IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 145

is assumed that the parliamentarians
will work as professionals, with a fixed
seat, instead of being judge and parties
like it happens today, because one must
not be minister and deputy at once. On
the eve of the Party Congress, statements like this to the Catholic magazine
Palabra Nueva were enough for removing Perez Villanueva from his tenured
faculty position at the University of
Havana. Thusly, a brilliant economist
aware of the political needs demonstrates the competence of the citizens to
address such issues, while being expelled because of that shows the incompetence of the Castroit regime to address such needs and entails a kind of
political myopia that can be regarded as
crime.
# Otro18 and the activation of political
changes
In the middle of such a drought of ideas
in politics, Raúl Castro has decided to
relinquish power in 2018. Upon his
departure it seems certain that a regime
of alternating Heads of State —for a
five-year term and with only a single
chance of reelection— will come into
force. None of this is good news in
terms of political rights, which do not
emerge from procedures or practices
that occasionally make some difference
with respect to the previous order. The
political rights do not even rely on the
hope of reaching them in time to come
or in the feeling of being a little closer
to them. Political rights are only confirmed in the freedoms of information,
expression, and association enjoyed by
the citizens while electing their representatives. In such a context, the citizens themselves enforce the respect for
human rights and experience them as a
common good. Among them the politi-

cal rights should be an ongoing process,
not the result of a series of specific
events. The citizens´ campaign # Otro18
assumes that the year 2018 will be an
exciting opportunity to mobilize the
citizens to demand changes, but not the
changes proposed by the prudish Castroit officials according to their latest
liturgy, but changes that truly implement a democratic system. # Otro18
declares the relevance of political rights
and it is constituted on the basis of two
key documents: a Maximum Agenda
and a Minimal Agenda, as expressions
of the will to strengthen the rule of law
starting from the precarious legal body
available in the Castroit legislation.
Hence the idea of a minimal agenda;
through such a way, the deficits will be
exposed to demonstrate the need for
more substantial reforms and more
citizen engagement in achieving them.
The reasons for this strategy are simple:
it´s preferable to build a legal culture on
a crumbling state than on some kind of
social outburst. Both notions, transition
and abrupt end, are based on the urgent
need to put an end to a human rights
situation that becomes criminal due to
the bullying or mobbing against political activists, the indiscriminate beating
of men and women, and the use of
paramilitary forces to silence the clamors for freedom. The citizens’ campaign
# Otro18 runs with the certitude that the
collective building of legality delivers
precious results. On the contrary, outbreaks and insurrections have led to true
legends of heroism, but also to dysfunctional behaviors in order to achieve the
common good. # Otro18 worships the
struggle for independence from Spain
and the citizens’ actions that overthrew
two dictatorships during the republican

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