Raúl's nightmare

By Marifeli Pérez-Stable
The Miami Herald, January 3, 2010

Cuba's problems can't be addressed under the leadership's passé reformism. Raúl Castro is neither Gorbachev nor Deng Xiaoping, both of whom thought outside the box while in power. He is stuck in the old mold of market socialism: a tinker here, a nudge there, even though Europe's 1989 should serve as warning. It's a dead end.

As a child I would often ask my maternal grandfather -- a gallego who emigrated to Cuba and did well on all counts -- for a peso (it was real money then). He'd hand it to me saying: ``Mari, remember, money must be respected.'' Turning the phrase differently, I pass his wisdom to my students: ``Remember, markets must be respected.''

Of course, I don't mean that markets should always be left alone. But, politicians -- dictators and democrats alike -- who don't respect the market don't respect the people either.

Ordinary men and women have the right to their dreams, especially giving their children the best future possible. Politicians who won't give markets their due have their sights set on their own glory, which ends up costing the people dearly. For that alone, history almost never absolves them.

On Dec. 20, Raúl Castro told the National Assembly: ``In updating Cuba's economic model, we cannot run the risk of improvisation and haste. We simply do not have the right to make mistakes.'' So spoke a cautious man well aware of what was better left unsaid: that too many mistakes had been made over decades, and this time everything was on the line.

Raúl goes on to detail all sorts of absurdities that can only happen when markets aren't respected. For example, he boasts about a success story: In 66 municipalities (out of 169 islandwide), local delivery of fresh milk reaches grocery stores in a timely manner, which saves fuel. Presidents of normal countries don't have to worry about distributing fresh milk. The private sector takes care of it.

In the past few months, high-ranking officials and the media have been pounding the ``paternalistic state.'' Since the same men have been in power for more than half a century, I wonder who's responsible for creating such a state and the mentality that flows from it? In Cuba, work and earnings are largely divorced: Cubans pretend to work, the state pretends to pay them. So it goes when people have their dignity taken away, when they are denied the right to make an honest living.

Still, human beings do not live by bread alone. According to a Gallup poll taken in Havana and Santiago a few years ago, only a quarter of respondents thought they had the freedom to decide what to do with their lives. When asked if they had laughed or smiled the day before the survey, only 62 percent said yes. On these and other subjective measures of well-being, Cubans rank much lower than the average Latin American.

Freedom is as important as social justice. Courageous Cubans on the island have stepped forward and claimed their rights. Whether a blogger, the ladies in white, a man on a hunger strike, a rapper singing truth to power or a young woman reading a banned book, ordinary people are taking their country back, bit by bit. Threats, beatings, detentions, mock trials aside, some step back out of fear but others always take steps forward. An unending nightmare for the regime!

Lately new headaches have developed.

• A group of prominent African Americans couldn't keep quiet anymore and denounced the regime's ``callous disregard'' for Cubans of color. Blacks and mixed-race Cubans on the island are giving renewed testament of their mistreatment.

• Twenty-one intellectuals and five cultural organizations signed a statement denouncing the ``rise of bureaucratic-authoritarian control'' to smash autonomous cultural projects.

• The leadership can't set the party congress date. Militants clamor for change like everyone else. Being a Communist doesn't necessarily mean you're trustworthy.

Everything is on the line. For those at the head of the ``line'' means their own power. Everyone else has their dignity at stake, their rights as citizens, their freedom. May 2010 be a year when ever more and diverse Cubans find their voices, their smiles, with their heads held high.