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10 29th, 2009 |
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Reflections on Cuba and the Revolution/s
The idealists of the Cuban Revolution have achieved their goals. Cuba is a classless society devoid of racism where everyone has high quality health care and access to higher education to the extent they are capable. Noone is homeless or starving. These are facts, not opinion, and they were the goals of the revolution of Fidel, Che, Camilo and others….including the original revolutionary founder, Jose Marti. Cuba had two revolutions, or maybe one long one if you take a long view. The first was the longest revolution in American history, from 1868 to 1898. Marti led the final stage of this revolution against Spain and was killed in the first charge of the victorious campaign. He is the founding father of Cuba and the most popular figure in Cuba, having the popularity that only a martyr can have. Wiki him! His ideas and copius jounalism, prose and poetry have influenced Cuba more than Marxism. Fidel quotes him more than anyone else. Marti’s revolution did not accomplish true independence because the USA used the sinking of the USS Maine to enter the war after it was practically won and they negotiated terms with Spain without Cuba having a say. In Baracoa, near Guantanamo, I visited a fort on a hill built in 1900 by Leonard Wood, Governor of Cuba. He and the USA had intended to use it to control the entire Eastern end of Cuba but the Cubans would not have it.
On the success of Cuba, it is a locavore’s dream, with local organically grown food grown and sold in nearly every neighborhood. This was a success that came of hardship, a result of the US embargo and the fall of the USSR, which shipped 1.3 million tons of agri chemicals along with tractors and petroleum to Cuba to allow them large scale chemical farming. When the shipments ended, Fidel made plots of land available in communities and allowed free markets in these small plots. There are also larger scale veggie and fruit farms run by the government and offered on rations so that all can get food. Sugar cane land has been converted to production of other foods little by little. I should add that the embargo and fall of the USSR have also led to extensive use of natural and homeopathic remedies, herbs and drugs even by the doctors. Medical care is also more attention oriented and less drug oriented.
It is also a commuter bicyclists dream, with a large part of city and town personal transport being provided by bicycles along with a considerable portion of cargo transport. When the Chinese government wanted to get rid of a million bicycles to use more cars, Fidel took them and they led to Cuban production of the five speed three wheel bicycles that are used as taxis and transport. Horse drawn carriages also provide a considerable amount of human and cargo transport, especially outside of Havana. Traffic is not bad, even in Havana, since only about one in thirty Cubans have a car, compared with nine in ten in the USA. The many old pre 1959 cars are mostly used as taxis, and mostly equipped with diesel truck engines and drive lines. You can flag one down and go cruising old Havana with some Cubans for less than a dollar. I have taken 1957 chevys, 1954 Olds and many other makes and models pre 1957. There is also a bus system that is seriously overcrowded and worked by pickpockets…fare is about a penny and you can ride free if you need to. To ride the bus you ask at the bus stop, “who is the last ” and board after that person. Just about everyone honors the system. Most irritating is the foreigner who wants to ride for a penny but does not wait his or her turn!
But enough of the culture and society….I want to pause for the shortcomings or qualifiers on Cuba’s success. My intention is to be objective here. Although the revolutionaries have achieved their goals, many among the public here in Cuba are not satisfied. An Irishman who lives here with a Cuban wife, and who is very sympathetic to Fidel and the revolution, said that although all is blamed on the US embargo, there is something missing and something amiss in Cuba. He was vague about what is missing but I will steal from Ignacio Ramonet, author of Conversation with Fidel, the term “inability to achieve success”. Success is, of course, a subjective term and poets, authors, artists and dancers all find success here in Cuba. Their achievements are praised, supported and published to an extent I have not seen elsewhere. Perhaps it is because the founding father, Marti was a poet and author that those achievements seem most highly praised, and poets from all over Latin America are honored in town squares. Doctors also seem to feel successful in Cuba and working for the revolution. Fidel’s partner Che was a doctor and Fidel has continually founded projects around the world to use Cuba’s medical professionals to extend health care to the poorest on the planet. Most recently, wiki Operacion Milagro. Doctors must feel successful because Cuban students continue to go into the profession although wages are low by US standards and Cuban doctors around the world defect in very low numbers. Professors and teachers (the Spanish word profesor is for all teachers of all ages) are also appreciated and feel successful. I have stayed in the homes….Casa Particulars…of doctors and professors in my travels here. Casa Particulars support the revolution with money to the government. My hosts were enthusiastic about the revolution. Those who are dissatisfied are those with a metric for success that involves buying stuff, the joy of competition, sales and earning and/or just competing with the neighbors in my opinion. And I would say this includes a lot of Cubans. Some of it is justified, for instance if you are operating a 57 Chevy with a Russian diesel truck engine spliced into it, you need tools to keep it going! The tools are not available easily and the mechanics do wonders with pliers and welders. Autos are not the only things salvaged. The malls and boutiques missing here are replaced by repair shops for almost everything. Shops and stands repair lamps, radios, fans, stoves, hair dryers and there are even stands that repair and recharge disposable cigarette lighters. It is a mend and make do society. The embargo has also had this good outcome, from my perspective.
Fidel has opened Cuba and allowed those who “want the freedom to consume mindlessly” to leave several times, wiki Mariel Boatlift.
On the what is amiss side, corruption of a small sort is prevalent among the employees of the state run “businesses”. The employees of the stater run ice cream firm Coppelia routinely steal large containers of ice cream and their families sell it on the street. The kitchen employees of the Cuban Film Foundation sell of food from the kitchen to family and friends. This was cited by many of my hosts, including the Irishman. It is a corruption of the mindset of the society and is perhaps more insidious than corruption at the top. It is also something that happened in the USSR and Eastern Europe. In Joseph Stiglitzs book on Globalization, he mentions of the failure of the USSR and its transition: “Circumventing what laws were in force if not breaking them became part of the way of life, a precursor to the breakdown of law that marked the transition”. Fidel met Stiglitz at the 2002 Havana Book Fair, the year after he had won the Nobel prize and referred to him as a radical revolutionary. He said that Joseph Stiglitz is more radical than Fidel in his efforts to make globalization and capitalism work for all. Interesting thing for the eighty year old Martist/Marxist to say. It would be considered counter revolutionary by many of the purists. This corruption of the people scenario that I observed and that Stiglitz referred to seems to accompany state run communism wherever it is attempted and it is something that needs to be understood in order to remedy….whether for a system that works or for a transition, which was Stiglitz’s concern.
There is also a tendency to subsidize local product that is unhelpful to society in order to curry favor and popularity among the people. Chavez does this in Venezuela with gasoline, making it pennies a gallon and leading to pollution and waste. In Cuba it is tobacco and rum that cost the society dearly, in both heath care costs and in the societal costs of alcohol consumption, ie domestic violence, accidents etc. Suffice it to say that even with the new hu/man running the government, many of the population will not be able to, or want to reach that level of evolution….and the revolution is still in evolution. As far as blaming it all on the embargo, only when the embargo is lifted will the problems be addressed.
Back to impressions of Havana….my first week was spent there. I stayed in Playa, near the Russian Embassy, a landmark and lesson in bad taste, but I spent a lot of time in Havana Vieja. The Book Faire was my reason for staying and it was in the old fortress, the largest in the new world. I gave out copies of Adicto ala Guerra in Spanish and the dvd Arlington West, subtitled in Spanish to exhibitors from all over Latin America. Turned out that Hugo was already publishing Adicto in Caracas. The fair was crowded and noisy though so I took to reading Stiglitz and Ramonet on the Paseo Prado, one of the finest promenades in the world. It is lined on both sides by the old mansions of the Spanish elite and the Sugar Mafiosos…think Meyer Lansky (wiki) and the bunch. The mansions are now converted to schools with the finest being for the youngest children. Lesser mansions are devoted to schools of dance, drama and arts. The art and dancing are demonstrated on the Paseo. Medicine and other hard sciences are taught at the university. As I pass the time on a 400 year old marble bench with Ignacio Ramonet and Fidel, a man is on a patch of grass behind me with a half dozen stray dogs. He is about sixty, about my age, and has humble attire. He has two large bottles of water and a brush and is grooming the dogs, who are lined up like good Cubans waiting their turn. The dog being attended to is upside down in obvious ecstasy. Stray dogs are not as skinny as in Mexico or El Salvador. There is little traffic on the streets in Havana, most of the vehicles are working vehicles, taxis, buses or trucks. Side streets are empty except for bands of multi colored boys playing soccer or base ball. A wildly thrown baseball is a street hazard on many side streets. Multi colored deserves an explanation. The national dish of Cuba is Ajiaco, a caribbean mulligan stew that includes some of everything. Its contents vary by region. The ethnic make up of Cuba is like Ajiaco. People come in all shades and combinations. I have seen people so dark that they appear blue in some light sporting blue eyes and others with light skin and freckles with wooly black hair and dark eyes. Racism does not exist here and if it did it would be difficult indeed to know where to draw the lines.
Another favorite hangout of mine was Park Coppelia, and entire park complex devoted to ice cream. Here people wait in line for hours to order massive amounts of rich ice cream. I find I do believe in ice cream as a government priority.
Ok, now time for some travel reflections. I traveled through Cuba, from Havana to Santa Clara, down to Trinidad and then to Santiago, Baracoa and Bayamo.
Roadways are maintained by teams with machetes. This maximizes employment and keeps the people fit for the imminent invasion by the yankee empire, which will, once again, be cut short. Much of the revolutionary war was fought with machetes, and the museum of the revolution in Santiago sits beneath dozens of hundred foot machetes. Che’s memorial and museum in Santa Clara, where he led the revolutionary victory that defeated Batista, contains many photos of him practicing medicine and dentistry on the battlefield. Trinidad was cold and windy when I was there but it was there that I met Sean, the Irishman who gave me some good insiders perspective of Cuba. Santiago was loud, roudy and full of hustlers. The music was good but I only stayed a couple of days with a doctor and professor and went on to Baracoa. Baracoa is the place where Columbus landed and the Spaniards executed the first American rebel, Hatuey (wiki). It is Cuba’s first city but is only a small town. A huge fortress sits on the hill built by Leonard Wood to govern the Cubans but is now a state run hotel. In the end the USA was confined to nearby Guantanamo bay. It rains every day in Baracoa and if you want to visit you should wait until June or July. As it was I stayed with a professor who enjoyed speaking slow clear Spanish to me on the porch while we watched the rain fall. He knew everyone in the town and quickly switched to an incomprehensible Cubana dialect to greet them as they passed. His wife made me Ajiaco with octopus and fish in it. My last stop, Bayamo, was the second oldest town in Cuba and was the cleanest, most tranquil and friendliest overall. Instead of tourist music I attended the dances and singing at the community center with a crowd of Cubans. There were almost no tourists in Bayamo. I attended AA meetings in Spanish in every part of Cuba and many in Havana. It is alive and well and Cubans are grateful to Bill and Bob. It gave me a chance to get many inside perspectives on Cuba. Cuba does not have a lot of violent behavior as a result of alcohol abuse and one party official told me that was because Fidel rounded up all the trouble makers and sent them to Miami on the Mariel boatlift.
Cuba is the most authentic example of a communist system with all the inherent problems of state run communism. Unlike many “communist” states that function as manufacturing satellite to capitalism, ie China and Vietnam, Cuba has become increasingly independent due to the embargo and the collapse of the uSSR. This has led to a communitarian approach that speaks well to sustainability.
Joseph Stiglitz’s book, published in 2002 after his Nobel Prize in Economics, on “Globalization and its Discontents” (wiki) documents, from an insiders view, how the US Treasury department in league with the IMF, under leadership of Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, sacrificed the interests of global economic security and equity to represent the interests of US financial interests, Citicorp and others. Rubin was given a senior chair at Citogroup when the Clinton admiinstration left office. Essentially in country after country in the 90s they bailed out the banks at the expense of the people and the economy of those countries. The Bush administration continued and accelerated the process. The same financial institutions are continuing the process and the Lawrence Summers is Senior Economic Advisor! When the IMF has been completely discredited, as it should be, a new international institution will grow out of MERCOSUR and ALBA, the Bolivaran Alliance, to work toward regionalization and ultimately globalization that works for all. The US financial institutions that direct the IMF gave us mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps…and the global economic crisis. The Latin American countries have noticed this.
It was Lazaro Cardenas who got Fidel out of jail in Mexico and allowed the revolution to go forward. Twenty years earlier he had saved Mexico from a wall street caused depression by nationalizing foreign owned assets and distributing them to the poorest Mexicans, creating the Ejido cooperative system and PEMEX, which supports most Mexican social services. We need more of this kind of leadership. Equador has defaulted on its debts to the IMF with good results and this is another strategy that can hasten the end of empire. It should be combined with national sales of all Treasury Bills and dollar denominated assets.
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