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RELIGIOUS BELIEFS DO NOT DETERMINE POLITICAL OPTIONS
Caridad Diego
Bello
Head of the Bureau in Charge of Religious Affairs of the Cuban
Communist Party’s Central Committee.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
“[…] our Revolution is in no way at odds with [peoples’] religious
feelings […]”
What does the word “religion” mean? Although there have been numerous
attempts to define this concept, no final consensus has been reached.
Nevertheless, certain elements frequently appear, such as the acceptance
of the notion that supernatural, transcendental, supra-natural forces
exist, accompanied by the belief there are also sacred things, and the
fulfilment of certain practical actions derived from those beliefs, as
well as the creation of groups or human associations of a religious
nature.
Religion is one of the forms that social consciousness adopts, and it
has diverse –gnoseological, social and psychological— causes. It is one
of the ways in which the material conditions of existence reflect on
peoples’ (and also, collectively, in society’s) thinking. Its changes
occur slower than those that intervene in the material base of society.
When speaking about the religious phenomenon, we can say that it
manifests itself in peoples’ faith in the existence of things
supernatural, and this can be conceived in a wide variety of ways. The
use of the word has in no way a derogative intent, but rather it merely
makes reference to the belief in a God, in a certain type of being, a
spirit, that the believer assumes as something that objectively exists
beyond any natural object, process or phenomenon.
Within this phenomenon, the following elements are generally present: a
religious awareness and activity, besides the various organizational
forms, all of them recognized as elements of the system. Some authors
also include the relations that are established among the individual
elements of a group of people.
Religious consciousness –considered the central element— is
characterized by faith, by credence attached to supernatural elements
that is expressed through various degrees or levels of development.
Through these types of activities –that might be individually or
collectively expressed— believers aspire to establish a relationship
with their object of worship (from individually or commonly praying or
invoking, gaining new followers, disseminating the gospel, reading
religious texts, training in the religious doctrine, conservation of
objects or sites that have a religious meaning, to the performance of
ceremonies that conform the religious cult).
In accordance with the level of development, different expressions are
established. The fundamental function that its institutions and
organizations have is the elaboration and observation of the religious
dogma (doctrine).
Sociological studies and working experience with this segment of the
population prove that a significant portion of our people has some type
of belief in the supernatural, something that –as we mentioned earlier—
many experts believe is its fundamental essence.
The great majority of our compatriots express this in a diffused,
spontaneous, scantly elaborated way, through a practice that lacks
systematization, having little impact on their socio-political
behaviour. A minority conceives
it –and, less still, practices it— in an organized and structured way.
A particular feature of the panorama that has to do with believers in
Cuba is that only a small fraction of them belong to established
churches and other religious institutions. The percentage of those who
attend formal cults and define themselves as members of given
ecclesiastical institutions is still more reduced. In that sense, it is
more pertinent to speak of believers than of religious individuals.
A wide and diverse religious universe exists in Cuba. This country is
characterized by the fact that no one religion exists that might typify
our society. Within it, (Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant, Orthodox)
Christians, those who practice Cuban religions of African origin (santeros,
abakuás, paleros, ararás among others), Hebreus, Muslims, Buddhists,
Spritualists coexist. Every belief and religion enjoys equal respect and
consideration, and no pre-eminence of any one of them over the others is
acknowledged.
This real equality was only attained after the triumph of the
Revolution, because previously, several religious beliefs and their
practitioners suffered diverse degrees of discrimination that went as
far –in the case of those of African origin— as having to suffer legal
penalties.
The most widespread beliefs are those that compose what has come to be
known as popular religiousness, as a result of the cultural
mixting and synthesis that originated Cuban nationality. Many of
those that are practiced by the people have melded. Most of them are
spontaneous, emotion-rich and their practice is utilitarian and
(comparatively) removed from religious institutions and organizations.
Religious beliefs and practices belong to the realm of personal, private
matters; of citizens’ individual tastes and preferences, and are
therefore detached (together with the diversity of institutions and
structures in which they group and organize) from the state, which is a
lay entity. Their goals and functions are equally so, even if –due to
their impact on the social sphere– they require duly regulated links and
relations with the realm of the State.
Throughout all these years in which the policy vis-à-vis religious
beliefs, believers, institutions and organizations has been consistently
applied, there have been comrades who, referring to Karl Marx’
(1818-1883) well-known phrase –most frequently quoted out of context–
“religion is the opium of the people,” have expressed an interest in
knowing the reasons why we maintain a constructive, respectful policy of
dialogue and systematic exchange with the variety of religions
conceptions present in the country.
This well-known phrase was actually written by Karl Marx in 1843. It is
included in the last part of the Contribution to Criticism of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Law, the manuscript pages of which were mostly lost,
except those that were published under the title Criticism of Hegel’s
Political Law,
in the general introduction to which he wrote: “Religious suffering is,
on the one hand, the expression of real suffering, and, on the other, a
protest against real suffering. Religion is the suffering experienced by
the oppressed being, the heart of a heartless world, as well as the
spirit of a situation that is deprived of a spirit. It is the opium of
the people.”
In this thought, Marx not only speaks of opium when referring to
religion, but also of protest against the total suffering of the
exploited beings. This phrase, as Fidel expressed it to Frei Betto
in the interview he agreed to in 1985 (well-known among all of our
people by its publication in the book Fidel and religion, “has a
historical value and is absolutely fair at a given moment,”
[…]
“it is a truth that is adjusted to given historical-concrete
conditions.”
In the course of that interview of our Commander in Chief, undertaken by
the Brazilian Dominican Friar on this controversial topic, the person
interviewed says: In my opinion, religion –from a political viewpoint–
is not in itself opium, nor a miraculous remedy. It can be opium or a
marvellous remedy depending on the way in which it is used or applied to
the defence of the oppressors and exploiters, the oppressed and
exploited, depending on the way in which the political, social or
material problems of the human being are approached, because,
irrespective of theology or of religious beliefs, that human being is
born and has to live in this world
[…]”.
And he added: “From a strictly political perspective –and I believe I
know some politics–, I even think that you can be a Marxist without
ceasing to be a Christian, and to work together with the Marxist
Communists to transform the world. The important thing is that, in both
cases, they be sincere revolutionaries, ready to suppress the
exploitation of man by man and to struggle for a fair distribution of
social wealth, equality, fraternity and dignity for every human being,
that is, that they be conveyors of the most advanced political and
social consciousness although, in the case of Christians, the starting
point is a religious conception.”
For the classics of Marxism-Leninism, from Marx and Engels to Lenin,
religious faith in itself did not constitute an impediment to becoming a
member of the revolutionary political party. As Fidel himself has
expressed, in the Program of the Bolshevik Party not one word can
be found that might exclude Christians from the party.
In 1918, Lenin argued that: “If a priest comes to cooperate with us in
our work –if he conscientiously fulfils the work of the party and does
not oppose its work–, we can admit him to the ranks of
social-democracy.” And he added: “Not only can we admit him, but we
should also work and attract to the Social-Democratic Party all those
workers who still maintain their faith in God. We are decidedly against
the slightest affront vis-à-vis those workers’ religious convictions
[…]”
Fidel understands the fact that, regardless of the differences that
might exist in the spiritual field, unity is not only necessary, but
also possible. This political approach to the religious issue is what
facilitated the passing, by the IV Congress of the Cuban Communist
Party, held in 1991, of a resolution the text of which reads: “To
suppress from the present Rules any interpretation that would entail the
denial of the right, for a vanguard revolutionary, to aspire to be
admitted to the party as a consequence of his religious beliefs.”.
In the first Cuban Marxist party, not only was this prohibition absent,
but also in its Rules the right of believers to become members was
enshrined in 1938, as long as they accepted the program and fulfilled
their duties as militants.
Furthermore, the other revolutionary organizations which struggled
against Batista’s dictatorship and came together to constitute our
present party, did not exclude believers either.
At the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, its First Secretary
explained that this situation emerged at a phase of the Cuban
revolutionary process, within the framework of a specific juncture.
At present, many believers have declared the fact that they belong to a
religious organization or that they honor a given religious faith when
they are in the process of being considered as future militants of the
Cuban Communist Party or of the Union of Communist Youth, or have
declared it after having joined those organizations.
One does not become a party member being a believer or not. We are
not a confessional sect, but rather vanguard revolutionaries, and when a
vanguard revolutionary joins the political organization as a worker,
peasant, student, combatant, professional from whatever sector, he/she
acquires rights and duties vis-à-vis politics and society. That is why
being a believer does not make a person a second-class militant; he/she
is no different from the one that professes no religious belief.
He/she is a militant as any other and furthermore has the responsibility
of equally being an exemplary individual, not only at his/her workplace
or the place where he/she studies and in the neighbourhood where he/she
lives, but also among the religious community that he/she belongs to,
because he/she must manifest, always and anywhere, a contrary attitude
vis-à-vis whatever violation of the law, criminal actions or actions
politically opposed to his/her principles, including the attempt to
manipulate people with those goals in mind.
The policy of the party and of our State with respect to religious
beliefs, institutions and believers stems from our nation’s history, in
which, during the independence struggles, believers of various religions
took part, and also from Fidel’s dialectical thought, from the practice
carried out by Revolution, from agreements concerted at the Cuban
Communist Party congresses –and particularly the IV Congress–, as well
as the constitutional principles that have their roots deep in the Cuban
tradition of independence ideas, including all the constitutions of the
Republic in Arms, those that were elaborated, since 1901, with the
beginning of the subservient republic and the Constitution passed in
1976 by the majority vote of the Cuban electorate, and modified in 1992
by the National Assembly of People’s Power.
This last document establishes, in several of its articles, the
separation between Church and State, and therefore the lay
character of the latter, including the area of education, which is
public and free at all levels, and also the equality of all citizens of
the country with respect to the right to profess the cult that they
prefer, to uphold several of them simultaneously (a distinctive aspect
of religious practice in the country) or to have none at all (this is
one of the few constitutions that states this in its articles). The
condition of a lay state is traditional in Cuba.
Article 8 has a particular importance, because it is the one that
expresses that the Cuban state recognizes, respects and guarantees
religious freedom, and that the different beliefs and religions enjoy
equal consideration. Meanwhile, article 55 guarantees the freedom of
each citizen to change his/her religious beliefs or to have none
whatsoever, and to profess, within the framework of respect for the law,
the religious cult that he/she prefers.
The fulfilment of these and other constitutional precepts (as reflected
in articles 42 and 43 of our Magna Carta, in which the equality of
rights and the subjection to equal rights for all Cuban citizens without
distinction, nor any type of discrimination due to religious beliefs
either), reflects the religious freedom that exists in the country and
the guarantee that those rights be exercised in fulfilment of the
law.
Revolutionaries and patriots are not divided because of their religious
beliefs, but rather the ideals of liberty, solidarity and human
promotion of the Revolution and the political and social action derived
thereof is what unites all those that uphold them.
There are still many revolutionary individuals who maintain the opinion
that whoever professes a religious belief is not politically reliable,
and this is not in agreement with the real truth. Today, believers, in their
capacity as part of the people that they indeed are, take active part in
the most various activities organized by the Committees for the Defence
of the Revolution, the Federation of Cuban Women, the institutions of
People’s Power and other social organizations.
Religious institutions make decisions about the participation of their
personnel in organs of government representation. Today, four of them
are deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power, while others,
coming from different religions, are present in the organs of state
power at various levels.
The state does not subsidize any religious institution, nor does it
intervene in their internal functioning. All of them develop, with total
independence and autonomy vis-à-vis the state, their social activities;
they name their hierarchies or leadership, train their personnel, freely
move within the given territory, maintain relations with their
counterparts abroad and with foreign personalities of their same milieu,
welcome delegations and guests of that nature, organize events or attend
them in other countries. Many of them even have some of their members
filling posts in international religious structures.
Religious institutions own their movable goods and real estate,
including their temples. They repair, enlarge and reconstruct them; they
receive support from the Cuban state for the purchase of building
materials.
They have centers where their personnel is trained (seminars, novitiates
and biblical institutes). They undertake –with no restriction
whatsoever–
the selection and incorporation of their personnel to
various studies. Hundreds of young people achieve those studies in
seminars and religious universities in different countries.
They receive literature from abroad and, at home, publish magazines and
leaflets, a large number of which are duly inscribed in the register of
periodical publications.
They also organize activities of a social nature, among others,
management undertakings at hospitals and elderly peoples’ homes, an
effort for which they count on state support. They receive and
distribute donations through social and government entities and carry on
collaboration projects.
Activities of a religious or cultural character also take place, some of
them outside the premises dedicated to their cult and with an ecumenical
character: pilgrimages, processions, united cults, drums, concerts, etc…
are the most significant ones. In order to assist these efforts,
authorities of the places where they are organised create favourable
conditions and facilitate their realization.
During all these years, the office in charge of religious affairs and
the corresponding state institutions have maintained a systematic,
permanent and positive communication with every religious institution
and manifestation as well as with fraternal associations.
We take part in formal periodic and other meetings, we attend the
different celebrations to which we are invited. We exchange views with
their leaders in order to enhance the favourable relations that already
exist.
With all of them we develop links that allow us to reflect on national
or international matters of interest, to assess the ways in which they
might increasingly insert themselves in our reality and solve the
day-to-day problems that arise when they pursue their activities, and
that are the same ones that affect the people at large, basically
resulting from the unfair and genocidal blockade imposed by the US for
almost 50 years and the increasingly restrictive measures of that
hostile policy of the North American government.
To publicise Cuban reality among religious organizations and
institutions not only at home but also abroad is among our list of tasks
nowadays.
Party policy with respect to its relations with believers and their
institutions does not contemplate, as a goal, the elimination of
religious beliefs, something that is not objectively viable, as history
has repeatedly demonstrated, and runs counter to the principles of
equality and freedom upheld by our Revolution.
The primary objective of this policy that is being implemented
throughout the nation is to increase and to strengthen the unity of all
of our people and to achieve the participation of everyone without any
discrimination whatsoever.
Its fundamental aspects are the main weapon that has reduced the space
for our enemies to operate on, winning many honest and valuable
individuals to the tasks of building the society that we are
developing. It has prevented the enemy from manipulating religious
feelings as well as the diverse manifestations and institutions in which
believers and members of fraternal societies are grouped.
Imperialism does not renounce the manipulation of faith against the
Revolution. The fact that they resort to certain practices (having
little to do with religious concepts themselves, aiming at winning over
ephemeral supporters or those interested in obtaining material gains or
chance policies) cannot be overlooked.
The goal of our policy is to establish and increase relations of mutual
respect between the Cuban state and the religious milieu, between those
who believe and those who do not, to prevent counter-revolutionary
actions and to denounce not only elements which promote these, but also
actions of a common criminal nature and to confront the attempts and
actions of the enemy which aim at implementing the subversive purposes of
the Bush Plan against our country in general as well as against Cuban
religious individuals in particular.
In this shameful program through which the US government's attempts to
dictate actions to produce a political and governmental transition in
our country, religious institutions do not escape the careless policies
of our enemies either, as these try to impose, through its content,
certain tasks to be accomplished by those religious and fraternal
organizations in Cuba, as if they were its subjects, as if churches and
other institutions of a similar nature did not respond to their people,
to serve and respect them.
Constructive relations among the different religious and fraternal
denominations and manifestations or brotherhoods are being promoted.
Differences are not exacerbated: it is on coincidences that we build.
The Revolution is not at odds with religious feelings, but with their
political use and manipulation against the interests of society.
“Religious practices and beliefs are not at odds with the Revolution, as
long as any religious faith is honestly professed and its principles
–not only formally upheld, but consequently observed in personal and
social behaviour– promote love for fellow creatures, selflessness,
protection of the weakest or helpless, family unity, social justice,
moral and civic virtues, love and sacrifice with respect to the
fatherland. Those who do not act accordingly, deny not only their
people, but also their faith”.
Spanish original:
http://www.cubasocialista.cu/Revistas/Revista48/05CubaSocialista48.pdf
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