ES / EN
- July 9, 2025 -
No Result
View All Result
OnCubaNews
  • World
  • Cuba
  • Cuba-USA
  • Opinion
    • Columns
    • Infographic
  • Culture
    • Billboard
  • Sports
  • Styles / Trends
  • Media
  • Special
  • Cuban Flavors
  • World
  • Cuba
  • Cuba-USA
  • Opinion
    • Columns
    • Infographic
  • Culture
    • Billboard
  • Sports
  • Styles / Trends
  • Media
  • Special
  • Cuban Flavors
OnCubaNews
ES / EN
Home Cuba Society Politics in Cuba

Time to respond

by
  • Natalia Guevara Cruz
    Natalia Guevara Cruz,
  • natalia-guevara
    natalia-guevara
March 23, 2013
in Politics in Cuba
0
Eric Hobsbawm

Eric Hobsbawm

People have to find the specific answers to the current problems of our society; we are not going to find them in ideas from previous times, even if there were supported by great thinkers and political leaders. The generations facing problems in a particular historical moment must g enerate solutions to solve them.

Seeing it like that, so naturally and starkly, the certainty of a social responsibility, which is unforgiving with delays, tried to stir the audience in their seats, a mostly young public, who during March 20 and 21 met at the Juan Marinello Cuban Institute for Cultural Research, to remember, and discover in many cases, the singular lucidity of Eric Hobsbawm, one of the most respected classical authors of contemporary social thought.

Those who attended that event were the members of that generation convened to clear the variables of its time, and that instant was a portion of that “moment” that, by historical designation, made ​​ them responsible for the future.

And this was well assumed by Cuban sociologist Aurelio Alonso when talking about r elativism in his work “El misterio del tiempo como lo vio Eric

Hobsbawm, ” he introduced the debate on who and how should decide the destiny of a country prejudiced against constant transformations -premise of his revolutionary essence- and therefore exposed to incessant vicissitudes.

Alonso, as crucial starting point in the way of an increasingly effective and fruitful participation, referred to conceptual clarity regarding how to achieve a more practical ideology, how to distinguish between tactics and strategy.

Related Posts

LGTBI flag in Havana

“Hx” and power

May 25, 2024
Havanas. Painting of Che Guevara. Cuba

Looking at Cuba: thirty years later

May 27, 2023
Cuban flag.

Politics, discourses and the logic of the real

May 13, 2023
Photo: Kaloian

Cuba in new cold war: three scenarios

May 7, 2023

To do this, Alonso remembered that the British historian –who died in late 2012, at 95 years-, had defined the concept of socialism before and after the Bolshevik Revolution: first, according to Hobsbawm, this was defined as the antithesis of what existed and had to be changed . After 1917, it emerged the need to rethink this concept beyond its pure idea, the need to define its structural dimension as a social process in construction, and from there it appeared an agenda of conceptual challenges (e.g., what, how and how far things must be changed).

“The actors of that time, Eric told, designed short term policies, under the pressures of immediacy.”

That, Alonso adde d, makes us reflect on the weight that urgency had on the development of policies that were implemented then, and that still has an impact on the revolutionary processes. One thing is learning that tactics and strategy are not alike, and quite another to achieve it in practical terms.

“How many policies, essentially short-term, do we have adopted –asked the Cuban sociologist- and then maintained by the only reason of an inertia that has been unable to change them?”

In certain cases it is necessary take measures for the immediateness, Alonso reaffirmed, but those actions get outdated quickly.

Designing the present and getting satisfied with the positive effects of such policies, taken at a time that is soon overcome, puts us against the following risk “short term swallows the long term, projecting its response in the inadequate assessment of the significance of the proposed changes.”

Moreover, Alonso referred to the centrality that Hobsbawm granted to the economy in the 21st century agenda: he was sure that the market could not generate a sustainable development, and that Socialism existed to remind us that the population was more

important than production.

However, the British historian had also very clear that the material argument to build a superior society, not as a synonym of compulsive consumerism, but as progressively meeting the rational needs, was a limitation for this new model, unable to project a visible term to decree an end to austerity (this conclusion came for his study of Bolshevik society).

The above idea establishes a link with another famous Marxist, Ernesto Che Guevara, who believed in the 1960s as a “matter of principle” that ” Socialism is to meet the ever increasing needs of the people, otherwise, it is not worth being a socialist.”

It does not seem to be then the result of an act of naivety or mere voluntarism that Eric Hobsbawm´s book has the picture of the Argentine guerrilla on its cover. Neither should be the strength of chance the one that make us having them both so present in these times of economic change in Cuba, a process for which there is no preset formulas , but interpreters of enriching experiences that can guide us in the search for own answers for a particular time of us.

 

  • Natalia Guevara Cruz
    Natalia Guevara Cruz,
  • natalia-guevara
    natalia-guevara
Previous Post

Reinaldo Miravalles

Next Post

Carlos Miyares´ intensity

Natalia Guevara Cruz

Natalia Guevara Cruz

natalia-guevara

natalia-guevara

Next Post
Carlos Miyares

Carlos Miyares´ intensity

The largest mafia...

Leo Brouwer

Leo Brower: It is the work what gives the light

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

The conversation here is moderated according to OnCuba News discussion guidelines. Please read the Comment Policy before joining the discussion.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Most Read

  • Flags of Cuba and the United States, seen in perspective in Havana. Photo: Otmaro Rodríguez.

    Trump reinstates hard-line Cuba embargo as Havana condemns US measure as “criminal”

    26 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 7
  • Lester Lescay: “I left Cuba because I didn’t want to spend my youth there.”

    13 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • A visit to what we were

    12 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • A sanctuary for jazz in Cuba: César López’s dream

    12 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • San Juan Hill: heritage in the attic?

    10 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3

Most Commented

  • Photo: Kaloian.

    Private sector and tourism in Cuba. Why not?

    12 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • About us
  • Work with OnCuba
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Moderation policy for comments
  • Contact us
  • Advertisement offers

OnCuba and the OnCuba logo are registered® trademarks of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiaries or divisions.
OnCuba © by Fuego Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • World
  • Cuba
  • Cuba-USA
  • Opinion
    • Columns
    • Infographic
  • Culture
    • Billboard
  • Sports
  • Styles / Trends
  • Media
  • Special
  • Cuban Flavors

OnCuba and the OnCuba logo are registered® trademarks of Fuego Enterprises, Inc., its subsidiaries or divisions.
OnCuba © by Fuego Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}