Priest Alberto Reyes: "The State boasts of being generous and increasingly immerses us in a miserable life"

The Cuban priest Alberto Reyes, from the diocese of Camagüey, called on his compatriots to get rid of a State that presumes to be generous and that increasingly immerses them in a miserable life.

Father Reyes, a strong critic of the regime, shared in Facebook a text in which he explains one of the regime's methods to remain in power: paternalism, which he described as destructive and malevolent.

The priest assured that paternalism makes the individual useless, it turns him into a passive and dependent being who believes that he deserves everything and that when he does not receive it, he only complains, instead of claiming his right to make his way through life without having than depending on anyone.

"As a people, we didn't know how to see it coming, or we didn't want to see it," said Reyes, who called on Cubans to recover the capacity for self-determination, to decide what they want to do, how they want to live and fight for it, without submitting to imposed models.

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"I've been thinking... (LVIII) by Alberto Reyes Pías

I've been thinking about 'depaternalization'

Within the universe of what seems good, but is not, one of the jewels in the crown is paternalism: 'I assume you, I support you, I take care of you.' In theory it even seems tender, but it is destructive and malevolent.

To begin with, paternalism annuls you, makes you useless, turns you into a passive and dependent being, with the aggravating factor of generating a person in whom the spirit of deservingness and begging come together: 'I deserve... free study, free health care, subsidized basic food basket...'But, since I depend on the care of Dad State, I sit and wait for it to be given to me and, when it doesn't arrive, or what does arrive is rubbish, at most I complain about the 'non-compliance', when in reality I should claim my right to make my way through life without having to depend on anyone.

On the other hand, nothing in this world is neutral, and paternalism is no exception. If we analyze it coldly, paternalism would be a specter to flee from, because what benefit can it bring to making the other dependent, and hanging it around their neck like a perennial weight, when the most logical thing would be to be free to have to take care of the truly vulnerable?

But Paternalism is a weapon of dominance and submission. From speeches of love he makes us dependent, so that he can later use us as a support for his power.

As a people, we did not know how to see it coming, or we did not want to see it, but it does not make sense now to enter into those speeches. These are not times for complaints but for solutions, and it is time to look at our own lives and those of our children to begin to recover what was taken from us, and teach our children to grow in a different mentality.

Why there is a lot to recover.

We need to recover education, which was taken away from us when we were dazzled by the example of the 'proletarian', of the 'town' man far from 'bourgeois' behavior such as being clean, speaking correctly, treating others with courtesy, respecting different criteria. …

We need to recover the values that taught us to distinguish good from evil and did not subject good to ideological criteria.

We need to recover the capacity for self-determination, for decide what we want to do, how we want to live, and fight for it, without having to submit to imposed models.

We need to recover the truth, and lose the fear of 'dedoctrinating' our children, and teach them to question the ideological discourses they receive in the only school instruction to which they have access.

We need to recover civic protagonism, that student, university and worker protagonism that is so praised when talking about the generation that prominently opposed the Batista dictatorship and so demonized when those same attitudes are shown against the current dictatorship.

We need to recover faith, Christmas, Holy Week, the presence of the Church in the lives of these people.

We need get rid of a State that boasts of being generous and increasingly immerses us in a miserable life while continuing to invite us to passively wait for what it never intended to give us., what will never be given to us".