IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 78

After hearing opening presentations by
Professor Robert Cavalier, Manuel Cuesta
Morúa, Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, and
Rafel Campoamor about the “Theory, Practice and Application of Deliberative Democracy,” I had no doubt whatsoever that
deliberative democracy was a viable process for achieving progress on the long road
to freedom, rights, and democracy for Cuba.

take it to even the most isolated communities, we will get citizens to accept and embrace it into their thoughts and customs,
and put it into practice even if the government doesn’t institutionalize or allow it.
Citizen participation in communities will
allow us to discuss important issues.
The search for strengths (and not weaknesses) on ‘the other side,’ so to speak, in order
to be able to unite criteria and efforts; worrying about others, a collectivity of lots of
people, to be able to have participation in
finding a response to problem solving, and
not judge other points of view harshly, collaboration, and an effort to find common
ground and a common goal; and seeking a
sense of agreement, all greater a greater
possibility of improving our solutions and
presenting the best ideas amongst ourselves. These are only a few of the strengths
that Cuban civil society and its citizens
would gain by practicing deliberative democracy.

Participants are informed in this public
discussion process; they are conscious of
what they are working towards, a collective
well being, and not giving priority to the
individual. This helps overcome the barriers
between individual and collective concerns,
something that has been a huge problem for
more than fifty years.
The number of citizens becoming thoroughly convinced that civil society and everyday
citizens need to engage in meaningful participation is ever increasing. Deliberative
democracy allows us to create spaces for
active citizen participation in the making of
decisions at the community level and country wide; this lets them contribute to putting
into practice a methodology that will help
people acknowledge differences and similarities, to be able to achieve consensus at
decision making time.

Deliberative democracy implies having a
specific objective or purpose, with citizen
input and citizens as political actors. This
does not happen in Cuba. Instead what we
have is an inverted pyramid: citizens must
offer explanations to the government, instead of the government having to offer
explanations to the citizenry.

We could say that as a civil society that
what we face today is wanting two, very
different Cubas, depending on what we
decide and do: a Cuba with freedoms, respect for the most basic rights, and democracy, but that demands from us decisions
and actions right now, or another, contrary
Cuba we will have by omission, if we are
not capable of deciding and acting, or if we
make mistakes in doing so.

Deliberative democracy allows citizens to
develop at various levels, from decisionmaking, through discussion amongst free
and equal citizens, to searching for alternative solutions to problems via a deliberative
discussion between all the affected parties
or its representatives. Arguments are presented by and for participants, instead of an
authority presenting basic convictions.
Through reason and impartiality, the negotiation leads to a consensus.

I can assure, with no fear of being wrong,
that if we gradually employ the process of
deliberative democracy in civil society, and

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