Why Egypt Yes, and Not Cuba?

I respond immediately: because in Egypt there are many liberties, this country is not a totalitarian state, in Cuba, still there remains a totalitarian regime.In Cuba no one can do anything unless the government allow it.

Egypt, by contrast, citizens can call to protests, en masse meeting and asked to leave, to the government.The Cubans do not have rights of citizen, the people in Cuba can do not even start a protest, because, there exist controls on persons, from barrio committees to security bodies of the Cuban government, which then in the first signs of people meeting to protest, the Cuban dictatorship jails the people.

Then, how explain the falling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of "real socialism"?

Because there was a Soviet leader, whom I have always postulated as the most important statesman (but wrong) of the twentieth century. Michail Gorbachev pledged to respect the freedom and human rights, believing that this was possible under real socialism.

But socialism is such as dams or dikes, if they grab a small hole around. the water enters and gradually becomes a flood that sweeps away the dam.

The same thing happened with the Berlin Wall: a small space of freedom, allowed by Gorbachev, finished with all of all communist states.

Because - and this was the mistake by Gorbachev - "MAY NOT EXIST SOCIALISM AND FREEDOM AT THE SAME TIME. Socialism is the negation of personal free will. "

When the Soviet leaders were true socialists, Marxist-Leninists, they did not let even a hint of freedom in the USSR, or the satellite countries.

In Hungary they sent their tanks and smashed in the fifties, the regime of Imre Nagy, who tried open the windows of freedom. They did the same with Czechoslovakia in the 60's, when Dubcek tried to install a"socialism with a human face" (in that sense, was an early Gorbachev).



And Fidel Castro and "the island's communist oligarchy" will never allow to open a space of freedom. So in Cuba, it will not happen as in Egypt, "by right now. "

I say by right now, because Fidel and his closer comrades will not live for ever.

What happens in Egypt is typically a corresponding movement to what I call "herd effect", caused by the media, and the availability of personal communications, massive and instantaneous (cells phone,twitter, facebook). When the Egyptians saw that Tunisian, fell apart with relative facility a not democratic ruler (but not totalitarian) with the simple expedient of taking the streets, they wanted to do the same, because they are countries facing serious economic problems.

The "herd effect" is taking place across the Arab world and several governments will fall. Governments change, but do not systems.There are already many, after all, they agree that Mubarak is not so bad.

Problems of the Egyptians are not going to resolved by a change of administration. Probably achieve more political freedom and reforms.

What about Cuba?

There does not go to happen, nothing like that, because Cuba is ruled by a totalitarian regime, a dictatorship, where the more you get allowed is that the blogger Yoanni Sánchez send her dissenting views to other countries, but without those views, can become known in Cuba.

For sure, over of years the Castro brothers have to go, and then may be, there are elections, and Yoanni is elected as the first democratic president post-communist . But this is mere futurology, science in which I declare myself a dilettante.

Adapted and translated from Blog de Hermogenes “¿Por Qué en Egipto Sí y en Cuba No?” by Carlos Toledolabarca

Published at Allvoices