1 00:00:00,004 --> 00:00:08,640 STUDENT: On the way to the dining room a few days ago I saw the photos, the biographies of all the delegates and deputies [candidates for the upcoming elections] and I said: Who are they? 2 00:00:08,640 --> 00:00:20,409 I don’t know who they are. I simply read the autobiography, the possible merits of this citizen, but I never saw him, he never visited UCI [Information Sciences University], and I don’t know who he is. Where he came from. 3 00:00:20,409 --> 00:00:26,723 Ah, the united vote, I am going to vote for each one of them, not knowing if “In freedom there are thieves” as Jose Marti said. 4 00:00:26,723 --> 00:00:31,791 “In freedom there are people who are not totally consistent, not total Revolutionaries.” 5 00:00:31,791 --> 00:00:40,497 I think it would be very opportune, very helpful if the tomorrow other unpleasant [people] arise, other [General] Ochoas, that these people come to UCI, 6 00:00:40,497 --> 00:00:50,414 come to the masses, have a deeper and closer exchange with each one of the students who is going to vote tomorrow, the 20th, because if not, then it’s not worth it, 7 00:00:50,414 --> 00:01:09,472 all we do and all we say, we are simply some hypocrites in freedom and we can’t speak of Communism, or Socialism, like a vulgar term and vote for the best looking, because I saw him at the bus stop the other day, and this isn’t what we want. 8 00:01:31,641 --> 00:01:40,915 ELIECER AVILA: Well, Mr. Alarcón: Look I have a very clear concept and it is that the revolutionaries did not like to lose, someone said not even in baseball. 9 00:01:40,915 --> 00:01:48,700 And ... well let me introduce myself, Eliécer Avila, faculty # 2, leader of the Technology and Politics Surveillance Project. 10 00:01:48,700 --> 00:01:52,098 And this is what we call one of the specialties of Operation Truth, 11 00:01:52,098 --> 00:01:59,784 in this case dedicated to constantly monitoring the Internet and the broadcasting of reports and we combat whatever [we find] in this area. 12 00:01:59,784 --> 00:02:10,149 I was enthusiastic when I was listening to the comrade just now, and I think this space, I would like, and I don’t know if some disagree with me… 13 00:02:10,149 --> 00:02:19,474 But I would like to take advantage of it and not let another day go by without my being able to topple each one of the elements I’ve heard every day. 14 00:02:19,474 --> 00:02:30,243 It has been difficult for me to respond precisely because from my perspective, as a student, I didn’t have, and I don’t have, all the elements to reject certain affirmations, 15 00:02:30,243 --> 00:02:41,620 To defend certain ideas and especially because I believe and have always said that every man dies, and kills, defending what he believes in. 16 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:51,271 And to really believe in something implies knowing everything or almost everything and having a perspective on the immediate future of what might happen with it, 17 00:02:51,271 --> 00:02:55,085 …with what you are defending, what one is made of. 18 00:02:55,085 --> 00:03:03,710 I selected some issues – to say they are the only ones would perhaps be to lie to you – they form a part of the international debate. 19 00:03:03,710 --> 00:03:13,814 They are part of the debate of young revolutionaries today, when we meet to discuss things in a group, to become more convinced, to commit ourselves more, and to develop more arguments. 20 00:03:13,814 --> 00:03:20,269 But they form a part of our own doubts, the doubts of our own conceptions. And then I would like to take this opportunity… 21 00:03:20,269 --> 00:03:30,765 Perhaps at best you could answer these two or three questions or issues or controversies that I have here. 22 00:03:30,765 --> 00:03:38,412 But at least you could make clear some of the fundamental controversies we have here that we discuss today among the youth. 23 00:03:38,412 --> 00:03:47,988 And it might seem that I am rambling a bit. Well, perhaps departing from the main idea of this meeting, but no, it all has to do with it in one way or another. 24 00:03:47,988 --> 00:04:05,105 For example: Why has the internal commerce within the country migrated to the convertible peso when our workers and farmers are paid in national money which has 25 times less purchasing power? 25 00:04:05,105 --> 00:04:17,550 Why does a worker have to work 2 or 3 days to buy a toothbrush, or personal hygiene products, everything, clothing… 26 00:04:17,550 --> 00:04:27,273 We can say I represent a people who are perhaps the most backward in Cuba, I’m from the countryside of Puerto Padre, Las Tunas… 27 00:04:27,273 --> 00:04:42,573 and perhaps my perspective… I live surrounded by cane fields and the rest, perhaps it’s not the same as a place where it is better organized and things are more affordable, but so you understand. 28 00:04:42,573 --> 00:05:01,608 Second question: Why do the people of Cuba – I am referring to workers and their families – not have a viable option to go to hotels, or to travel to other places in the world? 29 00:05:01,608 --> 00:05:10,424 Let’s say I don’t want to die without going to the place where Che fell, there in Bolivia, and I work my whole life growing garlic… 30 00:05:10,424 --> 00:05:21,554 … Let’s say there in the municipality of Las Tunas, and I have, let’s say, 30,000 pesos in the Bank, about $1000 and the passage to Bolivia is $200 there and $200 back. 31 00:05:21,554 --> 00:05:26,485 And I want to go with my family, take my kids there to honor the place where Che fell… 32 00:05:26,485 --> 00:05:31,919 Is this a viable possibility because to see something we ask ourselves… 33 00:05:31,919 --> 00:05:39,763 In the 1800s – we studied in history – that Marti went to Tampa, Key West, took a tremendous trip. 34 00:05:39,763 --> 00:05:49,905 Fidel, a little later, he traveled to Mexico, again, Mella went to Mexico. And then if in the conditions of a hundred years ago… 35 00:05:49,905 --> 00:05:53,953 I imagine that transportation systems were much less sophisticated: at best they had boats. 36 00:05:53,953 --> 00:06:10,668 Today, the twenty-first century, 2007, we have to see: if the logistics really improved or not, if we have more resources, if for example a group students here who study History, we want to go to the Pyramids of Egypt, for example. 37 00:06:10,668 --> 00:06:15,888 But we are students who have done just about everything well: when we were little we did our homework… 38 00:06:15,888 --> 00:06:18,658 Today we are college students, tomorrow we will be engineers. 39 00:06:18,658 --> 00:06:27,720 We are going to work ten years… supposedly… we will have met a few of the goals that approach what it is to do well in life 40 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:39,190 And then a little if what I want explained is: what is a problem of our situation and what is a problem of our approach, and whether one day we can do this kind of thing. 41 00:06:39,190 --> 00:06:45,987 We know [they can do it] in other much less fair countries (it’s true to say it), but they are much less fair to the unemployed… 42 00:06:45,987 --> 00:06:55,706 … with those helpless sectors, really, that no one remembers. But at times it’s difficult to convince, for example, an installer of – I don’t know – of telephones in Haiti… 43 00:06:55,706 --> 00:07:02,768 … who keeps his family in Cuba, they are engineers, doctors… that we, for example, cannot do certain things. 44 00:07:02,768 --> 00:07:08,479 I am going to tell you an anecdote, we are going to talk about real things here, when I speak of these installers of telephones it was a reality. 45 00:07:08,479 --> 00:07:22,894 A few months ago I was in a discussion and it was killing [me]: “Why if your government is as good as you say and your country is so great, why do you have so many students studying medicine in Cuba and not in your own country?” 46 00:07:22,894 --> 00:07:27,845 “You say that mine is worse and”… we were on a tremendous roll and he told me: 47 00:07:27,845 --> 00:07:33,163 “Well I install telephone cables here and my family are all doctors, masters in science, engineers in Cuba, and I maintain them from here.” 48 00:07:33,163 --> 00:07:37,879 “But I am going to ask you something too, where are you from?” “I’m from another province, Las Tunas,” I told him. 49 00:07:37,879 --> 00:07:42,646 “What can you tell me of Varadero, buddy. Listen, I love Cuba, how cool is that.” 50 00:07:42,646 --> 00:07:47,664 But I can’t talk to him about any of that [I haven’t been there]. What can you tell me about Vinales?” Not that, either, I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. 51 00:07:47,664 --> 00:07:50,316 “What can you tell me about the Tropicana?” No, much less. 52 00:07:50,316 --> 00:07:55,492 So he mentioned 200 things I had to do to uninstall the network and to say: Well, it failed because… 53 00:07:55,522 --> 00:08:18,906 [Applause… Laughter] 54 00:08:18,906 --> 00:08:26,606 Well, a little to not disrupt the line (I'm sure everyone got the idea), continuing with the two small questions I have left here. 55 00:08:26,606 --> 00:08:40,908 Why isn't there a more open and regular exchange between, for example, the Council of Ministers and the people where everyone explains what the plans are to resolve the objective problems of their area, 56 00:08:40,908 --> 00:08:51,997 and the people know at all times why they are struggling and how and when the problems are going to be resolved so they can help more and in a conscious way? 57 00:08:51,997 --> 00:09:02,647 That is, almost everything in life is related to mathematics. Let's say that to solve transportation in Cuba involves $200 million, a hypothetical number. 58 00:09:02,647 --> 00:09:11,167 It seems to us that a Revolution, a socialist project, cannot advance without a project and we're sure that exists and we want to know what it is. 59 00:09:11,167 --> 00:09:21,028 And maybe we do not we have this opportunity to be here with you today, such a good opportunity. I speak for my dad, I say this for my grandfather, 60 00:09:21,028 --> 00:09:27,778 I speak for a group of people who have lost their teeth in my neighborhood working from sunrise to sunset behind a yoke of oxen and still do not really know how how things are going, 61 00:09:27,778 --> 00:09:31,786 if they are going to realize many of the dreams proposed when they were children. 62 00:09:31,786 --> 00:09:38,963 And then it seems to me that ... "Oh, it's $ 200 million dollars, perfect, this implies the nickel production of 8 years, the workers have to double the workday, 63 00:09:38,963 --> 00:09:42,712 the students have to do this, this other work sector has to do this other thing," 64 00:09:42,712 --> 00:09:50,963 and you say, "Good, now I get it and it will be solved in 2013 and we are going to do it this way." So, we will work more, we will struggle so this succeeds. 65 00:09:50,963 --> 00:10:02,397 But I think things should have a limit and not, let's say, an obscurity in all sectors, in every sense, really we don't know where we're going, how it is going to be solved. 66 00:10:02,397 --> 00:10:08,631 Now the other day I went to Havana and I learned they had gotten some new minivans. 67 00:10:08,631 --> 00:10:15,213 They are tiny taxi-buses, that someone told me, "You pay 5 pesos. You get on and off on the corner and it's 5 pesos, you get on and off in Havana and it's also 5 pesos." 68 00:10:15,213 --> 00:10:22,463 But, fine, there are ideas, there are questions that can be asked, a experiment that's being done in Havana to solve the transport issue, but I don't know them. 69 00:10:22,463 --> 00:10:27,588 And when people in Las Tunas say to me, "Compadre, when are they going to have buses here, it's been 30 years and I haven’t seen a bus here?" 70 00:10:27,603 --> 00:10:31,074 And I don't have the background to... that's what I mean when I refer to these exchanges. 71 00:10:31,090 --> 00:10:38,967 The minister of transport stands in a place facing the people, and we will discuss the issues of transport and not and not dwell on the bad experience... 72 00:10:38,967 --> 00:10:49,201 I was in the Plenary session of the National Assembly, the last to be fully broadcast... no... the previous one, I think it lasted 6 days, the different fragments they broadcast. 73 00:10:49,201 --> 00:11:03,564 I watched 6 days in front of the TV and I'm going to use an example of something that I don't really share. Comrade Raul said, "Let's touch on the topic of transportation, get to the point of transportation." 74 00:11:03,564 --> 00:11:09,348 The first deputy was going to speak -- I immediately called my dad, come and sit here they're going to talk about transport, you'll see we're going to explain things – 75 00:11:09,348 --> 00:11:19,868 and the deputy who comes to speak said, "I don't know how many Latin American children die from preventable disease, I don't know how many U.S. children don't have medical insurance..." 76 00:11:19,868 --> 00:11:30,953 I kept wanting to hear the truth on the issue of transportation in that speech... They talked, I think there were three deputies and they didn't really... 77 00:11:30,953 --> 00:11:37,237 And we want our young people in each one of these discussion, in the brigade meetings where we're saying: this debate is happening at a high level, 78 00:11:37,237 --> 00:11:51,532 it seems that the debate that happens in the parks, stores, hallways, homes, schools, everywhere, that it is a debate a few thousand times more grounded in the most pressing problems. 79 00:11:51,532 --> 00:11:54,011 ALARCON (off camera): A thousand times more what? 80 00:11:54,011 --> 00:11:58,834 Eliécer: A little more grounded, grounded in the serious problems, the problems we all know 81 00:11:58,834 --> 00:12:12,078 and that really, at time, when people doubt what their representative is saying, "Well, in the end the things we're suffering in this neighborhood, as a people, who is saying that in the Assembly. 82 00:12:12,078 --> 00:12:18,889 I tell Pedro what I know, but Pedro tells Juan and Juan, I don't know if he thinks like me because a question, 83 00:12:18,889 --> 00:12:25,955 in a group of four houses, if you ask a certain thing, how would they like to settle a problem, and you're going to get twenty different opinions. 84 00:12:25,955 --> 00:12:33,006 So why should a person who's three electoral steps from me think like me. Why? 85 00:12:33,006 --> 00:12:37,406 Maybe it's someone who doesn't have the transportation problems I have. 86 00:12:37,406 --> 00:12:46,823 Maybe it's a woman who has detergent and soap to wash her child's clothes, maybe she has it. And when we look at all the spheres of life, it's very different from me. 87 00:12:46,823 --> 00:12:59,746 Man thinks as he lives. Does he really represent me? Does he have the same food available as me? 88 00:12:59,746 --> 00:13:13,509 Then there are serious questions you really have to think about... then I think this solution is really coming to the people (as someone just said). 89 00:13:13,509 --> 00:13:21,350 Someone passed me a note here and I think it's best if I read it because it more or less rounds out the idea. 90 00:13:21,350 --> 00:13:30,943 It says, "We want to know the qualification and ideas that each candidate who stands for election, what are their ideas. 91 00:13:30,943 --> 00:13:41,794 If one day they are going to be a delegate, what are their ideas, what do they stand for, what are their concerns and solutions.” 92 00:13:41,794 --> 00:13:47,161 Many of these questions ... something like that. I think that's the intention, right? 93 00:13:47,161 --> 00:13:52,511 We, what happens, is people are choosing not to engage in anything 94 00:13:52,511 --> 00:14:01,065 or a minister may be a minister for 20 years and never in three years did he agree with the people about how to resolve a certain problem or to plan a project, "I think this is the idea." 95 00:14:01,065 --> 00:14:07,322 Because maybe the people collaborate and at best after three years there is nothing, and they say, 96 00:14:07,322 --> 00:14:12,627 "Well, man, look, that's a responsibility the people gave you, because in this country the people send you, we send you to resolve this 97 00:14:12,627 --> 00:14:17,048 and in reality, look, no, you solved 80% or 85% or 90% or you didn't do a thing. 98 00:14:17,048 --> 00:14:29,238 Because we don't really know, we say why waste the gas, what do you do with the resources you get, not one minister but the whole range of intermediate entities, that there is even a base. 99 00:14:29,238 --> 00:14:33,116 So the people have no indicator to measure the quality of the management; 100 00:14:33,116 --> 00:14:40,733 if he is really using the car to go to the beach every day or if he's using it to benefit the people damaged by some phenomenon, 101 00:14:40,733 --> 00:14:47,098 if he's going to the neighborhoods, let's say, with lower cultural indicators, if he's visiting the schools. 102 00:14:47,098 --> 00:14:52,499 We don't know, because we don't know what they do. Because let's say the municipal president of the Assembly of People's Power, 103 00:14:52,499 --> 00:14:58,848 or some of the political or administrative organizations don't share with the people frequently, 104 00:14:58,848 --> 00:15:04,404 there is no space where people can communicate openly what they think about a particular problem or propose solutions 105 00:15:04,404 --> 00:15:10,333 and if the man really has a high level of commitment to the masses. 106 00:15:10,333 --> 00:15:25,045 This part seems to us in the process and design that it should be studied more. Now all this that I am saying is more socialism, let no one doubt that. 107 00:15:25,045 --> 00:15:31,095 The last question I do not understand: the question of the Internet. 108 00:15:31,095 --> 00:15:38,034 This is, I can guarantee, is a concern of the 10,000 students of this university. Now, what about the Internet? 109 00:15:38,034 --> 00:15:45,802 We know and have said, I myself have written in 200 forums in the world, that the United States will not let us connect with fiber optics to the Internet 110 00:15:45,802 --> 00:15:53,239 and it is true on the map we showed one day here to Deputy Minister Perdomo (was the name Perdomo? Who came to the Internet conference?) 111 00:15:53,239 --> 00:16:03,228 So the fiber optic cable runs along the coast of Cuba, it doesn't exactly touch us, and what we have is 132 megabits of bandwidth, which is ridiculous; 112 00:16:03,228 --> 00:16:09,023 and so the people don't have mass access to the Internet; we don't have broadband, the satellite is the worse. 113 00:16:09,023 --> 00:16:19,042 However, the two most widely used services in the world which are the services provided by Google and Yahoo such as Gmail ... 114 00:16:19,042 --> 00:16:30,061 from one moment to the other they cut it off at the root and prohibited its use in all state institutions and the rest of the country. 115 00:16:30,061 --> 00:16:43,350 And there are no services that can substitute for it, a national service (because myself, before using something national or something foreign I prefer to use the national, the national, as we say in Cuba, the pigeon is mine). 116 00:16:43,350 --> 00:16:56,148 But the instant messaging services, communication services for voice, those that manage to make you cry when you can talk with your Mom in Venezuela, is the type of thing we can't do with the national services. 117 00:16:56,148 --> 00:17:01,747 And from UCI there are many people communicating from Guantanamo with the student they have here, 118 00:17:01,747 --> 00:17:08,331 and the student who has a Mom in Venezuela so the family in Guantanamo manages to hear something about this doctor who is in Venezuela, for example. 119 00:17:08,331 --> 00:17:18,052 This is real, we serve as a bridge of communication to the whole country practically, in this digital way. But a ministerial resolution... Well, perfect, maybe it is well argued out there somewhere. 120 00:17:18,052 --> 00:17:34,748 For me, I only got the information kept on those foreign servers well beyond the reach of State Security. That is, it wasn't clear, if it existed, well I would like someone to explain it to me better. 121 00:17:34,748 --> 00:17:44,246 Then, in general, these are the controversies that in a personal way and a collective we would like clarified at some point. Thank you very much. 122 00:17:44,246 --> 00:17:55,047 Applause. 123 00:18:00,550 --> 00:18:08,541 RICARDO ALARCON: Well let's see, lets see how I can answer some of the things that you have raised. 124 00:18:08,541 --> 00:18:19,763 I think first, first, I say this with all due respect for the comrade and for all the comrades, 125 00:18:19,763 --> 00:18:36,232 among other things one has to try to find information, to have, to your opinions on the best possible information. 126 00:18:36,232 --> 00:18:49,860 That last thing you said about the Internet, the truth is it's beyond me, I have no answer, I was not aware of that, but precisely the importance of these media is that you can be informed, know. 127 00:18:49,860 --> 00:18:58,892 I am in a bit older than you, I know this country as it was before and I understand, 128 00:18:58,892 --> 00:19:11,989 I marvel and appreciate the concern that young Cubans have to be able to visit the Pyramids of Egypt, to travel to Bolivia, and so on. 129 00:19:11,989 --> 00:19:22,185 For just as we have gained so much, we have dreams of that magnitude, in addition, my friend, no one does it on the planet. 130 00:19:22,185 --> 00:19:30,485 To speak of traveling as a right ... Yes, but a right you execute, a right you make happen. 131 00:19:30,485 --> 00:19:50,169 Those who go to Egypt to see the Pyramids (you see them in movies such as Inspector Poirot: a large luxury yacht etc) ... I do not think many from Las Tunas have visited that country in the past. 132 00:19:50,169 --> 00:20:03,324 To travel it takes a number of things: you need a passport, a visa, the means to transport yourself, that cost money. 133 00:20:03,324 --> 00:20:18,473 So I too agree that everyone can travel as much as possible. Hopefully, hopefully all Cubans could get out and meet the outside world. 134 00:20:18,473 --> 00:20:31,058 I think that would be the end of the ideological battle in this country, when people really see what life is like, what the real world is, how others live. 135 00:20:31,058 --> 00:20:40,306 But to get to that point is more complicated: The old people are always saying the same thing, that capitalism was bad, etc etc. 136 00:20:40,306 --> 00:20:55,806 I have some differences with the comrade next to me. I had comrades who were as black as Silvano and I have gone through the embarrassment of crossing the Almendares river. 137 00:20:55,806 --> 00:21:06,872 How many times haven't you done it? To get there and the Miramar police stop you and say, "And this black, what are you doing here boy?" 138 00:21:06,872 --> 00:21:14,952 Young people didn't know this, but I'm sure my black friends, who were unemployed, those who had to prove they were working, 139 00:21:14,952 --> 00:21:24,170 who were the maid or the gardener for some rich guy who lived west of the Almendares River, they haven't forgotten it. 140 00:21:24,170 --> 00:21:40,555 It is much more complex to return in the time machine to the past. How much easier it would be that we all travel and see how things really are, we look to see how many Bolivians consider traveling. 141 00:21:40,555 --> 00:21:52,824 [How many] travel to Peru which is next door, travel to Buenos Aires. How many Americans? It is not true that the world is so simple, so easy. 142 00:21:52,824 --> 00:22:14,707 Hopefully, I do believe, hopefully a day will come when we have the resources to go to the National Bank, Central Bank and acquire dollars for travel, which in Cuba isn't done since January, February, 1959. 143 00:22:14,707 --> 00:22:26,292 And not because Fidel Castro had that idea. Do you know who it was who won control of the currency, which prohibited the importation of luxuries in Cuba? 144 00:22:26,292 --> 00:22:38,568 Dr. Philip Pasos (I do not know if Professor Pasos is still alive but he was exiled in Venezuela the last time I heard of him) who was the president of Cuban National Bank. 145 00:22:38,568 --> 00:22:46,236 He was not a radical compañero or anything, he was a decent man and a good professional, a guy who knew this. 146 00:22:46,236 --> 00:23:00,635 And when he assumed the leadership of the Bank that he had created, he was first president of the Bank when it was created in 1950, when Batista staged a coup, of course he had to leave that job. 147 00:23:00,635 --> 00:23:08,845 When the Revolution triumphed he was appointed again. And he did what any of you or I would have done. 148 00:23:08,845 --> 00:23:19,273 "Bank chief again? Let's see... where is... I know where the safe is, where the millions we saved are, the jewels..." He opened it and it was empty. 149 00:23:19,273 --> 00:23:24,173 And he knew better than anyone what he had left, and what he found. 150 00:23:24,173 --> 00:23:35,451 And it is written, unfortunately there is a problem also of information here, in which he is absolutely right: there are plenty of things that people can't handle, they don't know or we forget. 151 00:23:35,451 --> 00:23:49,710 Whoever wants to criticize the media of our country, I will be there with both hands, it is true that there are mountains of ... What I am saying now I've said a thousand times, a thousand times every time I can. 152 00:23:49,710 --> 00:23:58,159 And then I saw reflected in our media they say: comrade Ricardo Alarcón, member of the Politburo, chairman of the Assembly, blah, blah, blah, spoke or was present. 153 00:23:58,159 --> 00:24:21,534 Yes, but the simple data that it is much more convincing, we don't get. Filipe Pasos did this: He searched and he found the country emptied, emptied of its (I think I have it here) emptied of its funds, its resources. 154 00:24:21,534 --> 00:24:40,131 In that famous whopping big book the Americans speak of the situation. And you can find if you look around on the Internet, if you go there and search some of these media, look in ... 155 00:24:40,131 --> 00:24:49,283 The New York Times must have the editorial that came out in April 1959. The New York Times, the [Cuban newspaper] Granma didn't exist then. 156 00:24:49,283 --> 00:24:59,667 It was calculated at $424 million dollars, that backed up the value of the peso. 157 00:24:59,667 --> 00:25:05,746 That poor little chavito, that poor devalued peso that today is 25 to 1, etc. 158 00:25:05,746 --> 00:25:14,296 Well in that moment it didn't have any value because everything that supported it had been stolen, it had been taken. 159 00:25:14,296 --> 00:25:26,219 In this tome is a document in which they analyze this ("they" being our American friends) and come to this conclusion: 160 00:25:26,219 --> 00:25:38,136 No government, the best government, the best leaders in the world can not handle a situation like that. 161 00:25:38,136 --> 00:25:51,891 You have to be a magician to be able to govern an economy where the value of the currency is gone, all at once. That was the first act of the economic war against Cuba. 162 00:25:51,891 --> 00:25:56,008 And the Yankees organized it, they took the resources from here. 163 00:25:56,008 --> 00:26:04,357 Then Dr. Pasos made a decision, it wasn't Fidel, it was he, he said, "From now on no one is going to take a dollar out of this country. 164 00:26:04,357 --> 00:26:12,725 I will not sell dollars to anyone and also I will prohibit all licenses to export perfume, jewelry and so on." 165 00:26:12,725 --> 00:26:27,229 This was a man of the Cuban bourgeoisie who, in that document, said: "I am sure that the 'lively classes' (it was a term was used then, 'lively classes') the Patriots understand the reasons," etc. etc. 166 00:26:27,229 --> 00:26:40,826 This was when the first chapter of a long novel began. He was one of the most eminent thinkers and professionals of the Cuban national bourgeoisie. 167 00:26:40,826 --> 00:26:58,326 Note the long journey of this country and it began in an absolutely unmanageable situation according to themselves. 168 00:26:58,326 --> 00:27:03,487 And on top of that came other things that you all know about: in the end, the Blockade, I'm not going to hassle you with that now. 169 00:27:03,487 --> 00:27:15,063 What I want is that we all do like every student, like every intellectual effort, to be able to put things in their place. 170 00:27:15,063 --> 00:27:28,047 Fidel wasn't even a member of the government, nor was Raul the minister of defense, and the first president of the National Bank did this. 171 00:27:28,047 --> 00:27:35,529 And he was forced to do it, on his own, for one simple reason: this is just unbearable. 172 00:27:35,529 --> 00:27:49,336 Typically, the ideal would be that people can have the resources ... all people, with an income level that permits vacation travel elsewhere, knowing [other] countries, hopefully. 173 00:27:49,336 --> 00:28:07,103 Let me tell you, the overwhelming victory of the Revolutionary ideology in Cuba, the socialist ideology, is when all Cubans can see the real world as it is and then they will see the difference between this society and those around us. 174 00:28:07,103 --> 00:28:17,229 Now, I want to address some details. There is a lot of discussion here in this country now, we know, that has to do with the famous double currency. 175 00:28:17,229 --> 00:28:27,696 Raul [Castro] mentioned it in the National Assembly. These are decisions ... I am perfectly ignorant on issues of economics and others. 176 00:28:27,696 --> 00:28:35,721 I know this can't be done like this. I know this is one of the topics being discussed with great interest right now. 177 00:28:35,721 --> 00:28:41,553 The other question is access to hotels. 178 00:28:41,553 --> 00:29:04,944 Let me tell you, and the data is there and you can find it compañeros, the number of Cubans who spend some time in hotels of all types in this country is higher than it was before 1959. 179 00:29:04,944 --> 00:29:13,144 You may not believe it because you are very young, but at that time it wasn't true that everyone... 180 00:29:13,144 --> 00:29:30,822 I didn't know Varadero or the Tropicana and I'd gone to the University. I came from a family a little bit above the working class. 181 00:29:30,822 --> 00:29:38,531 I am descended from the Camaguey aristocracy but I never set foot in Tropicana and Varadero. Do you know why? 182 00:29:38,531 --> 00:29:47,249 Because my dad had no money to pay for it nor did I. And that was the reality that many people knew. 183 00:29:47,249 --> 00:30:05,672 I did have some privileges, I could cross the bridge, cross the river, but my classmate Jorge Madan, who also studied law, but who was black could not. I had to take him across. And in what hotel did he stay? 184 00:30:05,672 --> 00:30:13,035 And this was a compañero of the black bourgeoisie, a more affluent family than mine. 185 00:30:13,035 --> 00:30:21,753 Hopefully, hopefully we can all go, go everywhere but then you see, the hotels no longer... 186 00:30:21,753 --> 00:30:29,288 Who has told people that in those stores that you see in the movies on 5th Avenue anyone can enter? 187 00:30:29,288 --> 00:30:48,767 I was the ambassador to the U.N., I lived there 14 years and I'm still whiter than my wife and my daughter. How many times did they throw us out of a store. 188 00:30:48,767 --> 00:30:57,604 Because we had a Latin accent or because of our hair color they knew we weren't Anglos, they didn't want us in that store. 189 00:30:57,604 --> 00:31:09,433 Watching: get out. How many times? There are many ways, many techniques that people have to get certain things and the first one is money. 190 00:31:09,433 --> 00:31:19,816 If everyone in the world, the six billion people could travel wherever they wanted there would be a congestion in the air of the planet that would be huge. 191 00:31:19,816 --> 00:31:31,672 It's not like that, those who travel are really a minority. Now I say that here, here, I've seen the data that CTC [Workers Union] has, they have presented in some assemblies. 192 00:31:31,672 --> 00:31:38,498 Of course it is not -- and this is discussed -- I do not want to take a position, 193 00:31:38,498 --> 00:31:46,300 I have my opinions but I will not take them because I know that is a debate that there are going to be changes there. 194 00:31:46,300 --> 00:31:58,104 For different programs of merit, of incentives, etc. [Inaudible shout from the audience.] I know, too 195 00:31:58,104 --> 00:32:06,034 Now what is the difference it is not ... that's what we need to discuss and agree on. 196 00:32:06,034 --> 00:32:16,853 There are those who can pay the hotel and it is not the vanguard, it has no merits, it hasn't done anything, it brought nothing except the money, as it is abroad. 197 00:32:16,853 --> 00:32:27,966 This is how it was before, those who had money, resources, they could go to the hotel. 198 00:32:27,966 --> 00:32:33,177 If you were to do that I think should also be respected in a bit more, then, the laws of the market, 199 00:32:33,177 --> 00:32:47,093 and nobody thinks that here one can consume in the capitalist world market on the scale that we are used to in our brutally subsidized economy, 200 00:32:47,093 --> 00:32:52,616 because for that, it is that not everyone can do those things elsewhere. 201 00:32:52,616 --> 00:32:57,709 Hopefully, I insist, I vote with both hands so that everyone is traveling everywhere. 202 00:32:57,709 --> 00:33:08,903 I'm sure it is going to reduce to zero the number of Cubans who dream of going to the North to live a happy life, prosperous, and so on. 203 00:33:08,903 --> 00:33:17,795 Good heavens, after they see the North, no! These unfortunates who sometimes embark and die there on a raft, etc... 204 00:33:17,795 --> 00:33:25,079 Among other saddest things is, and it is possibly one of the greatest self-criticisms that we should make, 205 00:33:25,079 --> 00:33:35,512 is that we have not been able, that our propaganda, our education has been unable to make many people aware of the crushing reality of today's world. 206 00:33:35,512 --> 00:33:44,160 Then those who do that, that anyone would die stupidly for something that a minimum of culture would tell him it doesn't exist. 207 00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:55,343 So, that's a point that should be discussed and decided. I understand the position, the interest of this society and many people who earn good money, 208 00:33:55,343 --> 00:34:01,326 who even have access to foreign exchange, not the deputies themselves but the intellectuals, artists, athletes, etc.., 209 00:34:01,326 --> 00:34:10,850 Why can't they stay in a hotel? Why can't they? Imagine you spending Cuban pesos on something that it's very hard to acquire in this country in hard currency, 210 00:34:10,850 --> 00:34:16,742 it would be very debatable, but today, right now, there are people who can do it, right. 211 00:34:16,742 --> 00:34:24,743 Today they do more, more, I assure you, much more than they did before. 212 00:34:24,743 --> 00:34:33,177 The only difference is that now those who go, they go because they were selected because they were given, because they won it, 213 00:34:33,177 --> 00:34:43,672 and then you can see a black person appear, you can see a humble guy appear who before couldn't step foot in the hotel lobby. 214 00:34:43,672 --> 00:34:50,858 FEU Representative: 15 days ago we had a meeting with compañero Carlitos Valenciaga and by chance we were talking of the same thing as now. 215 00:34:50,858 --> 00:35:01,718 That Lage [at this time VP of the People's Assembly] had told him that at the end of last year 750,000 Cubans had passed through facilities the country had invested $53 million in. 216 00:35:01,718 --> 00:35:10,234 He was explaining it because sometimes people don't know it, but many of them have been to a hotel as a bonus from FEU [University Students Federation], 217 00:35:10,234 --> 00:35:17,068 not for youth but as a bonus for FEU, or they have been to the Tropicana or other places, then people feel that it's not known, but this little number is not just us, 218 00:35:17,068 --> 00:35:24,485 they are students from FEEM [High School Students Federation], FEU students, CTC [Cuban Workers Union], the federations, the CDRs [Committees for the Defense of the Revolution], 219 00:35:24,485 --> 00:35:35,496 the vanguards, the farmer, the athletes, also artists, this number last year was 750,000 Cubans. 220 00:35:35,496 --> 00:35:47,453 And every reservation we pay for in national currency has a value in hard currency because this is a hard currency facility. And this expenditure for the country was $53 million. 221 00:35:47,453 --> 00:35:53,616 ALARCON: I think someday anyone will be able to go there, without it being for a bonus or whatever, 222 00:35:53,616 --> 00:36:04,804 but what I can say categorically is that today more people go than before, more than before the Revolution. 223 00:36:04,804 --> 00:36:14,087 The other difference is that those who go now are not those who went before. Before it was the privileged, those with money, those with resources, 224 00:36:14,087 --> 00:36:22,320 and now it's people who never dreamed or imagined in their life that they would be able to enter a Cuban hotel. 225 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:33,586 With... let's see... a more real exchange between the Council of Ministers -- I'm not a minister, luckily -- and the people, that there is more relation, I think that's correct. 226 00:36:33,586 --> 00:36:57,057 Look, some things are being done, some. Raul spoke of these in the Assembly [of People's Power], in the Roundtable [TV show], they are talking now about health, education, housing, the hydraulic thing, I think so.... it's correct not only.... 227 00:36:57,057 --> 00:37:09,364 Well, the Council of Ministers is doing it this way now. Now there is the idea you raised which I want to reflect on: 228 00:37:09,379 --> 00:37:21,555 "Let people know when and how they will solve these problems." More or less, I was taking notes quickly. "That there will be a project for how and when." 229 00:37:21,555 --> 00:37:30,652 I am going to let comrade Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador respond to that -- he is an economist, I am not. 230 00:37:30,652 --> 00:37:34,533 And he is a pretty young man, I think he's 42 or something like that. 231 00:37:34,533 --> 00:37:48,199 Correa was cornered there in Miami, by the "worm" press trying to criticize Cuba, and he said, "Look, just a minute, I never criticize Cuba. 232 00:37:48,199 --> 00:38:02,415 The Revolution like all human endeavors has its defects and things, but it is the only, a unique historical experiment, the only country in the world that has lived half a century, 233 00:38:02,415 --> 00:38:13,849 half a century confronting the most powerful economy in the world. And it started with what I told you: grand theft, the great plundering of the reserves of this country. 234 00:38:13,849 --> 00:38:20,689 They did not return not a single cent, not a single jewel, nothing. It was all stolen, it is all in Miami. 235 00:38:20,689 --> 00:38:34,240 And then they want to make people believe this ingenuousness that is emigration, that the exiles are people so brave, capitalism is so effective is has managed to build the city of Miami. 236 00:38:34,240 --> 00:38:45,190 It was raised with something: plundering another country, taking the resources over there and then after getting all the pottage in the pipeline of the American budget, something also rich. 237 00:38:45,221 --> 00:38:53,215 But to return to Correa. Correa says, "No country in the world has gone through that experience." 238 00:38:53,215 --> 00:39:01,698 Mexico couldn't have stood it for six months; my country couldn't have stood for three weeks; 239 00:39:01,698 --> 00:39:18,065 I'm simply saying this -- Correa said -- Lift the blockade, end the aggression against Cuba and then, only then, will we objectively see what is going well, badly, regular, and so on. 240 00:39:18,065 --> 00:39:28,666 Now, I want to add, in Ecuador there are people who now can read and write thanks to Cuba and its teaching methods and Cuban teachers. 241 00:39:28,666 --> 00:39:33,901 And in Ecuador there are people who have regained their sight thanks to Cuban medicine. 242 00:39:33,901 --> 00:39:42,254 So it's not all bad, it's not all defects, we have some little things, some little things that are... that are significant. 243 00:39:42,254 --> 00:40:02,957 But the point is, the element you need to judge Cuba above all you have to put it in this context, it seems to me that for any student, any person who thinks, this is the first step. 244 00:40:02,957 --> 00:40:13,652 This is not happening, we are not in Lapland or in the Mediterranean talk about about how to organize this country, the government program, 245 00:40:13,652 --> 00:40:19,390 "You come with a project, very nice, take out ten copies, hand it out and we will discuss it." 246 00:40:19,405 --> 00:40:23,127 No, we are doing this in the only country in the world that is facing that blockade. 247 00:40:23,127 --> 00:40:31,354 Hopefully we can have answers to these questions: "When and how is this or that problem going to be resolved?" 248 00:40:31,354 --> 00:40:41,705 That's the question that many governments in many parts of the world cannot answer. But here it is much more difficult compañeros. 249 00:40:41,705 --> 00:40:51,631 I am speaking with some little independence because I am not a member of the Council of Ministers, 250 00:40:51,631 --> 00:41:04,086 I don't have... my role is something else, but I understand the situation of the compañeros, I would say when we vote united, I said in some meetings, 251 00:41:04,086 --> 00:41:10,719 I respect freedom of opinion, if you don't believe you should vote for everyone, don't vote for everyone. 252 00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:20,981 I only ask them for one thing: if you want to choose from these three that we have here, don't let me vote to take it away from him, our president from the municipality, 253 00:41:20,981 --> 00:41:29,211 because the job he has up there is much more complex. Above him the whole world is... the district delegate and then the head of government, you can imagine. 254 00:41:29,211 --> 00:41:38,588 He is the one who they call about the transportation and when is he going to resolve this or that. And it is profoundly unjust that they will punish him. 255 00:41:38,588 --> 00:41:49,889 Besides, he is younger and represents the future, and what is coming in this country. Or don't you vote for me instead of voting for my friend, the one with the bicycle. 256 00:41:49,889 --> 00:41:59,421 Fuck it, he is also a delegate of circumscription and faces all the problems. He is facing all those realities. 257 00:41:59,421 --> 00:42:15,509 Now, this element that Correa has stated so clearly, and that is the truth like a fist, that no one can ignore that it must be taken into account, 258 00:42:15,509 --> 00:42:26,059 when it comes time to assess, to analyze what we have been able to do and what we have not been able to do. It can't serve as an excuse to cover up wrongdoing. 259 00:42:26,059 --> 00:42:34,933 It's a very fine line on which, in my judgment, the political work of this country is balanced today. 260 00:42:34,933 --> 00:42:46,937 It would not be fair to ignore that this country has a... well I don't know if the compañeros of MINREX (the Foreign Ministry) have done it, 261 00:42:46,937 --> 00:42:51,692 Felipe [Pérez Roque - at this time Foreign Minister] explained it well many times, the Blockade is a law, it is not a regulation. 262 00:42:51,692 --> 00:43:04,194 No, comrades, there is a whole system of persecution behind every screw, behind every bulb, behind everything that comes to this country or behind each export from this country. 263 00:43:04,194 --> 00:43:08,686 This country is not Sweden, or Switzerland, or Italy. 264 00:43:08,686 --> 00:43:27,376 And in Sweden, Switzerland and Italy, not everyone is staying at the hotels in those countries, not everyone travels, because not everyone... or they do it once, once a year they save, and so on. 265 00:43:27,376 --> 00:43:35,358 It cost a lot... and of course in those countries I mentioned no one studies at a university without paying very dearly for it, 266 00:43:35,358 --> 00:43:47,713 nor goes to a hospital and gets the most advanced treatment for his pretty face; all this costs a great deal. 267 00:43:47,713 --> 00:44:00,751 Look, if we charged for those things here maybe we would have more resources to fix the potholes in the streets, or to buy more buses, if they don't prevent us from buying them. 268 00:44:00,751 --> 00:44:14,713 Would that be a more just society? Listen, what would be the income of a university... they tell me there are 10 thousand students here, studying these careers... 269 00:44:14,713 --> 00:44:21,392 gentlemen, like you said, let's keep our feet on the ground. 270 00:44:21,392 --> 00:44:27,952 If you leave this place you won't see anything like it anywhere else. 271 00:44:27,952 --> 00:44:39,532 Fine, it just occurred to me, for this famous project I have an idea: collect here the average tuition the universities in the world charge for the studies undertaken here. 272 00:44:39,532 --> 00:44:51,608 With that financing, repair all the potholes in Havana, possibly, and buy however many thousands of buses. Would that be just, would that be right? I think not. 273 00:44:51,608 --> 00:44:59,391 Or if we charge what a kidney or heart transplant costs, whatever, I don't think that's fair. Then, how do we maintain ourselves in a line of justice, 274 00:44:59,391 --> 00:45:16,293 and at the same time necessarily look for efficiency in economic management? How do we understand the context in which we are developing, 275 00:45:16,293 --> 00:45:24,790 that is what comrade Correa is referring to without justifying the bureaucracy, the indolence, the stupidity? 276 00:45:24,790 --> 00:45:33,642 Because there is everything, not everything is the blockade, not everything is the economic war, it's not only that. 277 00:45:33,642 --> 00:45:50,448 I really love this quote where they say that the only way to end Castro's majority is to provoke discontent, malaise, to make people uncomfortable, because that is what this whole situation has created. 278 00:45:50,448 --> 00:46:07,575 Now, when a cadre adds to the discomfort of the people, an additional discomfort because of his stupidity, his laziness, his lack of energy to confront the problems, his bureaucratic mentality, he is committing a grave sin. 279 00:46:07,575 --> 00:46:21,492 Because if a cadre does this in Scandinavia there are Scandinavians, but if you do it here it is giving aid to the politics of the enemy which seeks to liquidate us. 280 00:46:21,492 --> 00:46:41,919 So we have to locate ourselves in the reality of the world that confronts Cuba today and at the same time be consistent in the fight against all the evils, against everything that... 281 00:46:42,781 --> 00:46:50,284 Man thinks as he lives -- I'm not sure about that. I did not study Computer Science, rather Philosophy, that was my career. 282 00:46:50,284 --> 00:47:08,822 I really like the theses of Feuerback where Marx refers just to that. And he says: those who think that man thinks as he lives... that man is the product of his circumstances, 283 00:47:08,822 --> 00:47:18,097 and that... that only education... should be... in the end... the rest of the quote I don't know... 284 00:47:18,097 --> 00:47:26,982 I think it is the product of circumstances, forgetting that it is also man who modifies the circumstances. 285 00:47:26,982 --> 00:47:36,218 And this apparent contradiction is resolved by an expression called Revolutionary Practice. 286 00:47:36,218 --> 00:47:44,998 The man emerges from his circumstances, emerges from a context, but it is also he and he alone who has to change those circumstances. 287 00:47:44,998 --> 00:47:53,978 That is, it's not exactly that man thinks as he lives, although I think that is the explanation of the compañero: 288 00:47:53,978 --> 00:47:58,879 that is he who is accommodated, he who doesn't have problems with transportation because he's not worried about the problems of others; 289 00:47:58,879 --> 00:48:06,499 he who has access here and there and doesn't see that everyone else lacks access. 290 00:48:06,499 --> 00:48:15,801 In that sense I agree, I understand that it is... but I wanted to emphasize this fundamental concept of Marx because it is the key to everything, 291 00:48:15,801 --> 00:48:27,071 how we change this reality and it touches especially the youngest, those who will live in world in constant transformation. 292 00:48:27,071 --> 00:48:37,375 Well I want to apologize for the time and especially because of some of the several things I perhaps didn't respond to. 293 00:48:37,375 --> 00:48:47,051 We have to see, I said that it's not easy, that you can't say that... I wish we had an answer to that: 294 00:48:47,051 --> 99:59:59,999 "How and when are you going to solve that problem and develop a project and present it here and everyone will know what the question is." 295 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If only it were that perfect chess game, but to conquer this possibility requires that we defeat the politics of the enemy etc. etc. 296 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That doesn't mean, either, of course, that we shouldn't encourage, shouldn't generate, that we have to reach a better understanding, more information to people about how things are going. 297 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He gave several examples that are absolutely right and if so are very serious errors and violations. 298 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now, for example after the Assembly is over, there should be discussions everywhere between workers, the workshops, everywhere about the economic plan, the budget, 299 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and we aspire for this to increasingly be so, that the proposal emerge from below and that the results from above go down to the people and they will find out. 300 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And comrade Salvador Valdés, the secretary of the CTC (Cuban Workers Union), at the same Assembly, he referred to this process and criticized the first step that the administrator has to get there, 301 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but not with rhetoric but with concrete data like these: he said how much fuel costs, how much is spent on this or that to have real control by the workers, by the people of this collective of .... 302 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I will not say that it has been done well so far because it hasn't, and just as Salvador said in the Assembly. 303 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We should aspire to that, to let people know in each collective, in every workplace, every ... in every instance ... 304 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That is real democracy and that is how you can also control, reduce costs, to know how you are using resources and avoid having the manifestations of corruption, privilege, etc. It should be done, it is contemplated, it is done, it is done in an inadequate way almost everywhere but yes, it should be stressed that it is a sound exercise of popular control, this information. 305 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 STUDENT REP: Good, professor, I think that it's almost six and... 306 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ALARCON: Almost time to go, no? And I will leave you all in peace. 307 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 STUDENT REP: No, you don't have to go. I think it is best to close the meeting and you can try to schedule another meeting, 308 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 because several of the comrades are making signs that they would like to talk to you about the [Cuban] Five, 309 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 about the leadership of the country on that whole topic and also you have very deep knowledge about this process. 310 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think that way we could repeate this, again have the opportunity, the privilege of having you here and addressing several issues, 311 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 we could even agree on some topics that people are interested in, so that you could come more prepared, that you could come with knowledge of things that ... 312 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ALARCON: Now you're criticizing me, come more prepared. You're criticizing me with a glance. 313 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 STUDEN REP: No, professor. 314 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ALARCON: But it's true, it's true I didn't come prepared. 315 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 STUDENT REP: No, let me correct myself, let me correct. You came with knowledge of some of the topics that comrades wanted to talk about. 316 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ALARCON: That's good, to prepare myself for... 317 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 STUDENT REP: That's better. Then we thank you very much and confirm a little the material from the beginning. 318 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I think that here in the University there are many very Revolutionary young people and liek the project, like the center arose from the magnificent ideas of our commander-in-chief, 319 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 we will go to vote early on Sunday and stand always ready to give more to socialism and to strengthen the Revolution. 320 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So a big hug and thank you very much.