By Miguel Díaz-CanelBermúdez (President of Cuba)
On September 30, as previously reported, it closed the reception of messages about what «Think as a country» means, which we launched on August 26.
Our site (www.presidencia.cu) and that of Cubadebate (www.cubadebate.cu) published until the close, 1210 messages in their main pages and others, countless, in social networks.
Regarding what has been published, the president has written the following message to the participants:
Dear compatriots:
As I commented in a recent tweet, the response received to our invitation to «Think as a country» is impressive. Not so much for the quantity, which could not be greater in such a short time and in the conditions that the nation lives in recent weeks, but for the quality of the content.
Virtually all texts received convey enthusiasm, citizen responsibility and commitment. They are excited about sincerity in addressing our problems and the way in which criticism becomes in many cases self-critical and almost always translates into proposals.
Those who have reviewed the messages in detail will notice a clear harmony between what the Government has set out to do and what the citizens demand. The country we want is the same.
It is not the work of chance. It is the fruit of years of debates and searches for the strongest paths for our socialism to travel, in consultation with the people. Discussions about the Constitution and about the most proactive ways of dealing with the external fence and internal obstacles have contributed much to that harmony, which is part of our revolutionary history.
It would have been simple and easy to implement the adjustment policies with which neoliberalism created a dazzling welfare for Latin American minorities, while burying so many people in our region in misery since the distant 90s of the last century.
Cuba chose to preserve as much justice and social solidarity as possible. And we have had to pay a very high price: the blockade has escalated to unusual levels. Genocide is the exact word to rate it. And no one can deny that only thanks to history, unity and socialism, they have not been able to destroy us.
We firmly believe in the enormous potential of collective work and the experiences that all citizens can bring.
Exchanging criteria, connecting diverse proposals, which are the result of study and fundamentally of practice, help to light the way. The development, prosperity, well-being that our people expect and deserve cannot be installed by decree. Between purposes and conquests mediate circumstances.
Our greatest interest and effort is devoted to differentiating those that really depend on external factors. And not only the blockade, but above all the blockade: economic, financial and commercial – as well as its three surnames, equivalent to three fences – but also the unfair relations that the tyranny of the market imposes on all countries with less resources.
The other obstacles, those that depend on ourselves, are generally identified and named with all their letters in the documents that guide the work of the Party and the Government. And your messages have dissected you with the proverbial popular Cuban wisdom.
But it is not necessary to insist again and again on them, because it is also necessary to reflect on the quota that each one of us has in those harmful circumstances that we have contributed to create.
We have read each message with the greatest interest. And we are pleased to see that much of what is already being implemented or sought to transform from the Government, goes precisely through the ways that many of you propose in your writings.
You can see that «Think as a country» is much more than a slogan for hard times. It is an exercise in collective government that everyone can be a part of.
Fidel said that “When the country faces the empire in an unprecedented and unparalleled gesture, when it has become the first trench of the defense of America, when the country is what Marti wanted to do, it is a real privilege to be Cuban »
From that certainty our call to «Think as a country» was born. Thanks for the energy, trust and proposals.
Overcome.
By Miguel Díaz-CanelBermúdez
President of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba
"An Island on a Continent" 