sábado, 11 de marzo de 2017

The Useless Exercise of Rendering Accounts in Cuba

The Useless Exercise of Rendering Accounts in Cuba / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, 7 March 2017 — The days of the anachronistic "process
of rendering accounts" are approaching. This is period known as the
genuine exercise of socialist democracy because they are neighborhood
meetings in which the people and the leadership (at the base) exchange
opinions about the main problems that afflict each community, and it is
odd that today, although the circus rounds have not yet begun, Cuban
leaders, as if they were master seers, already have on the table an
eight page document issued by the department charged with compiling
popular opinion, which for more than a month have included the
approaches that the voters will take in each one of the assemblies.

An irony that, with a capital "I", escapes any expression of the logic
and respect of the citizenry. Since the end of January the Cuban
government knows that for the coming months — April and May — the voters
will express their dissatisfaction with the water supply, the sewers in
the streets, the failures in communications and public transport, social
security, the retirement age, the indiscipline on the roads, the
occupation and powers of their elected delgate, the need to separate
some functions that today belong to the state, the irregularity of trash
collection and repair of the roads and principle arterials.

We will have to wait. Certainly, no one will talk about individual
rights nor civil liberties. It seems that to govern is to assume
contrdictions. It is a vulgar script for a discordant dramaturgy where
fiction predominated. It is ridiculous to accept that, for example, in
terms of health, in each locality, throughout the island, the assembled
citizens will feel the "spontaneous" need to express opinions only on
how to reduce teen pregnancy, and to strengthen control over pregnant
women who go into maternity homes.

The most striking feature of this document is the prediction it makes
about a group of citizens who, voluntarily, will express concern about
the issue of domestic violence and, in particular, the phenomenon that
doesn't appear in the current penal code as a criminal figure and that
begins to gain space as antisocial conduct. Cases of Cuban fathers who
don't conform to the role of the divorced, and kidnap their kids to hurt
their former wives.

It is not divination, it is simple state inefficiency very eary to
predict because yesterday's problems were never solved and are the same
ones that will be there tomorrow.

Almost all of the deputies to the Peoples Power Assembly session, be
they national, provincial or municipal, are fed up and exceedingly
apathetic, along with the compulsion, attend to kill time and eat the
snacks; listen to the pre-prepared program, vote in favor of everything
and reaffirm their commitment with something that they neither
understand no care about.

Cubans who want to debate and express opinions, suggestions and demands;
but they know well that in Cuba, the Peoples Power is the power of an
entelechy.

Source: The Useless Exercise of Rendering Accounts in Cuba / Juan Juan
Almeida – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-useless-exercise-of-rendering-accounts-in-cuba-juan-juan-almeida/

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