A People of Underage Children

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

I look with distaste -- why deny it -- at the face of Ramiro Valdes on TV. This time it’s about the sermon to the workers in the construction sector. I barely take the trouble to listen any more, every time he speaks it’s to scold us, he and Machado Ventura have been transformed, you might say, into the nannies of the Cuban citizen: admonitions, punishments, threats.

It’s always the same old story: work harder, ask for less, don’t complain too much, show a fighting spirit, finish the work of the Revolution, don’t divert resources, don’t expect incentives, trust the leaders of the process, be faithful to the Party... It’s the authoritarian father lecture to his eternally underage children.

Doesn’t Ramiro wonder what the builders would eat if they didn’t “divert” some bricks to sell in the black market? The union leaders, it seems, turn a blind eye. Could it be that they too need a salary to survive? Why don’t they show a little courage and pass the baton to the “deadbeats” to tell their version of the workers’ paradise?

Instead of threatening to remove incentives and perks -- which only causes opportunism and double standards to flourish -- he should ask why the wages aren’t reason enough to work hard, to get better results, to increase production. Of course, he would do it the truth mattered to him, and if -- in addition -- he wasn’t confusing the National Union of Construction Workers with a nursery school.