The new Constitution and the future of Cuba

It is important that when we try to dust off the history of our new constitution, we look at it with a broader view of 86.72% in favor and 9% against. The data is often frivolous grimaces that do not provide enough lights to view the immediate horizon.

The first thing we should not overlap is that the country's new Magna Carta is superior, quite clearly, to that of 1976; that one possessed an enveloping Soviet nucleus and, in addition, a disguised atheistic philosophy. From my citizen optimism I feel that we now have at our disposal a document that offers a broader amalgam of civil rights than its predecessor and this, if fulfilled, may be something that facilitates its tangible application.

However, from now on I affirm that one thing is the mention of rights and another thing is its implementation. Without believing me a lawyer, it is a bit striking to know that "there are more than 80 occasions in which the constitution refers to the law then define this article with a complementary rule" (1). It is not just a metaphor to say that the Cuban legal system is in limbo and that, with our voted law of laws, we hope to be able to fill that space so little used in the last days of citizen constitutionality.

One of the important points when we try to remember why it was voted Yes on February 24, is that of the popular consultation . This is not something entirely new for our nation, with an inevitable battle of ideas; but in reference to the context in which this query was developed. The left lives one of its worst hemispheric crises, with a collapsed Venezuela; in Cuba we live the consolidation of a new national government, led by the current president Miguel Díaz Canel. All this in the middle of a depressed economy and with national tragedies - of great social impact -, suffered in recent months, such as the fall of the plane rented by Cubana de Aviacion with more than one hundred dead and the tornado that raged with rage last month from January to Havana.

For those who like to deepen the etymology of the concepts, we refer to a popular consultation process “when efficient mechanisms of participation of the people are sought, in the conscious making of important political decisions” (2). In Cuba, any such process is relevant; above all, because of the precedent of a substantial root of historical consciousness, sometimes linked too much, with a subjective battle of ideas, which leads the people to a constant struggle for their social emancipation. So it seems interesting to me to see all the complexus of popular consultation on the project of Cuban constitution, from the glasses of the French professor Guillaume Faburel (3), who describes our work as a process that has sought the restoration of political confidence.

I only hope that these approaches can summon the decision makers of our nation to introduce the terms within their operative agendas; because one of the best contributions that a Magna Carta must make, is to give voice to people with little or no visibility within the social framework of any nation. We are talking about being able to recreate a public reality with laws that give it an important connotation of political sense.

A matter to think for the following general votes is that, in other countries of the world, propaganda campaigns have an end, while the I Vote Yes was present even during the marking of the ballot. Inside the polling stations there were banners that reaffirmed it. An impressive element is that the 586 deputies present in the National Assembly, when the final draft was put to the vote, said Yes;
That leaves 706,000 people outside the largest representative body of the Cuban people in that space, with some delegate representing their No.

This should serve as a reflection within the organism and, as a nation, we must look for formulas that favor the inclusion of some representative of divergent thinking in the decision-making spheres of the country. And a question arises that should not be overlooked at all:

What was voted on is an important document, but the process itself did not dispute any national sovereignty, much less our independence as a country.

One of the issues of great impact worldwide is the issue of how to improve democracy; hence, any political process that legitimizes itself as an outbreak of participatory democracy is given great attention. However, and this was reviewed even by our mass media, outside of Tele Sur and some Russian channels, our referendum passed almost silently through the big international chains. This may not say anything to many, but, in a general sense, what I have done, I feel that I did not have much international credibility.

Since 1998 a general vote is being called with a very statocentric sense, giving a non-Cuban vision, for those people who do not vote in favor of what is officially proposed. From the sources of power it would be interesting to assess the possibility of living these processes as something under construction, and not from a vision that everything is already taken for granted; especially for the magnitude and civic relevance of the document in consultation, which runs through our entire civil society, in which, if we listen honestly, we can find divergent opinions.

This type of popular consultations would generate a greater degree of trust for the people, if they worked from the media with a greater sense of plurality. It is important to learn to yield historical positions of absolute hegemony all this nuanced by the integrative look of a transparent official discourse, without double intentions. Something unfortunate is that in our Magna Carta there is no mention of civil society, a living force within the people that usually faces, within the first line, at key moments such as natural catastrophes.

Many were struck by the fact that, during the consultative stage, the people did not say anything about an issue and, suddenly, it was removed from the document. Hence the question about the disappearance of the section on human rights; because supposedly what we discussed was not a kind of revaluation.

The same-sex marriage seemed like a double-sided letter and now there is talk of taking it to a referendum; however, that same treatment is not given to other questions raised by the sovereign, such as the electoral law.

One of the significant achievements of the new constitution is the empowerment of the municipality, especially because it often survives the policy of waiting for everything to come down from above and this changes the rules of the local government for good. But now the ethnologists of the patio will have to rethink what a municipality is, in order to then be able to provide a solid support to the new laws of municipality since geographical demarcations cannot be a straitjacket.

We are at the door of a new social stage, gradually entering the technological revolution that humanity lives, with one of the oldest populations in Latin Americaand in the midst of a palpable economic depression. The policy of besieged square does not seem to be something close to disappearing. I understand that political plurality is not the same as multi-partyism, but from a Christian spirituality, the existence, as a philosophical center of the political vanguard of the nation, of an ideology that denies God becomes exclusive. It is important that we clarify what is electoral and what is not; Moreover, it is important to suppress the vision of ratification in the official propaganda media, because conceptually, that only speaks of agreeing with something that is already oriented from above.

The control of constitutionality should be in the hands of the courts to expedite as soon as possible a set of laws that have not just come to public light, such as religious or cults law.

In the end, only the people should exercise their role as sovereign and their role as rector of the destinies of the nation. The Cuba of the next few years will be a virtual stage with a constant struggle for citizen influence. One of the elements to follow will be the political development of a civil society with interesting living forces, being born and consolidating in its interior, in addition to the classic ones already known.

In conclusion, I consider that the Magna Carta offers new opportunities for citizen empowerment. All this mediated by obstacles typical of a country like ours, with multiple contrasts. It is important to participate with civic awareness of all the processes that occur within the Cuban democratic scenario.

The first challenge that is noticed, in less than two years, is the change of the family code. I would like to end this article with a text by Pope Francis, which initiates the message of the Catholic bishops of Cuba regarding the new Constitution of the Republic: