ourselves. I'm saying this to put it in relative terms. There are economists in the government who went to the same classes, and are even friends with some of the economists proposing changes. If the economists proposing changes were in government, they wouldn't be able to do everything they want to do.
(JB): That's why they started working there and left.
(RH): What's important is that these alternative and critical views about the path we should take are now being expressed, being expressed publicly. The fact that they can be expressed publicly is very important because it can and does generate a lot of people who share that point of view.
(MC): Rafael, to continue talking about dialogue, I think we can take a break and go have a coffee.
(JB): A coffee break.
[Music]
(MC): Rafael, we're here with coffee. Let's continue talking about dialogue. Temas Magazine has been a space, with the Last Thursdays sections, where people and diverse voices have been able to express themselves. Even people who consider themselves opponents of the government have been able to speak out and have had the space to express themselves freely. And it really strikes me as odd, because that's not common in Cuba, or at least that's how I feel. So, I want to ask you.
(JB): That's how it should be.
(MC): Of course. How can this plurality and these plural spaces be extended to the national sphere?
(RH): Well, I appreciate you mentioning Temas Magazine, although I'm not here in my capacity as editor of Temas Magazine, but in a personal capacity. Temas is a research journal that created a forum for debate. A regular academic journal, and it occurred to us, not at the request of any institution, to create a space for discussion that could then be included as part of the magazine's body. And that's what we're doing. That's a space for discussion whose spectrum, from my point of view, can include sitting down someone from La Joven Cuba and sitting down someone from La Pupila Insomne, sitting down someone from OnCuba and sitting down someone from Con Filo, and inviting them to come and sit there, and having a respectful dialogue. Anyone, literally anyone, can be in the audience, and, as long as the rules of respectful dialogue are followed, they can ask to speak, speak, ask questions, and intervene.
The debate that ensues is a key debate because it's the dialogue between the panel and the audience. And that's the dialogue between common sense and critical thinking. Not because the panel is critical thinking and the audience is common sense, because the audience can include many people with highly developed, highly analytical critical thinking, and the panel can also include different people.
(MC): How to take that spirit further?
(RH): Of course. So, I think that plurality is when I ask what the policy is regarding spaces for debate, and they tell me: "Politics is about fostering spaces for debate." But when that starts to happen in a place, it turns out that they start to face obstacles and resistance, because for many, wanting to debate is one thing, and actually being able to do it and face those challenges is another. To use a phrase Plato would say: "They bought fish and grew afraid of the eyes."
You have to know that when you create a space for debate that falls under the umbrella of that policy that there must be a space for debate, you're going to have to fight, you're going to have to face challenges, and you can't back down from those challenges. We, Temas Magazine, were presented with challenges in the early days of the magazine, but the challenges we've had to overcome are associated with the debate forum. And we've managed to maintain that forum for debate over time, 22 years going on 23 years. And we've managed to maintain it over time because whenever we've tried to bring someone from institutions, someone from the government, even someone from Party structures to participate, in most cases they've come, and that's the hardest part for us: getting critical academics, as I call them, my friends, to sit there, questioning comedians, and controversial journalists to sit there. That's easy. What's not easy is getting the head of the municipal Department of Communal Services to come to a debate on hygiene and housing.
(MC): To receive criticism, too.
(RH): That's difficult. And someone from the Ministry of Public Health should come.
(JB): Well, accountability is one of the foundations. That's what it's all about.
(RH): And I also seek, as part of the climate of debate, to preserve the possibility for people to come and speak, to respond, because who do we debate with if we don't have people who think differently? We're experts at organizing debates between people who think alike.
(JB): Ensuring a space where debate can take place without fallacious arguments, without disqualifying the opponent, without that kind of thing is essential. I always say that we need a bit of a culture of debate, even starting in children's education, which exists in many countries.
(RH): The culture of debate is one, perhaps the biggest problem we have from a political perspective. Developing, as you say, from childhood, that culture of debate, understanding that disagreeing with what another thinks isn't a sin, but rather logical, normal. You put two Cubans around a table drinking coffee, and there are three opinions. It's part of our idiosyncrasy, of our national culture, that diversity of viewpoints. But that's not reflected in the debate spaces projected in the media.
This isn't reflected in the spaces for debate that are established within institutions, because they tend to become something else: spaces where one point of view predominates, spaces where another point of view predominates, spaces that aren't debates.
(JB): What you've told me leads me to my next question, which begins like this: throughout the Cuban process, we've had complete unanimity at every level, from a small company to the Assembly. I have two questions in one. The first is this: Do you believe that unanimity has always been genuine? And, in any case, whether genuine or not, depending on your answer, has it been beneficial to what we have today?
(RH): Well, I'll answer the last part first. Of course, it hasn't been beneficial. Of course, unanimity and unity are two very different things. They are so different that political leaders themselves have drawn attention to the evils of unanimity. Unfortunately, this hasn't led to a change in the inertia in the functioning of some representative institutions. If you look inside those institutions, you won't find unanimity. If you look at those institutions, if you've had the opportunity to enter and sit inside those institutions in closed chambers, what predominates is not unanimity.
Even this lack of unanimity explains some of the zigzags you can see along the way, in the way we proceed. Because maintaining a conception, a collegial style of decision-making in a reform process produces these zigzags, since reforms must be carried out according to a line, and ensuring that this line is not only expressed but also applied will simultaneously conflict with the idea of the collegial, of the collective.
Secrecy is another matter. How many complaints have there been from the leadership about secrecy? And what about the secrecy? What about the data? What about the available information? We have a Social Media Law. The law is one thing, and its implementation is another. Whether it works is another matter. Calling out secrecy is a step forward; calling out unanimity is a step forward.
(JB): That there be the right to ask and to be held accountable.
(RH): Exactly, but when you see a deputy intervene in a session of the National Assembly and disagree with something a minister or a leader is saying, you say: "What happened? What happened? Did you see what happened? Did you see what happened?" When you see a deputy stand up and say: "Socialism should incorporate the quality of democracy." And someone jumps in and says: "Socialism is always democratic, there's no need to have it." And then you see that the "democratic" aspect has been incorporated, you realize that this diversity of opinions can and in fact is constantly manifested. It's not made transparent, it's not visible from the outside, and politics has to be projected outwards. Politics isn't done in a closed chamber.
(JB): Disagreeing and saying it is good and it is nice, too.
(RH): We have to fight, keep fighting for the possibility of saying different things, of going on television and saying, "We were wrong about this, this was wrong." And for that to be normal. And I think there are people in many of those media outlets who truly wish it were that way. Who truly think it's better to do it this way. And I think every time that happens, even if it happens episodically, we should applaud it. We shouldn't say, "Yes, yes, yes, but look at all that's missing." We can't react with the glass-half-empty philosophy. We have to say, "How great that the glass is getting full." We have to recognize that the glass is getting full because those who promote the glass getting full need our support. It's as simple as that.
(MC): It's also a matter of communication, right? And you were talking about, you were referring specifically to the Communications Law. Now, I notice that—and I'm going to divert the topic a bit—I notice that in Cuba, despite the fact that there's so much talk about the blockade and it's repeated, I feel like we're even saturated with the topic at the communication level. Most people don't know what OFAC is. Most people don't know that importing boxes of chicken into Cuba requires special requirements, or that importing cars requires specific licenses for a handful of companies. And I ask myself, after so much time talking about the blockade, how is it possible for this to happen? Isn't it a failure of communication, given the population's awareness of the sanctions?
(RH): I think the worst effect of saturation, the saturating communication style in relation to blockage and in relation to other things, that saturating communication style, the worst thing is that it produces a counterproductive effect, it generates a reaction of disbelief, which leads to some people wondering if the blockage really exists. There are people who wonder if there isn't an internal blockage, which is worse than the external blockage. What happens inside isn't a blockage, it's other problems. That's the blockage, it's not the one inside here.
The one inside here hinders progress, but the one outside. To underestimate the one outside, to say that the one outside is the result of things we did and that, regardless, it's logical that they're punishing us, is to forget that this is a war. The blockade is a means of war. It was created on a war plane, in 1962, and it has continued to be an instrument of war against Cuba. They are not simply sanctions. They are a key instrument in a policy of hostility. I believe that what must be recognized to the Cuban government is having agreed to a normalization without lifting the blockade. There has been no greater concession than that. The Vietnamese and the Chinese did not normalize relations until the American blockades were lifted.
(MC): Of course. Now that you're talking about normalization, what lessons could we learn from it? Because in many ways, normalization meant a climate of openness, but the development it generated in certain sectors was also asymmetrical, right? I mean, in racial or geographical terms. What lessons can we learn from that period?
(RH): I think the first thing is that I don't see normalization coinciding with major changes here. The opening of private companies, the proliferation of society, political prisoners were released in 2010, in 2012. Those who were released during that period of normalization were a small handful. The companies were created before 2014 or were created after 2014. Changes of that nature were changes that occurred outside the normalization environment.
What's more, we believe that during the normalization period, the number of Cubans leaving Cuba decreased. Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. The expectation that normalization could truly be achieved and turn Cuba into another hemispheric country for the United States put a question mark over the Cuban Adjustment Act, and many people rushed to emigrate to the United States before it ended. That's a factor that can't be ignored. Just as the internal economic crisis can't be ignored, just as the discontent of many people can't be ignored, just as the prospect of a life plan can't be ignored, etc., it can't be ignored either.
Very strange things are happening right now. Right now, we're closer than ever to jeopardizing the Cuban Adjustment Act, and this terrible Donald Trump administration is doing it for reasons completely contrary to dialogue with Cuba, because that policy and those relations that mark normalization or non-normalization or worsening are not entirely in our hands. Regarding your question, I think the most important thing is that we learn that we're not prepared for a normal relationship with the United States. Why? Those 25 months demonstrated the disorientation in learning a new circumstance. We had 55 years of a relationship of exclusion, a relationship of hostility. The hostility stopped, and the circumstances essentially changed.
How can we conduct political education in a context where US hostility has diminished? How can we continue facilitating change? How can we turn business leaders into stakeholders in the relationship with the United States? I believe these lessons remain valid today, even if there's no normalization tomorrow. They remain valid because the relationship with the United States goes beyond what can happen when restrictions are lifted, because Cubans there and here continue to exchange, continue to have channels of exchange, and even if the rules for sending remittances are restricted or limited in some way, those who are there will continue trying to send those remittances.
There are still entrepreneurs, businesspeople on the U.S. side who want to exchange with Cuban entrepreneurs. There are still artists on both sides who want to cooperate. There are still academics, there are still scientists. In other words, the two societies are ready to collaborate. And if this happens against the grain of the relationship between the White House and the Cuban government, that doesn't mean it can't be done. It depends on us, above all. We are used to playing with the black pieces, acting defensively, responding, to the Sicilian defense.
We have to learn to play with the white pieces, to take the initiative ourselves, to take the initiative in all these fields, to promote that entrepreneurs, truly promote, artists, academics, scientists, athletes have a closer relationship, that resistance is on the other side and that those who want to make that exchange on the other side work against the border, against the barriers, against the walls, so that the wall is clearly on the other side and that crossing that wall is something that can be done in association, in alliance with people on the other side.
(MC): But that is with political action and it also has to do with stopping being reactive, precisely.
(RH): It has to do with political action, not just from the government, but from different sectors. It has to do with what academics propose to do, what communicators propose to do, what artists propose to do… But also the government. Naturally. But to do that, you have to present to the government: I want to do this, and I want to have no limitations in being able to do it.
(MC): But it's also up to them to do it.
(RH): They have to respond to the pressure. Society isn't sitting here passively waiting. Cuban society isn't waiting for anything to be dropped on it. I believe Cuban society takes all kinds of initiatives and runs up against limitations. Those limitations must continue to be put under pressure. There must continue to be pressure on those limits to achieve change. If there hadn't been that pressure, the reforms wouldn't have been initiated.
(JB): Rafael, regarding the US government sanctions, one of the things they say is that, well, they have three conditions stating that if Cuba complies with them, the blockade would end immediately. The embargo, as they say. So, one of them has to do with removing, let's say, the flow of trade from the military component. Wouldn't Cuba consider at some point relaxing something like that? That's the first question. And the second question, also related to the embargo, is the following: Do we have an action plan? Do we have some kind of statute? To implement it the day after the sanctions are hypothetically lifted? Because I don't know what it is, and I say that, if it exists, it should be a magnet on every Cuban's refrigerator door. What do we do if that were to happen, given that it's the biggest obstacle they say we have?
(RH): The history of Cuba-United States relations is the history of the things we have to do to change relations. Fighting with the Soviet Union, stopping troops in Angola, stopping relations with liberation movements. That's big. That's not military enterprise. All of that is behind us. None of that happened. None of that led to a transformation of relations. From my point of view, there are two lines beyond which Cuban policy will not go. One is the precondition. I have to do this before you do that.
In the past, there have never been preconditions when progress has been made toward normalization. And the other is the double standard. You're applying a standard to me to judge my failures, my sins, that you don't apply to everyone and that you don't apply to yourself. Can we resolve those two problems? Go ahead. What the military sector should do in Cuba is an internal matter, a matter of internal policy, and neither that nor any other matter like it could be the result of negotiation.
I personally believe that no previous conduct by any Cuban government indicates that this is possible. Once we sit down to negotiate, it's possible to talk about any change, but not as a precondition. I believe that little piece of paper with the magnet on the refrigerator door is the little piece of paper we have to generate. We—not the Cuban government, but we artists, we journalists, we academics, we scientists, we Cuban entrepreneurs in different activities—have to generate that plan, but not so that something will happen overnight and the next day we'll wake up and have the good news that things have changed, but to facilitate that change, so that holes can be opened in that wall.
Because if we end up with enough holes in that wall, I call that the Swiss cheese theory. We have the cheese, but we have so many holes that it's as if there were no cheese. It's as if the wall didn't exist, because we've opened so many windows that the time will come when someone says: "Man, what's this wall for, if it's full of windows?" Where people join hands. And that's an initiative; it has to be our initiative. That's what I meant about the white pieces, and it has to be a plan that we all have to develop, not something the government is planning to do.
(MC): But including the government.
(RH): Yes, the government will react to these actions, to these initiatives. I believe the government is sensitive to these initiatives, and it can be even more so in a situation of hostility, closure, and tension like the current one. We are being less negatively impacted by this administration than most of the countries that trade with the United States.
(JB): Of course, if we don't sell anything, there are no tariffs.
(RH): Not only tariffs, the Mexican immigration problem, the Central American immigration problem, the South American immigration problem are much bigger, more heartbreaking, more terrible, and more of a humanitarian problem than ours. Comparatively speaking, that's true.
(JB): One last question, Rafael. Do you think that if sanctions were lifted in the near future, Cuban society and economy, under the current conditions, would be able to flourish?
(RH): I believe it must be able to flourish, even if the blockade isn't lifted. We can't plan for a future that will be a garden, to use your metaphor, a flourishing future, believing that in that flourishing future we'll have the foresight that the United States has removed all those barriers and stopped waging war against us.
I think one of the possible reasons the United States is saying this is going to end, this war is going to end, is that we're moving forward. Perhaps we should think about more things we have to do. We as a society have to do things. Individually, each person. As individuals and as groups and sectors, think in those collective terms, how it's done, how it works, how people who belong to the same profession interact with each other.
(MC): Let's go to the shooting.
(JB): To the shooting. Very fast.
(MC): Come on. Are you going to start?
(JB): I'll start. If Rafael allows me. Rafael, this is a question that needs to be answered in two or three words. What has been the most difficult day in a Temas Magazine debate?
(RH): The most difficult day in a Temas Magazine debate was the day I learned that there was concern about people who were sitting in the debate, and fighting against that and showing that there was no need to worry, that there was no need to be afraid of the door being open and keeping the door open, ensuring that the door wouldn't close, that the solution wasn't to close the door was what cost us the most work, but we were able to resolve it.
(MC): That's great. Second question, one word to define Cuba's current political moment. One word.
(RH): Transition. We haven't left the old model behind. We don't have the new one yet. We don't know what the socialism we're working on will look like. It's in what filmmakers call the making . We're in the making of that socialism. Not having a set of fixed norms, fixed rules, and fixed limits for that socialism, I think, isn't a drawback, it's a disadvantage. I think it's something that allows us to continue thinking about what we can contribute to that socialism and the face that socialism will have. It's up to us.
(JB): And in a few words, what does Rafael want for Cuba?
(RH): I want Cuba to be a country for everyone and for the good of everyone, knowing that everyone is not everyone.
(MC): Thank you very much, Rafael.
(RH): Unfortunately, some of those Cubans aren't there, aren't part of that new Cuba, and aren't part of that new Cuba because they don't have the connection with the national interest that they should have. They have more connection with the interest... with another interest. That has always been part of Cuba's history. People who are more connected to other interests than to those here. But well, those have to be there, and only those, only those who are against it, are the ones who aren't in it. Everyone else is in it, even those who aren't in favor are in it.
(MC): Thank you very much, Rafael, for joining us today. See you in the next episode. This was La Sobremesa, a podcast from La Joven Cuba, where we spoke with the ease and ease of someone sitting in their living room.
[Music]
https://jovencuba.com/rafael-hernandez-democracia-reforma/
No comments:
Post a Comment