Change - The Power of a Word

Change: The Power of a Word / Reinaldo Escobar
Posted on August 14, 2013

Perhaps the most interesting and at times heated discussion of today
with regards to Cuba is that around whether or not it is lawful to
recognize that changes are occurring in the country. In this area the
most frequent responses are usually: "Nothing has changed here," or
"Things are changing, but not enough." What I haven't heard anyone say
is: "We've already changed everything that needs to be changed."

Someone told me that in North Korea the most recent of the Kims
authorized six new styles of haircuts as part of what he considers a
process of reforms. I don't dare assert that this is true, but I like
the example. One can't deny that a measure of this type, apart from
highlighting the existing level of prohibitions, would have to have
brought ounces of joy to Koreans, especially the youngest.

I remember how some foreign correspondents accredited in Havana
celebrated, almost with jubilation, the news that we Cubans could now
legally contract for cellphone service. Suddenly the cancellation of a
xenophobic ban, which for years had placed nationals in a humiliating
and discriminatory situation, was exposed, along with the permission to
stay in hotels, as an unequivocal sign that Raul's reforms were serious.

Later, in drips and drabs, we were authorized to sell houses and cars,
the list of approved self-employment occupations was expanded, the
hiring of labor was permitted, and some extensions were made in the
matter of land leased in usufruct.

More recently, the long awaited and controversial migration and travel
reform was approved, and some places were opened where one can connect
to the Internet. Right now the so-called "non-agricultural cooperatives"
have the illusion that they will be the prelude to small and
medium-sized private businesses.

Surely I've forgotten some aspect that could be incorporated in the
rosary on which the prayers for change are said, especially in some
academic circles, however it is not in the tiresome enumeration of the
previously mentioned measures where it can be demonstrated that
something is moving in Cuba. The change is seen in the results.

Starting with cellphones, I must say that the vast majority of
opponents, independent journalists, bloggers, human rights activists and
other spheres of civil society, use this tool systematically, especially
to communicate any complaints or news via text messages or tweets.

The decrease in the dependence on the State sector, personified by
nearly half a million self-employed in the country, has produced a
change of expectations in the work environment, with deep social and
political connotations.

The now numerous trips abroad by the majority of the opposition leaders
and civil society activists, has contributed to breaking what was, until
now, a monopoly on the export of a vision of the country in
international events, and has encouraged a stream of contacts at the
highest level between Cubans on the Island and those in the diaspora.

Moreover, and no less important, the middle class is no longer
demonized, and taking advantage of the decrease in prejudice against
them they have started to find their own spaces, initially to exercise
their inherent consumer exhibitionism; sooner or later to develop new
external paradigms and to negate all the "New Man" rhetoric, proclaimed
by the now-exhausted social engineering of Communist affiliation.

All this has happened in just seven years. The most important argument
to deny that these things can be seen as "the change," and even simply
as "changes," is that the only intention of their promoters is to stay
in power.

I share this view in reference to the intention of those who govern, but
the paradox is that they have understood that the only way to stay in
power is to cede it; and the governed — that is us — we have realized
that it is no longer enough to repress us, monitor us, arbitrarily
imprison us, to organize hordes to stage repudiation rallies against us.
We know they are ceding and we have the civic obligation to take
advantage of every inch, as adolescents with authoritarian parents have
always done.

If we aren't capable of seeing and appreciating the cracks that we
ourselves have helped to open and widen; if we keep our eyes fixed on
what has not changed without noticing what is changing, we run the risk
of acting like the elephant that keeps walking in circles around the
axis where it once was bound, not realizing that the old rotten stake
can no longer hold.

13 August 2013

Source: "Change: The Power of a Word / Reinaldo Escobar | Translating
Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/change-the-power-of-a-word-reinaldo-escobar/