Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 16

The Road to
Equality and Justice
Leonardo Calvo Cárdenas
Historian and political scientist
Vice President, Progressive Arc Party (Parp)
National Vice Coordinator, Citizens’ Committee for Racial Integration (CIR)
Cuban representative, IDENTIDADES

T

hree incredible phenomena are coinciding:
the imminent inauguration of the International Decade for People of African Descent, the growth and spread of the global
movement against racism, and the rise of structural social inequalities that have excessively
complicated the present and future outlook in a
country shaken by a general crisis and headed for
extraordinary changes.
For years, there has been a more or less forceful
call for more results-oriented and well thought
out approaches to the complex racial issue in
Cuba; the authorities have responded with even
more silence, more monopoly, more repression
and more manipulation. This in no way helps to
unravel a a tangled mass of traumas and frustrations that have further ensconced the existence of
racist and colonial models as an historic characteristic of Cuban society. Most importantly, this
is also due to the lack of public and transparent
debate about so delicate and important a matter.
Renowned critic and essayist Roberto Zurbano
expressed his discomfort and frustration about
this reality: two years after after being established, the so-called Cuban chapter of the Regional Network of Afro-Descendants of Latin
America and the Caribbean (ARAAC) has not
managed to extend its work into the social sphere
nor stimulate activities, proposals or strategies

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that connect with communities and the pressing
needs of today. Indeed, ARAAC has not managed
to establish systematic, public legitimacy in the
work it is attempting to do.
Zurbano blames ARAAC’s limited reach and influence on design flaws and its organizational
conception, as well as traditional and persistent
limitations on and prejudices towards any treatment of the subject. With honesty and great conviction, he proposes the activation of mechanisms
and methodologies which drive useful, promising
proposals: to valiantly and transparently deal with
everything having to do with the race problems;
in search of viable and participatory definitions,
solutions, and critiques.
Valuing Zurbano’s honesty and commitment, I
beg to differ: the problem lies in the organization’s conceptual design. In reality, ARAAC is
nothing more than a tentative response to the
growing global movement for reevaluating and
reaffirming the legacy and rights of Afro-descendants, a movement built upon the notion of
organizations’ civic and institutional independence.
No one denies that leaders and members of those
platforms may have ideological preferences or
leanings, even political commitments, but the essence of this movement is full autonomy, free
from tutelage, conditions, restrictions.