The General on His Birthday

The General on His Birthday / Juan Juan Almeida
Posted on June 11, 2013

During his term in office General Raul Castro has raised doubts and
caused confusion. It seems ridiculous to think that a politician,
whoever he might be, does not want to fix his country, but to hold onto
power. Another oddity is that he wants to but cannot hold back the hands
of time in order to forestall the arrival of a future that will
inevitably arrive. Or that he prefers to promote illusory (and
illusionistic) stimulus measures which in turn stimulate the old "save
what you can" mentality and popular discontent.

Today, June 3, was his eighty-first birthday, which he has the strange
habit of wanting to celebrate with his family. At this point I am not
sure if the series of reforms the general has undertaken since he was
crowned President of Cuba should be categorized as a success or a failure.

It would be unfair to deny his efforts at removing obstacles to the
state by eliminating a large part of the unproductive state workforce.
His measures in this regard, however, were aimed at generating
publicity. Actual decentralization has been insignificant. They were
intended to strengthen certain market forces. More importantly, they
were aimed at transferring key decision making authority to friends and
family members whom he considered "honest," an effort that was
conveniently thwarted by "discreet" loyalists.

For a long time the octogenarian soldier has deceived us by repeating
like a parrot the claim that businesses run by the armed forces ministry
were better organized and more productive, that militarizing the
business sector would clean up an indifferent workforce and reduce
corruption.

Such an enormous lie could not yield results. It was only an account
transfer, a restructuring of power. On the Cuban asteroid many people
know that military-run businesses, while listed on the payroll of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces and run from the top down, do not operate
based on reality – not in a social context much less in a physical one.

Do they generate benefits and produce goods and services? Yes, but only
as a result of blind obedience (or exploitation or abuse or whatever you
want to call it) from soldiers and recruits who work day after day
without pay.

Economic production, with its many redundancies, barely covers its own
production costs. As a result the militarization of the already
disastrous spider web of Cuban businesses has caused the country to
ascend structurally and economically to stratospheric levels of
incomparable incompetence.

It is obvious that the General is no economist or anything else but a
sadist, crook, manipulator and perfectionist. This simple reason
explains why he controls the press, knowing they are not really
journalists but historians, the cornerstones of glasnost.

It was Raul who, without renouncing intimidation as a means of
repression, allowed explicit and growing criticism as means of catharsis
and a way to encourage people to openly examine problems in order to
correct them. Fair enough, but I do not know if talking about them is
enough to correct them. Catharsis can relieve spiritual pain, but it
does not change a system.

Many want to use complicate theories to explain why Raul tried this.
Some have come to call it "Basic Thrust," a reference to his relaxation
of the old emigration law. This is why today we can embrace so many
opponents, non-conformists and dissidents, who can now leave Cuba and
return with demonstrable ease.

It is not a puzzle. The answer is so simple that my grandmother used to
repeat it to me as a child: "The best place to corral a tree so that it
does not feel like a prisoner is in a forest.

10 June 2013

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