Living, Thinking Revolution in Cuba

By Mike Fuller

Havana, Feb 2 (Prensa Latina) The first workshop of a monthly series called Living the Cuban Revolution 50 Years after its Triumph opened with about a hundred participants called to build a complex but committed vision of the socialist project here.

A group of young academics set the discursive field by hanging open lists of expectations for people to complete as unedited Silvio Rodriguez music filled the Ministry of Culture"s Juan Marinello Center.

Organically inserted into the audience, the conceptual architects of the Gramsci professorate enunciated positions from their seats, energizing the critical mass before splitting into four groups.

A cluster of university aged Argentines sipped mate tea next to a grandmotherly Afro-Cuban, with local law students, provincial visitors, published academics and more to "explore and perfect the Cuban Revolution on its 50th year."

Some agreed that access may exist to mainstays like education and health care, but said work could be done to improve their quality.

There was consensus that the Revolution had produced profound and positive changes in socio-political structures, but recognition that it needed to provide greater inclusion today.

The humanist character of a process that has far surpassed the reality of its birth in 1959 was praised but the need for successive transformations within the system and non-state actors were cited as essential ingredients to fully change "bourgeois common sense."

Timelines of revolutionary memories were drawn and shared, framing as positive or negative historical moments like Fidel Castro"s speeches in the United Nations or the terrorist explosion of a Cuban passenger plane off Barbados on October 6, 1976. The latter killed 73 people and the National Security Archive has posted declassified documents that show the CIA learned previously of "plans of Cuban exile extremists to blow up a Cubana airliner."

The years of the US Bush administration bottomed out the table while the last Cuban university students congress flew off the chart with its call for a "new society in challenging times, erasing mechanistic thought and deep debate for solutions."

Cuban historian Juan Valdes Paz was one of the oldest participants, and said if his generation has more memory it is because it had more participation, and that space must be gained institutionally.
Known for his thought on new socialist paradigms, Valdes roamed the groups and reported solidarity seemed to still be a measured value here, but said he observed an agenda of unconformities that need to be changed.

He spoke of the need to rethink Marxism in terms of socialization, remember the concept of daily life and make operational findings by social scientists.

He said reduction of uncertainty and definition of goals can only be gained through a culture of political unity, which landed him a healthy round of applause from old and young alike.

The next workshop is scheduled for the end of February and will concentrate on the political system in the Revolution, participation and citizenship.

See www.cuba-urss.cult.cu for more information.