LECTURE : FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA 

By Dagoberto Valdés Hernández

INTRODUCTION
THE ANÁLISIS OF REALITY FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA
THE LOSS OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA
WHY DO SOME CUBANS RESIGN TO THEIR FREEDOM
THE FEAR FOR MORAL ISOLATION
LIVING IN LIE. LACK OF MEANING AND LIFE PROJECT
THERE´S STILL LACK OF SPACES FOR PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION
THE GOING BACK TO INDIVIDUALISM AND TO THE CULTURE OF "HAVING"
THERE IS NO EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
CONCEPT PROPOSALS
PERSONAL DIMENSIONS OF FREEDOM
SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF FREEDOM
RESPONSIBILITY AND GUILT
FREEDOM AND TRUTH
FREEDOM AND SOLIDARITY
PERSONAL FREEDOM AND STRUCTURAL SIN
HUMAN RIGHTS: LIBERTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
FREEDOM, LIBERALISM AND LIBERATION
THE ULTIMATE OF HUMAN LIBERTIES
FREEDOM OF GOD´S CHILDREN
PROPOSALS TO IMPLEMENT
CONCLUSIONS

"And you will know the truth.
And the truth will set you free".
(John 8, 32)

INTRODUCTION

The apostle of our independence José Martí, believed in these two aspects of life: human improvement and utility of virtue. These are the same convictions that drive me to analyze the topic of the exercise and degrees of freedom and responsibility that cubans expierence at the end of this century. I make this analysis on the light of the social teachings of the church, which are rooted in our culture.
As I approach the topic of freedom, I think of the ones who enjoyed it and defended it, the ones that established and developed it through the history of this island.
I´d like to analyze freedom independent from the restrictions of a system of ideas or a political project, because they always limit the spectrum of freedom. But at the same time, freedom should not be exagerated and without a channel and it must respect every one, because, otherwise, it would arouse new kinds of slavery.

From the very beginning, I´d like to point out that I don´t intend to be so pathetic as to think that the lack of freedom could be total in a certain moment of History. Neither I think that freedom is total in any moment of History. The main purpose of this paper is to show that freedom and
responsibility are essential processes within the lives of men, but they occur gradually, as José Martí states: "As it is the bone to the human body, and the axle to the wheel, and the wind to the bird, and the wing to the wind, it is freedom the essence of life .Whatever you do without freedom, is not perfect. The more you can enjoy it, the better your life blossoms, the most fruitful your life is¨. (Obras Completas. Edit.Lex Tomo I pg. 1536)
To grow up in freedom, to achieve a higher degree of responsiblity, is the reason why I am doing this analysis which is deeply related to the ones

Introduced in the former Social Weeks.
Indeed, during the sessions in 1991 we approached the cuban reality in the work: ¨Pluralism and Participation¨, and there we spoke of four necessities that have momentum nowadays: the need for a serious civic and political education, being it deep, progressive and plural; the need for an opening to pluralism in every aspect of society the need for civic and political participation, being it more free and responsible, the need for a higher self esteem, higher ethics, and a higher self determination of citizens in the social and political life.
During the second ¨Social Week¨, we approached the problem from another point of view: that every citizen must find an organized space, independent from the state. Within this space, the citizen could experience pluralism and civic and political participation in the framework of civil society. And this civil society must be rebuild to ensure the emergence of a real participating democracy in the Cuban future.
During this third session we wish to go deep into the indispensable conditions needed to achieve a healthy pluralism, a creative participation, and the elaboration of the rich and complex fabric of civil society. These conditions are freedom and responsibility of the human person. Without these conditions ¨nothing is alive¨. They are "the conditions for every useful undertaking.¨( José Martí.op cit. pg.37)

So, the objectives of this work are:
-To analize the exercise of freedom and responsibility in Cuba, on the light of the social doctrine of the church and other social sciences.
-To find conceptual and practical answers for increasing the degrees of freedom and responsibility that the cuban person can enjoy in the present specific context.
-To implement the projects of participation and reconstruccion of civil society and Education for freedom and Responsibility so that the future of Cuba may be attached to justice, ¨the sun of the moral world¨, and the foundations of ethics. ( Christi Fidelis Rei; Cintio Vitier. "Ese sol del mundo moral"."Apuntes para una historia de la eticidad cubana")

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THE ANÁLISIS OF REALITY FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA

Analizing our reality and the exercise of freedom and responsibility
in Cuba we should take into account not only our present situation, but also the whole historical development of this process which has had steps forward and backward, though bringing useful experiences and learning to our time.


1. FROM SLAVERY TO THE FIRST FREEDOM: THE INDEPENDENCE

After several centuries of colonial subordination and slavery, (there were free men and women though), the cubans, who were called ¨creoles",by that time, evolved step by step into a thought independent from the established patterns and conquered their own space under the oppresion .
After the main traits of our identity became definite- that is, the truth about the cubans- the long way to freedom began, although there was still slave labor and the domination of the metropolis still remained. That way to freedom that began (without coming back) at that time, is the same way that we are going through now, in the middle of many difficulties.
As soon as those men found out the truth about Cuba, they began to fight for getting rid of foreign colonialism in order to establish a free nation. This action was possible for these men after tresspassing the threshold of that first freedom which was the act of recognizing temselves
different. After that, they began to work in order to obtain the first civil liberties.

2. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE LIBERTIES OF AN INCIPIENT REPUBLIC

The Republic was born in 1902, only 95 years ago, but there was
a tutelar protection from another country which had militarily intervened in the country. That´s why it was impossible to achieve all the degrees of liberties that were needed. The founding fathers of the first Constitutional Convention at that time, established very clearly the inherent liberties of a free Republic, but they knew that the only way to protect them was to become responsible, and this brings to our minds that quotation from José Martí "One way to protect freedom is to exercise it over and over again". (O.C. tomo I pg.1794)
During the first decades of republican life, there were several manifestations of internal violence and there was also another foreign intervention.In 1940 it was established another Fundamental Law which was the expresion of a higher degree of freedom exercise derived from the civic maturity achieved. This Law was, indeed, a right for the whole nation.

3 FROM REPUBLICAN LIBERTIES TO AUTHORITARISM

Indeed, the way to freedom is not always straight. During that first stage there was injustice and abuse of power and that was a handicap for the walk up to higher degrees of freedom. The second period of Machado's government which became a dictatorship, and Batista's government ( a coup d'état) in 1952, were during that stage, the most cruel exercise of state authoritarism.
That authoritarism brought about new processes of liberation through the violence of the armed struggle facing the intransigent tyranies.

4 FROM THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT THE TO ALIENATION OF FREEDOM

The struggle for constitutional liberties during the 50's was supported by the majority of our people and it brought down the tyrant and opened a new stage in national history.The archbishop from Santiago de Cuba called it in his Pastoral Letter in 1959 a "new life". In my opinion, the fundamental cause that led to unity and allowed the people to get rid of that stage of authoritarism, were: the civic struggle for liberties, the existence of a majority of a people who loved freedom and believed in it, and the self-giving of those who sacrificed their freedom and even their lives, in order to fight for others' freedom. A process of more freedom for all was established later.
Indeed, the first steps after liberation not only showed the preference of cubans for peace and civilist living together; it was also shown the desire of cubans to achieve higher degrees of freedom up to the promotion of the humblest social classes in the people.
It had been understood that freedom and responsibility are very closely linked to human promotion and to the access of all citizens to the enjoyment of guaranteed liberties not only by the written law, but also by a social justice which can distribute richness on earth in a better way, thus laying the foundations for a more dignified living standard, as a fundamental basis for civil liberties.
The communion between justice and freedom, clearly defined the popular character of that change. The christians had taken place in that process of liberation because we christians believe that freedom without solidarity is not authentic and doesn't reach the ones who need freedom most. But they were convinced that the overall liberation includes not only social achievements but the transformation of the hearts and the change in counciousness.

Very soon, the project that had begun turned into a so called "proletarian dictatorship"and other authoritarian measures came into being through the pretext of the need for improving the conditions of the masses. These measures broke the balance between social justice and freedom, between the search for common welfare and the respect for dignity and men's human rights.
The struggle for liberating man from any alienation became the alienation of freedom and responsibility. These two conditions should have been enjoyed by this very man, who lost his personification in order to attain
the necessary "socialization".
That's why we can compare the cuban situation at that stage to the situation described by the Pope in the Enciclic "Centessimus Annus" when he says:
"Economic freedom is only one aspect of human freedom. When economic freedom turns out to be independent, that is, when man is considered more as a producer or a consumer of goods, than a subject that produces and consumes in order to live, then, this economic freedom looses its necessary relationship with the human person and this person becomes alienated and opressed" (Centessimus Annus 39)
We must learn something out of this period of our history: There is some truth when we say that there is no possibilities of practicing civil and political freedom, within a system of social injustice and economic scarcity. In such a situation, freedom can only be exercised by those who "have" means for a living.
But it's true also when we say that what we have experienced shows us that if we establish a system ofdistributive justice that tries to garantee the social and economic security through the state at the cost of the free initiative and the responsibility of the individual, then, the civil and political liberties are seriously restrained. And it is even worse when the fact of claiming any rihgt is viewed as an opossition to the liberation process and to the cause of the poor and as a great insult to human development and to the love for it. Our opinion is that human development cannot be either freedom without solidarity or compulsory solidarity without individual freedom.

So is stated in the "Instrucción sobre libertad cristiana y liberación"* from Sacred Congregation for the Faith Doctrine:
"When there is lack of truth and love, the process of liberation turns out to be the death of freedom, having it lost all the support".(Cit. S.R.S. 46). An important part of Marxist criticism to the bougeois and capitalist societies is the process of alienation that man undergoes in those societies. But there is something that we have learned from our history and from the history of the socialist countries: colectivism doesn't finish with alienation. On the contrary: colectivism increases man's alienation. (CFR; C.A. 41)
That's why "it is necessary to enlighten, from the christian perspective, about what alienation really is. We must unfold the real relationship between the means and the purposes: "If man doesn't accept the value and the greatness of himself as a person and of others, he fails to enjoy his own humanity and doesn't create a relationship of solidarity and communion with the rest of men... The man that rejects to trascend himself and rejects giving himself to others, becomes alienated. This man is deprived from creating an authentic human community.
When there is a society in which this self-giving becomes difficult because of its social organization, way of production and consuming; when it is difficult to create an interhuman solidarity; then, this society is alienated".(C.A. 41).

5 FROM FREEDOM ALIENATION TO MASSIFICATION

There is another part of our reality which is important: After having established a system premised on Historic Materialism, the civil and political liberties were shrinked and personal freedom became alienated. It was also intended to drive society forward through procedures in theory and the processes of independent personal and group management were forbidden.
Besides, there was a state paternalism and the hegemonic role of an only ideology. As a consequence, the citizen abandoned a state of a so-called "petty bourgeois" individualism, and became a piece of the real socialist massification. And, of course, initiative, self-esteem and individual political independence were gone.
There is a statement by John Paul II regarding all that:
"It's a crime to disregard human nature from the ethical point of view because this human nature has been created for freedom. It's not only a crime but it is impossible to be implemented when a society organizes itself by reducing and even eliminating, in an arbitray way, the legitimate freedom, the result is the mess and the progressive decline of social life"(C.A.25)

Many times we have asked ourselves in any way possible: Why do mess, decline and discouragement emerge over and over again in our society?. Despite the serious efforts to gain discipline, there is always, a structural disorder which sometimes resembles the original chaos existing before the Holy Spirit came over the oceans, as it is narrated in the Genesis Book. This chaos is covered by burocratism, complicity and disorder. Why this?
We have found a lot of answers to this phenomenon: individual weakness, economic problems, any historic juncture, maybe organizing mistakes and so on. But we must go deep into the analiysis: we must find all together, the real causes for this disorder and progressive decline which the Pope mentions.It is an aspect of our social life. The key to the problem is the lack of personal and civic freedom. This lack of freedom brings about unpersonalization and massification of persons.
The truth about the deep causes of this decline and disorder is explained through the social teachings of the Church. It is also explained by different authors from different philosophical perspectives.
The relationship between the structural and psicho-social phenomena of the human person has been justified by the mistakes of the extremes. On the other hand, the overimportance granted to society and not to the individual as the subject and executer of history. According to this, the progress is caused by the anonimous and blind forces of economy, the production relationships and other mechanisms. On the other hand, the other extreme is that of psychologic principles which state that all development comes from the individual conciousness, out of every social and cultural environment.
The two political systems that Cuba has experienced have a relationship with these two trends mentioned above. The two systems brought about the manipulation of the person and both hurt the processes of freedom and responsibility, first due to the excessive individualism, and in the second place, due to the excessive and alienating importance granted to the masses.Well, indeed, the two extremes are alienating.
What have been the consequences of authoritarian governments in Cuba?: the manipulation of personalization and socialization processes that every society or individual must undergo, thus deviating these processes-that is, undermining them- the final outcome has been lack of spiritualism and colectivist anonymity.

Erich Fromm, in his work "Fear For Freedom", says:
"As we have freed ourselves from the old manifested ways of authority, we don't realize that now we are prisoners from this new kind of power. We have become automata that live under the illusion of being individuals with free will. Such illusion helps persons to remain unaware of their insecurity and this is the only help that illusion can give us...Man has lost all genuine connections with the world he lives in. In this world, all persons and things have become instruments and man himself is nothing more than one part of a machine he has built with his own hands. He thinks, he feels and he wants what he believes the others suppose he might think, feel and want; and in this process, he looses his own self.This own self should be the only foundation of all genuine security of the free individual".(op. cit. pg. 215)

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THE LOSS OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA

The cause for the loss of personal responsibility is massification and the great insecurity of man who has been away from his own self because of new kinds of authoritarian domination. Many times, we have heard, at work, at school, in our social and eclesial communities this question, which not always finds an answer: why are there cubans who are progresively less responsible? why isn't responsibility counciously accepted by persons?. On the contrary, responsibility is like a burden which goes from one person to another and these persons always blaim, in the end, on the external or superior authorities. Why this?
The civic authorities, and the parents and pastors from the churches, try to put an end to this lack of responsibillity in our society. They try to do it all the time. This strive must lead us to the genesis of the problem: there is no possible responsibility if there is not personal freedom; and there is not personal freedom, if man is afraid to look for freedom because he is to loose his pretended security.
Indeed, if a "mass-made" man feels himself as a part of a social machine he has helped to build up; if this man knows that if he thinks, feels and acts as he is expected to by the authorities, he will enjoy personal, working and social security, and this is certainly comfortable. Will it be possible then to expect that the cuban man will resign to that security and will head for a world full of uncertainties once he decides to look for freedom?
It is impossible to expect more responsibility from the cuban man if he is not granted more freedom.We cannot ask him either to be more free because if he tries to be more free he won't be a part of the social machine anymore and we must remember that this social machine was created by him. Or maybe others made this machine for him to feel secure, even if he has to contribute to the machine functioning by means of his sweat and his blood.
If this man (or woman) eventually gets to feel this machine as his own, then how to tell him that this machine is dead? I dare say that the majority of the ordinary cubans are indifferent to obtaining a greater degree of freedom because they are convinced that if they fail to be docile and fail to be a part of the social mechanism, they will loose their security (and their families' security). Besides, they are convinced of the fact that they would be ungrateful and unfaithful if they are a handicap for the functioning of such machinery they have helped to construct.
According to this reasoning it would be highly unfaithful to destroy the machinery of a living together which turns man to unpersonalization in the name of the greatest liberty or in the name of a greater social justice that in theory would benefit everybody but at the very high cost of man's personification. This is an example of how confused some people might become.
In her work "Etica de la sociedad civil" ("Ethics of Civil Society"), Adela Cortina states: "then we can learn a clear lesson from the test: we haven't overcome superstition; we continue taking the first steps under the authority's opinion because we don't revere what is said; we revere the one who "says". And that is called "dogmatism". And this desease can only be healed if we seriously undertake the task of building up, all together, a more human world. So it is urgent to choose a responsible morality which compels us to construct seriously our social reality... but at the same time it is necessary to get away from frivolous and superficial attitudes. It's necessary get to the depth".(Op. Cit. pg. 97-98)
So, here we have two causes for the lack of responsibility: on one hand, the authoritarism which is implemented in the name of freedom, and on the other hand, the frivolous and superficial attitude on the part of the people as a result of the lack of inner freedom. Provided the people had this inner freedom, then it would be free from dogmatism.
This was analized by Father Félix Varela, one hundred years ago, in his book "Cartas a Elpidio" ("Letters to Elpidio"). We could say that this book is "the letters for freedom and responsibilitiy for all cubans":
"The most cruel despotism is the one exerted under the mask of freedom...It is difficult to be identified by the peoples.They'd rather let themselves to be driven by false signals. Every intention of unmasking the truth is viewed as an offense to freedom. So, when the good ones are scared, the bad ones notice it and become strong. By means of that, the peoples are put in chains, my dear Elpidio".(Tomo 1 Carta segunda pág.39)

In another letter, Félix Varela mentions superstition as another cause for the lack of freedom and responsibility in our society:
"Who could witness, without tears in the eyes, the frivolous,
thoughtless, superficial, childish and ridiculous character, in a word: montruous, that a people acquires when it is dominated by superstition? A people like this, disregards the most sacred duties of religion and patriotism, and goes after vain shadows that are always deceiving and never tempering. It rather seems that each trick gives way to another trick. Arts resent, science moans, literature becomes vicious, good taste corrupts, morality gets destroyed and, in the end, a new order of things is established which is praised by the applause of a mob made up of ignorants playing to be wise, and together with the cowards, the people then remains in the hands of the monster which is superstition. And the people blesses superstition as if it were a gift from heaven."
"Such a regretable state arises a willing comtempt. And the peoples do the same thing as men do, that is, they become indolent, because they are exasperated and they believe that the activity would be useless; they appeal to jokes in order to cover their ignorance... Few men, my Elpidio, have a strong character until they die. Many men, though they don't degenerate to pervert, do suffer from a reprehendable weakness...Let's suppose superstition doesn't cause another evil other than this weakness: this evil would be enough to detest superstition, because by degrading persons who could be responsible for the reforms the peolpe needs, this people remains without support and becomes a toy in the hands of whoever wants to speculate with its ruins... The popular masses are capable of being corrupted in such a way that they can hardly be healed. Thus, society becomes like an ill man who believes he can't cure: he doesn't want to be disturbed by untimely remedies" (Cartas sobre la superstición. C. primera pág. 27-28)*
* "Letters About Superstition"

I allow myself to include this long quotation from Félix Varela because I believe that it portrays our reality in a very exact and deep way, because this cite is free from any prejudice regarding the present and
this very fact is very important in order to question our present weakness and lack of encouragement in the task of gaining freedom.
If this description is somehow close to our present reality, we should conclude from this that: superstition, unpittiness, and fanatism, explain why many cubans are victims of a frivolous attitude, indolence and are led to abandone their civic responsibility. These cubans who should fight for freedom are degraded by the environment. The masses are convinced that: "there is no way to arrange this"*, that's why it is better "not to disturb the people with "unuseful remedies".
In "Veritatis Splendor" the Pontifice teachings explain about the depth of freedom and the ultimate cause for all lack of responsibility, and it cites: "Freedom is not only the fact of choosing between this or that particular action, but it is also, as part of this choice, a decision about oneself, and the leading of the own life in favor or against the Good, in favor or against the truth, and ultimately, in favor or against God".(V.S.65)

* (This is a popular saying meaning that it is impossible to improve national situation) Translator's Note.

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WHY DO SOME CUBANS RESIGN TO THEIR FREEDOM

The lack of responsibility is caused mainly by the lack of liberties, but above all, by the lack of inner freedom on the part of those cubans who abandone their civic and familiar duties.However, there are many cubans that not only don't claim for their personal freedom but they live in such an indifference and they are so ductile that they make us wonder if they really want to be more free and enjoy more liberties.
This indolence that becomes mediocrity is a willing resignation to the own freedom. So the whole nation gets stuck in inmovilism and it is manipulated by those who promote this kind of attitude regarding freedom. And this manipulation has ideological, economic, political or religious purposes.
When this kind of attitude on the part of the citizens becomes a resignation to freedom, then the individual stops to have faith in the effectiveness of his own participation in society and the credibility of his own actions goes down. Thus he doesn't transform his reality.
When freedom is "kidnapped" in a nation, we must find the causes for the resignation to freedom in the persons rather than in any restriction on the part of the state.
We then wonder: why does a people like ours, with our tradition and idiosyncracy resign to freedom? Why does it sucumb to the temptation of not claiming for, or exercising freedom?
We ask ourselves the same questions as Fromm does: can freedom become a too heavy burden to man, in such a way that he tries to avoid it? how is it that freedom is a cherished goal to some, and a threat to others? Isn't there maybe, an innate aspiration for freedom and at the same time a submission instinct?. And if it is not like this, how can we explain that attraction of so many people for the submission to the "leader"? does submittment come always along with an external authority or is there some inner authority such as duty or conciousness or inner impulses of restriction or anonimous authorities, such as public opinion? ("Fear For Freedom pg. 28)

These questions have the answer in our every day life. Some of the reasons why many people resign to their freedom are: manipulation of propaganda, control and use of information about private life in order to exert coercion; lack of opportunities for obtaining a job to survive, because the only public employer and the only institution for complaints is the state.
Another reason is that cubans are confused, and they identify Land with government, Nation with State, Socialism with Revolution, achievement of the Revolution with party ideology; social justice with state and paternalist distribution of goods.

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THE FEAR FOR MORAL ISOLATION

Maybe the most important and less mentioned reason for the resignation to freedom and civic responsibility is the fear for moral isolation. Indeed, for every man and woman the need for communion, the need to interact and the need to belong to a social embodiment is like the need for eating. "The fisiological necessities are not the only inescapable part of human nature. There is anothercompulsive necessity which is not attached to body processes,
but is the very essence of human life: the need to interact
with the external world, the need to prevent isolation". "Complete isolation and loneliness gives way to mental deconstruction, in the same way that starvation drives us to death".(E. Fromm op. cit. pg.37)
Here in Cuba we must prevent isolation.Every kind of isolation that affects freedom: international isolation, geographical isolation, isolation due to the embargo and other economic restrictions. But the most important isolation and embargo is the one imposed on the human person who intends to present choices for frredom and responsibility.
It is necessary to prevent moral loneliness (which has nothing to do with physical isolation) with the purpose that more people decide to strive for achieving more freedom and responsibility.
That is, "an individual can be alone in a physical way for many years, and however he can be related to ideals, values or at least, certain social standards that give him a sense of communion and belonging. On the other hand, he can live together with people and nevertheless he can be overwhelmed by a feeling of total isolation. This lack of connection with values, symbols or standards that we could call moral loneliness, is so unbearable as the physical confinement. Or rather, physical loneliness becomes unbearable only if it also implies moral loneliness"(idem)
It's obvious that we need to identify this kind of restriction to personal freedom, because it's the only way to prevent being anihilated by this restriction. It's the only way to prevent being paralized by fear; the only way to prevent moral loneliness, counting on the support and solidarity, and the moral companion of those who have decided to work for freedom. We have to bear in mind Nelson Mandela's words: "I had the opportunity to learn that courage doesn't mean we don't fear, but it is our ability of beating that fear...The corageous man is not the one that is not afraid, but the one that is able to conquer fear.
I never lost hope for seeing this transformation, thanks not only to the great heroes, but to the bravery of the ordinary men and women of my country. I've always known that in the bottom of the heart of every human being, there is mercy and generosity. Man's kindness is a flame that can be hidden, but it's never estinguished". ("El largo camino hacia la libertad" Autobiografía. pág. 644-645)

But we must not be pesimistic about that attitude we cubans take sometimes:
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who is the president of the Pontifice Council for Justice and Peace, and who has walked along with us through this eclesial path, iluminates us about this situation as he says: "freedom is a burden that man ceases to the powerful. Sometimes it is more comfortable to be a slave than to be free. The rareness and fragility of free cts should not drive us to be doubtful about freedom, because an eclipse doesn't mean that the sun doesn't exist".("Avanzo como un asno" pg.160)

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LIVING IN LIE. LACK OF MEANING AND LIFE PROJECT

There is another cause for our paralysis in striving for freedom. This cause is that we sometimes have doubts about the possibilities, the need and the honor of fighting for higher degrees of freedom. This doubt is not superficial or due to a certain junture. It comes from the emptiness of the existence, due to the lack of ethical meaning, because we let ourselves to be part of the environment which drives us to be "actors" and live a life based on lies.
We are not dealing here with circumstancial lies that we could invent in order to be out of a certain difficult situation. It is all about living a false life and show what we are not, to say what we don't feel, to act differently as how we think and to defend what we don't want to.
The Pope John Paul II explains to us the consequences derived from this situation: "When this growing deception extends to colective life, there is a social sin which becomes the owner of structures and institutions, and unleashes terrible and hidden oppresive forces. Thus unique ways of organized discrimination emerge which disturb and bend conciousness, deprive everybody from serenity and humiliate hope". (Homily in Trapani, Italy. 1993. C.F.R. Diccionario social y moral de Juan Pablo II, pág. 519)

Living in lie is to live in a world of appearance, a mere ritual, a cristalized language which doesn't have semantic contact with reality. A language transformed into a system of signals and rituals that substitute reality for pseudoreality.(Václav Havel, "El poder de los sin poder"
pág. 29).
This kind of life, which has a double morality is accepted by the people who live in lie. This kind of life is not only something imposed on some person by some other persons; it is something that reaches every aspect of society and something that the whole society contributes to create...so there is a fact: man contributes to create day after day, a system that has an only purpose: to preserve itself.

Through this purpose, the system deprives itself from its identity. All this process is not an incomprehensible extravagance of history; it's not a mistake or the result of a higher devil's will... it simply has happened and can happen because obviously modern man tends to create or at least to bear this kind of system.
There is sort of a certain characteristic about this modern man which the system takes into account as an advantage .The system reflects this characteristic and finds a correspondance in it. There is something in that man that stops in him every intention of defiance on the part of his "best self". Man is compelled to live in lie, but he is compelled because he is able to live that way. So, it's not only the system which alienates man, but at the same time, the alienated man supports that system and makes it his own. In some way he feels pleased to be a part of the anonymous mass, to sleep comfortably on the bed of an untruthful life".(ibidem pg. 38)
These trends of modern life have been analyzed by the Church Social Doctrine. The explanation lies in the inclination of man to live in sin, in lie and to live a selfish life without giving himself to others.
That is one of the causes because man lives in lie.And in my opinion, that's why a system like that lasts for so long, because it is based precisely on the negative part of the human being.(Saint Paul would call it "the desire for the flesh", widely speaking), that is, a life mastered by materialist motivations that doesn't allow "the spiritual man" to free himself from his mean self.

When analyzing this reality we realize about the deepest reason for our lack of freedom and responsibility; and we also realize and admire the coherence of the church teachings regarding this problem all through the years. "In this context we have to bear in mind in particular, the Enciclic "Libertas Praestantissimum", in which it is stressed the inherent relationship between human freedom and truth, so that any freedom which rejects to associate itself with truth, would be arbitrary and eventually would submit to ignoble passions and would destroy itself. Indeed, what is the origin of all the evils that the Rerum Novarum wants to face? The origin is a kind of freedom that, in the sphere of economic and social activity, is detached from the truth about man".(Centessimus Annus 4)
There is a system of values that has been imposed to the whole society. These values include: lack of search for truth about man, lack of fidelity to the cause of the human person regarding the person's true dimension (that is, not only his economic and social scope); the unpersonalization of cuban man, and other values. This society had another humanistic profile, due to its history, culture and religion.

This violent split with humanistic concepts of cuban culture, together with the so called "new man" which was a borrowed geographic and ethical concept, caused the destruction of the freedom already conquered and defended. A moral disorder was establihed. And this is a kind of disorder very difficult to eliminate if we don't overcome the very premises and motivations of the humanistic model.
The Enciclic "Evangelium Vitae" states: "To separate freedom from the objective truth makes it impossible to promote the rights of the person based on solid rationality. This separation lays the foundations for the free will of indiviuals out of ruling, and for the totalitarism of public power which causes death". (E.V. 96)

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THERE´S STILL LACK OF SPACES FOR PLURALISM AND PARTICIPATION

There is another reason why there is lack of freedom and responsibility in Cuba: there is still little space for real participation in freedom within a climate of healthy pluralism and respect for diversity of public opinion, religious believes and concepts on life. This freedom would bring about personal initiative and creativity independent from the state. It would also bring about the training that every citizen needs in order to attain higher degrees of freedom and responsibilty.
Massification has let today's citizen alone and anonymous. Indeed, "man experiences a new kind of solitude, no longer facing the hostility of nature which eventually he bended after so many centuries. Now man is sorrounded by an anonymous crowd in which he feels like a stranger".(O.A.10)

The spaces for participation are increasingly controlled
and manipulated by "the only party", day after day.
Every day, great efforts are made in order to widen the circle for civic and cultural participation, for human promotion and nurturing of virtues and human values. These efforts are made by the citizens who have a more free spirit for growing creativity, for example: artists, intellectuals, free-lance workers, local community sponsors, members of social and cultural institutions,workers from the churches. They all try to cooperate in order to strengthen those spaces. But when they are warmly welcome by the participants, and after the persons have enjoyed to be part of these experiences of social communion; after a few days of support and joy, the very local officials who had helped to promote these experiences of participation without segregation, would say to the eclesial sponsors and creators, that they have "received" the guideline from the Party that forbids this kind of participation.
These experiences make us understand that, on the part of ordinary persons and local authorities, there is no opposition and no fear to share these spaces for freedom and participation. These experiences show us that there is an increasingly explicit and obvious direct control on the part of the party and other institutions. This control not only bewilders the sponsors but it also exposes a clear inconsistence between what is said and what is done; between the announced "normal" state of things,
and the strict control and restriction and segregation imposed to participation. This control stagnates not only the members of the church, but the very creators and cultural sponsors that wish to change the spiritual weakness and boring existence of people into free, concious and pluralist paticipation.
It is not fair to ask creativity and responsibility from social and cultural sponsors if they don't have the necessary space for freedom.
Every day, steps forward are taken in this field, but they are obstructed all the time. Nevertheless, the total retrogression is not possible, once a human group has become aquainted with the spaces for freedom and fraternity.There is only a coming backwards if there is fear for coercion and solitude, or because there is tiredness; but in the hearts, it is known that restrictions and darkness are worse than the light they once saw.
The way to more freedom and responsibility begins with the opening of spaces for creativity and living together which have to be increasingly open and non-exclusive. But discouragement and distrust arise when there is segregation, and the most disturbing fact is that the persons who are in charge to stop the initiatives cannot openly say why they do it. This behavior shows an encouraged double morality and a vail of mystery is dropped upon everybody (this veil has been called "the mystery dissease"). In 1986, the cuban church denounced the appearance of these two phenomena. It was stated that "human relationships among cubans were based on suspiciousness, simulation and distrust". (ENEC, 748)*Cuban Eclesial National Encounter.
I am sure that no one in this country wants these social
distortions to occur anymore, because everone knows the awful consequences they bring about.

The country, the nation, needs those spaces in order to prevent paralysis. Making a comparison we can say that if someone is injured and eventually he learns how to walk again, he wouldn't walk as long as some other person is holding him strongly, and much less he wouldn't walk if somebody stops him when he has regained security and boldness to begin walking on his own. This intensive "care" to a person or to an institution is no doubt understood as "control", and the person feels she is being "watched". But the state will always have the burden of "paralitic" citizens and institutions so that they will be dependent forever.
I accept, of course, that the state should care about social order and at the same time it should promote creative participation. Now, there is something I don't understand: the state is aware of the importance of citizen participation for developing the country, and at the same time this participation is restrained by the state and it closes spaces in the name of order and control and at the cost of its own credibility and the future development of the nation. What we have to do in order to improve discipline is not to increase surveilance of everyone on everyone. What we have to do is increase education for freedom and the opening of spaces for participation because without these two aspects, the citizens are compelled to live in disorder and lack of responsibility and so they try to escape from the excesive surveilance. Family parents know about this very well. Our children will not be more disciplined if they are watched all the time and if we are autoritarian. They will be disciplined as a result of an education and a progressive freedom we can give them. We christians are aware of the need for authority in order to preserve order and discipline. We reject chaos and anarchy because they are the extremes of a freedom without solidarity and common welfare. But if the preservation of this order means the restrictions to opening and pluralism; if social discipline means no concious and free participation of citizens, so this order becomes a kind of intolerance which makes ordinary life bitter and gives way to the temptation of fleeing. Sometimes people scape abroad, if it is possible. Other times the escaping is to the underground world of the illegal. (sometimes with no other alternative). These activities are not always a crime, but a sort of reaction towards the excessive "legality"and to the compulsory participation in the only space offered.
The consequences of authoritarian methods are the expelling and exclusion of good-willed citizens who don't accept to stay enclosed in the inflexibility used to maintain order. The third kind of scaping is inside oneself, a going back to an exausted individualism or to a fake and apparent neutrality.
This inner exile was analyzed during the II ENEC. This exile is a very common attitude that take believers and non-believers when they are sick and tired of social life and they refuge themselves in an intimism. They lock themselves in a so called "ivory tower"on in a pietist spiritualism. This spiritualism is like a "drug" to the believer and bestows credibility on what Marxism-Leninism states about the alienating character of religion: "religion stops being the heart of a world without a heart, in order to become the "opium" of peoples".

There is an assertion in "Praxis Cristiana" (by Rincón Orduna). It states: "marxist criticism about religion sometimes has been right. The christian has been granted a sort of retreatment into intimacy, a search for consolation and hope in order to forget the tragedy of too many unjust situations. This kind of attitude has made it difficult to strive for changing these situations. The problem is that in the extent that man is inocent, it is not possible for him to commit with a reality detached from his own acts. Neutrality doesn't exist as long as we live in a world like this".(Op. cit. pg.431)
This is also a reflection for cuban christians at present who are maybe tramped by the "freedom of worship"which is tolerated for being alienating if it is separated from prophetism and charity. And mainly if "that relevant way of charity" (mentioned by many Pontifices) is separated from politics.
There is a phrase by Péguy that states: "if, under these circumstances, people believe they've got "clean hands", it is because of an even more painful reason: they are simply without hands". This statement explains to us that freedom becomes mutilated when there is no space for human promotion and charity service, and when there are not prophetic announcements and denounces within a necessary atmosphere of dialogue.
The cubans who don't find spaces for freedom and responsibility with free and pluralist participation are cubans that get their hands cut.
Without hands to serve becomes the church in Cuba when its presence and mission in society is restrained. It
is expected from the church to be the authoritarian an moralizing mother who supports the state paternalism and who should have the children under "special care" and help the miscarriaged of society through obsolete methods.
Without hands become, in particular, the laics who cannot be part of a civic dialogue which would bring about a gradual and essential change in cuban society.
So stated Monsegnieur Tauran, Secretary for Relations With the States in the Holy Site, during his visit to Pinar del Río Diocese: "To be a catholic means not only to attend mass, which is very important; it is also important to portray the christian's ideals every place we go to: the university, the job, the school, everywhere... Christians have the duty of participating in the public dialogue".
("Homilies", "Vitral" Magazine vol. 16, pgs. 86 & 93)

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THE GOING BACK TO INDIVIDUALISM AND TO THE CULTURE OF "HAVING"

For so many decades everything was intended to be "socialized". We tried to create a "new man" without trascendence, through a "calling to conciousness". At present, the "new age" tries to impose to us the end of history and a world "liberated" not only from ideologies but from ethics and reason too.
That is the consecuence of going to extremes and the consequence of totalitarian utopias. Mrs. "Reason" sat at the top of humanistic trends and pushed down feelings and faith. Two hundred years later, we've come back to sentimental intimism, to fundamentalism and individualism without a commitment to social ethics.
Cuba is also a part of this going to extremes that humanity undergoes. But this problem is more serious here because of the lack of information, freedom of expresion and culture for diversity.
During the II ENEC there was a proposal to develop one of the projects that will lead the church to the third milenium of christianity. This project is called: "What to do about materialist societies that go to individualism and tend to impose the principles of economy upon ethics?: a project for jointly liable humanity that can reconcile persons among each other within our people". ("Memoir" pg.34)
The Pope John Paul II asserts that: "It has been shown that it is unacceptable to assure that the defeat of Socialism gives way to Capitalism as the only alternative for economic organization... The economic system doesn't have in itself the necessary criteria to distinguish correctly the new and higher ways of satisfy the new human needs, which are a handicap for the development of a mature personality. So it is necessary and urgent to undertake a huge educative and cultural task." Centessimus Annus 36)
There is a coming culture of "having more" which could mutilate the freedom and responsibility of "being more".

These two things had been already damaged by the antropologic failure of Socialism. The Church doesn't complain and doesn't get discouraged like many people do. On the contrary, the church encourages for hope in
cubans and it agrees with Paul VI about the following exhortation: "Christians must take part in the task of building the cities, where men and their communities live; they must create new ways for proximity and relationships among men; they must appreciate a unique way of social justice implementation and take care of this colective future that promises to be difficult. It is necessary to give a message of hope to these men who live heaped in an urban promiscuity. This message has to be transmitted through live fraternity and concrete justice. Te christians must be aware of this new responsibility and should not loose moral in the
unshaped inmensity of the city"(O.A. 12)

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THERE IS NO EDUCATION FOR FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

Civil society tends to become an unshaped body which ceases the spaces for participation to the control and intimidations from the authorities, because, the city doesn't know its rights, and it ignores its links with the state. The city cannot distiguish between the functions of a political party, a trade union and the government.
Another reason why there is not enough freedom and responsibility is the fact that there is not a proper education for freedom.
Indeed, the cuban educational system gave instruction to everybody, but at the same time, the possibility for a pluralist, participative and liberating education was banned.
The family and the church remained alone when the new educational system and a new cultural policy was established. This new educational system was like an avalanche that found support on the hegemonic usage of mass media which broadcasted an only possible life model, an only system of values and way of social participation. This way of behavior was exclusive and materialist. In order to achieve this unique model, the educational system managed to separate two generations from the very family and from the church.
This has been the policy practiced by the cuban state in order to win the ideological battle against imaginary enemies.It was not through the free expresion and a clear debate of ideas and projects, but by muzzling the people with preasures, by overwhelming the people with a lot of tiring activities that keep everyboy busy all the time.
The state eliminated all possible spaces to the people and educated it-maybe not on purpose- for intolerance, fear, mutual watching and for double morality in actions. All this goes against natural diversity which is part of life.

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CONCEPT PROPOSALS

The analysis of reality that we have tried to portray, should not be focused only on the degrees of freedom we enjoy or on denouncing the flaws derived from that fact which make us less responsible.
We must take steps and go from what we are to what we should be. But we must bear in mind that the achievement of freedom and responsibility is a growing and gradual process which doesn't end in the reality of a certain historic moment. We also must bear in mind that all which we enjoy or suffer about freedom is a personal responsibility for each one of us and for all cubans.
Cardinal Etchegaray talks about this: "It is important not
only to promote liberty as a protest but to be responsible.
Freedom is not granted to men.Freedom, said Enmanuel Mounier, is nothing more than opportunities granted to the spirit of freedom...This spirit is always trying to find and assimilate the situation again, in which man is carried on by unpersonal forces... Freedom is the result of an inner control, it is not an auction of reivindications". (op. cit. pg.159)
At this moment I wish to offer "opportunities to the spirit of freedom" which (I'm sure), is always there: manifested or not, in the soul of every cuban.

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PERSONAL DIMENSIONS OF FREEDOM

The first opportunity to freedom that we must enjoy is to overcome the ambiguity that this word brings about. This ambiguity sometimes prevents to undrestand its own reality.

Let's begin by stressing the degrees of freedom:

a) Personal freedom or freedom for deciding.
It is the freedom inherent to man. It's born together with him. "It is man's inescapable task to grant himself the "shape" he wants to give to his own self.It is man's task of creatig his own and diverse historical possibilities".
This freedom is so fundamental that man cannot ignore it, because even the resignation to "shape" his self, is in itself, a personal decision about the meaning of his existence. This "voice" of this fundamental freedom is called "conciousness".(C.F.R. "Brief Dictionary On Philosophy" by M. Muller & A. Halder pg.271-272)
To awaken the conciouness of man in Cuba means to summon the sacred of him and ask him not to resign to the supreme dignity and vocation of being himself.

b)Possitive freedom or "free will".
It is the freedom for choosing, for being free, for loving and giving oneself. It is the fact of being "bestowed" with free will. It's not the fact of choosing this or that, but exactly the opportunity or freedom to "choose".
There is for example, an alternative that cubans might choose in order to fight self censoring to free will: that is to fight pessimism and the superstition of believing that nothing can be done freely.

c)Negative freedom or freedom to choose:
It is the decision of choosing between "this" or "that". It means to continue "attached" to something or to finish with such attachment. It is the decision of using "this" or "that" possibility.
To explore all the alternatives and use the capaccity for decision by cubans means today to use the possibility of eliminating the attachment that prevents us to fight for more freedom.

d)Freedom of action.
It is the freedom to act. Man can intend to do things that are sometimes possible and sometimes impossible.

Nature's action and society not always coincide with man's action projects. We are talking now about a kind of freedom where man can freely act and not only choose among several alternatives.
In Cuba today, we must study well these three degrees of freedom and be aware that society and the state only can restrain the two latter expressions of freedom, for a time more or less long: that is, they can limit the freedom of election and the freedom of action, but the state and the government are absolutely impotent regarding the first two degrees of freedom once we are aware of them: the freedom of "being" and the freedom of the will.
The history of our land and the history of the international community show that when persons and people exercise the two first kinds of freedom, the restrictions to the other two kinds of freedom depend on the endurance or on the fight on the part of the people.
The paralisis occurs when there is no awareness of the degrees of freedom and when it is believed, supersticiously, that luck, fate or history are responsible for our future. Man ceases his freedom of being himself and ceases his free will. In Cuba, this is increasingly most frequent, as a consequence of ignorance and also because many times people believe in the myths created by the interests of power which, like an outstrip of historic materialism, make believe that the destiny of society is by no means, a kind of system like this.
Sometimes groups of persons emerge in Cuba that devote themselves to fight for freedom of action and for freedom of choosing (mainly the civil and political freedom); but they find many difficulties because they realize that many persons ignore or don't have strong will to live that kind of fundamental freedom which is being themselves and being the protagonists of their own lives so they live a life without meaning.
So it is the role of the family, the church and the school,
to educate the cuban man for freedom of being and freedom to master his will. Such education will be the premise and the basis for higher degrees of freedom and responsibility. This education will be also, the most important contribution to the ethical education of our people and to its spiritual development.
That was the task of the founding fathers of our nationality, specially Father Félix Varela who left his legacy written in the "Letters To Elpidio" (which remain unknown to the cuban people). He wrote here about the impiety, superstition and fanatism and their relationship with society. In Those letters, Félix Varela states: "In it shines the sublimity of the Gospel, and its divine shine covers all moral systems that human wisdom invented. It it, men of conciouness are created and not fake members of society."(quoted by Luz y Caballero, in his article published in the "Diario de La Habana" on december 29th 1835. "Vida de Varela" J.I. Rodríguez, pg. 138)

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SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF FREEDOM

We cubans must learn how freedom is manifested in the social structure,so we can be able to become eventually men of conciousness and free will.

a)Freedom is indivisible.
The implementation of freedom in social environment is indivisible: Inner or subjective freedom cannot be separated from external or objective freedom. The totality of freedom is the union between the freedom that man experiences and the series of external conditions created by society as educative manifestations, ways of
communication, preparation of the components of freedom in nature and in culture. If we add the former conditions to the inner freedom and if we transform those very conditions driven by the freedon for being and deciding, so the fact of being free and "have" liberties, will be two indivisible ways of freedom as we exercise it in society.

b) Freedom is historical.
Human freedom is not mere performance of a "self as such", out the context of his history. Liberty is only exerted when it becomes "real" in the history of science, religion, politics, arts, the state, etc. And viceversa: Human history only exists when it is the expresion of each man's freedom. "Freedom becomes history and history is made out of freedom".

c) Freedom is social.
Freedom is real only through social integration of free manifestations. This is the origin of solidarity and socialism. It is impossible to speak of an unlimited freedom and absolutely individual, without any social character and without respect for others. But it is impossible either to speak of absolute freedom of the community for being itself, through the unpersonification of its members.

d) Freedom is personal.
Although freedom is social, the ultimate subject of freedom is only the individual person. Only the individual is able to come to be himself and to belong to himself. Only the person is the carrier and the co-author of freedom together with the Creator. Only if the human person is free can a community or a nation be also free. So a people's freedom cannot be understood as the state's freedom or social freedom if there is any violation or diminishing or ignorance of the persons' freedom. It is a deception to speak of freedom of the Land if ecah one of the Land's children is not educated for "being" free or for "exercising" liberties.

e) Freedom is supportive.
The two former principles don't exclude the following deffinition or proposal, although historically, there have been social and economic models that have only gone to extremes: to liberal individualism and to socialist colectivism. The principle of "supportive freedom" establishes a link and regulates the two former principles thus implementing freedom and liberties without preference either for the person or for society or the state.
The supportive principle means that each social group: family, natural group, association, church, municipality, state, exercises its own freedom and implement only those liberties that don't harm the capacity of person for being free and their spaces for freedom. The lower levels in social organization should not be harmed either. Each part will do only and all that the other parts are not able to do freely.
Without this supportive principle, the state will invade the spaces of civil society, families and persons. And that would be an example of extreme colectivism, that is the paternalist state or state omnipresence. The other extreme is to exercise a principle of "save yourself", which defends the no interference of the state and other structures thus excluding solidarity from freedom implementation.

Here in Cuba we've had the experience of the two models
with their shadows and variations, sometimes radical and other times mild. I believe that the inmediate future gives us an opportunity to implement, with the contribution of all, a new model where we can find the supportive principle as well as the rest of ways for freedom and responsibility practice. All these ways and principles must provide a balance among all the forces in the country but they must exclude violence as a method to transform society. Martí wondered about this method:
"Has freedom exercising taught men to improve their destiny without violence? It seems so: seems like the fact of being themselves, here in this part of the world, has shown men a way to remake the world, without the threat of blood. There are two things which are glorious: the sun at the sky and freedom on earth".(Obras Completas Tomo 1 pg. 1701)
We cubans must think on this question and find the cause that has unleashed violence which threaten the future. We must ask ourselves if the cause is the lack of that "being themselves" that Martí considers freedom is.
In my opinion, the moments we are living have certain characteristics: this is a historical juncture when it is impossible to go back to the past and at the same time, the pacific transit to the future is not easy because we don't exercise freedom and responsibility. It is more urgent that we don't follow foreign doctrines or masters but that we learn from that "freedom practice" which belongs to our historical experience.
The only school for freedom is to exercise it. And if we do it correctly, that is, with justice, there will be no violence and it paves the way for pacific changes. Martí's words sound like the psalm: "Mercy and faithfulness meet, justice and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness comes out the earth and justice watches from the sky". Psalm 84)
From this perspectve of the Church social doctrine, freedom in neither unlimited not individualist. We believe that freedom finds its proper limits when it meets the respect for other's freedom and rights.
We will always have to go to ENEC teachings about these essential concepts: "Christian antropology is incompatible with individualism, which ignores the communitarian dimension of the person. It is incompatible too with the ways of colectivism that, in the opposite extreme, doesn't take into account in a proper way, the demands of the individual related to the person's inalienable freedom. However, it will be never said that the christian perspective on human rights justifies the unlimited freedom of the "stronger ones"(either physically, economically or culturally) in order to opress the "weakest"... freedom cannot be brandished as a pretext for arrogance in human relationships". (ENEC no. 300)

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RESPONSIBILITY AND GUILT

We have to analize here the difference between responsibility and guilt which "in common language and even in technical language are considered many times as synonims. The responsible for a bad action frequently appears to be as guilty. And if there is an element that diminishes his guilt, then it is said that he is "less" responsible. In order to prevent this deception, we have to find where the difference is. That's why it is said many times that "good will is not enough"...Any one can have wonderful intentions to help, serve or do the good and however he performs badly or make mistakes at being impolite. Intentions can be right and the consequences can result regretable...Nevertheless, if one acts with good faith and willingly, would never be condemned..."(Rincón y col. Op. cit. pg. 441)
In that sense all of us are responsible for our free and concious actions although we are not always guilty of the cosequences of these actions. Responsibility comes from free, deliberate and concious acting. Guilt comes from free and accepted bad will. All guilty persons are responsible for their acts, but not all responsible for certain actions are guilty of the provoked disasters. In civil life, guilt is punished through the implementation of the penalty code. Responsibility is punished through administrative measures about the damages and this doesn't mean necessarily that there has been guilt.
Saint Agustín speaks about freedom without guilt, as a good start in walking the long way to freedom: " The first freedom means to be free from crime...such as homicide, adultery, fornication, robbery, fraud, sacrilege and sins.
Once one begins to be not guilty of these crimes, he begins to lift his eyes to freedom. But this is nothing more than the start, and not the perfect freedom".( In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus, 41, 9-10)
In our society, it is most frequent to be confused about what freedom really is and sometimes there is a sort of "licentiousness". Many times, responsibility is viewed as guilt. Let's lift our eyes to freedom and let's be out of that deception which, on one hand can create injustice if the responsible without bad intentions are taken as guilt; and on the other hand, that deception can make us think that we are not responsible for what happens out of our small personal of familiar sorroundings and that we are not guilty of those events.
When somebody says that every nation has the government it deserves and that each citizen has a share of responsibility for the destiny of his country, we feel sad and without peace, because we realize that all of us are responsible for the present state of things, apart from how guilty we are of each situation.
To avoid this responsibility is to accept how scared we are to acknowledge what we are: the suppliers for the sovereignty that lies in each of us and in the whole people. To exercise that responsibility is to exercise democracy. The people that ceases this sovereign responsibility because "it is not guilty for what is happening", is deceiving itself and becomes impoverished due to the resignation to its own share of freedom.
What is necessary to do in order to prevent the person's resignation to freedom and in order to limit the freedom of action of the governments which take advantages of this citizen fagility? "It is necessary to create governments among humans which are able to protect humans' rights.
The nourishment of goverments is the participation and consent of the people, because the people is the sovereign one. And we must not forget the supportive principle of freedom... that's why the governments should have limits. The state is an aid, a subsidy; it's not an end in itself. The state must be forbidden to do what persons or associations can do by themselves, thus protecting the dignity of persons and free associations.In catholic teachings, the state has limits. It is supposed to protect human freedom and dignity; if it violates them, this state has no legitimity anymore. The human persons were not made for the state. It's just the other way around: the state was made for the persons".("El pensamiento social católico y las instituciones liberales". Michael Novak, pg. 307-308)
If we want to make some criticism on these trends and if we want to recognize the legitimacy, usefulness or value about them; or if we want, on the contrary recognize their ambiguity, dangers and mistakes, we need to examine them bearing in mind that freedom depends mainly on truth. This relation with truth has been clearly and masterly said by Christ when he said: "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free".(John 8, 32). (Veritatis Splendor 34).

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FREEDOM AND TRUTH

The relationship between freedom and truth is the foundation for the christian analysis on these topics.
Knowing the truth about man, about the church and about God himself, is finding the certain way to full freedom, truely human and humanizing.
Every time that truth about man or about God has been
disguised, freedom has been the one sacrificed by religious or political fanatism, by the excesses of superstition and fundamentalism,or by the excesses of rationalism or spiritualism. All these extremes have something in common: all of them deny or hide part of the truth and all of them limit freedom in one or another extreme of the social or political spectrum.
"It is a mistake to consider freedom far away from the obedience to truth and thus, far away from the duty to respect the rights of the other men. The contents of freedom is then transformed into self-loving, with contempt to God and the fellow-men. This is a love that leads to unlimited strengthening of self interest, and does not obey justice." (Centessimus Annus 17)
José Martí expresses this union between truth, freedom and justice, as he states:
"We don't want to get rid of one tyrany to receive another
one. We don't want to be out of one hipocresy to get into another one. We love freedom, because we see truth in it.
We will die for real freedom and not for the freedom that
is a pretext to have some men in excessive joy and other in unnecessary pain". (Obras Completas tomo1, pg. 439)

So we can summarize that the close relationship between truth and freedom leads to the inseparable link between freedom and justice and between freedom and solidarity.

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FREEDOM AND SOLIDARITY

This is the cornerstone of the christian definition of freedom and responsibility: solidarity which allows the others the exercise of the own being free.
Christian freedom is freedom for love and service, for interdependence among the members of the human community. Solidarity means that interdependence is received and recognized among men as a relevant system of relationships in the present world regarding the economic, cultural, political and religious aspects. When that interdependence is accepted as a moral category, solidarity is its corresponding answer as social and moral attitude and as "virtue".
"So we can say that solidarity is not a superficial feeling towards the evils that many persons suffer (close or not close persons). On the contrary, solidarity means a strong and persevering determination of committing in favor of the common good; that is, for the sake of all and each one of us, because all of us are truely responsible for all of us". (S.R.S. 38)

In Cuba,for long decades, we had lived in a climate of solidarity, promoted and respected as a signal of social justice and of the cuban way of being. We've known about many sincere and every day manifestations of solidarity.
However, this solidarity has been and is limited in its freedom of action because the "official" solidarity, that is officially sponsored, more as a slogan than as an implemented virtue, was an exclusive and sectarian solidarity which offered help only to the ones who professed the same ideology and political system.
We saw and suffered many times the fact that the ordinary people, who were used to that boasted solidarity of cubans, became amazed when they witnessed those so called "acts of repudiation" that occurred in several ocassions in our national history. Those acts only brought into evidence, the already establihed and silent every day segregation of those who think freely, with their own brains, and who strive for higher degrees of freedom as the sovereign exercise of civic responsibility.
They were free but they couldn't enjoy this part of liberty. That's why, even today, José Martí's words still have force because there is a limited freedom which is a hindrance to solidarity among cubans. In the future, freedom should have a proper use. "Freedom is not a flag with a shadow for the winners who swallow the defeated and overwhelm them with constant malice: freedom is a healthy crazy woman who has a father- the most sweet of fathers- "love"; and she has a mother-the richest of mothers- "peace". (O.C. tomo 2, pg. 589)
May never again cubans build a system of freedom without justice and solidarity or a system of social justice and solidarity without freedom.

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PERSONAL FREEDOM AND STRUCTURAL SIN

According to what we have analized about the unbreakable link between the subjective or inner dimensions of freedom and its manifestations in the structures, we can conclude that in the genesis of all lack of social freedom and responsibility, there is sin. Sin, "which separates man from God, inevitably devides men".
Sin is the result of man's freedom... but at the same time, man's freedom is hurt by sin "which means a depreciation of man (cfr. G.S. 13). Sin goes against man's authentic dignity and leaves sequels in social life". (John Paul II. Speech to the Young In Vienn 10-9-83)
These sequels in social life and these failures in the functioning of human living together invade slowly all activities of groups, institutions and the economic and political power of the nations, which, instead of creating an atmosphere of fraternal interaction and solidarity, create an atmosphere that favors injustice and personal and social corruption.
"We must speak then of structures of sin which come from the original sin and of course united to person's concrete acts. So the persons introduce sin and they make it difficult its elimination. Thus, these very structures reinforce, get spread and are the source for other sins. All this determine man's behavior". (S.R.S.36)
After analizing all that, we can understand the reality lived at present by all the peoples on earth, and by our people too. We can also find other elements that help us discover the origin of moral disorder, administrative corruption, social indiscipline and structural injustice. Persons by
themselves will not be able to get rid of these things.
It is not enough to find personal solutions to the moral
evils, in order to create the favorable conditions for the growing of freedom and responsibility in Cuba. The personal solution can be one step; the following step could be to find solutions to the social structures and create an environment in which dignity, rights and man's trascendent vocation can grow without barriers difficult to break. If we don't do that, "we are offending God and harming our fellow-men and we are also creating obstacles that go far beyond the actions and the short life of the individual. The development of peoples is also harmed. This slow development must be analyzed under the light of these concepts". (íbidem)
This is, above all, an ethical and moral problem. Here lies the difference between a mere sociological or psychological analysis of freedom and responsibilty exercise in Cuba, and an analysis that can go deep into the ethical origin of these behaviors, personal or communitarian.
In order to go to this ethical level it's necessary to define the causes for "these attitudes opposed to God's Will and to fellow-men's good. These attitudes lead to certain structures. Two causes appear to be the most common: the greed for profits on one hand, and on the other hand the greed for power, with the purpose of imposing to others, one's own will. We can add a phrase to these attitudes. This phrase is: "at any cost". In other words, we are dealing with human "absolute" attitudes, and with all their possible consequences...If we identify the evil we will be able to identify properly what way the human behavior should be in order to overcome the difficulties".(S.R.S.37) .

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HUMAN RIGHTS: LIBERTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Up to here, we have made an analysis about the freedom exercise as to degrees and dimensions. Now, it's necessary to analyze the link between freedom as self control and individual life protagonism, and civil and political liberties which are intrinsically united to human rights.
Indeed, after so many suspicions and misleadings in former centuries, the Church Social Doctrine goes deep into this present topic of civic liberties and human rights.
The relationship between freedom and human rigths was solemnly established in the Enciclic "Pacem in Terris" by John XXIII and confirmed by the Concilium and all pontifice documents that came later.
"In all human living together, ordered and profitable, we must establish as a foundation, the principle that every man is a person, that is, a nature bestowed with inteligence and free will. Therefore, man has inherent duties and rights... These duties and rights are then universal and unravishing; we musn't resign to them under any circumstances".(P.T.9)
The dignity of a person is the point of coincidence between three aspects: the liberty the person enjoys, the rights exercised by her and the liberties and rights she respects in others.

Here is a list of human rights that the Pope John XIII made:

1-The right to exist, to body preservation...to a decent living standard: food, dressing, housing, rest, medic aid, personal and social security.

2-The right to a good reputation; to the possibility of freely searchig for truth,state and spread one's ideas and to exercise any profession; to have available objective information about public events; to obtain culture and to the fundamental instruction; to professional and technical education.

3-Family rights: to choose the state of life, a united family and the right to support and educate the children.

4-Economical rights: to a job, to free initiative in work management, to a fair salary and specially the rights of the young and women at work.

5.The right to private property: of goods and of the means for production, with the proper social function.

6.Rights for meeting and associating: to get together in a pacific way; to give the created associations the proper ways; to act inside associations freely and with responsibility; to lead the associations to the intended results.

7.Residence and emigration rights: to strongly respect the right of each man to maintain or change his residence inside the country or abroad.

8.The right to be part of the public life: man should be sunject, element and end of social life instead of being an object or a passive member of society.

9.The right to juridical security: efficient and legitimate defence, equal for all and ruled by objective justice.

10.The right to freedom of conciousness and to profess religion in public or in private.

Each one of these rights correspond to specific liberties, duties and responsiblities that we should not forget because human rights are not valid if citizens don't know them and don't exercise them with the corresponding responsibility; responsibility to enjoy liberties and at the same time exercising the duties.

Now we must say that:
-As to the right to a dignified life there is a corresponding freedom of being able to design our lives independent from the state and from any ideology. And there is a corresponding responsibility of exercising the proper protagonism in a projec of life without self- censorship or indulgence.
-If we are to enjoy the right to good reputation, to culture education and proper information, then there is a corresponding freedom to create philosophical and religious orientation in schools, and to have the possibility of having independent social means of communication. All that has to be made by artists and writers. But at the same time, the ones in charge of this, have the responsibility of not defaming, and not manipulate private lives in public; they have the responsibility to maintain ethics in culture and in the social means of communication; and the responsibility to create schools with a liberating participative and pluralist pedagogy.
-To family rihgts correspond the liberties of marital union, the liberty to choose the number of children, the orientation for the children's education. To these liberties correspond the responsibility to choose according the conciousness and the value system, to support the family with by working, and the active participation in the children's education and giving priority to it.
-To economic rights there is a correspondance of self-management freedom, free employment, participation in the enterprise organization, and in their profits and management. To this corresponds the responsibility of working independently, efficiently, with perseverence and honesty.
-To the rights for private property correspond the freedom to possess it and inherit it, sell it or share it and the responsibility to respect others' properties and implement the social function that every property has.
-To the right for association and meeting together, correspond the civil liberties to organize independently from the state and the parties; to the freedom of association for moral and pacific purposes, correspond the responsibility to respect the person and not crush this person with colectivism; and the responsibility for the autonomy of associations through the efforts of their members. these associations have to be honest and partcipative in their management.
- As to residence and inmigration rights, they will not be limited because of political or economic purposes. The citizens will be responsible for their sense to belonging, for respecting the culture they will live in and they must obey the fair inmigration laws. The state will have the responsibility of not limiting these liberties arbitrarily, and not using them for political purposes.
-As to the right to be part of public life, correspond the political liberties of free elections, of representation in the state instances, of free access to public duties without discrimination for political, race or religious reasons.As to citizens they must be responsible for getting the proper civic education, to gain space of participation and to build a democracy withot corruption.
-To the right to juridical security correspond the liberties of choosing lawyers, having courts of justice independent from the state and the repressive institutions; the possibility to change and renovate the civil and penalty code; to have the proper juridical assessment and education. To this correspond the possibility to know the laws, implement them, denounce injustice and promote a state of rights which includes the division of powers and their mutual control.
-As to the rights of conciousness we should say that "the rights for religious freedom and to conciouness respect in its way towards truth, is viewed as the foundations for the person's rights as a whole".(Veritatis Splendor 31) To this right corresponds the freedom of worship, the freedom to the church to undrertake its triple mission: prophetic, charitative, and cultural; the state has the responsibility to safeguard the possible legal spaces, and christians have the rsponsibility to demand and use these spaces fro service.
Here lies the link between religious freedom and all the other liberties.
Martí had the same opinion when he sayd: "as long as spiritual freedom is not assured, political freedom will not survive... there are campaigns in favor of political freedom. there should be more vigorous campaigns in favor of spiritual freedom". (O.C. tomo 2 pg. 115 y 449)
He also assures: "freedom must be theological in order to be accepted" (O.C. tomo 1 pg. 1256)

This explains the fact that when one people is limited in its religious freedom and its freedom of conciousness, all liberties crumble down, "because nothing develops virtue". This phrase is very alike to the one by father Varela: "There is no Land without virtue, and there is no virtue with impiety". So there is no land if the citizens don't have free access to religious expression.
Privatization of religion led society to believe that this right belonged to the intimate environment(an individual liberty).This brought as a consequence that public life was deprived from the firm component of ethics, of life in truth and virtue.
That's why we must remember the non-absolute characteristic of the laws which restrain or strengthen man's freedom. Saint Tomás de Aquino said(and we agree): "Human legislation becomes law only when it adjusts to reason, which means that it's compulsory character comes from eternal law. If law gets away from reason, it is necessary to declare it unjust, because it wouldn't be a law anymore; it would rather be a kind of violence" (Suma. Teol.. 1-2,93, 3 and2.) (Catecismo Iglesia Cat. no. 1902)

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FREEDOM, LIBERALISM AND LIBERATION

Before stating the proposals for the future, it is very important to distiguish between freedom, liberalism and liberation.
Indeed, "sometimes there is a certain overuse of freedom thatc omes aling with a very compulsive behavior about consuming, which is not controlled by morality. This fact, at the sme time limits aothers' liberties, that is, the liberty of those who later will be driven to great poverty and indigent conditions.(R.H.16)
When this personal attitude becomes part of social structures then emerge economic and ideological systems that are called liberalism and neo liberalism.

Critcism to liberalism by Paul VI is still in force nowadays:
"The liberal ideology... intends to exalt individual freedom by depriving it from all limitations and driving it to search for pure interest and power. This ideology believes that social solidarity is a consequence of individual initiatives and not an end and a priority of social organization.(O.A.26

The new proposals to go ahead in the way to freedom and
responsibility in Cuba should not be economic liberalism which forgets the ethical and social regulations of market, but at the same time we must accept the dinamic role of market in the production of goods.
After having criticized marxism which led to atheist materialism and colectivism and unpersonification, we should not be tempted to include liberalism as an alternative, without an ethical analysis.
At present, many authors have made a serious effort to modernize liberal thought and adapt it to the social doctrine of the church.(Cfr. "El pensamiento social católico y las instituciones liberales" de Michel Novak. 1992). However, we should differentiate the ideas of political liberalism and liberalism as an ideology. The former is in favor of civil liberties and rejects all kinds of authoritarism. The latter gives preference to capital above work. "From this pespective we ca still consider unacceptable the position of "strict" capitalism which is in favor of the paramount right to private property on means of production as an untochable dogma in economic life. The principle of "the right to work", demands a possitive review in theory and in practice".(L.E.14)
In a reflexion like the one we're doing in Coba todat, we christians should make a contribution to our people, together with the truth about man and his freedom: this contribution is to explain te consequences that the "pedulum theory" could bring to our Land once again, as the "only" alternative to the present situation.

Some that share neoliberalist ideas, belive that the ones that don't agree with that ideology belong to "the perfect
latin-american idiots". However, by the 70's, this ideology had received a strong criticism by Paul VI, long before the crumbling down of real socialism made some believe that the only solution was pragmatism without social ethics:
"the liberal ideology is being renewed. This trend is supported by the principle of economic efficiency,with the purpose of defending the individual from the increasing invasion of organizations and also from the totalitarian trends of political powers. Certainly, personal initiative must be maintained and developed. But the christians who commit thenselves with this theory sometimes tend to idealize liberalism which becomes then a proclamation for freedom, isn't that so? They would want a new model, better adapted to the present conditions, and they easily forget that the very roots of philosophical liberalism are a wrong reassurance of the individual and his activities, his motivations, the exercise of his freedom. That's why the liberal ideology also requires, on the part of christians a careful analysis".(O.A.35)

We must notice that the Pope suggests that an analysis should be made and that the liberal economic and philosophical alternative sholud not be accepted just like this, without an ethical evaluation. The same analysis is made on marxism-leninism and its economic and philosophical practice in real socialism.
"This criticism is aimed not so strongly at the economic system as such, but at the ethical and cultural system.

Indeed, economy is only one aspect of the copmlex human activity. if economic activity becomes absolute, if good consuming becomes the center of the social life, these goods then become the only value in society (not subordinated to any other). The cause is to be found not only and not much in the economic system but in the fact that the whole social and cultural system, is weakened, once it has ignored the religious and ethic dimension". (C.A.39)
There has been confusion about these dimensions. This confusion has led to myths and misunderstandings about those philosophical and theological trends which have intended to give alternatives to the need of coming out of the serious and recurrent situations of exploitation of man by man and of man by the state.
There are two documents which explain vey well the differences between the process of human liberation from the historical movements and political systems. These documents are: the Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi"(1976) and the Instruction of the Congregation for the Faith Doctrine on christian freedom and liberation "Libertatis Conscientia" (1986)
In the ENEC it is said: "Christ has insisted on liberating ourselves from inner evil, selfishness, stuburnness, from personal sin(source of social sin and colective -structural sin. Christians should take their own responsibility, the political decisions, necessary for liberation at the structural, social and political levels, so that these decisions can be consistent , as much as possible, with the spiritual (non "idealist") requirements of the Gospel"
(ENEC 279)

The words from Paul VI are always inspiring: "The church has always the duty to announce liberation to millions of human beings... the duty to to help this liberation to be born, to give testimony of this liberation and to make it to be total..."(E.N.30)
This makes us to offer our people the service to end with myths through profetism that comes from the Gospel. This profetism doesn't idealize any social and economic system as full implementation of God's kingdom. The Gospel doens't identify political and civil liberties with christian liberation.
We sometimes are confused about the process of transition to a higher liberty and the process of transition from one government to another or from an idelogy into another.This is only one extaernal aspect of the changes.We cubans should not be afraid of an authentic process of transition which is something natural to a live organism, to every social structure that cnnot remain unchangeable as time and generations go by.

The authentic transition which gives way to the others transitions is a process that has two essential stages:
-to brake the childish dependance that gives security and confusing unity with the masses, in order to begin being ourselves and have a unique and personal identity. This is the process of personification, which makes us adults in freedom.
-and, after having got our own freedom, to create another kind of relationship that can be the expresion of maturity and that allow to trascend selfishness and address the other person as a unique individuality. Then we will create solidarity among us and there will be a community of persons and not a colective group organized by a "historic" order or by the authority. It would be a process of socialization that makes us adults in solidarity.
If man goes back to individualism, after he had accepted the solidarity relationship, then tha transition was false, and it was really a going backwards to the stage prior to personification, which creates another fake way of freedom without solidarity.
"As man gains freedom, in the sense of his emergence from the primitive indistinct unity with the others and with nature, and as he is more an individual, he has an increasing need to make a decition: hea has to join the world spontaneously through love and creative work; or else, he will have to find some kind of security that will garantee such links which will destroy his freedom aind his individual integrity".(E. Fromm, "Fear For Freedom", pg. 40)

I propose those terms in order to evaluate te transition processes to come as aternatives for the present and the future of Cuba. The way to human improvement is not made through the denial of dialectic transit of History. It is made through the analysis of each proposal in order to choose the way forwatd and towards deep social relationships.

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THE ULTIMATE OF HUMAN LIBERTIES

Now that we are arriving to the end of the analysis on all these concepts about personal freedom and social liberties, Y wish to cite one great assertion by the austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl based on his own personal experience. Through that experience he reaffirms his faith in man and in his capacity to "keep a vestige of his personal freedom, of mental independence, even in the terrible circumstances of physical and psyquic stress. Those who were in a concentration camp, like we did, remember the men who went from one barrack to the other, giving consolation to the others and giving them the last crumb of bread. They might have been just a few, but they were a strong evidence of the fact that man can be deprived from eveything except from the ultimate of human liberties: the choice to decide his personal behavior under certain circumstances in order to build his own path". ("Man In Search For Meaning".pg. 69)
This inner freedom is the one that cannot be totally alienated in all men. These men are always the ones who "have in them the dignity of many others".
This reason is the ultimate for the ones that don't believe in the possibility for the moral and spiritual recovering of a people. This reason is a supreme one for those who become desperate when they see how many of their fellow-men resign to their freedom. There must not be any chance for discouragement and paralysis, inspite of the great past and present sufferings of our people.
Dostoievski once said: "I only fear one thing: not decerving my sufferings". This is the ultimate and inalienabe inner liberty of man: the capacity for choosing his attitude towards suffering. Inner freedom can become poor and external liberties can get crushed up to incredible degrees in nowadays civilization; but those who have been able to experience with dignity and with serene nobility this painful robbery of their possibilities, have achieved a genuine inner triumph.
"This spiritual freedom that cannot be carried away from us, it is what gives meaning to our lives. The way in which one man accepts his fate and all the suffering it brings about, the way he carries his cross, gives him many opportunities- even under the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to his life. This man can keep his bravery, his dignity, his generosity. Or else, in the hard strive for survival, he can forget his human dignity and being almost like an animal...here lies the opportunity that man has to take advantage of the difficult situations that will give him merits, or simply of letting them go. His choice will decide if he deserves his sufferings or not".
(Ibidem pg.71)

I propose this kind of life meaning to those who say that life is escaping from us while we are striving for survival. I propose this generosity that recalls us "He who loved us to the extreme". This is the opportunity which is common to everyone: to the ones who enjoy liberties but are making a bad use of it; to those who don't have almost any kind of liberty, but who keep the ultimate freedom which is the sanctuary of human conciousness.
I'm thinking about those men in my country who "prefer to close their eyes and live in the past. They see no meaning in their present lives...they believe that the opportunities for living completely happy don't exist...they are living without recognizing the great challenge of exercising the ultimate freedom: or else they can turn the bad experiences into victories, "life into an inner triumph; or else they can ignore the challenge and just languish..."(Ibidem, pg.75)
This analysis intends to be a word of solidarity and encouragement for going beyond the every day life and trascend the injustice and human miseries, going beyond the lowest level in life and being able to give credit to the real meaning of the sanscrit root of the word liberty which evokes the idea of "coming up" of "improving" human life.(C.F.R. Diccionario del cristianismo pg.432).

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FREEDOM OF GOD´S CHILDREN

This supreme quality of freedom which lifts life up to higher degrees of liberty and responsibility (personal and communitary), is for those who share our faith, means to follow the path of He who "inspite of his divine condition, didn't boast about his category of God; on the contrary, he divested himself of his nature and accepted the condition of a servant, just being one of them. And thus, acting as an ordinary man, he humbled himself and even walked the path of obedience all the way to death, his death on the cross.For this reason God raised him to the
highest place above and gave him the Name-above-every-
name". (Philippians 2,6-11)

To "free" is to "raise" if the one who suffers takes the way of giving himself: "Nobody takes my life away from me; I give it willingly"-said Jesus Christ- "that's why when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me"(John 12,32)
The question is to free together the one who suffers and the one who causes suffering. That freedom is indivisible.
Mandela said: "I new better than anyone that it is necessary either to free the oppresor and the oppresed.He who takes away freedom from others is a prisoner of hatred, is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow mind. Nobody is really free if he steals freedom from another.And nobody is free if freedom has been taken away from him. Either the opressor and the opressed are deprived from their humanity".(O.Cit.pg.647)
These concepts of "overall" and "shared" freedom, have a christian origin and it stresses that the real freedom of God's children is universal and it is never a freedom against others or a freedom through violence. It is the freedom through the path of giving and self-sacrifice which is offered to free the ones who are crucifying us "because they don't know what they are doing". It is the freedom that comes through the path of forgiveness and reconciliation.
That is the most noted path of freedom. Iti s the path of the freedom of God's children. This path is announced by Saint Paul in Omans 8,21 when he compares Creation to a woman who cries out giving birth, but hoping that "the very creation would be freed from the slavery of corruption, to go into the glorious freedom of God's children".

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PROPOSALS TO IMPLEMENT

According to the presented analysis on cuban reality and about the way we believe freedom and responsibility work under the social teachings of the church, we make some proposals to implement:

1-TO GIVE PRIORITY TO ETHICAL EDUCATION

Through the implementation of education on virtues and human and civic values that leads to real education for freedom and responsibility, through a particpative and liberating pedagogy.
The characteristics of this liberating education must be:
-No more manipulation of persons and not treat them like
"objects", but promoting a process of self esteem and self management that drive persons to be protagonist of their own freedom.
-Not to run away from reality anymore. Not to be influenced or driven by the environment, but to accept reality in a process of belonging, to evaluate that reality through an ethical analysis and use all personal and structural means in order to transform that reality.
-To educate the conciousness for criticism so that criterion may be used in order to face alternatives that appear in life. As this moral conciousness develops, we have to adjust subjective truth to objective truth, and besides we have to gain transparency and certainty for our conciousness.
-To promote a system of values that gives priority to "being" over "having", "knowing" or "power".
-To stimulate the ethical analysis in order to choose a definite personal life project that can give meaning to existence and can favor generous giving and solidarity.
-To facilitate an educative process that allows persons to
have consistent attitudes in their life projects in each aspect of every day life. (C.F.R. "Educación liberadora" by Paulo Freire y "Ciclo de ética" by the Religious and Civic Education Center in Pinar del Río)

A lot has been said about economic and material reconstruction in Cuba. In the former Social Week we called the attention on the need for rebuilding civil society. Now we wish to add, besides the two former, the moral rebuilding of our country.
The Project for Civic Education for Cuba published by the CFCR* in Pinar del Río, can be a proposal to begin the debate on this.

2- IMPLEMENT PERSONALISM IN OUR REALITY

Another proposal is to study deeply that "movement" called "personalism" by its author Enmanuel Mounier. He didn't want it to be either a philosophical trend or an ideology or even a social or economic system.
Cuba has experienced the crisis of capitalism and the crisis of socialism as well, so we must look at this trend
which might illumunate our search for a future project in the cuban nation without a deceiving going back to the past.
Let's listen to the very Mounier when he says: "When facing the crisis(many were hiding its seriousness), there were two opposed explanations. The marxist said:
"classical economic crisis, structural crisis. Economy must change and illness will stop. The moralists opposed: man's crisis, custom crisis, value crisis. Man must change and societies will heal. And I state: the crisis is a double one:an economic crisis and a man's crisis ("What
Is Personalism" pg.20)
We already know about the results of economic adjustments, of openings only in the areas of markets without openings in personal and social lives. We already know about the effects of running away from reality when there is an intention to "safe" man through morality and to take him away from his environment to be transformed individually without any intention to transform the structures.
Not everybody is discouraged today tinkihg that there are no ways out. There is a book: "Génesis, estructura y crisis de la modernidad", by Valverde C. where it is stated on page 362: "When Marxism definitely failed, the japanese-northamerican professor Francis Fukuyama thought that in liberal democratic societite nowadays in western countries, humankind has found the maximum point of development and so the "end of history" has arrived, because dramatic contradicctions of former times are finished in these societies. No other system than liberalism is in the horizon. Fortunately, it's not like this. Human freedom and spirit are able to find infinite innovations in their search for more truth, more good, and more "being". We cannot accept the end of history in a system so little human as liberalism...and we are not talking here about the liberal spirit understood as respect for others, capacity for dialogue, for living together anf for cooperating. In that sense, we all should be liberal".
Martín Buber was another representative of personalism, and he prophetically annonced in the middle of World War II: " Y see in the horizon, coming very slowly, as all developments of true human history do, such a great unhappiness as it has never happened before. The problem won't be anymore to oppose to one or another dominat trend in the name of oter trends, but to react against te achievement of a great dream of community, the dream of its authentic attainment... The first step will be to destroy the false alternative which has overwhelmed the thought of our age: the alternative between individuaism and colectivism. The frist search will be towards the excluded genuine alternative". (Buber M. "?Qué es el hombre? pg.145-146)

That excluded alternative is personalism which is still today "non-attainable for many, because they see in it a system and it is just a change, a perspective, a metod, a demand".(C.F.R. E. Mounier Op. Cit. pg. 175- 178)
Personalism is PERSPECTIVE: because it opposes a spiritual realism to idealism and materialism, in an effort to reach the unity of the perso which was dispersed by the two former trends. Man's fate is viewed from this new angle under these three dimensions: material, inner and trascendent.
Personalism is METHOD: because it rejects at the same time, the deductive method of all kinds of dogmatism and the primary empiricist of "realists". Our immediate destiny is to go forward in history and to make history in an eterna perspective where all human work has ita ultimate end beyond itself. On the other hand, human condition cannot be enclosed in a definitive design. This design acn only be determined by action. The standard for action is organized for the meeting with man's philosophy and a straight analysis on historical junctures, which are the ones that ultimately say what is possible and what is real.
Personalism is DEMAND: because it demands total and unconditioned commitment. Total commitment because it's only valid the brigtness it brings about and it is not allowed to be reduced to simple criticism. It is to understand in order to transform. Unconditined commitment because if we don't hold the "wheel" in our hands, the internal disagreement of men makes civilization balance fluctuate from time to time, either towards solitary complacence or towards colectve overwhelming or to idealist evasion. We are not dealing with a proposal of a myth, an impossible image of man. It is about the search for an eternal invention of a synthesis that cannot be appraised by an epoch: is to make that man comes to be more "a man": such is the task that, in our opinion, tradition and revolution, culture and changes dialogue and make one another walk along.

Now it is the task of the cubans who are interested in an alternative different from the past, to implement this perspective, this method, and this commitment under the present circumstances in our country; and to search for personalist alternatives in the area of economics, politics, in society, in culture, in families, in civil society organizations, in state structures, etc.
Martí's humanist thought and christian personalism have the same root. Let us just remember the Master's statement which says: "I wish the first law in our Republic to be the cubans' worship of man's full dignity".

3- TO REBUILD CIVIL SOCIETY: AS A SCHOOL FOR FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

This analysis we've made is linked to the project of reconstruction of civi society which we proposed for Cuba, during the II Catholic Social Week in 1994(C.F.R. Memoir pg. 57 to 105).
This project is urgent in order to achieve an authentic participative democracy which would prevent new manifestations of authoritarism. But above all it is essential for the persons who would have the necessary spaces to exercise freedom within a respectful pluralist environment and woud be trained in responsibility by sharing the tasks and projects within a group.
There cannot be national responsibility if this doesn't come from the small responsibilities, out of the framework of civil society. So freedom, responsibility, and civil society are like substance and laboratory, like matrix and criature. Without the union of these elements there is no life.
All this belongs to the the most genuine eclesial teaching,
John XXIII states this in the "Pacem in Terris", and it would be very good if cubans know it: "As we have already warned in the Enciclic "Mater et Magistra", it is absolutely necessary to found many intermediate associations and institutions able to attain the ends that the individuals canot attain by themselves effectively. Such associations and institutions should be assumed as highly indispensable instruments in order to defend dignity and freedom of the human person, living the sense o f responsibility safe". (P.T. 24 y M.M.60-65)
But we shoud not accept as institutions of civil society any kind of association without considering its characteristics.
"What counts-says the President of the Council for Justice and Peace- is the quality of this associated life for it to become a true school for responsibility, a popular school that cannot be replaced. Just like those micro-projects for help to the third world.
Indeed, the compulsion of a technical and burocratic society has the risk to atrophy the capacity for opposing determinism and so favoring the loss of the joy for freedom and creativity. The associated life, gives man again, the possibility to exercise his judgement and will, through offering him goals and possibilities of commitment attainable by everyone. The associated life contributes to recreate free men, as long as they don't become the receivers od subsidies or the victims of others' interests or the interests of a particular party". ("Avanzo como un asno", pg.175-176)
Besides, civil society is a school for willing solidarity: "Associated life multplies the spaces for the exercise of solidarity actively lived and not an imposed solidarity.These solidarities are not the same and it has to be willingly. A society where associated life is "alive" is a society in which the human component is much richer and thus, much more productive. It is important to help associations to analyze and fulfill their original mission of renovating the social framework..."(íbidem)
Due to all formerly exposed, the project of reconstruction of civil society in Cuba is, after three years completly in force and we could say that it is more urgent.

4- TO OPEN ECLESIAL SPACES: SIGNAL AND SACRAMENT OF FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

Indeed, due to the singular situation of our country, Y think that the church should give priority the opening of its traditional spaces and to new experiences that can be useful not only to christians, but to all good-willed men who get close to the church. These spaces will be as schools for freedom and responsibility.
Actually the services of christian worship, assistance and
education have increased, but as in any other part of the world, the church must be willing to promote services addressed to the men and women in our people whithout distinction of creed, philosophy, political opinion, etc.
These spaces for participation and reflexion, of study and social action such as groups of workers, econimists, educators, writers and artists, etc. They are already an experience lived and shared by some diocises. The ones existing should be extended and others should be created. We won't be able to go far in our long way to higher degrees of freedom and responsibility, if we don't have these small and genuine schools for communion and pluralist participation, amybe the only ones available to the majority of cubans.
Back in 1986, the ENEC recommended a participative ane coresponsible church because: "This opportunity for participation and co-responsibility inside the church is besides, a precious testimony and an announcement of how to carry out a social commitment of christians, their political mission in the context they live in, and their contribution to what should be the dynamics of the whole civil society", (ENEC 1133)

I believe that there are no doubts anymore about the fact that all this task is a part of the evangelizing mission of the church, of its projects of human promotion, of its prophetic mission, and of the exercise of religious freedom which is put at the service of the whole people, from which the church is an iseparable part. And if the church is part of the people, it preciesely because of it, that the chuch cannot resign to that freedom and that responsibilit. By doing this, the church will not seriously sacrifice its own identity.

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CONCLUSIONS

Cuba is heading for the third milenium of christian age. She is not walking alone or with the masses.
This way is a challenge to our capacity for being increasingly free and at the same time increasingly responsible.
Nor stuburnness or the fake transition to the past, will make easier the pacific walking to a future of more freedom and more solidarity.
Along this path of authentic transition (we can call it that way), to a really new society, Cuba must not either go to individualist liberalism or to colectivism without personification. She most go to human improvement and social justice. She must go to ethics and fraternity in the life of the nation's life. The center of this path must be the human person in all dimensions.
This path is made up of steps of freedom and reconciliation, of steps of responsibility and democratic participation. This path must be made up of signals and manifestations of love.

"He who loves says: "I expect "from" you and "for" us", because what is expected includes always the one who expects and the one we are expecting from. Hope is an act of faith in the other person. Hope is pacient, it trusts the good thing but at the same time accepts and loves reality, whatever it is. That's why the one who hopes lives according to reality, he is open to reality because, in any case, he believes in its possible kindness... To wait and to trust are the two basic elements in antropologic structure of hope. The pesimist is impatient, he doesn't have faith in reality and he gets desperate. The formula for hope is:
not to resist reality and not to acept it passively"(Valverde C. op. cit. pg.370)
According to this formula for hope I have been trying to approach, with an open spirit, the reality of my land. Because I love it is why I'm here; because I trust in the improvement of my land is why I wait, I expect; and because I hope is why I do whatever it is possible to contribute to transform the reality we share.
Between the diagnosis of reality and the utopia of what we cannot do, there is that space for the little for the possible at present, for going forward step by step heading for tomorrow. That's what keeps us, up in the air, insisting on hoping.
Hoping in God
Hoping in Cuba and in cubans.

Pinar del Río, May 8th 1997.

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