The opponents of Cuba’s political system cannot grant it something positive. As they often express their concern about the “lack of democracy” on the island, it was expected they would react favorably to the approval of a Family Code that guarantees more rights; however, in not a few cases, it has been exactly the opposite.
The reading we can make is that they do not really care about democracy; they simply prefer to continue making propaganda about a supposed dictatorship that violates all human rights. The result of the referendum is anachronistic with respect to the stigmatized image to which they reduce Cuba in the many digital campaigns paid from Washington, in which they write, or in the pages of El País or The Washington Post, just to mention a few.
The real Cuba, and not the one of their inventions, has the Code it was able to create and defend at the ballot box. Accused of being a failed state, prey to an economic terrorism unparalleled in history, facing a major economic crisis that is having a significant social and imaginary impact, under media siege, it made a referendum on a Code of a revolutionary scope, one that few can match in the world. Finally, the population went out to vote with numbers that would cause envy in most democratic countries today.
Although it is hard for them to recognize it, the Code can only be understood objectively as a result of the functioning of our political system. They continue to talk about the fact that the protagonist in the struggle for greater rights in Cuba is a civil society, largely produced by the media with foreign money, destined for internal subversion, which ignores our institutions. The truth is that, at this point, the argument is not valid anymore. This Code, a step in the deepening of the democratic character of the system, is explained by the sense of justice of our people, the decisions of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the drive of the Government, the leadership of the Party and of the organizations and institutions, in the midst of one of the times of greatest dispute for ideological and cultural hegemony in Cuba.
Internally, the referendum has a great merit as it put on the scene of public debate issues on which there were countless taboos, gaps and silences for a long time. This already marks a before and after. However, behind the No or the abstentions, there is not only the punishment vote, as they want to present it. It has also shown how heteropatriarchy, instituted for centuries, is still present in our society. There were those who voted No without necessarily having a position against the system or the Government, but because they did not understand or did not identify with the contents of the document.
Fundamentalism has supporters today, even among the youngest. At the same time, a sector of the population ended up being manipulated by disinformation campaigns of all kinds. And these are data that require us to take a rigorous and inquiring look at the current Cuban socio-political context. The victory in the referendum opens a door, but the road will be arduous if we wish to deepen the democratic character of the system following the route marked by the Code and deepen the Revolution on a cultural level.
For now, many of those who live by writing about the failed State and the dictatorship have lost the possibility of showing a little coherence. The annoyance of running out of arguments on one of the topics in which they have entrenched themselves weighed more. But for the people (whatever their vote may have been), the possibilities of rights are expanding, and that is what matters.
Source: Granma
