[Marxism] Cuban official acknowledges need for criticism

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

("Criticism can help resolve our problems, silence never resolves
anything. Called upon to choose, we opt for criticism," he said.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Cuban official acknowledges need for criticism

Havana, Nov 29 (EFE).- Cuba's half-century-old revolution is immersed
in a process of transformation and needs change and criticism, a
member of the Communist Party Central Committee said Thursday.

Eliades Acosta, the head of the party's culture department, commented
to the Web site Cubarte after an intellectual controversy broke out
this year regarding the need to eradicate old practices of censure
and open spaces within society for criticism.

Cuba, Acosta said, is going through "a moment of revolutionary
transformation" and the country "is rethinking its structures, the
party itself is rethinking its relationship with society to seek a
more direct, more efficient dialogue and greater participation of the
people in decisions."

With that in mind, he said, the July 26 call made by Cuba's
provisional president, Gen. Raul Castro, recognizing the need for
structural adjustments and calling on Cubans to debate was
fundamentally important.

Raul took the reins in July 2006, when older brother Fidel Castro was
stricken with a serious gastrointestinal ailment from which he is
still convalescing.

Acosta said that Raul Castro's call has translated into debates all
over the country in which some five million Cubans have participated.

"There are many material, salary and legal problems which are like
red lights (i.e. danger signs) and tell us of the need for changes,"
the party official acknowledged, convinced that the aspirations of
the Cuban public "are possible and necessary."

"They are aspirations for material well-being, so that you can
support yourself and your family with the honest fruit of your
labor," and for "personal and social development" within the
framework of revolutionary principles, Acosta said.

"We aspire to have a society that speaks aloud about its problems,
without fear, in which the measures (taken) reflect life without
triumphalism, in which mistakes are publicly aired to seek solutions,
in which the people can express themselves honestly," he continued.

"A society where there is much and varied information, where there
are top-level cultural products, where we can be in communication
with the world in a natural way and we know how to defend the essence
of our identity and the conquests of the revolution itself," he said.

To achieve that, Acosta said, it is necessary to eradicate "the abuse
of institutional practices to limit criticism. We cannot get around
the fact that for many reasons and for a long time questioning was
disturbing" to Cuban authorities and to others within society.

"Criticism can help resolve our problems, silence never resolves
anything. Called upon to choose, we opt for criticism," he said.

"The world will not end just because there are many complaints,"
Acosta said. EFE mar/bp


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