Between Transfusions

Between Transfusions / Fernando Damaso

Fernando Damaso, 13 April 2016 — It is no surprise that the Cuban
communist party is sick. The run-up to its 7th Congress unleashed a
campaign of "transfusions" in a effort to revive it. These included
excerpts of old speeches from the front pages of Granma that addressed
the subject, opinion pieces and even short editorials on the same topic
and lastly an item with the suggestive title "Without the Party the
Revolution Could Not Exist."

A revolution is a process that lasts for a certain period of time. It is
certainly not eternal nor does it drag on for fifty-seven years. The
Cuban Revolution lasted, more or less, until 1975 or 1976, when it
became institutionalized. After that, it was just a government, the
government of the Republic of Cuba. To continue referring to it as
"revolutionary" is nothing more than an ideological addiction.

When the Revolution came to an end, the party began losing importance.
Today young people have no interest in it. Adults support it out of
opportunistic convenience and some old people out of inertia.

Its big problem is that it has never acknowledged its mistakes nor
apologized to the Cuban people for them. It maintains a triumphalist
attitude, boasting of its "achievements" and "successes" which are often
simply the result of previous "bloopers."

For example, it talks of leading a populist campaign against economic
mistakes but fails to mention it is responsible for those same mistakes.
Similarly, it does not take responsibility for the persecution of those
who think differently, for the persecution of homosexuals and the
religious, for the creation and continued existence of rural labor
camps, for ludicrous agricultural plans that destroyed the farming and
livestock sectors, for sending Cubans off to take part in foreign wars,
for the many restrictions that have been in force for years, for
controlling access to information, for public acts of repudiation, for
physical assaults on citizens, for arbitrary judicial actions, for
unjust executions and many other excesses.

In spite of all the frenzied propaganda, the Cuban Communist Party is as
old as it so-called "historic leaders" and beset by the same inevitable
ailments that come with the passage of time. If it hopes to survive, it
will have to undergo a complete overhaul, casting aside its dogmatism
and fanaticism, and adapting to the times, which no longer seem to be
about long-held resentments and age-old hatreds but rather respect and
peaceful coexistence. At least that is what interests the new
generation, who are tired of all the hollow rhetoric, endless misery and
lack of any real opportunity.

Source: Between Transfusions / Fernando Damaso – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/between-transfusions-fernando-damaso/