Summit of Generations
Remarks by Carl Gershman on October 22, 2015 at the Boitel Freedom Prize Ceremony
I am humbled to speak about the future of democracy in Cuba in the
presence of such great heroes of the freedom struggle in Cuba as
Antunez, Berta Soler, Antonio Rodiles, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, and
Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina.
It’s also a great honor and pleasure for me to speak at the 25
th
anniversary conference of the Directorio Democratico Cubano. I’ve
worked closely with Orlando Gutierrez and the Directorio for many years,
and they have truly kept the flame of freedom alive for the Cuban
people. When Cuba becomes a free country, as I know it eventually will,
Orlando, John Suarez, and others at Directorio will deserve to be
recognized for their historic contribution to the cause of human
freedom.
I want to speak this evening primarily about the prospect for
democracy in Cuba. But before I do that, let me say a brief word about
the global movement for democracy. While this movement is resilient at
the level of civil society, we are nonetheless in the midst of what has
been called “a democracy recession” that has three basic dimensions.
The first is the failure of democratic transitions in many third-wave
and Arab Spring countries, democratic backsliding in countries as
diverse as Thailand and Turkey, and continuing problems of corruption
and poor governance in many countries. The second is what we have
called an authoritarian resurgence, as Russia, China, and other
authoritarian countries assault civil society, block democracy
assistance, undermine democratic norms, and aggressively push
anti-democratic ideas and values. And the third is a crisis of
confidence, political dysfunction, and geopolitical paralysis in the
advanced democracies of Europe and the United States. Their passivity in
the face of mounting international threats has emboldened the opponents
of liberal democracy, which are rushing to fill the vacuums created by
Western weakness and retreat.
I won’t say more about this right now, except to note that if the
Cuban democracy movement succeeds in transforming Cuba, it will have a
profound and positive effect on democracy far beyond the borders of
Cuba, given the exaggerated and perverse role that Cuba has played in
Latin American and global politics since Castro seized power in 1959.
Now let me turn to Cuba. When President Obama and Raul Castro last
December 17 announced their intention to normalize relations between the
United States and Cuba, the opposition leader Manuel Cuesta Morua said
that the opening “represents the end of the ‘epic’ stage and the
beginning of the political stage for civil society” in Cuba.
Whatever one thinks of the opening and the way it has been handled –
the reluctance of the US to use its leverage to pry open political space
in Cuba, and Castro’s efforts to secure greater legitimacy and economic
advantages for Cuba without liberalizing politically or reducing
repression – it has created a new situation, and that’s where we must
begin in thinking about strategy and tactics for the future.
By the epic stage, I think Cuesta Morua meant a period when the only
form of meaningful political expression was resistance to a totalitarian
dictatorship. In the political stage that we’ve now entered, different
and more varied forms of struggle are both possible and necessary.
The first thing to recognize is that Cuba has not entered a period of
democratic transition. The Cuba regime is very different from the
authoritarian military dictatorships in Chile, Brazil and other
countries that underwent a democratic transition during the 1980s.
The Castro dictatorship, unlike the old military regimes in Latin
America, still has the features of what political scientists Steven
Levitsky and Lucan Way call a
revolutionary regime, meaning one
that emerged out of “sustained, ideological, and violent struggle from
below, and whose establishment is accompanied by mass mobilization and
significant efforts to transform state structures and the existing
social order.”
Such regimes, they write, are strikingly resistant to democratization
because they have destroyed all independent power centers, social
institutions, and economic structures. In Cuba’s case, the regime also
significantly weakened, even if it did not completely eliminate, the
Church. In addition, such regimes have strong ruling parties and
cohesive mass organizations; they are resistant to coups because of the
overlap between the ruling civilian and military elites; and they have
powerful coercive structures that they don’t hesitate to use.
Therefore, we have to start by recognizing that the Cuban regime is
more deeply rooted than the Latin American military dictatorships, and
it does not allow the pluralism or have the internal divisions that had a
lot to do with the successful democratic transitions in those countries
three decades ago.
There is one other feature that is different, and it is that Cuba –
because of its revolutionary and anti-imperialist posturing – has not
been subject to the same degree of international pressure that was put
on the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile or the Apartheid regime in South
Africa. Relatively speaking, the Cuban dictatorship has been given a
free pass by the international community, as demonstrated by the silence
on human rights violations it regularly commits and the fact that Cuba
has been able to play a leading role in UN bodies, the nonaligned
movement, and other international structures.
Yet the Cuban regime also has some very powerful vulnerabilities.
Chief among these are its proximity to the United States and the many
cultural affinities between our two countries – music and baseball being
just two of them. The denser these ties, the greater the internal
pressures will be for freedom and democratic normalcy in Cuba.
Levitsky and Way write that reducing confrontation and polarization
can undermine the cohesion of a revolutionary dictatorship, which
explains why the Castro regime is actually very nervous about the future
and has stepped up repression in the period since the opening with the
United States. The number of political arrests in the first nine months
of this year was 5.146, well over twice the number of arrests recorded
in all of 2010. There were 882 arrests last month alone. Again, this
does not indicate the strength of the regime but its vulnerability.
There is also the additional factor of what we might call the
inevitable erosion of totalitarianism, which affects even revolutionary
totalitarian regimes. Totalitarian erosion is not the same thing as
liberalization, but it does lead to more space for people at the bottom
and less control from the top. Cuba today shares some of the features
that we saw in the Central European communist dictatorships in the
period before 1989. These include a limited increase in economic and
cultural pluralism, even in the absence of political pluralism; a
significant weakening of the regime’s political legitimacy as a result
of its economic failures and ideological exhaustion, even as it
continues to mouth the old revolutionary rhetoric; the decline in
popular mobilization and the hollowing out of the mass organizations in
terms of their internal cohesion and the loyalty of their members; and
the replacement of charismatic leaders by technocrats, even if the old
leaders have not yet passed from the scene.
The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski prophetically called
attention to the importance of these changes at a NED conference in
1987, noting that they opened new possibilities for change even if they
had not yet altered the core principle of the system, which is the
monopoly of political power by an unaccountable communist party
dictatorship. Developments in Cuba have followed this pattern, as a
result of which the Cuban democracy movement has been able to establish
what Kolakowski called “enclaves of civil society” within the
totalitarian system, which is what the Polish movement had succeeded in
doing in the decade before the fall of communism. One core goal of the
democracy movement in Cuba should be to build and enlarge these enclaves
of civil society.
Thus, while we are not yet at the stage where we can anticipate the
start of a process of democratic transition, there has already been a
transition from totalitarianism to a post-totalitarian system, which
opens the possibilities for further erosion and political opening in the
future.
The Cuban regime would like to stop this process of erosion and
promote what Oswaldo Paya, in his video message memorializing Vaclav
Havel in January 2012, called “a fraudulent change so that those that
have all the power may keep it and once more marginalize the people of
Cuba.”
I want to say here what a personal joy it is to have Paya’s daughter
Rosa Maria with us this evening. I have written and said many times
that her father’s death was not accidental, and there needs to be a full
and independent investigation to determine how and why he was killed.
I think the regime sees two possible models that it would like to
follow. One of them is the China-Vietnam model of economic
liberalization while maintaining the communist system of control.
The second model is establishing a hybrid regime, sometimes also
called competitive authoritarianism. Putin a few years back called it
“managed democracy,” and what Chavez called “Bolivarian democracy” in
Venezuela is another example of a hybrid regime. The Burmese military
also wants to follow this model. It permits a charade of formal
democratic features, such as fraudulent elections, a few NGOs, and some
limited independent media. But the regime continues to maintain its
hegemonic political control.
The Cuban regime probably prefers the first model because the second
involves more risks. A hybrid system has something in common with what
Abraham Lincoln called “a house divided against itself,” a system that
Lincoln said “cannot stand.” Yet the fact that Raul Castro has
announced that he will step down in 2018, and that the regime is
planning to amend the electoral law as part of a process to choose
younger leaders, suggests that the regime might opt for the hybrid
model.
Though the regime has no intention of allowing a genuine opening, or
even considering relinquishing power at some future time, I think it has
nonetheless started a process that cannot escape the logic of
democratic transition, even if the conditions for a real transition are
not yet present.
I find it interesting that when NED asked Cuesta Morua and other
dissidents to spell out the key principles that should guide the
democracy movement in Cuba, their points were all consistent with the
established principles that have guided real transitions in the past.
The first is that existing coalitions and opposition groups in Cuba
should, without merging, work together based on common goals. We all
know that there are different tendencies within the opposition movement
in Cuba, which is normal. Such differences exist in every opposition
movement fighting for democracy in a dictatorial country. In Franco’s
Spain some people wanted to reform the system, while others wanted a
complete rupture with it. The point is that the opposition, while not
uniform, should still try to preserve unity, which is much more
important than uniformity in any case. Diversity is a strength.
The second principle, which flows from the first, is that it is
important to welcome and support different strategies for advancing
democracy. One never knows what will provoke change, and it’s important
to recognize that all can do their part in the democratization
struggle.
The third principle is to acknowledge that even though many democracy
activists and supporters abroad are critical of the policies of the
United States and other governments toward Cuba, Cuban democrats should
not isolate themselves from the international community but should try
to build ties of dialogue and cooperation.
The fourth principle is to observe the politics of what is possible,
which is the best way to move toward the politics of what is desirable.
This means recognizing the inevitability of gradualism, the necessity
for pragmatism, and the need to take advantage of opportunities when
they present themselves. Being pragmatic does not mean that there is
not also the need for mobilization and resistance. As is the case with
every movement for democracy, there is the need for both militancy and
conciliation. Struggle and organization will be needed to open the way
for eventual negotiations and a real transition.
And finally, the fifth principle – and this one is addressed
especially to the supporters of the Cuban movement outside of Cuba – is
that supporting initiatives that emerge from within Cuba is the best way
to come into close contact with the Cuban people.
All these principles make sense, in my view, and in closing I would
just add a few of my own. One is that we have to persuade people in the
U.S. and elsewhere not to accept a hybrid regime in Cuba as an
acceptable alternative to dictatorship. Competitive authoritarianism is
arguably marginally better than a full-blown dictatorship, but it’s not
democracy, and if democratic leaders in the United States, Europe, and
Latin America appear to embrace it, they’re going to betray the Cuban
people and undermine the moral and political case for democracy.
A second is that we must do everything we can to end the free pass on
human rights that the Cuban dictatorship has been given by the
international community. Whatever one thinks of the normalization of
relations between Cuba and the U.S., it may actually make it easier to
mobilize support for democracy since Castro apologists will now find it
harder to blame the United States for all of Cuba’s problems.
The third is to insist upon the observance of democratic norms and to
oppose any attempt to apply a double standard to Cuba. If the regime
amends its laws to hold an election after Castro steps down in 2018,
then let us insist that it be a real election, free and fair, with the
opposition being able to organize and campaign, with a level playing
field, and with the whole process monitored by international observers.
And the fourth is that we must help the opposition strengthen its
international relations, so that there is a growing body of support in
Latin America for a real transition in Cuba, and that the Cuban
democratic movement have a voice in the process of establishing a new
relationship between Cuba and the European Union. Obviously there is
also a big job to do in the United States as well.
Six years ago, when I presented the Directorio’s Pedro Luis Boitel
Freedom Award, in absentia, to Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, I asked the
following question – “Between Boitel and Che, who will ultimately win –
the democratic martyr whose unmarked grave has become a shrine for Cuban
dissidents; or the murderous cult figure whose image adorns countless
t-shirts?” To paraphrase Castro, “Whom will history absolve?”
I think that in the end Boitel will win. But for that to happen, the
opposition will have to learn how to supplement courage and implacable
resistance to oppression with strategic thinking and political
organization, something it is already beginning to do. Despite all the
difficulties, I think that the conditions are favorable for their
struggle. Their cause is just, and they are up against a regime that
has lost whatever
raison d’etre it may once have had, is deeply corrupt, and now appears ideologically bankrupt to its people and to the world.
Cuban democrats deserve the support of the global democracy
movement. Because of the poisonous role that Cuba has played in
international politics for more than half a century, a democratic
breakthrough in Cuba will have a very broad impact. It will be a major
step forward for democracy in the world, and it will give new momentum
to the struggle for democracy everywhere. As we celebrate the
Directorio’s 25
th anniversary, let us reaffirm our solidarity
with the Cuban people, and pledge that we shall never relent until Cuba
becomes a democratic country, with liberty and justice for all.
Text taken from the National Endowment for Democracy website
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