• by Leonardo Padura
• Tuesday, March 17, 2009
• Inter Press Service

For a number of years, and with increasing frequency, the historic leaders of the Cuban revolution (first Fidel Castro and now his brother Raul, currently president) have expressed concern that the major danger facing the country's political system and the revolutionary process that they began half a century ago is disintegration from within, writes Leonardo Padura, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

In this article, the author writes that in late December, Raul Castro made one of the most astonishing revelations heard in Cuba in recent years. Speaking of the existing distortions in the Cuban pay scale (the first being that almost no Cuban can live on the state salary alone, which has generated a wide range of modes of stealing and productive indolence), the president expressed the need to eliminate what have been labelled "improper perks" and "excessive subsidies", which came to a whopping 60 million dollars for 2008 alone.

How many homes could have been built with that 60 million dollars, in a country with more than half a million people who lack housing? How many decrepit hospital rooms, unpaved roads, drinking water pipes, or sewer components could be repaired with these funds? Although the changes announced by Raul Castro have not yet been implemented, there are certain important stirrings in the recesses of Cuban politics. Is this the real beginning of a change in the conceptual underpinning of the politics and economy of Cuba?

(*) Leonardo Padura is a Cuban writer and journalist. His novels have been translated into a dozen languages and his most recent work, La neblina del ayer, won the Hammett Prize for the best crime novel written in Spanish for 2005.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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