When will Raúl ever learn how it's done?
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com
Fidel reached the age of 83 last week. His brother Raúl is only 78. He
is the family's youngest, a cheerful, roguish fellow. He even sings in
Chinese.
Fidel commemorated his birthday with a brief article in which he
reminded everyone that the job of a revolutionary is to defend just causes.
Raúl celebrated his birthday some months ago by explaining that there is
no food, gasoline or materials to repair storm-wrecked houses. Raúl said
the country is in the midst of an extremely serious crisis. Cubans, he
says, don't work enough. They don't produce. They don't look after their
environment. They waste the meager resources they have.
Raúl intends to discipline them with his barracks-hard fist. More
dissidents to jail. More corrupt or lazy officials home. More army
officers to the boards of public companies.
To Fidel, to govern is to defend just causes. The Colombian
narcoguerrillas, for example, or the heroic African wars, those 15 years
of battle during which thousands of Cubans died in Angola and Ethiopia
trying to impose 20th-century socialism, until the Berlin Wall came down
on their heads.
Up against charisma
To Raúl, in turn, to govern is to make sure that Cubans can drink a
glass of milk, even if he has to execute half the country at dawn and
post a police sentry every 50 meters.
The difference between the two men was explained one century ago by the
German sociologist Max Weber. Fidel embodies the quintessence of
charismatic power. He is a hero, a passionate prophet, an exceptional
person whose unlimited authority lies in his superhuman character. Fidel
must be feared and obeyed, even when he leads us to sacrifice.
That's what Messianism is all about: the worship of someone chosen by
the gods to whip us all the way to paradise. Apostles don't have to
account for their actions because they are not subject to ordinary laws
or the shackles of pedestrian common sense.
Raúl's power is rational. He dreams about institutionalizing the
government and revitalizing the demoralized Communist Party so he can
convey authority in an orderly, disciplined manner. His objective in the
five years of useful life he still has (trained by the Soviets, Raúl
plans everything in five-year terms) is, first, to hold on to power and,
second, to secure that damned, elusive glass of milk that Cubans somehow
can't squeeze out of the stingy socialist cows.
He has already said that he wasn't elected to bury the system but to
save it. But therein lies a contradiction discovered by Gorbachev in the
1980s: communism is not reformable. There's no way to save it and make
it efficient.
No reform possible
There are contradictory elements in Raúl's behavior. He has known for
many years that collectivism doesn't work. When Gorbachev published his
book Perestroika, Raúl asked his closest personal aide in the armed
forces, Jesús Renzoli, an expert in Russian culture and the ins and outs
of power, to translate it and distribute it to the army's top brass.
Renzoli did so, but Fidel quickly ordered the translation recalled.
Perestroika (reform) and glasnost (openness to criticism) were CIA
inventions. Raúl obeyed without a whimper, as he always has. You don't
argue with charismatic power.
Eventually, Raúl will understand not only that socialism cannot be
reformed but also that it is impossible to inherit charismatic power and
turn it into rational power. In Cuba, there are no longer any
Marxist-Leninists who will swallow the ideological tale.
That is why Raúl can't even organize the Communist Party Congress. He's
had to postpone it sine die. Half a century of failure is a lesson much
too intense and prolonged to be ignored. Raúl and his entourage know
that the young generations of Cubans perceive the ruling circle as a
distant, strange and enemy tribe from which one should flee atop
anything that will float. ``Things'' are simply beyond repair.
It is true that Fidel didn't designate him as an heir to bury the system
but to maintain it, but that was a mission impossible to begin with.
Charismatic power can be exerted against reality. Fidel can walk on
water. Raúl sinks. Rational power is condemned to obey reality. Raúl
should read Max Weber. One is never too old to learn from painful truths.
(C)2009 Firmas Press
When will Raúl ever learn how it's done? - Other Views - MiamiHerald.com
(18 August 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1190595.html
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