HAVANA, Cuba – The situation on the ground today in Cuba is extremely dangerous and delicate. It has been clouded now by the widely predicted, but diffuse renunciation, of Fidel Castro to the main people in charge of running the country.
The new government has tried to demonstrate confidence and political security. All of it is simple and superficial. They are conscious of the crisis of legitimacy passing through the old communist direction. It is correlative to the need to reabsorb this group along with having to renew the social consensus.
The current hegemonic crisis of the governing elite results from the failure of their ethical and political direction. From the beginning, they decided to make propaganda to the Castrista ideology, but far from obtaining the necessary social control in order to govern, the ways of thinking and working have been standardized on a national level.
The persistence of the social conflicts and the lack of organization are the best evidence of the current political crisis. When speaking about the conflicts, I am referring to the development and increase in the number of the social ills inside the country, such as administrative corruption, illegal activities, delinquency, prostitution, etc. These types of conduct go against the legally imposed order. Besides being a means of subsistence, they constitute forms of dissent and rebellion against the norms being imposed by the communist bureaucratic oligarchy to conform.
In turn, the government is conscious of these phenomena and of the consequences that they could bring in the future. Nevertheless, these forms of social reaction currently do not pass for being primarily demonstrations. This is exactly where the danger lies. The Cuban people neither have the means nor the capacity of being social and politically reoriented and organized. After almost fifty years, the communist government has transformed the nation. A people full of combative traditions became a mass of passive citizens.
A typical Cuban of today sees the State as something unconnected to them. He feels that without his intervention something will occur anyway. He has been led to believe that above him a phantasmagoric omnipresent and autonomous divinity entity exists. Consequently, the people are uninterested in the political culture. They are only interested in the particular individual involved. The people may know to read and to write, but the qualification is not culture.
The difficulties of our economic situation, the hunger and fear of repression have alienated us from being part of the construction of our own destiny. In the Cuban society, social groups with power don’t exist. There is no program for the transition to democracy, nor established strategic alliances. It does not feel like political pluralism.
At this moment, we have governmental elites that are willing to run the risk to a dark future by making demagogic promises. The ones Castro made last December 24 to the people of Santiago de Cuba to win their votes exemplify this. But, the elites maintain their power by making these sacrifices. They serve Raúl in order to crush and to decimate the opposition of the political legitimacy it might have. They do not intend to recognize such opposition, but they are conscious that it exists.
By renewing the Castrista’s stay in power, the field is open to the use of force as a solution. This can enliven the dark forces represented by the charismatic, providential men of Cuban communism. Personalities like the Castros.
As it currently is, the current political crisis unfolding in Cuba has created a dangerous situation.
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