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Transparencia

Estudios sobre transparencia institucional, gobierno abierto y rendición de cuentas

Contra

¡Contra, Loría!

por Jorge Fernández Era 17 abril 2022
escrito por Jorge Fernández Era

―¿Y esa coriza?

―No me digas nada, que el polvo del hotel que construyen en la esquina de mi casa se cuela a pesar de los cristales y de la consola, siempre que el aire está para acá y no para allá.

―¿Y no te has quejado?

―¡¿Quejarme?! ¿Tú estás loco? Ese hospedaje lo construye Gaesa.

―¿Y hay alguno que no sea construido por Gaesa?

―Obvio que no, hay pocas empresas tan serias en cumplir su cometido, está graduando muy buenos arquitectos e ingenieros civiles de las academias militares. Pero, evidentemente, en esa edificación no se cumplen las normas con el medio ambiente. Ayer se me ocurrió decirle al chofer que me trajo la cantina del almuerzo que la destapara para ver el contenido, y una ráfaga de aire le echó medio quintal de recebo al cuscús aquel, que es mi plato preferido… ¡y venía con anchoas, espárragos y queso elaborado como me gusta a mí: con leche de cabra de raza malagueña!

―Me hubieras llamado y yo te resolvía otra cantina.

―Qué va, estaba enredado con otro problema mayor. En la piscina, a pesar de que la construí en el patio donde guardo el yate, rodeada de unos toldos bellísimos que me traje de Sri Lanka, se forma todos los días una capa, casi un delta de partículas minúsculas, y no deben ser del Sahara.

―Hay un químico muy bueno para eso. Se lo echas a la alberca y se forman unas peloticas muy fáciles de recoger con un jamo. Puedo conseguirte un galón con los especialistas que importan el que se le vende a las embajadas.

―Gracias, ahora que lo describes creo que lo tengo. Le exigiré al piscinero mucho más de lo que hace. Ya el tipo me insinúa que merece un aumento, a pesar de que le retribuyo en euros, mira qué cabrón me ha salido.

―No imagina el trabajo que se pasa para extraerlas.

―¿Las peloticas?

―No, las divisas. Esos bancos suizos cada vez nos la ponen más difícil.

―Él no sabe que yo jalo por el móvil, llamo a los socios de la empresa que se dedica al mantenimiento de las piscinas, y esa gente me hace la pincha gratis.

―Dale una oportunidad. Hay que confiar en los revolucionarios, espero que él lo sea. ¿Te acuerdas de nuestro amigo Aldana? Siempre dije que debió otorgársele un chance antes de tronarlo por aquella cuentecita que abrió en dólares. Pudimos haberlo aconsejado.

―Haberlo aconsejado de que la abriera en un banco más discreto. Lo cogieron de ingenuo.

―Claro que sí, pero no debemos perder de vista que detrás de cada deficiencia detectada hay alguien que no cumplió con sus responsabilidades de control y supervisión, y que el análisis implicaba una visión multidisciplinaria.

―Te quedó bueno eso. Puedo agregar que el carácter preventivo, educativo y formativo debe ser la esencia de los controles. No se trata de comprobar por la sola acción de hacerlo, sino de ir educando para fortalecer los sistemas de control interno y, a partir de ello, crear las capacidades de prevención.

―Sobre todo en la base.

―¡Por supuesto! A mi mujer le propusieron el otro día unas latas de alcachofas, tú sabes que están perdidas, estas salieron muy buenas. ¿De dónde aparecieron esas conservas? Seguramente del pantry de algún consorcio de comercio exterior, cuántos empresarios extranjeros se habrán quedado sin probarlas…

―Eso demuestra que las organizaciones políticas no están haciendo lo suyo. Hay que insistir en la participación activa de los trabajadores en los procesos de la empresa, en la lucha contra esos lastres del pasado, de forma tal que ello se revierta en un mayor sentido de pertenencia y en un freno a la ocurrencia de hechos delictivos y de corrupción.

―He propuesto en más de un discurso que hay que debatir a fondo sobre la posición que debe asumirse ante las presuntas manifestaciones de esa naturaleza. Más allá de la mirada objetiva al problema y a sus consecuencias, hay que reflexionar sobre las causas y sobre cómo evitar la recurrencia de este tipo de situaciones, a partir del intercambio con la masa.

―Hablando de masa: si te queda algo de las alcachofas sepárame una latica para mi mujer, a ella le encantan para agregárselas a las croquetas de emperador.

―Que no las ligue con trufa negra, no congenian. Cuando vaya dentro de un rato por la casa con el pernil de búfalo que me regalaron en mi visita a San Nicolás de Bari, te traigo la latica.

―¿Y tú no tienes que ir al balance anual de la Contraloría de la República?

―¡Coño, sí! Déjame apurarme, deben estar esperando por mí.

―Te considero. Esas reuniones…

―Na, esta debe terminar rápido. Es uno de los organismos con menos incidencias, los auditores están haciendo muy buen trabajo.

17 abril 2022 5 comentarios 1.344 vistas
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ungrateful

We the Ungrateful

por Joany Rojas Rodríguez 19 septiembre 2020
escrito por Joany Rojas Rodríguez

We are not ungrateful. The appearance by the Minister of the Food Industry on the national television program Mesa Redonda has triggered criticism, comments, jokes, and memes in the Cuban social sphere and on social media, the usual whenever a public figure screws up badly. And the repercussions go beyond his figure since these events often bring to the fore others which, under normal circumstances, remain concealed behind the happy curtain of silence.

I will not refer to what the minister said or to how he said it… or maybe I’ll do it below. Remember the memes about Trump and the disinfectant? Many of us witnessed or participated in the criticism, comments, and challenges to the president of the most powerful nation in the world for such a foolish remark. Many of us laughed and enjoyed the internet memes on the topic that sprouted daily on the web. One of the qualities that distinguish human beings is laughter, the mockery of what they consider terribly stupid or ridiculous, and that is – correct me if I’m wrong – an escape valve in stress situations. That’s the reason why, for example, the entire world laughed its head off with the magnate’s blunder, instead of having him shot in the head or sending him a missile.

All public figures are exposed to public scrutiny.

We Cubans have an idiosyncrasy molded by shortages and by our typical joyful character. Joking is a natural part of our culture and it has helped us survive through the worst moments, whether individual or collective. Even in funerals, we make jokes. In buses, when people who are desperate for having waited so long trying to get on through a gauntlet of shoves and elbows, practically walking over each other, you see many splitting their sides with laughter as if they were being tickled to death. And that’s because humor is inseparable from the way we are. Whoever tries to take that away from us has already lost the battle.

However, in the last few days, after the broadcast of the above-mentioned Mesa Redonda and everything it triggered, some official media have labeled as being ingrates, parasites, and even bought by the enemy all of those who took to the networks to laugh at the minister’s apparent ineptitude and lack of preparation, and I say apparently because one must always give the benefit of the doubt. Cubans have always made jokes about our leaders, and we have laughed at their fickleness and mistakes. The difference is that now we can express it on social media, which, for better or worse, is here to stay.

It seems the government authorities and the official media haven’t heard about it. We all remember that botched article in the Granma newspaper in which they criticized the makers of the popular TV show Vivir del Cuento for the parodic portrayals of cadres and political leaders at different levels. We know what came afterward. The thing is that our government officials – always so serious and solemn, so impeccable, so pure and all-knowing, so perfect – are never wrong, they never admit any mistakes, and that’s why it’s unfair that we criticize them and even have a laughing fit when we see them talk like they just came out of a science-fiction film.

It would appear we Cubans live surrounded by comfort and lacking nothing, thanks to the efficient and solid work of our officials. I mean, we would be very ungrateful if we showed dissatisfaction in the form of jokes and mockery. In short, the appearance by the comrade minister of the food industry deserves a deluge of applause and loads of gestures and words of gratitude for having informed the people so coherently, with explanations as transparent as chemically pure water, and, above all, for leaving our bellies full with the couple billion tons of food that are being produced.

We have all the right in the world to joke and laugh.

Isn’t it enough with the shortages and miseries we’re enduring? Are we also to worship mediocrity, lack of clarity, poor management, and the outdated verbal diarrhea that justifies everything with the siege of the blockade? Must we feel grateful for that? Must we feel grateful that they mean to feed us with tripe and croquettes? In developed countries, they also make canned food for dogs and cats. Do they think we’re stupid? Pig and cow tripe. And the meat, comrade minister? Who’s eating that?

If one is an ungrateful parasite that contributes nothing to society for laughing at the blunders of our leaders and asking these questions, then sure, I am one. If our officials don’t want to be the object of jokes and mockery, then come back to earth, put your feet on the ground once and for all, because our people, who use humor and jokes as an escape valve, and who also have a high level of education, isn’t stupid at all and will continue to laugh at everything and everyone whenever it feels like it.

Translated from the original

19 septiembre 2020 0 comentario 364 vistas
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quarantine

Quarantine, bread and circuses

por José Manuel González Rubines 7 junio 2020
escrito por José Manuel González Rubines

Like almost everything else that arrives unexpectedly –whether good or bad–, the coronavirus and the subsequent quarantine have brought new things to Cuba. Aside from the masks –those asphyxiating little items which make us look like train robbers from the Wild West–, it brought us Dr. Durán every morning, who is now beloved almost like a relative, but was previously know by few; it showed us, though always covered, some of the faces of the highly-qualified biotechnology personnel; and it also showed us that shop lines, like the universe, are in constant expansion, for although we already believed they were long and everlasting, chicken meat has helped redefine our views on the matter.

But the coronavirus brought along other things, some of them bearing a highly interesting veil of mystery, which have supplanted Tras la huella (the most popular police procedural Cuban TV show) in the preference of lovers of detective stories: every night, the people wait for the deep voice of Yunior Smith –a worthy temporary successor of Rafael Serrano– to announce the inevitable police case.

Ranging from large expropriations of State resources –sweets, food products meant for vulnerable groups of people, paint, building materials–, to the illegal fishing of over a ton of lobsters, the cases are the long-awaited and necessary response to the speculation and illegal doings which for years –way too many years– have run rampant among us, like a leech that sucks away at the meager contents of the people’s pockets and the funds of the Republic, and that hangs over us like the sword of Damocles, ready to split our skull in two should any fluctuation, no matter how small, affect politics or the economy.

Nevertheless, since the beginning and until now, the cases of the new NTV segment –which nobody knows whether it’s here to stay or will saunter away with its mask over its shoulder once the quarantine ends– have gone down the uncertain path of fads. Some have been resonant and justified, so they have garnered the approval of the majority. Others, however, seem excessive and nearly ridiculous, wearing that scent that things have when they’ve been done in order to jump on the bandwagon. There’s one thing they do have in common: they elicit more questions than answers.

It seems like one of the things brought by the coronavirus to Cuba, coming from nobody knows where, is a numerous corps of policemen, district chiefs, experts and investigators, who suddenly found illegality camped under their noses and enthusiastically embarked on its eradication. Where were they until now that they hadn’t noticed? What happened before with the ‘revolutionary people’ who only now decided to report their neighbors? Did the crime-fighting sense of informers sharpen as a side effect of the quarantine?

Suddenly made diligent and effective thanks to COVID-19, these tropical Sherlocks have shaken the drowsiness they had worked with so far, and now ride into the fight, protected by their masks and the cameras of the show, against something that had been there for a long time already, and they use the news as a wall to mount the stuffed heads of those they’ve caught.

Their allies in this crusade are the journalists, whose virulence and flippancy vary depending on the province. The cameras which had been devoted to the men and women who continue working and to those who care for and look after the sick, are now also used to film these reports, most of them true monuments to investigative superficiality.

They go to the place, film the show, point their lenses at the accused –initially without protecting their privacy–, ask some questions with no real depth and predictable answers, and edit together the spectacle to be served up every night, like a sitcom on customs and manners. Generally, they seek nothing more, they show it and they leave it there; in the end this will all pass and life will just carry on, as the old Spanish song goes.

Have any of those journalists asked themselves –seriously– where the confiscated resources came from, which only the State possesses? Did they really think that those huge amounts of different and valuable things were smuggled out of government centers by simple workers, plucky thieves or persistent scalpers?

Why are the directors of affected companies, commerce managers and administrators missing from those news reports, not as simple deponents, but accepting their due blame, being properly asked for explanations, since those resources were lost on their watch? What happens that none of those investigations are conducted against government bodies or against officials who didn’t protect what was entrusted to them, and that maybe –God deliver us!– also tainted their hands with the proceeds of those illegal dealings?

Why don’t they turn their cameras on the delighted policemen or district chiefs who run the operation, so as to question them about their job so far, since in most cases the criminal behavior had been going on for years? Are any of them concerned at all with these things that some people –those who aren’t happy with just watching the wrongdoers burn at the stake while enjoying the smell of charred flesh– ask every night and talk about standing in line the next day? It seems like these journalists were also born yesterday.

Why are they satisfied with showing how the chain breaks at the weakest link? Maybe it would be advisable, to gain in seriousness and transparency, to run up the entire chain and see what lies at the other end, for the rule of the Law establishes no distinction among its subjects and must be applied to all and not just some. If we’re going to jump in the water, we must be willing to get all wet, and not just the tips of the toes.

That the investigations are still ongoing, some will say. That the corrupt and embezzling will also fall in all cases and not in only a few, others will say. That you can’t say more on the TV news, some may think. Well then, in defense of integrity, the journalists who have been given the task of tagging along in this crusade, as the truth-seeking public servants that they are, must be transparent or save the enthusiasm for later, wait until everything is clear and provide real follow-up to the cases –not just shelve them as it’s usually done in these parts–, because bias and lack of transparency bring them and their profession rejection and loss of credibility.

The names and faces of the guilty –and they unquestionably are– which have been shown in the NTV are not the only ones. The investigations should continue until they reach the deepest root and, same as they’ve show today the ascent to the scaffold of these citizens who have broken the laws of our Republic, they must also show how they are joined by those who have been their accomplices; those one can easily infer are hiding, confident of their luck as if they belonged to a superior caste, behind office desks and public posts of any sort.

These are hard times, we know. Great efforts are made to guarantee, nobly and through hard work, the bread of the people. Circuses are also necessary –the Roman poet Juvenal would say–, but not circuses of this kind, and not at the expense of integrity or put on just for the show. Let’s make everyone, with no exceptions whatsoever, abide by the Law, with ethics and truth.

Translated from the original

7 junio 2020 0 comentario 435 vistas
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expected

What’s expected of a president

por Giordan Rodríguez Milanés 21 septiembre 2019
escrito por Giordan Rodríguez Milanés

There are no photos. I maintain it was a fact. The plain and simple fact that the President of Cuba pulled over at a bus stop very early in the morning and allowed as many people as he could to hitch a ride in his motorcade.

I wasn’t there; all I have is the testimony of several Internet users. One of them assures me that somebody told him it was all staged, and that those who got on the cars were personal security staff previously taken to the P1 bus stop. I have the story of a couple of former schoolmates, who are so committed to the opposition that they fear they could lose the trust of their employers by telling me they saw something inconsistent with their discrediting views of Cubans and their leaders.

Nearly eight months ago there was a video alright. But there was no fact. Or the fact was misrepresented and it went viral. Tons of bytes were written with all sorts of theories and arguments about the rejection of the President in Regla. I was there, not by chance, but because I had gone there to help. Based on that, and not on anyone’s account colored by their doctrines or uncritical attitudes, I can say there was a video in which the President apparently fled. But there was no fact, nor such flight.

Honest and coherent people expect to find that same coherence in others, and they place their belief in the honesty of others. Acknowledging that a people can be –and indeed is– imperfect, sometimes clumsy, and prone to extremes and fanaticism, should not drive us to impiety or lack of faith in those around us. A faithless people is not a wise people; it’s just an unhealthy gathering.

Imperialist ambition is, in my opinion, the biggest issue, the begetter of the whole assortment of problems we Cubans have. Since I would have to write a treatise in order to demonstrate such a proposition, I don’t even go to all the trouble of refuting the views of those who, in all their right, believe the opposite. I believe in that through faith, and faith is not debated in the realms of philosophy or science.

You either believe in something, or you don’t.

And I believe that the number one goal of right-wing ideology in Cuba is to deprive us of any spiritual refuge. It’s not only about tracking down financial transactions, or fining banks that grant us credit, or penalizing shipping companies that transport our fuel, while, at the same time, allowing their companies to sell us food we have to pay for cash down so that their soldiers of hate may shout on the web ‘What blockade?’. Meanwhile, hundreds of small entrepreneurs see their businesses affected by the travel ban on cruise ships, or the pediatrician of a hospital in Manzanillo has to decide which patient gets the last dose of Octanate left in stock.

It is the task of the right wing in Cuba to make us morbidly question each other and distrust the honesty of those next to us. They seek that, when we look in the mirror, we see ourselves incoherent and absurd, without hopes or dreams, with friends becoming foes and foes disguised as friends.

I also have faith that, if there was a Christ who multiplied the loaves and the fishes, and an Antonio Maceo who put his rice and chicken in the cauldron where the soup for his soldiers was stewing, and a Silvio Rodríguez who sings for the poor of this earth in their neighborhoods, there can be a Díaz-Canel who stops the presidential motorcade to pick up a few of his compatriots. Even though we know a lot more is expected from the President of a country. It’s even expected that he and his government staff may avoid the worsening of our already injurious crisis.

There’s belief in him when maintaining that the exclusion of diverse thought can only stir even further the hatred among Cubans. There’s support for the President when he is asked to request the resignation of a deputy minister who is clumsy at political communication. He is asked to give a response to Dr. René Fidel and force the Attorney-General of the Republic’s office to deal with the fair complaints of this citizen. The President is asked every day that he make institutions serve all Cubans equally, whatever their views and whatever their pronouncements.

While faith is necessary for the health of peoples, fanaticism and extremism, spitefulness and hatred, and catharses that prey on collectivity and solidarity, kill us as a nation. The only things to be defended at any price in life should be love for our neighbor and respect for those who practice it. That’s why, among others, I respect Christ, Antonio Maceo and –I now add– Díaz-Canel. And I do not forget that the latter still keeps me waiting for his answers. I don’t need photos of what happened at that P1 bus stop. That’s what’s expected of a President.

(Translated from the original)

21 septiembre 2019 0 comentario 306 vistas
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inertia

Breaking inertia

por Yassel Padrón Kunakbaeva 20 julio 2019
escrito por Yassel Padrón Kunakbaeva

In the last few weeks, the President of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers Miguel Díaz-Canel has been very active and breaking inertia. His speech at the closing session of the Congress of UNEAC (Cuban Union of Writers and Artists) was quite hostile to the dynamics of stagnation, colonized thought and corruption.

Among the measures he has announced there’s a transformation in the way of formulating the plan for the economy; it is now said that it must be built from the bottom up, though for the time being this is only materializing in a greater participation of companies in the drawing up of initial proposals. He also brought forward the announcement of Decree 373 on audiovisual media, a set of new measures aimed at conceding greater financial autonomy to government-run companies, and the well-received rise in wages for the state-budgeted sector.

With these actions, the President shows his willingness to listen to the people, and to take the necessary measures to bring the country out of the current situation, in spite of less than favorable external circumstances. The manner in which he’s decided to break the vicious circle of low productivity and low wages is interesting: since we cannot wait for a rise in productivity which seem impossible to magically conjure up, we then raise wages, and we do it first for those who have been more disadvantaged in recent years.

Of course, the President hasn’t pulled any of these decisions out of his hat; they are the result of his meetings with the population, of listening to the concerns being voiced in different spaces –including the social networks–, of taking into account the opinions of specialists in each subject. There we can see another good move in the style of collective government he has promoted:

His ability to join the efforts and capabilities of many in search of a solution.

Nonetheless, it’s true that all this makes us feel optimistic about the work of the man in the highest office of State leadership, but it would be a grave mistake to put all our hopes in him. Presidential rule, to make one person bear the entire load, is a form of alienation. By definition –and all the more so in the midst of socialist transition–, no individual can transform a society by himself. The participation of everyone is needed to make development effective.

That’s why I liked so much a funny hashtag that’s doing the rounds these days in the social networks:

#ElSóloNoPuede (He can’t do it alone)

Indeed, he can’t. He can still do a lot more, no question about that. But in the end, the participation of civil society is what will be able to guarantee a true regeneration of Cuban socialism. To understand that, it’s necessary to stop having a fetishistic conception of the State.

In any society –and more so in one which claims to be one in socialist transition– the State is a social construct, an institution in which power correlations within civil society are expressed. There are always forces which push in a progressive direction and conservative forces. The forces which turn out predominant on the social level will have their expression in the State.

Should we adapt this way of thinking to Cuba, it will help us understand that, if Díaz-Canel is taking these measures today, it’s because there’s been an aggregate of demands, of struggles in the population, of complaints throughout the years which have conditioned this turn.

The definitive struggle always happens within civil society.

Therefore, this is not a moment to become demobilized or to allow ourselves the soft respite of trust in the leader. That’s a comfortable thing to do. What we must do is to intensify the fight against all that’s done wrong, against bureaucratic stagnation wherever it may rear its head. This is a fight that begins for each one of us in our closest quarters, which may be our workplace, the neighborhood or the school. We must be aware that the battle for Cuba is everyone’s fight; that the President can’t do it alone; that the drive of the people, instead, is the only one that’s truly transforming.

At the end of the day, popular will is supreme, and the President is nothing but a representative of that popular will.

Also, we must gain the awareness that, if we do not respond and move forward together, it will all be in vain. We cannot underestimate the power of inertia, of bureaucracy and opportunism to resist any positive effort. The great legion of the well-established may turn the efforts of any individual, no matter the office he holds, into a simple exercise of plowing the sea.

This is everyone’s battle, and we must be happy we have a President who correctly interprets the popular will, but the battle must go on fuelled by its own momentum.

(Translated from the original)

20 julio 2019 0 comentario 340 vistas
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ovations

Multiple ovations

por Giordan Rodríguez Milanés 7 julio 2019
escrito por Giordan Rodríguez Milanés

Ovations. Multiple ovations. So many that, in front of the plasma TV –no longer the Krim set from the Soviet era– one might get confused and go back to the time when Fidel spoke on the only two national channels. The President combines the historicist approach with the method of conceptualizing what’s general and defining what’s specific. He tells us writers, artists and intellectuals what we have long wanted to hear from a representative of the power structures.

There’s nothing more exciting and encouraging for an artist than seeing a higher entity –in this case, the country’s Government– acknowledge that the artist has been right all along. Even though Abel Prieto, during his first stint as minister, insisted that institutions are only as valuable as the creators they bring together, never before had a President of the Council of State said as much, categorically, neatly spelled out. Nor had they amplified the open secret that such bureaucratic institutional dysfunctionality brings about ultraconservatism, abandonment and corruption.

No representative of the government or Party hierarchy had ever acknowledged either, publically and in the media, the political-ideological slant applied to Fidel Castro’s “Words to the Intellectuals”. Much less had they made reference to what we know, and many have written about or said: the alarming amount of officials and administrators who do not know “Words…” or have reduced its discourse to a slogan which, a priori, may be interpreted as exclusive; quite the opposite from its unity-seeking inclusive essence.

Delivered by the higher administrative leader, the closing speech of the 9th Congress of UNEAC has been, without a doubt, a political statement.

Firstly, because it affects the motivational side of the members of an organization in need of faith; faith in the system which should infuse it with life, and faith in itself; faith in its ability to make itself heard by its bodies of liaison: the Ministry of Culture, the ICRT (Cuban Institute of Radio and Television) and ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Film Arts and Industry). And I say faith because the outcome of Díaz-Canel’s words is yet to be seen.

If those congress delegates never go beyond the ovation and the personal satisfaction derived from knowing you haven’t been wrong, and they never go back to their territories tilting their lances at the windmills of single-mindedness and meandering, they run the risk of turning today’s fuel for hope into demagogy.

Secondly, because, at first glance, that definition of general and comprehensive culture by Fidel Castro does not seem to be the current guideline for discourse. I infer –I could be (and I wish I am) mistaken– that Díaz-Canel is trying to confine the social role of artists and writers to what he calls “culture”, and that it was worthwhile checking what his references are for “artistic culture”.

Likewise, one cannot avoid suspecting that, for him, this congress of UNEAC (Cuban Union of Writers and Artists) is only about matters of artistic and literary creation, and their relation with the system of institutions which should support and make viable the promotion of aesthetic works.

This is not an incorrect view from an organizational point of view, if we remember that it is not possible to separate the artistic side from the other components of culture as material and spiritual imprint of the work, that is, the legal, the technological, the religious, the political and the ideological. And we must also remember that artists and writers –and their promoters– cannot and should not ever overlook those other components, even though they might not be essential for the creation of the work itself.

A creator is, above all, a social subject, a citizen in legal terms, and an ideological and political being with transforming potential and leadership. Not seeing it this way would lead to the antagonistic contradiction between the libertarian spirit of the artist and the alienating nature of the ideological apparatus of the Althusserian State.

Work has to be done. Not just in the sense of aesthetic creation, but also in the production of axiological contents which uphold those values of socialist humanism the President mentioned. After a speech like the one which closed the 9th Congress of UNEAC, it wouldn’t be serious or admissible that in five more years we should hold another meeting to repeat the same problems and regressions. I hope that the newly elected president of UNEAC and the Minister of Culture be aware of that as much as, at least, each and every member of their administrative teams.

One source of trouble which would be more complex and difficult to diagnose would be whether cultural administrators on the provincial level, and their mentors from the ideological departments of the provincial Party committees, will then be able to avoid the enormous risk of turning this discourse into a farce of stolen aspirations.

It’s not about changing the style, but the essence.

It’s about changing the heuristic, provincial perception that artistic culture is a mere ideological and political instrument –fodder for rallies, propaganda coups de theatre and chanted slogans– for a concept and its implementation which may bring art to the fore to emancipate, to question our reality, civically and socially committed, and revolutionary in the more holistic sense of the word. Only this way will hope become certainty and will the ovation become the sublime music of the Homeland’s humble masses.

(Translated from the original)

7 julio 2019 3 comentarios 419 vistas
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corrupcion

El problema de la corrupción

por Yassel Padrón Kunakbaeva 6 junio 2018
escrito por Yassel Padrón Kunakbaeva

Para nadie es un secreto que desde hace mucho tiempo la corrupción se ha convertido en un problema grave para Cuba. No resulta fácil olvidar aquel discurso que diera Fidel en el 2005 en el aula magna de la Universidad de La Habana, en el que afirmó que si alguien podía destruir la Revolución éramos nosotros mismos. No muy lejos de aquella fecha, un contingente de trabajadores sociales destapaba la corrupción asociada a la venta de combustible.

Sin embargo, no se trata de un problema del pasado: basta con ir a un Registro Civil con la intención de resolver un problema de papeles, para que a uno, a menos que haya tenido la rara suerte de encontrar un funcionario honrado, se le revele el espectáculo de que ciertos individuos, los que pueden pagar, resuelven en un día lo que para otros se demora un mes.

Mucha tinta ha corrido ya sobre este problema. No obstante, en lo que sigue expondré un breve análisis sociológico sobre las causas de la corrupción y sobre las estrategias que se podrían utilizar en Cuba para enfrentarla. No pretendo abarcar todas las aristas de la cuestión, sino tan solo enfocarlo desde determinado ángulo.

I

En las sociedades modernas, la corrupción es un fenómeno endémico. Su existencia, aunque extremadamente multicausal, puede comprenderse como un resultado del proceso de burocratización de la vida. A medida que se fueron complejizando las sociedades, cada vez más los procesos sociales fueron canalizados a través de gigantescas estructuras burocráticas. Esto, a su vez, generó a una clase específica de ser humano, el burócrata, que se encuentra en una situación existencial sumamente peculiar. No se trata aquí de estigmatizar al burócrata, sino de conocer cuáles son las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que lo predisponen a la corrupción.

Por un lado, el burócrata es parte de una estructura enormemente poderosa, por sus manos pasan decisiones que afectan la vida de muchas personas. A veces, eso se expresa también en la forma de grandes sumas de dinero que deben ser manejadas. El cumplimiento de los objetivos de toda la estructura depende de que el burócrata sea eficaz y se apegue a lo establecido.

Por otro lado, se trata de un individuo de proporciones minúsculas si se le compara con la estructura, el cual tiene necesidades que muchas veces no tienen nada que ver con los intereses de la institución. En otras palabras, el burócrata tiene hijos a los que alimentar, mujeres a las que conquistar, bienes que comprar, y muchas veces lo único que lo separa de cumplir sus sueños es alargar la mano para robarle a una estructura fría y despersonalizada, con la que no se identifica. Así comienza la corrupción.

De lo que se trata, en el fondo, es de una gran asimetría entre el tamaño y los ritmos de las instituciones y las verdaderas proporciones existenciales de los individuos que trabajan en ellas. Un campesino que labora en su parcela difícilmente se robará a sí mismo, así como no es muy probable que los miembros de una cooperativa formada voluntariamente jueguen sucio entre sí. Pero un ministerio que agrupa y organiza la producción de toda una rama de la economía es el terreno perfecto para que surja el funcionario corrupto.

Por supuesto, no siempre una gran institución burocrática tiene que funcionar mal, ni tiene necesariamente que estar corrompida hasta la médula. Existen muchos ejemplos de grandes instituciones que funcionan bien. Se podría sacar la conclusión de que, simplemente, se trata de un problema de moralidad. La tentación es grande, sí, pero algunos hombres son ladrones y otros no: asunto cerrado.

Pero aquí es donde nos acordamos de un pequeño detalle, la mayoría de los ejemplos de grandes estructuras que funcionan bien nos vienen del primer mundo, de las sociedades que se industrializaron primero. En los países del tercer mundo, vemos como la inmensa mayoría de las instituciones caen carcomidas por la corrupción. ¿Debemos concluir que las personas del tercer mundo, además de ser pobres, tienen una predisposición natural hacia el robo?

Muchas veces se repite sin ser comprendido aquel motivo marxista de que todo proceso requiere de condiciones objetivas y subjetivas. Para muchos es fácil reconocer los condicionamientos objetivos, palpables; no pasa lo mismo con los subjetivos. Lo que se olvida muy a menudo es que para que se desarrolle un proceso social cualquiera, se necesita que los hombres que participan en él tengan una determinada disposición mental.

En los países del primer mundo, el proceso de industrialización capitalista creó las condiciones mentales para que las grandes estructuras burocráticas modernas pudieran funcionar. No ocurre lo mismo en los países del sur, donde muchas veces esas estructuras no han surgido por un desarrollo autóctono, sino que han sido trasplantadas.

En el mundo desarrollado, los individuos que forman parte de esas estructuras se encuentran sometidos a los múltiples estímulos de una sociedad completamente disciplinada. Se encuentran bajo la influencia del culto a la eficiencia, una eficiencia que puede ser recompensada con un ascenso a una condición social superior.

También se encuentran cercados por el miedo a cometer un error, el error que les puede costar el fin de su carrera. Son estas las disposiciones mentales que hacen posibles y funcionales a las grandes estructuras burocráticas -lo cual no está reñido con que, de todas formas, cada cierto tiempo el sistema falle y alguien cometa un jugoso desfalco-.

En nuestros países del sur, no se ha desarrollado suficientemente el tipo de hombres que se necesitan para el funcionamiento de estructuras burocráticas de ese tipo. En cierto modo, fuimos víctimas de nuestra compulsión de querer hacernos modernos a la fuerza. Caímos en lo que Martí llamó “la falsa erudición”. El resultado fue que nuestros hombres, convertidos en burócratas, no pudieron resistir el peso de la gigantesca asimetría a la que se vieron expuestos. Sociológicamente hablando, nosotros mismos creamos las condiciones para el desarrollo de la corrupción.

Todo lo que hemos visto hasta aquí se aplica también para Cuba, a pesar de las peculiaridades. En nuestro caso, el peso de la asimetría es incluso mayor, justamente porque intentamos construir un sistema socialista que tenía como paradigma la planificación por parte del Estado de todos los aspectos de la economía.

El aparato estatal tiene en Cuba un protagonismo y peso específico que no tiene en ningún otro país de América Latina. Queriendo ser más modernos que los modernos, hemos contribuido a la burocratización de todos los ámbitos de la vida. No puede sorprendernos entonces que también nos aqueje el problema de la corrupción.

II

Aquí en Cuba, muchas veces queremos resolver los problemas a lo bruto. Si se descubre una trama de corrupción, pues candela con los corruptos. Pero por más corruptos que se metan a la prisión, si no se atacan las causas del problema este va a seguir agravándose.

Se pueden hacer muchas mejoras en la política de cuadros, pero la confiabilidad de la persona nunca va a ser un criterio completamente seguro. Uno nunca sabe si detrás de una apariencia de funcionario responsable, amante de su familia, etc., se esconde o no un individuo lleno de frustraciones y debilidades. Los problemas, cuando son sociológicos, deben ser atacados con soluciones sociológicas.

La cuestión está en que hay un desequilibrio entre el tipo de estructuras burocráticas que tenemos y la disposición mental que genera nuestra sociedad. Para enfrentar ese problema solo hay dos caminos: o crear la disposición mental que se adapte a nuestras estructuras, o crear estructuras que se adapten mejor a la disposición mental existente. Esas son las opciones.

En los primeros años de la Revolución, se esperaba que la disposición mental fuese aportada por aquello que el Che llamaba conciencia. La conciencia, sí, el compromiso con la Revolución fue durante mucho tiempo el principal mecanismo para la creación de las condiciones subjetivas que necesitaba el proceso productivo en Cuba.

Todavía podemos ver como en la televisión nos hablan de sobrecumplimientos, emulación, compromisos, etc. Pero esa conciencia no es algo que pueda darse por sentado: si se quiere que pueda ser la base para la creación de una disposición mental adecuada, entonces se la debe alimentar y mantener viva en todo momento.

Se trata de una estrategia válida: crear conciencia para producir una mentalidad en nuestros cuadros que nos permita enfrentar la corrupción. Pero la verdadera conciencia no se crea por decreto ni nace idealísticamente. Tiene que surgir como resultado de una praxis colectiva de lucha revolucionaria. Valdría la pena estudiar los sucesos de la década de los sesenta, la formación del sujeto revolucionario en aquellos años y el modo en que ello sirvió para barrer con los restos de corrupción de la sociedad anterior a 1959.

Pero si no se sigue este camino, sigue quedando la opción de recurrir a los mismos mecanismos que se utilizan en los países desarrollados. Es decir, si queremos tener estructuras burocráticas típicamente modernas y mínimamente funcionales, entonces debemos pasar por un proceso social de modernización. Algo así está ocurriendo en China y en Vietnam. Por ese camino, que no estaría exento de traumas, podría surgir también entre nosotros el culto a la eficiencia y el miedo al error.

En la formación de una nueva disposición mental, no se puede subestimar el papel que puede jugar el miedo en sí mismo. Como se sabe, hasta ahora todas las sociedades humanas han usado la coacción. La corrupción también puede ser combatida de ese modo, pero si se va a hacer así, lo mejor es hacerlo bien. Combatir el problema con fuego, no con campañas esporádicas sino con sistematicidad, hasta que cualquier funcionario se lo piense dos veces antes de tocar lo que no es suyo. Esto por sí solo no va a resolver el problema, pero puede ser una parte de la solución.

Por último, queda la opción de transformar las estructuras sociales para hacerlas más acordes a la mentalidad existente. Se trata de crear instituciones más pequeñas y cercanas a los individuos, con cuyos intereses estos puedan identificarse. Por el camino de la descentralización se le puede poner coto a la corrupción de un modo sumamente efectivo.

Lo primero que se debe tomar en cuenta es que toda red de estructuras burocráticas modernas es un esquema de homogeneidad impuesto a una sociedad que por naturaleza tiende a la reticularidad y la heterogeneidad. Eso es válido tanto para el capitalismo como para los sistemas en transición al socialismo que se han conocido.

Todo proceso de modernización es un traumático proceso de destrucción de heterogeneidades. Frente a ese destino, queda el camino contrario, el de crear estructuras sociales más humanas, que le hagan una mayor justicia a la reticularidad y heterogeneidad de la sociedad.

La aparición en Cuba de la propiedad privada y de las cooperativas es sin duda un paso en esa dirección. Comparado con un sistema estadocéntrico monolítico, la introducción de nuevos actores en la economía resulta un avance. Sin embargo, vale la pena añadir que todavía es mucho lo que se puede hacer. Aun se podrían incorporar nuevas formas de economía social comunitaria que son poco conocidas en nuestro contexto. Se podría, además, dar un mayor protagonismo a los poderes locales, los Consejos del Poder Popular. La democracia obrera podría ser fortalecida.

Hasta aquí he intentado, modestamente, aportar algunas propuestas al debate de cómo enfrentar la corrupción. No es mi interés que se siga una de mis propuestas al pie de la letra. De hecho, creo, que lo mejor sería tomar un poco de todas las propuestas. Al final del día, está será una lucha de todos.

6 junio 2018 26 comentarios 369 vistas
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transparencia

Transparencia

por Osmany Sánchez Roque 8 marzo 2018
escrito por Osmany Sánchez Roque

Con total desparpajo una muchacha le cuenta a un grupo que a una amiga le van a comprar la plaza en el preuniversitario por cuarenta dólares. La escena no fue en la sala de la casa – lo que no cambiaría nada- sino rodeada de personas esperando un ómnibus. Lamentablemente no es un caso aislado. Se ven casos parecidos para hacer una cesárea o para una plaza en un círculo infantil.

No es el sistema, sino personas inescrupulosas que se aprovechan de él. Delinquiendo unos, permitiendo otros.

No podemos conformarnos a ver estas cosas con normalidad, porque no puede ser normal. Una nueva clase se va creando. Aunque duela admitirlo es una verdad tan grande como una casa y sus tentáculos corruptores se esparcen por la sociedad. A veces sus efectos son tan sutiles que cuesta darse cuenta, otras son más evidente.

¿Quiénes son los niños que se sientan en los mejores puestos en el aula? ¿A qué niño les toca siempre los personajes principales en las obras de la escuela? ¿A quiénes la maestra mima y le tolera todo? Ahí está la respuesta y lo peor de todo es cuando un niño de apenas 5 ó 6 años se percata de esas cosas y las dice.

No soy psicólogo, pero no dudo de que esas cosas influyan en su formación.

Una acotación. No hablo de las personas honestas que con su trabajo elevan su poder adquisitivo y su nivel de vida sino de los que roban al Estado y se aprovechan de las necesidades del pueblo para acaparar, subir precios y especular. Los que piensan que todo tiene un precio y se lanzan a comprarlo sin medir las consecuencias.

A veces los repasadores son los mismos maestros. Conozco el caso de una maestra que en medio de una reunión de padres se paró y dijo que ella estaba preocupada por la situación de los estudiantes porque: “hasta los que repasan conmigo salieron mal”

No hay que ser muy inteligente para llegar a la conclusión que las clases en el aula son de a kilo y que para recibir las de a peso, hay que pagar. No me opongo a que los maestros sean repasadores, si sacan su licencia para esa actividad, pero una de las condiciones que le pondría sería que está prohibido repasar a sus propios alumnos.

El tema es repudiable desde todo punto de vista, pero yo quiero analizarlo como padre. En el afán de facilitarles la vida, a veces los perjudicamos. Los niños que se adaptan a pasar de grado por las “ayudas” de los padres a los maestros, al final fracasarán en la vida.

Los corruptos y los corruptibles aprovechan todos los espacios que les dan. Su gran enemigo es la transparencia. Aprovechemos que nos estamos convirtiendo en una sociedad informatizada y permitamos que el pueblo se convierta en un fiscalizador de los recursos destinados a él.

¿Cuántas plazas tiene el Preuniversitario? ¿Cuántas plazas tiene cada escuela? ¿Quiénes son los estudiantes que adquirieron las plazas? Mientras más transparencia, menos espacio para los corruptos.

8 marzo 2018 119 comentarios 235 vistas
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