IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 38

problem. The inequalities existing from
the get go were not considered, and the
issue was dropped very early on.
The alternative left
The second, abovementioned position
grounds its public arguments and
influence on the axis and limits
established by revolutionary rhetoric; it
borders on being a structural criticism of
State socialism. Its forums, publications,
and interventions are more open than
organic,
although
personal
or
ideological issues such as those
intellectuals close to the party or those of
the openly oppositionist persuasion still
persist at the core. This tendency18
embraces a diversity of topics and has
the potential to operate within the
connections built between diverse
intellectuals and audiences. Generally, it
aims itself at the part of the population
that refuses to be situated within
contaminated, political coordinates. Its
development
corresponds
to
the
expansion of social diversity, and with
the reaction to currently reigning cultural
policies,
which
are
becoming
increasingly impossible to integrate in
any appealing way, without sacrificing
autonomy. It incorporates young,
critical, leftist voices to feed of the
emergence of autonomous social
identities.
Unlike the Aponte
Commission, alternative activists from
the
Cofradía
de
la
Negritud
[Brotherhood of Blackness] propose a
need for public discussion and its
coverage by the mass media, as well as
of concrete, public, pro-Revolutionary

policies to be included in State and semiofficial institutions. Similarly, the Cuban
government has not heard their demands
either. If these alternative activists, in
fact, direct their recommendations to
officialdom (the parliament, educational
system, popular organizations, etc.), they
do not uphold their rhetoric by
repeatedly invoking the “Revolution and
its achievements,” but rather demand the
“right of existence of social and
community organizations whose purpose
is to contribute to the nation’s efforts
directed
at
eliminating
racism,
discrimination, and racial inequalities.”
Similarly, they highlight the structural
factors
(poverty,
marginalization,
inequality)
that
reproduce
the
unfavorable situation of blacks and
mestizos, and also make visible actions
and speeches to which the police and
other, diverse, State entities attribute this
situation in the mass media. They
demand “the promotion of the principle
of equality of opportunities for all
citizens in a real and effective manner as
a prioritized social goal for the country’s
policies.”19
The leftist opposition
This position suggests a break with the
current political regime, although it does
appeal to legal mechanisms and/or nonviolent ones. The space in which they
‘operate’ are always and forever
harassed by an official repression and
fragmentation that impedes other
colleagues from the organic left and,
alternative one, to a lesser degree, from
joining oppositionists at forums and in

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