7 MYTHS ABOUT THE CUBAN PRO DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT
By Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat
As we in the Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio) travel around the world seeking solidarity for Cuba's internal pro-democracy movement we often run into a series of myths which have been disseminated by the Castro Regime's propaganda apparatus in order to distort the true nature of the increasingly successful nonviolent civic movement which is challenging it domestically. Here are some of these myths, which are easily clarified by existing data and a cursory look at Cuba's pro democracy movement. Once I list these myths I will then proceed to explore what I believe are some of the major challenges facing the pro-democracy movement today inside the island.
MYTH NUMBER ONE
There is no internal Cuban opposition. The only existing opposition is based in Miami.
The Castro Regime's propaganda efforts are, of course, aimed at bringing debate on Cuba to where the Regime feels most comfortable: to the tired scenario of tiny and egalitarian Cuba facing off either against the US imperialist giant, or against its Cuban lackeys in Miami. And this is perhaps where the first victory of the internal Cuban pro democracy movement lies: it has reconfigured debate on Cuba to be not about Castro's triangular relationship with Washington and Miami, but rather about what is happening inside Cuba and what is happening between the Cuban people and the Cuban government. The existence of this movement inside Cuba, the efforts and sacrifice of all these men and women who have braved repression and persecution to keep alive the idea of a nonviolent democratic change in the island, clearly strikes at the first and foremost of Castro's myths, the one the Regime needs in order to obscure its greatest weakness: its profound lack of legitimacy. For 46 years the Castro Regime has not been able to carry out one single election with the inclusion of ideological rivals. It cannot do this because it knows itself, specially now, to be profoundly unpopular. It tries to cover up this reality with the myth of an 'organic unity' between the revolutionary government, the Cuban people and the socialist ideal which does not necessitate the type of democratic relationship which other governments ignore. The existence of Cuba's pro-democracy movement, and more precisely, the existence of an ever increasing number of Cubans who brave repression in order to speak their minds and struggle for non violent change all over the island, belies this idea of an organic unity. Cubans speaking their mind is Castro's worst nightmare. It is happening now, in Cuba, and in ever greater numbers.
MYTH NUMBER TWO
If an opposition does exist, it is numerically small and insignificant.
This is the fall back myth when the first one easily becomes undone when faced by irrefutable facts.
This too is a myth which must be carefully analyzed. First of all, whether Cuba's internal pro-democracy movement is large or small depends on what we are comparing it to. Our Central European friends who led and participated in the pro democracy movements that liberated their countries from Communism and who are also familiar with Cuba tell us that with the exception of Poland, whose Solidarity movement came to have 9 million members, Cuba's pro-democracy movement is the largest per capita dissident movement of any totalitarian nation still under the rule of a first generation dictator. The broad based civic movements in Czechoslovakia and Estonia; for example became mass movements right towards the end of the life of the Regime...in the meantime they were tiny. Diplomats, journalists and dissidents themselves in the island estimate the number of pro-democracy activists in Cuba at between 5 and 10,000. That's one heck of a number when compared with the size of underground movements under other dictatorships, say Franco's Spain, where the Socialist Worker's Party had no more than 100 members.
Furthermore, between 2002 and 2003 over 35,000 Cubans signed on to the Varela Project, a peaceful citizen's initiative aimed at the legal transformation of the Castro Regime. Such a great amount of signatures was never gathered by dissident movements in Central and Eastern Europe. If Mao's dictum that for every guerrilla fighter there are at least 10 others who participate in the struggle as a support base, then Cuba's 5 to 10,000 pro democracy activists could have an estimated support base of up to 50,000 to 100,000 active sympathizers. This, again, is quite impressive for a country as repressive as Castro's Cuba.
MYTH NUMBER THREE
The pro democracy movement is based only in Havana.
Every year the organization, that I belong to, the Cuban Democratic Directorate publishes the Steps to Freedom reports. We have been publishing these reports since 1997, and they constitute a yearly chronicle of what the pro democracy movement does in the island on a yearly basis. We have listed and documented the activities of the civic movement on a monthly basis, year after year since 1997, in order to be able to come up with numbers and statistics which can clarify for us the growth of the civic movement as a social force in Cuban reality. Year after year these reports have clearly indicated to us that the majority of civic resistance actions in Cuba take place in the provinces. The heart of the Cuban civic movement lies in the provinces, just as the heart of popular resistance to the Castro Regime, as exemplified by the campesino uprisings of the 1960s, leading to the civil war of 1959-67, was based in the provinces. Upon closer examination we may also find that the greatest amount of civic activity in Cuba lies precisely in the same provinces which were the hotbed of guerrilla uprisings against the Castro Regime in the 1960s. If we look at the 75 civic leaders arrested in March of 2003, we can easily corroborate this assertion by seeing that more than half of them came from Cuba's provinces.
MYTH NUMBER FOUR
It is a violent opposition.
The Castro Regime goes to extravagant lengths in its attempt to associate Cuba's internal pro-democracy movement with armed or terrorist actions. It has been unable to prove that a single nonviolent, pro democracy activist in Cuba has been involved in armed or terrorist actions against the Regime.
And, in spite of the efforts of both the Castro Regime and anti-Castro extremists in Miami to do this, the reason is that Cuba's nonviolent civic movement is not only nonviolent because of tactical or strategic reasons, but out of conviction. In the historic struggle between the authoritarian and democratic political currents which have defined Cuban political reality, what has weakened Cuba's advocates of freedom and democracy has been violence. In Cuban history violence has proven to be inconclusive and resultant in aims contrary to what pro-democracy activists have aspired to.
It is this hard learned, bloody lesson which has sunken into Cuban reality and conformed the historical perspective of Cuba's civic activists. For change in Cuba to be real, for it to be profound, it must be nonviolent, since the ideology of the Castro Regime is precisely political violence.
MYTH NUMBER FIVE
The Cuban opposition consists of privileged classes that were socially displaced by the Revolution.
Well, I mentioned before how the heart of Cuba's opposition lies in the provinces. But not only this, when we look at the leadership of the Cuban pro-democracy movement, it is composed to a great extent by black Cubans and Cuban women. Of Cuba's 400+ prisoners of conscience, more than half are black. The Castro Regime knows that it is facing a popular grass roots movement for change that is but the tip of the iceberg of Cuba's mass of popular and social discontent. That is why Castro himself has dedicated so many speeches to warning his own Party cadre about the dangers posed by this movement to the Castro Regime, and this is why the Regime has been willing to risk international isolation and sanctions in order to put down this growing movement.
MYTH NUMBER SIX
Cuba's opposition is artificial, a product of Washington D.C. or Miami.
Well, everything else I have shown up to now clearly demonstrates the contrary. Cuba's democratic movement is about the fact the lack of food and freedom in Cuba. Cuba's civic movement is about a regime that has not been able, for 46 years, to satisfy the needs of Cuba's population.
MYTH NUMBER SEVEN
The Cuban opposition is largely inactive. There is no social and political struggle in Cuba.
Quite the contrary, Cuba's civic movement is resilient, increasingly well organized and in recent years has demonstrated its ability to both affect the Regime's international relations as well as its internal policies.
Thanks to the hard work of Cuba's internal opposition, with the support of the exile community, the pro-democracy movement has managed to activate an active international solidarity movement that has begun to transform the toleration of the Castro Regime's human rights violations traditionally held by international society. Castro has been unable to establish the type of close economic and social relationship with the European Union and the United States precisely because of the work of Cuba's pro democracy movement. Furthermore, the Cuban civic movement has proven a greater ability to challenge the Castro Regime in the streets, as the Damas de Blanco movement has recently shown.
If ever there has been a movement for democratic change in the world which necessitates the support of the American conservative movement it is this one. In both thought and action Cuba's civic movement has demonstrated that it can one day constitute a democratic alternative for all Cubans, but most importantly, that it has already begun to build that alternative day by day, by transforming Cuba's political culture with its actions.
In analyzing what constitutes the future challenges of Cuba's internal civic movement, we have to first analyze what are the main weaknesses and flaws of the Castro Regime.
The fundamental weakness of the Castro Regime lies in the fact that it is profoundly illegitimate. It was born out of a military conquest that has never been able to justify itself in the polls. In order to obscure this appalling lack of legitimacy the Castro Regime must conjure images of crowd-filled plazas and statistics that supposedly demonstrate that Cubans have a higher standard of living than the US. They are of course nothing but artfully designed facades that are proving more and more incapable of justifying why Cubans, the mass of ordinary Cuban citizens cannot exercise their sovereignty. It is this growing recourse to citizen sovereignty by Cuba's civic movement which troubles the Castro Regime, for it strikes directly at its key ideological justification: that the Regime embodies Cuban sovereignty because only through a revolutionary government based on an organic unity of the people and the state can Cuba be truly independent.
Cuba's pro democracy movement has managed to erode this mirage internationally, but it must work ever harder to bring it down inside the island. Castro stays in power because he keeps Cuban society atomized and fragmented, unable to come together to wield its true sovereign power against an illegitimate state. The Cuban pro democracy movement must overcome Castro's monopoly of information resources, and it needs international support in order to do this. We must aid Cuba's civic movement both in its development of internal means of mass communication and in the effectiveness of those foreign-based stations, such as TV and Radio Marti, which aspire to bring information to the Cuban people. The highest priority must be given to successful TV Marti transmissions into the island.
Furthermore, Cuba's pro democracy movement needs recognition. IN Cuban society today there are two dynamic growing forces: one is the civil society and pro democracy movement and the other is the armed forces. Succession for the Castro Regime signifies that this military complex will take over Cuba politically; reinforcing its economic control over the island once Castro is gone. We must bear in mind that Cuba's civic movement is the only visible and true alternative for democratic change in the island. They must receive unequivocal recognition and support from the world's democracies. The U.S. must do all it can to help bring about this multilateral support for Cuba's embattled pro-democracy movement. It must treat this movement as a sovereign partner of the United States. It must never do anything that may seem to portray this movement as an extension of, or subservient to, U.S. interests, but rather a respected partner and a principled defender of the same values and morals which conform the backbone of American political identity.
Castro's propaganda apparatus is geared precisely for this. It has a hard time confronting what is a genuine, grass roots social movement which has emerged in the island as a challenge to the Regime. This uniqueness must be respected and supported, for it represents a viable hope for Cuban democracy.
The last and most dangerous of Castro's myths is that nothing will happen in Cuba until he dies and that succession to Raul Castro is assured. It is this ideological construction which the Regime uses to consolidate its hold on power today. We must not accept this. Change in Cuba is feasible, it must be brought about as soon as possible, and it can only come about through the political and moral isolation of the anti-democratic forces in power in Cuba today and international recognition for Cuba's pro democracy movement.
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About the author
Orlando Gutiérrez BoronatOrlando Gutiérrez-Boronat nació en La Habana en 1965. Tiene un doctorado en estudios internacionales en la Universidad de Miami. Tiene licenciaturas en comunicaciones y ciencias políticas y una maestría en ciencias políticas. Imparte cursos de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Internacional de la Florida y la Universidad Barry. Es cofundador y Secretario Nacional del Directorio Democrático Cubano, una de las organizaciones más destacadas en el trabajo de recabar apoyo internacional y solidaridad para el movimiento democrático en la Isla. Es co-autor de los informes Pasos a la Libertad que publica el Directorio anualmente sobre el crecimiento del movimiento cívico en Cuba. También es autor del libro La República Invisible, una colección de ensayos sobre la identidad nacional cubana, la política del exilio y el movimiento cívico en Cuba.
