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Saturday, February 24, 2018

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Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Cuban Politics Post-Communism


the AZEL

PERSPECTIVE

Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 114
 


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The widespread uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere in the Middle East have prompted the fundamental question of:  Who are these rebels? More importantly, from a foreign policy perspective: What are their political ideologies and governing ideas? What sort of government will follow the fall of a long-term despot?
Nolan Chart
For the most part we seem not to know or to be able to advance an educated guess. Very little analytical attention has been paid to understanding beforehand the historical frameworks and political and ideological undercurrents that will be at play in specific post-dictatorship milieus. Some seem to naively and unwarrantedly believe that liberal democracies and free market economies are the inevitable end result when opposition movements topple authoritarian regimes.

Closer to home mortality tables inform us, with implacable certainty, that the half-century totalitarian rule of the Castro regime is approaching its biological end. What will follow?

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, one of the most recognized members of the Cuban opposition, has stated that, following the resignation of Raul Castro, Cuban dissidents are prepared to negotiate a transition to democratic governance with succeeding government officials. Dr. Biscet’s declaration represents a symbolic milestone in the Cuban narrative. Arrested for a second time in the Black Spring of 2003 and later released from prison, he was awarded, in absentia, the United Sates 2007 Medal of Freedom for his principled and courageous opposition activities and appeals to peaceful civil disobedience.

Biscet and other Cuban dissidents have metamorphosed from isolated individuals heroically criticizing the practices of the regime, to a recognized resistance movement challenging the legitimacy and authority of the Communist Party. As in the Soviet Bloc, the term dissident itself has changed its meaning from that of a non-conformist who opposes society to that of an activist whose efforts are understood to be in the best interest of society. Most significantly, however, this dissident movement is now developing its own political expression as it grows into a party-based political opposition.

Concurrent with this political coming of age of the opposition movement, the Communist Party of Cuba, enshrined in the constitution as the only legal political party, has lost its ideological footing. Fidel Castro, in an apparent Freudian slip, asserted that “the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore” and Raul Castro has repeatedly emphasized that “changes are needed to save Cuba from the economic abyss.”  Moreover, the firing of up to 1.3 million state employees announced in General Raúl Castro’s reform program is denounced in Marxist circles as a betrayal of communist orthodoxy. Notwithstanding Raúl’s pronouncements at the Congress of Cuba’s Communist Party, communist ideology has effectively withered away.

With communist ideology discredited and an opposition beginning to articulate its own competing political expression, Cuba has entered a period of post-communist politics.  Surprisingly, very little attention has been given to exploring the political dynamics that will come into play in Cuban politics post-communism.

To be clear, the political opposition is embryonic, without resources and illegal under the Cuban legal system. It may be more accurately characterized as a resistance movement seeking to coalesce into a force capable of organizing society for the recovery of individual freedoms.  Nonetheless, the political monopoly of the communist party is being challenged with political methods, political language, and competing governing philosophies. Cuba is not yet post-Castros, but ideologically it is post-communist.

This raises the question of what competing political philosophies and governing programs will begin to emerge in Cuba’s political landscape following communist rule.   A starting point is to revisit briefly the dominant political ideologies in the pre-Castro Cuba of the 1950s.

Cuba did have a pre-Castro communist party founded in 1925 as the Partido Comunista Cubano that became, in 1944, the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP) and was dissolved in 1962. Many of its members later became members of the Central Committee of the new Cuban Communist Party officially founded in 1965. At the other end of the political spectrum, Cuba also had a Liberal Party and liberal thinkers in the historical, laissez-faire, European tradition such as the Italian-born Orestes Ferrara Marino.

But in 1950’s Cuba the political scene was dominated by two almost ideologically indistinguishable political parties: The Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Autentico) and its splinter party the Partido del Pueblo Cubano (Ortodoxo).  It is worth noting that one labeled itself “Authentic” and the other “Orthodox” - words which are close to being synonyms.

In terms of modern political taxonomy, the governing programs of both of these parties were significantly center-left or social democratic, incorporating heavy dosages of nationalism, socialism, corporativism, and advocacy for governmental control of key sectors of the economy. In terms of economic policy they were as Keynsian as their era, but the Cuban state did not own any industries or intervene in the economic management of private enterprises. Then again, labor unions were strong and there was considerable coordination and cooperation between government, business and labor.

Both Autenticos and Ortodoxos emphasized civil liberties and the democratic process. The main distinction between the parties was not ideological, but operational in that the Partido Ortodoxopositioned itself as the anti-corruption party with a broom as its symbol to sweep away all the evils of a corrupt state and themes such as “Prometemos no robar” (We promise not to steal).  But perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of this political time period was the personality driven nature of political discourse. More often than not, it was more about following an individual political figure than a defined governing platform.

The post-communist political spectrum in Cuba is likely to be far more diverse. It will include the political beliefs developed as a result of living in Cuba under communist rule and the political beliefs learned and adopted by a Cuban diaspora living abroad - a community that represents 15 percent of the Cuban nation. Even under the current state of repression and illegality, politically inspired documents calling for change are surfacing in the Island.

Also increasing are groups, with political party names such as Christian Democratic Party of Cuba, Cuban Democratic Socialist Current, Liberal  Party of Cuba, Orthodox Renovation Party,  Cuban Liberal Union,  Cuba Independent  and Democratic, Democratic Solidarity Party, Christian Liberation Movement and more. Some of these groups have affiliations with international political entities outside Cuba.

At the moment, Cuba’s opposition movement is ideologically diverse, institutionally weak, and imbued with the statist cognitive framework inherited from the communist regime. Unfortunately this cognitive framework includes political intolerance and the inability to distinguish between a legitimate political adversary with different ideas and a mortal enemy. This last point is essential, because communist systems do not generate truthful or useful knowledge about the causes of its own malfunction. A great virtue of democratic tolerance is the cognitive context that allows society to correct perceived errors in governance via a peaceful and constitutional electoral process.

It is impractical at this historical juncture to try to locate the political positions of the emerging Cuban body politic in terms of a single left-right axis or even within some of the more sophisticated charts with multiple axes that political scientists use to illustrate variations in political beliefs. Even so, it may be interesting to speculatively model the Cuban political spectrum post-communism.

Cuba’s dismal failure as a totalitarian state with a centrally planned economy suggests that scrutiny with a chart with x and y axes accounting for the degree of preferred government control may be most revealing. In this context the Nolan chart (below) that considers “economic freedoms” in one axis and “personal freedoms” in the other may be useful.

Given the radical denial of freedoms Cubans have experienced for five plus decades, it follows that, in the abstract, most would desire high levels of personal and economic freedoms and would reject high degrees of government control. Theoretically, this would place most Cubans choosing personal and economic freedoms in the libertarian corner and those choosing government controls in the communitarian corner.

However, this theoretical-conceptual modeling will immediately clash with the mores of a population accustomed to dictates from above, dependency from below, and the sense of entitlement inherited from a communist state. Cuban society will be suffering - in Václav Havel’s metaphorical term- from a half-century exposure to the “radiation of totalitarianism.” In practice, the ethics of social responsibility will dominate the debates and the policy-making advocated in political discourse will not match the laissez-faire
driven policies suggested by the conceptual modeling. The economic reality is simply that desired social services of a Scandinavian magnitude cannot be financed with Caribbean level productivity.   Thus Cuban politics post-communism will be, not just diverse and nuanced by traditional political ideologies, but close to being internally self-contradictory.

It is not enough for the opposition to fight against oppression. To work its way into governance, Cuba’s emerging political opposition must overcome its inherent intra-group and inter-group disagreements over political philosophy. It must project the image of being a viable governing alternative to the Communist Party. To do so it will need to build accords and a consensus centered on freedom and on improving the wellbeing of the citizenry. To act in concert, post-communist political leaders must learn to build relationships of trust and be able to support each other.

This unity, however, cannot be constructed on the basis of some unreachable comprehensive uniformity of political and economic beliefs. Cuba’s budding political opposition will be more viable if it embraces the diversity of its political philosophies and makes this diversity its political strength. It must learn to appreciate political tolerance and a loyal democratic opposition as the epistemological source of political order. The search for unity should thus be anchored on identifying foundational common principles and differentiating those principles from those of the Communist Party.

These principles, which  are common to the large ideological family made up by all liberal democracies, are : (1) representative democracy as a method for making and legitimizing collective decisions; (2) the conviction that all persons including the highest government officials are subject to, and limited by, the authority of a constitution; (3) conviction on the necessity  of mechanisms of checks and balances and separation of powers to deliberately limit the authority of a central government and preserve individual liberties; (4) the belief that we posses natural inalienable rights as promulgated by the United Nations Universal Declaration of  Human Rights; (5) a belief in governmental transparency and accountability; (6) a shared belief in the importance of political pluralism and the salutatory role of a critical political opposition committed to democratic contest; and (7) a shared belief in property rights and the imperfect virtues of a market economy.

The central problem of transitioning from totalitarian rule is one of reopening a closed society and the articulation of unifying political ideals. The historical experience of post-communist countries is that transition governments tend to be coalition governments.  Cuban politics post-communism will be a by-product of the regime’s decay, not its antecedent cause. This is critically important because it means that no single overriding political project of transformation will emerge victorious, and a governing coalition will have the unenviable task of rebuilding the ship at sea in the midst of a hurricane.

Please let us know if you Like Issue 114 - Cuban Politics Post-Communism on Facebook this article.
We welcome your feedback.
Abrazos,
 
Lily & José
 
(click on the name to email Lily or Jose)
This article was originally published in English in the Miami Herald and in Spanish in El Nuevo Herald.
 
José Azel, Ph.D.
José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies. Formerly, a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami, Jose Azel has published extensively on Cuba related topics.

In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami.

José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp.

They cycled St. James Way (
El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary. They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast.

Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them. 
Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro.

Books by Dr. José Azel
In Reflections on FreedomJosé Azel brings together a collection of his columns published in prestigious newspapers.  Each article reveals his heartfelt and personal awareness of the importance of freedom in our lives.  They are his reflections after nearly sixty years of living and learning as a Cuban outside Cuba. In what has become his stylistic trademark, Professor Azel brilliantly introduces complex topics in brief journalistic articles.
Buy Now
En Reflexiones sobre la libertad José Azel reúne una colección de sus columnas publicadas en prestigiosos periódicos. Cada artículo revela su percepción sincera y personal de la importancia de la libertad en nuestras vidas. Son sus reflexiones después de casi sesenta años viviendo y aprendiendo como cubano fuera de Cuba.  En lo que ha resultado ser característica distintiva de sus artículos, el Profesor Azel introduce con brillantez complejos temas en  breves artículos de carácter periodístico.
Compre Aqui
Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future.
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Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish.
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Sunday, February 18, 2018

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Friday, February 16, 2018

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Thursday, February 15, 2018

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Wednesday, February 14, 2018

VOICE OF THE COPTS

Ashraf Ramelah <donotreply@voiceofthecopts.org>

Feb 13 at 10:46 AM

Voice of the Copts, a nonprofit organization, fights the spread of Islamic supremacy and Sharia throughout the Western world through education, advocacy and action. By drawing attention to the suffering of Coptic Christians in Egypt, it endeavors to educate the Western world as to the chilling effect of Sharia (Islamic law). Founded in 2007 by Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Voice of the Copts focuses on three key issues: freedom of religion, cultural identity and women’s rights.


Egypt: Al Sisi’s pre-election maneuvers 
guarantee his March victory
By: Dr. Ashraf Ramelah - Voice of the Copts
02/13/2018
Imagine just one of the eighty-seven ancient, Orthodox churches in Egypt now in a heap of rubble fully restored and meeting the needs of the poor at its door. Should the state funds for Egypt’s upcoming presidential election this March be put to better use? Al Sisi has emptied the field of all challengers except for one, and Mr. Musa Mustafa Musa, head of Al Ghad (Tomorrow) Party, has already announced that although he is a candidate “he will give his vote to the president” implying that every Egyptian should do the same. Al-Sisi’s second term will be all but automatic.  
Al Sisi assures his win by ridding all civilian candidates from the slate. Here’s how. A human rights attorney, Kaled Ali, withdrew his campaign after citing the Al Sisi regime’s restrictions on the presidential election process and the oppression of power. A soccer club president and parliamentarian, Mortadi Mansur, decided to withdraw his name after the arrests of two fellow candidates (mentioned below). When the nephew of former President Anwar El Sadat became a candidate he was black-listed from conference rooms and suffered organized attacks and distortion directed at him with limited time to respond due to election bureaucracy, so was forced to withdraw. The race was thereby cleared of all non-military opponents. 
Before that, the military candidates either lost interest or landed in jail. This included former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafeek (01/29 - 03/29/2011) who arrived in Egypt from the United Arab Emirates where he has been living since his loss to Mohammad Morsi in June 2012 and given safe passage. His is a story of the power struggle between military entities upon the takedown of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood and the restoration of military rule in Egypt. He withdrew his candidacy four days after landing in Cairo. 
The fate of candidate Lieutenant-Colonel Samy Anan was not as pleasant. After Al-Sisi’s speech at a conference in Port Said for the grand opening of the Natural Gas Land Station last month in the presence of foreign and local investors and businessmen where he cautioned Egyptians to beware of following any attempt (alluding to opposition candidates) to damage opportunities for “our” projects which will benefit Egyptians, Anan was arrested within a few days and thrown into prison. The media was blocked and censored regarding his case. The charge: Anan did not request permission from the Supreme Military Council to run for president. Also, technically he would have had to resign from the military before announcing his presidential campaign, which he did not. Now in jail, Anan has been further accused of “corruption.” 
Let’s not forget Army Colonel Ahmed Qansua, an unknown name in Egypt’s political arena, who announced his run for the presidency by video on his Facebook page on 29 November 2017. Qansua was dressed in his military uniform akin to Al Sisi when he first gave political speeches in 2014. In this same video, Qansua declared that back in 2014 he submitted his resignation from the armed forces anticipating a step into politics. His resignation was denied. On December 19, less than a month after posting his November video, he was accused by an Egyptian military court of violating military laws and sentenced to six years in prison. 
Al Sisi is taking no chances with the upcoming election because under his leadership the country has stagnated or gotten worse. There is much dissatisfaction in general and in regard to particular issues. Al Sisi’s most egregious offense against the Egyptian people has been his personal decision to give away Egyptian land to Saudi Arabia. Without consulting the parliament or the people directly, Al Sisi allowed the Saudis to take possession of two Egyptian islands strategically located at the entrance of the Straits of Tiran which connect the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Al Sisi was silent in the face of millions of distraught Egyptians who arrived in Cairo’s streets to protest the mysterious land heist demanding an explanation that was never received. 
Just before announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race on January 15, Mohamed Anwar El Sadat, the nephew of the former Egyptian president andpresident of the Reform and Development Party, condemned Al Sisi for his mishandling of Egypt’s agricultural lands and the Ethiopian water dam crisis. These are critical issues proven unresolvable by the current regime.  
Thinkers, journalists, and attorneys who criticize government policies, presidential actions, and the ideology of Islam have been under attack and arrests have been made. Al Sisi has abdicated his trusted role of leading the freedom fighters of the Arab Spring into progress for human rights. There is no doubt that many are disgruntled with Al Sisi’s actions and inaction over the past four years. 
Al Sisi lashes back and sets the ground rules. There will be no questioning of the president and certainly no protests. In fact, just a four months ago (September 2017) in anticipation of his re-election campaign and mindful of dissatisfaction throughout the country, he warned Egyptians in a speech that he would never allow what took place seven and eight years ago to be permitted again – referring to the rebellion against Mubarak and Morsi. 
Al Sisi has duly warned Egyptians in disagreement with him that he would use military force against them for “tampering with the country’s security” if they should try to speak or act out. He made a point of saying that the Egyptian army is capable of complete control of the country within six hours of his command upon any disturbances. 
This represents a tactical change in Al Sisi’s public persona, which has been humble and ingratiating up to now. His hardline stance, intertwined with threats, relies upon the human capital he has garnered in the form of empathy for his implied selflessness and sacrifice as president. In the same Port Said speech where he continued to silence any criticism, he cautioned Egyptians, “Your security and stability may cost me my life and the lives of our military. No one needs to approach this subject with me because I am not a politician… I do not talk…I am a man of action.” Al Sisi is isolating himself from those who once embraced him, becoming more of a dictator with no connection between his decisions and the will of the people. 
The dirty pre-election expulsions incited anger in Egyptians toward the election process and provoked blog-talk of boycotting the election altogether. To override the democratic process is to win illegitimately. In response, Al Sisi has all but made it known that he regards a boycott as the seeds of revolt. Securing and unifying the military behind him by eliminating splintering factions with military candidates, Al Sisi now warns Egyptians that an uprising will not be quelled by Egypt’s police forces but crushed by a military clash. 
There is much disgust and discontentment. More establishment election fraud insults the intelligence of Egyptians and robs them of their voice. After the debacle of the Mubarak-Tantawi-Morsi-Al Sisi saga and holding patience through the past eight years, the populace has grown fatigued with techniques like defunct polls delivering a 99.9 percent vote for the regime. After the bloodshed and the tortuous drama of the recent past with nothing to show for it except their loss of confidence in Al Sisi to fix it, revolt always remains an undercurrent. 
 
Dr. Ashraf Ramelah is the founder and president of Voice of the Copts, a human rights nonprofit organization 501 (c) (3). The organization has offices in Italy and the United States.
Dr. Ramelah is dedicated to the Coptic cause and believes that his life’s mission is to speak up for the oppressed Copts who cannot speak up for themselves.
Dr. Ramelah is well known to the Egyptian government due to his advocacy for the Egyptian Copts as well as for Voice of the Copts’ lawsuit against them on behalf of Muslim convert to Christianity Mr. Hegazy and his family in 2009-2010. Ashraf Ramelah also appears as an entry in the Coptic History Encyclopedia (http://www.coptichistory.org/new_page_5260.htm).
Dr. Ramelah, himself a Copt, was born in Cairo, Egypt. At the age of 17, he travelled to Italy to study architecture. He graduated with a doctorate in architecture from La Sapienza – Universita’ Degli Studi di Roma,Italy. His special study is restoration of old monuments and history of architecture.
His career as an architect took him to work and live in Italy, Saudi Arabia, Gabon and the USA. His personal interests are Egyptology and Coptic history in the period after the Arab invasion of Egypt in 651 AD.
Voice of the Copts is dedicated to bringing fair, correct and balanced information to the entire world regarding Copts and Christians in countries with an Arab-Muslim majority.

 
La Casa Futura: Achieving independence for Egyptian youths in the freedom of the West
Rome, Italy. -– a Voice of the Copts’ project
La Casa Futura assists refugee youths fleeing from Egypt due to religious persecution. La Casa Futura is a two-year assimilation program in a residence building for young men and women (ages 15-20 years old) coming from Italian refugee camps. Language classes, vocational training and assistance for legal status in Italy are provided.

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