Epitaph for a Party

Epitaph for a Party / 14ymedio, Miriam Celaya

14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Miami, 20 April 2016 – I ask for a minute's
standing ovation, gentlemen: the Communist Party of Cuba has died. The
internment, which will be known to future generations of Cubans as the
7th Congress of the PCC, held its memorial service Tuesday, 19 April
2016, exactly 55 years after the dazzling "first great defeat of Yankee
imperialism in America."

Due to those whimsical paradoxes of history, the "Socialist Revolution,"
proclaimed in those days of pure popular enthusiasm, has finally
succumbed, but not by any action of the imperialist enemy warrior, but
by the arrogance of its own makers.

The death of the PCC, after a long and painful illness, was
authenticated with the election of the "new" Central Committee, headed –
but for unavoidable exceptions – by the same crested brains of the
revolutionary gerontocracy, irresponsibly clinging to power counter to
the country's deterioration. The octogenarian party has not had the
capability to renew itself to make way for a new generation of leaders
trained to meet the challenges of these times.

Nevertheless, there were earlier signs of the inevitability of this
death. In the last five years, the Cuban "political vanguard" allowed
itself the luxury of wasting one more opportunity to reverse the state
of national calamity , and elected instead the path to stagnation, if
not retrogression. Cognition of its own frailty and the fear of losing
control over society paralyzed the once powerful PCC, which ended up
losing its last shreds of credibility among Cubans.

In the last five years, the Cuban "political vanguard" allowed itself
the luxury of wasting one more opportunity to reverse the state of
national calamity, and elected instead the path to stagnation, if not
regression

Some of these signs of weakness and decay are the lack of programs of
reform that would allow for the beginning of a process of changes and
overcoming the persistent poverty; the disconnect between the ruling
elite and the social base; the inability to move beyond the experimental
phase of the few and insufficient economic openings; the improvisation
of insufficient and ineffective measures designed to alleviate the
consequences of the crisis rather than eliminate its causes; and the
constant and growing exodus that further impoverishes the nation. The
capital of popular faith which rallied briefly at the beginning of the
transfer of power from F. Castro to his brother (the "pragmatic
reformist" Raúl) has died.

Over a year after being announced with much fanfare, and after a process
of secret meetings where only a select group of anointed ones
"discussed" the documents to be analyzed in its sessions, the conclave
that supposedly would trace the fate of 11 million souls not only
ignored the national drift, it squandered the additional time in an
attempt to counteract the harmful effect that, according to the leaders
of the geriatric caste, the imperialist enemy has injected into the soul
of the nation.

Behold the political power that has consecrated Cuba's destiny according
to a new turning point.

In short, there will not be a Cuba before and after the 7th Congress of
the PCC, but before and after the restoration of relations with the US,
specifically, after the visit of the American president, Barack Obama,
to the Cuban capital. This is the implicit recognition of the failure of
the Castro-communist project.

In short, there will not be a Cuba before and after the 7th Congress of
the PCC, but before and after the restoration of relations with the US

Thus, the issues that would occupy de jure the discussions, namely, the
conceptualization of this absurd unreality called "the Cuban
socioeconomic and political model," the problem of the dual currency,
feeding of the population, constitutional reform, the highly vaunted
foreign investment program and an endless list of other emergencies
related to ordinary Cubans, are left hanging. The PCC has no answers to
social demands.

Instead, the leaders have opted for entrenchment, and, as if current
generations of Cubans believed in symbols of the past, the leadership
decided to play as trump a devalued card: it dusted off and preened as
much as possible the former President, former First Secretary of the
Central Committee of the PCC and former Undisputed Commander in Chief,
and placed him before the monastic convent's plenary session – after
also cloistering the doors to the tabernacle, safe from the inquiring
inquisitorial foreign press – in an attempt to legitimize his new
ideological war against the Empire.

With all certainty, a war with not enough followers, unless the new
Cuban soldiers could be called that: the migrants who are invading the
enemy by land, sea and air in robust legions to defeat the enemy by
occupying his territory, triumphantly and permanently. Memories of the
old ex-warrior's battle and moral victories, whether real or imagined,
have been left way behind in our national recollections.

Now it becomes clear that the PCC has died. The so-called 7th Congress
was not that at all, but a swan song. Just the sad spectacle of a group
of recalcitrant elders addicted to power and their cohort busybodies
(buquenques, in good Cuban). If there is any honest communist left in
Cuba – if in the imaginary case such ever existed – he must be plunged
into the deepest mourning. Had our half a century of history been
different, the late Party might deserve a minute of silence. But we
don't need to be hypocrites, at any rate; we Cubans have been silent for
way too long.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Source: Epitaph for a Party / 14ymedio, Miriam Celaya – Translating Cuba
- http://translatingcuba.com/epitaph-for-a-party-14ymedio-miriam-celaya/