IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 3 ENGLISH | Page 71

the people have representatives, or people themselves make the decisions via a plebiscite, it is
known as a “representative” democracy. Then
there is participatory democracy, liquid (delegate)
democracy, and something that today is known as
electronic, digital or cyber-democracy (also ‘edemocracy,’ in English).
If we begin by considering that democracy’s
meaning is that authority rests with the people, it
is conceivable that one might look at Cuba—
where proletarians are ruled through a dictatorship—and conclude that there is a true democracy
there. Our leaders in Cuba talk about popular democracy, but are really thinking of the polygarchy
that Yale University Professor Dahl, who recently
passed on after living 98 years, defined. For the
leadership that has been in power since I was
born, in 1961, a small group governs and the participation of the masses is limited to electing leaders in elections controlled by the elite. In practical
terms, what this means is:
• limited or nearly non-existent pluralism, because we have had only one political party, the
Communist party, ever since I was born;
• an apparent, electoral process which at its roots
has neighbors come to a consensus about who
their representatives will be, as was the case in all
the popular democracies of Eastern Europe;
• the mass media being totally controlled by the
State, or Party (or organizations linked to it, like
labor and student unions).
It is important to note that State security organizations systematically dedicate their efforts to politically monitoring citizens in so-c [Y