Open Letter to Cuba’s Foreign Minister

Open Letter to Cuba's Foreign Minister / Somos+, Jorge Ros

"Better I shut up"
Mr. Bruno Rodriguez,

I am not going to say that your statements about President Obama's visit
surprised me, because nothing you do surprises me any more. Nor do I
concern myself with looking for the logic in it, because there isn't
any. You, or some of you, are totally dogmatic and impractical. Because
of this your system doesn't work, because dogmas that didn't work in the
Cold War, and much less so now, predominate.

You said that President Obama's visit was an attack. Your blindness
doesn't let you see that the president is extending a hand to Cuba to
get it out of this economic slump of what you call socialism and that
isn't remotely socialism that you have caused it to fall into. Your
myopia is such that you don't see how badly things are going in the
country and you are even proud, I don't know why, because it should make
you feel badly.

Everything Obama said is true. We must respect people and let them
express themselves. And we must let the people choose their leaders in a
pluralistic way. You say that his saying that was an attack on the
cultural and political conceptions of the island. But you made a grave
error.

It could be that your cultural and political conceptions are dictatorial
and totalitarian. It could be that your vision of the government is a
group that decides for everyone, and that has the gift of never being
wrong and so you have maintained your unalterable dogma despite its
failings. You live still believing in the class struggle, when this
concept has been obsolete for dozens of years.

You talk about guarantees for a non-state sector in the economy. I
refute that point and want to be very clear. The guarantees that we need
to find are that of a productive and sustainable Cuban economy and it is
demonstrated that this can only be achieved when the state doesn't
participate in it, and leaves small, medium and large businesses to
fulfill their function of production through incentives and a profit for
the owners.

The state benefits because successful businesses pay taxes that provide
the resources to the state to carry out the functions that belong to it,
which is not producing goods. The state must focus on developing the
national infrastructure, on establishing an educational system that
maximizes the talents of our children, on administering a universal
healthcare system that works and where the material needs of such a
system are not lacking as in Cuba. You might like to analyze how the
Germans do it.

Their workers are protected through modern labor laws and not through
making the government function like an employment agency that keeps most
of the compensation that the workers should receive. And you have to
respect the laws of supply and demand, because no free market system
functions well when the state tries to manipulate it.

The function of the state is to create the conditions necessary for the
private sector to be successful, because this success benefits everyone:
The employers, the workers and the state.

Enough already with the farces and congresses of one party, a party
that, if there were freedom, would not win a single election. Enough
already with reciting idiocies and repeating dogmas to make the masters
happy, enough already with insulting the president of a more powerful
nation of the free world that is trying to help us and correct of the
mistakes your dogmatism has produced.

My Esteemed Foreign Minister, your position should be to work with this
great country that is offering its hand. If your dogmatism and myopia
doesn't allow you to see and recognize it, better you shut up and get
out, because Cuba does not need people like you.

Sincerely,

Jorge Ros

Somos+, 20 April 2016

Source: Open Letter to Cuba's Foreign Minister / Somos+, Jorge Ros –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/open-letter-to-cubas-foreign-minister-somos/