Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba

4. Assistance to Civil Society

C H A P T E R 4 Assistance to Civil Society Civil society activists can help develop a widespread sense of political efficacy in a population by conveying messages and information to that population. Citizens can be encouraged to participate in acts of defiance against a regime. Also, activists can inform people about outrageous acts committed by the authorities , and wrath can move people to engage in public protests. Activists can inform citizens about spontaneous protests, about labor strikes, and about socioeconomic demands on the government by grassroots collective action. Civil society activists can also organize their own demonstrations and inform citizens about them. In short, civil society can play a catalytic role in promoting the repeated mass demonstrations that can bring about transitions. These large demonstrations are particularly necessary in transitions from hardline regimes like those in Cuba today and in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania in 1989. For civil society activists to induce a belief in the population that individual participation in protest can bring about change, independent sources of communication are necessary. In addition to foreign radio and television broadcasts as surrogate stations for opposition groups under communist rule, the production and distribution of samizdat, written by civil society activists living under the dictatorship, is also a means of communication among these activists and between them and citizens at large. But for samizdat to be produced and distributed in significant quantities in communist regimes, material assistance to civil society activists from abroad is essential. Material assistance from foreign sources is also important in other ways. It can increase the organizational capacity of independent groups. For example, in Cuba public transportation is in a disastrous condition. And other than high-ranking government officials, few people have cars. For independent groups to coordinate acts of defiance across the island and to distribute resources and samizdat, paying for private transportation makes doing these things a lot easier, as well as more surreptitious. The more coordination among opposition groups in carrying out acts of defiance, the more people participate in those activities and the more effective those activities can be in fostering a sense of efficacy in the population, if people find out about them. In Cuba, humanitarian assistance to civil society activists out of prison and to political prisoners and their families can increase the membership and effectiveness of independent groups. One of the most powerful means of repression used by the Cuban government is economic strangulation of civil society activists and their families. In contrast to the situation of dissidents in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, the Castro regime has a policy of trying to suffocate economically civil society activists by denying them all legal means of earning a living. These individuals are denied jobs in public enterprises, as well as foreign establishments, and are unable to obtain licenses to work as independent entrepreneurs. To sustain themselves and their families is a daily preoccupation that saps their attention and energies from the struggle for democratization . Activists either engage in illegal economic activities, giving the government an additional reason to prosecute them, or they come to depend on the charity of friends and assistance from abroad. Activists frequently claim that if assistance from abroad were enough to guarantee a modest level of subsistence , a lot more people would become members of civil society groups. Larger membership could result in bigger protests, even if only activists participate . Consequently, there would be a greater positive impact on the sense of efficacy in the population. Churches, the only legally recognized independent institutions under hardline communist regimes, can help civil society groups endure, obtain material resources, and communicate with the population. By doing these things, 86 Democracy Delayed churches can play an important role in fostering political transitions, even if the clergy does not have that as a final goal. Opposition activists can meet in churches and participate in religious activities with a higher degree of protection from government repression. Under this shield, activists can communicate their messages to those attending religious services and churches can serve as channels of material assistance to civil society groups. Churches can help bring about political change, but they are not essential for political transitions to occur. In Hungary, the role of the church in the transition was insignificant ; in Czechoslovakia, the Catholic Church was very passive before 1988.1 In East Germany at least some clergy of the Protestant Church contributed in important, although indirect...