IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 133

matter how much the effort. Political
participation declined to just supporting
whatever Fidel Alejandro Castro and a
revolutionary elite that changed according to the Comandante en Jefe’s mood,
said. Lastly, all social projects remained
trapped by being classified as either revolutionary or counterrevolutionary. Socially, general horizons were standardized during these years, which was supposed to naturally inhibit citizens’ effective participation in spaces and social
institutions. It was the time during
which began the practice by which official biographies became chock-filled
with references to the subject’s humble
origin, Atheism, the number of mass
organizations he belonged to, and the
revolutionary works in which he had
participated. It didn’t matter if he was a
playwright, biochemist, machinist, man,
woman, suspicious, optimistic, natural
leader, efficient subordinate; the individual should satisfactorily should answer all the questions on a questionnaire
about his or her loyalty. This practice
still exists today. It isn’t strange that in
our contemporary history the only experiences that have been able to bring citizens together with common purpose, and
not at official concentrations, have been
those for abandoning the model that denies exactly those possibilities: emigration and, to a lesser degree, democratic
opposition. That is, these are experiences
in which individual goals have motivated essential kinds of association.

“Institutionalization” as the consecration of an anomalous State
Midway through the seventies the political system began to revolve around what
was called ‘institutionalization.’ A series
of laws came after the 1976 Constitution: electoral, judicial, a new politicoadministrative division, regarding penal
procedures, and a new Penal Code. In
three years, the State was entirely renovated within a judicial framework that is
still being followed today, with some
modification. Yet, what was at the center
of the then small, Cuban political elite
was not a change in the way individuals
engaged in political participation and
exercising his or her citizens’ rights, but
more like a re-launching of institutional
functions in way that administrative activity would encounter regulatory functions less lax than before. Curiously,
apropos institutionalization, it is Carlos
Rafael Rodríguez who confirms the
aforementioned observation when he
points out until then, the revolution “had
not had any other limit on its power but
its own decision.” This is why our social
scientists, historians, and critical journalist should dive into studying what the
Cuban government’s leaders did back
then and the opinion makers of the time.
Given the assumed challenges of revolutionary legality, he added: “Educating
our people about the concept of this revolutionary legality will be less difficult
than the earlier situation demanded of
us.

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