"Cuba Libertaria" #3: Other voices - interview with Canek Sánchez Guevara, grandson of Che Guevara
There is not the slightest doubt that the Castrist revolutionary rhetoric ishaving less and less effect and that faced with the daily reality that the Cuban people are forced to put up with, there are more and more who say, as Saramago said: "I have gone along this far!". However, also because there are still some of good faith who are waiting for an impossible regeneration of the "Cuban Revolution", we reproduce here some extracts of a declaration by the grandson of Che Guevara, Canek Sánchez Guevara, which appeared in the Mexican magazine REFORMA on 17th October 2004:
"(…)In the western press, so barely free in reality (so full of implications that nobody understands, and with more than superficial, flat criticism), it is common for questioning of the Cuban regime to begin with insulting the continuance of it in practices which are outdated and ineffective, tyrannical and victimist, heroic and poor. The system is attacked with total ignorance, a lot of disinformation and, worse, is described as communism. My posture, however, is different, even contrary, if you like. All my criticism of Fidel Castro and his followers is based on their distancing themselves from libertarian ideals, of their betrayal of the Cuban people and of the terrible surveillance established to keep the State in a position of dominance over its "people".
The immobility that the work of the revolution fell into has its origin in the concept of itself that it introduced: permanency. In order to be permanent, the revolution (once the initial highly revolutionary decade had passed) had to remain immobile because otherwise it would free the libertarian forces implicit in it. What remains then, is not revolutionary action but the social class that holds the control of the "revolutionary" institution. The revolution (the movement that this was) died years ago in Cuba - of a natural death, by the way - and it had to be killed off by those who had started to keep it from turning against them. It had to be institutionalized and smothered by its own bureaucracy (indeed, Che had already warned us of this), by corruption ("robolución", it was called), by nepotism ("sociolismo") and by the vertical nature of that famous organization: the Cuban "revolutionary" State. Thus, popular wisdom soon abolished the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat removing the qualifier and leaving only the noun, absolute and forbidden: dictatorship.
The new socialist bourgeoisie did not delay in adopting the most abject arguments and methods of the recently dethroned right in everything relating to private life, and even bettered the right with regard to political association (let's be honest, a rebellious youth like Fidel Castro was, in today's Cuba, would immediately be shot, not even exiled); all this was made worse by the fact that it was a "left-wing" government originating in a most heterogeneous and heterodox civilian and military movement. The persecution of homosexuals, hippies, free thinkers, syndicalists, poets (dissidents of sort) certainly seems in excess of what was being combatted. The criminalization of being different has nothing to do with freedom. Neither does the concentration of power in the hands of a few form part of libertarian ideas, and even less so the perpetual surveillance of individuals or the prohibition of any associations that may beformed on the margins of the State. Undoubtedly power is in the hands of the people but only symbolically; the real power, the taking of decisions, is not. It belongs to the State, and the State is Fidel. (…)
The insistence by the regime's leaders and insulters that this is a Marxist system surpasses all absurdity, given that in Cuba, Marxism is only a school subject, a watchword of the Party and other "organizations of the masses", and at best a dream cut short. For Marx (for any libertarian, in fact), freedom and dictatorship are in enduring conflict. Sure, they walk together (like any pair of opposites), but not on the same path, and by doing so (by seeking to do so, I mean), they will never arrive at the same place: if the end justifies the means, then the means foreshadow the end... in other words, freedom cannot be reached by way of imposition. Never...
A sort of falsely proletarian aristocracy was gestating within the "popular" government, opposing the democratization of the revolutionary project with all its strength. The Cuban revolution was not democratic because it engendered within itself the social classes dedicated to impeding it: the revolution gave birth to a bourgeoisie, a repressive apparatus intended to protect itself from the people and to a bureaucracy that distanced itself from the people. But above all it was anti-democratic because of its leader's religious messianism.
Appointing oneself saviour of the Nation is one thing; remaining so for ever is another thing. In effect, Fidel, with his troops and the better part of civilian society, liberated Cuba from Batista's gangster dictatorship; but, by obstinately remaining in power he only turned into the same thing - dictator.
From young revolutionary to old tyrant there is an abyss, the same as there is between the dissenting of that young rebel and the orders of an old man who has gone mad with power and glory. (…) Instead of struggling for a sceptical society, free-thinking and critical, he applauded credulity, submission and absolute obedience in the people. Everything that he questioned in the old regime has been triplicated in the new one. Everything that he attacked as a youth, he has endorsed as an old man. (…) Fidel fought as a free man but today he denies the freedom of men: he has become one of them, despotic, cynical and arrogant to the point of paroxysm; neither better nor worse than any Fox, Bush, Berlusconi or Putin. Castro is one of them: just the same, the very same, the same rubbish, albeit in another guise and keeping its distance. Not only has the struggle for freedom not been concluded in Cuba, neither has it been concluded in Mexico or Vietnam, in the United States or in Chile, in Angola or in Russia, in China or in Nicaragua... It has not been concluded because we are still slaves of conditions that are imposed on us: all that we are comes from what we are allowed to be. And that, my friend, is not freedom."
Note: The full text can be read (in Spanish) on the web
"(…)In the western press, so barely free in reality (so full of implications that nobody understands, and with more than superficial, flat criticism), it is common for questioning of the Cuban regime to begin with insulting the continuance of it in practices which are outdated and ineffective, tyrannical and victimist, heroic and poor. The system is attacked with total ignorance, a lot of disinformation and, worse, is described as communism. My posture, however, is different, even contrary, if you like. All my criticism of Fidel Castro and his followers is based on their distancing themselves from libertarian ideals, of their betrayal of the Cuban people and of the terrible surveillance established to keep the State in a position of dominance over its "people".
The immobility that the work of the revolution fell into has its origin in the concept of itself that it introduced: permanency. In order to be permanent, the revolution (once the initial highly revolutionary decade had passed) had to remain immobile because otherwise it would free the libertarian forces implicit in it. What remains then, is not revolutionary action but the social class that holds the control of the "revolutionary" institution. The revolution (the movement that this was) died years ago in Cuba - of a natural death, by the way - and it had to be killed off by those who had started to keep it from turning against them. It had to be institutionalized and smothered by its own bureaucracy (indeed, Che had already warned us of this), by corruption ("robolución", it was called), by nepotism ("sociolismo") and by the vertical nature of that famous organization: the Cuban "revolutionary" State. Thus, popular wisdom soon abolished the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat removing the qualifier and leaving only the noun, absolute and forbidden: dictatorship.
The new socialist bourgeoisie did not delay in adopting the most abject arguments and methods of the recently dethroned right in everything relating to private life, and even bettered the right with regard to political association (let's be honest, a rebellious youth like Fidel Castro was, in today's Cuba, would immediately be shot, not even exiled); all this was made worse by the fact that it was a "left-wing" government originating in a most heterogeneous and heterodox civilian and military movement. The persecution of homosexuals, hippies, free thinkers, syndicalists, poets (dissidents of sort) certainly seems in excess of what was being combatted. The criminalization of being different has nothing to do with freedom. Neither does the concentration of power in the hands of a few form part of libertarian ideas, and even less so the perpetual surveillance of individuals or the prohibition of any associations that may beformed on the margins of the State. Undoubtedly power is in the hands of the people but only symbolically; the real power, the taking of decisions, is not. It belongs to the State, and the State is Fidel. (…)
The insistence by the regime's leaders and insulters that this is a Marxist system surpasses all absurdity, given that in Cuba, Marxism is only a school subject, a watchword of the Party and other "organizations of the masses", and at best a dream cut short. For Marx (for any libertarian, in fact), freedom and dictatorship are in enduring conflict. Sure, they walk together (like any pair of opposites), but not on the same path, and by doing so (by seeking to do so, I mean), they will never arrive at the same place: if the end justifies the means, then the means foreshadow the end... in other words, freedom cannot be reached by way of imposition. Never...
A sort of falsely proletarian aristocracy was gestating within the "popular" government, opposing the democratization of the revolutionary project with all its strength. The Cuban revolution was not democratic because it engendered within itself the social classes dedicated to impeding it: the revolution gave birth to a bourgeoisie, a repressive apparatus intended to protect itself from the people and to a bureaucracy that distanced itself from the people. But above all it was anti-democratic because of its leader's religious messianism.
Appointing oneself saviour of the Nation is one thing; remaining so for ever is another thing. In effect, Fidel, with his troops and the better part of civilian society, liberated Cuba from Batista's gangster dictatorship; but, by obstinately remaining in power he only turned into the same thing - dictator.
From young revolutionary to old tyrant there is an abyss, the same as there is between the dissenting of that young rebel and the orders of an old man who has gone mad with power and glory. (…) Instead of struggling for a sceptical society, free-thinking and critical, he applauded credulity, submission and absolute obedience in the people. Everything that he questioned in the old regime has been triplicated in the new one. Everything that he attacked as a youth, he has endorsed as an old man. (…) Fidel fought as a free man but today he denies the freedom of men: he has become one of them, despotic, cynical and arrogant to the point of paroxysm; neither better nor worse than any Fox, Bush, Berlusconi or Putin. Castro is one of them: just the same, the very same, the same rubbish, albeit in another guise and keeping its distance. Not only has the struggle for freedom not been concluded in Cuba, neither has it been concluded in Mexico or Vietnam, in the United States or in Chile, in Angola or in Russia, in China or in Nicaragua... It has not been concluded because we are still slaves of conditions that are imposed on us: all that we are comes from what we are allowed to be. And that, my friend, is not freedom."
Note: The full text can be read (in Spanish) on the web
posted by Alice at
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
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