Old assumptions, new light

With possibilities of change in Cuba appearing closer – either through policy change or Fidel Castro’s departure from office – I’m beginning to wonder if people are beginning to re-examine assumptions and to discuss in the open issues previously kept private.

Last week I posted an article from an independent Cuban journalist who argued that dissidents are not well known in Cuba and their influence is limited not only by government repression, but by their own actions too.

Now here’s another one from an independent journalist, Luis Cino. It begins by sounding like one more criticism of the way foreign reporters working in Cuba write about the opposition. But in fact he criticizes dissidents themselves – he gives no names – for dividing their own movement by accusing Hector Palacios and others, “for their disposition eventually to have a dialogue with the government, of being ‘dissidents of low expectations.’” Referring to the critics as the “intransigent ones,” he goes on to say:

“It seems to be that, according to them, a member of the opposition must inevitably support the American embargo, advocate for the Constitution of 1940, and flatly reject any kind of dialogue with the communists unless it would be in a tribunal like that of Nuremberg.”

Then there’s this article from Jorge Sanguinetty, a U.S.-based consultant and Cuba analyst who served as an economic official in the revolution’s early years. He sees Cuba caught between a need to reform and a need to avoid change that brings instability. So he predicts that if change comes, it will be gradual – but expectations could get out of control, leading to an opportunity to aid Cubans, who are “not prepared to rebel successfully,” in the task of changing their government.

How to help? “The first thing that would have to be done is to break the information blockade and isolation between Cubans,” he says. (By that he doesn’t mean spending more on Radio and TV Marti.) More visits from Cuban Americans, Sanguinetty says, could be a “very effective destabilizing force.” What blocks this force, he continues, is “the fact that we don’t know how to choose better thinkers among us to choose real leaders (not aspirants to become caudillos) and to follow them in the fight against the tyranny.” Travel with a political purpose is needed, he says, “without worrying too much that some will go to Cuba to have fun.” The current “inertia,” he says, is Raul Castro’s “best guarantee of stability.”

Now, I don’t share Sanguinetty’s implicit assumption that Cubans in Cuba need instruction about how “to rebel successfully.” Were he to visit, I’ll bet he would find that Cubans welcome visitors, and if someone wants to come from Miami to try a rebellion, they would say they are free to try, but their priority is to solve the more immediate problems before them and not to try to start a new revolution, with all the risk that would entail.

But no matter. What Sanguinetty is saying, quite sharply, is that if you want to influence Cuba you need to be there.

Ot that there is no influence without presence and contact.

Let the debate continue.