IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 18

To involve the citizenry is important,
because the 1940 Constitution, for
example, did not guarantee either the
nation’s institutional continuity nor the
future democracy, much less citizen
participation. This is why and how we
started the process of holding
Constitutional
Initiative
Tables
throughout the entire country, in an
unremarkable, quiet way, bringing
people together at folks’ homes, in the
community, because one of the things
we want to guarantee is that they bring
together community members. That way,
we’ve been able to get citizens to
participate in a conversation about laws
and the constitution. This way they can
begin to adopt a civic culture and one
(perhaps the most important) of the
many virtues we should strengthen:
tolerance regarding the citizenry’s
diversity. This exercise in deliberative
democracy is going to guarantee and is
guaranteeing that people slowly adapt to
the diversity of different opinions. We

are now going to enter our most visible
stage, which is about showing them, and
particularly the critics, that this has been
possible in Cuba. When we began to
distribute preliminary information, many
people said it was not possible for
people to be gathering at 300 and 400
homes at the same time because the
regime would not allow it. We did it and
we can prove it, which what is most
important. We don’t only have
information about the fact we have
brought together so many citizens all
around Cuba, but we can also certify it,
although not in all cases, unfortunately,
because one needs material resources for
that, but we can certify more than half
the cases. The first thing that is going to
happen with this process of becoming
visible is that we want to show how it
has been done and what has been done.
The second step in this new phase is to
better prepare those who are moving this
process forward, because only a few of
us have had the opportunity to read and

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