/Why Cuba Matters/
Post-Castro Cuba
By SAUL LANDAU
Reporters and friends keep asking: "so what'll happen when Castro dies?"
"A big funeral in Havana," I reply with certainty.
One other sure thing: anti-Castro exiles in south Florida will throw a
mammoth party. On July 31, Fidel revealed he would have surgery and
ceded temporarily responsibilities to his brother Raul. Little Havana's
streets erupted in celebration. Politically, Fidel again showed he has
ability to induce obsession in his enemies, thus making it difficult for
them to think clearly--apart from questions of bad taste. Fidel's
stature will continue to cloud south Florida's political reality.
The Cuban American National Foundation appealed to Cuba's civilian
population and military forces to rise up and overthrow the tyrannical
regime. "Today Iraq; tomorrow Cuba!"
No uprising occurred. Indeed, despite loud headlines and lead stories in
the U.S. mainstream media of impending crisis, Cubans behaved with calm
when the man who has presided over their destiny for 47 and a half years
went under the knife.
NPR reporter Tom Gjelten, in Cuba during the Non Aligned Movement
meeting, predicted the next Cuban leader would have to fulfill the
Cubans' demand for more consumer goods. Did he take a poll and forget to
mention it? How did he determine how the population would react to the
post-Fidel government?
The CIA shared the media's vapid ignorance on Cuba. Former Agency Cuba
expert Brian Latell opined: "It cannot even be said with confidence that
Raul [Castro] will want to be more than a transitional leader. Raul will
not enjoy the pounding pressures and crises that make Fidel's adrenaline
surge and typically induce his best thinking."
Latell never met Raul, or Fidel; nor has he visited Cuba.
"Rumors" lead him to conclude that Raul has less intelligence than
Fidel, lacks his charisma and has drinking problems. Raul has supposedly
expressed preferences for reform policies. More rumors?
Raul, who has commanded Cuba's military for nearly five decades, "lacks
the confidence of the military that he commands, which is perhaps the
most respected institution in Cuba," averred a Washington Times
editorial. "Should Raul face resistance from the military all bets are
off." (August 2, 2006)
Who's betting?
The key political fact is that organized opposition to Cuba's government
exists in Florida, not on the island. With all the money Washington
spent on "dissidents" and on Radio and TV Marti, it has not spawned a
civil society equivalent to Solidarity in Poland, which led the movement
to overthrow the government. Nor has the Cuban Catholic Church played
the kind of militant political role on the island that it did in Poland.
Castro, the once-in-a-Century figure has not yet passed from the stage,
and may live for years longer. But the media craves the answer to what
comes after him, while it ignores the obvious clues to its answer:
Cuba's institutions and its colonial and revolutionary antecedents.
After Fidel successfully underwent surgery on August 2, Bush promised he
would export democracy to Cubans. Did he envision Cuba's masses
rebelling and demanding the kind of freedom he delivered to Iraq?
Instead, after Fidel's surgery, Cuba's overcrowded buses ran. Shops,
factories and offices opened. "But why hasn't Raul [Castro] appeared?"
demanded the U.S. media. "To piss off the U.S. press," I responded to
one ignorant reporter. Raul rarely makes public appearances. If he did,
with Fidel hospitalized, Cubans might think something had gone awry.
The issue of transition is not easy anywhere. Cuba will probably move
from a government headed by the world's most charismatic leader who
micromanaged parts of Cuba for decades to a government in which his
replacement, whether individual or committee, will not have that kind of
stature. But they will share his political philosophy.
Before his operation Fidel on TV promoted "the battle of ideas." But his
urging failed to produce immediate creativity. Indeed, widespread
dissatisfaction and cynicism prevail. And each month a sizeable number
of Cubans get smuggled or hop on rafts to go to Florida. Don't
misinterpret. Discontent in Cuba does not translate into
counterrevolutionary behavior.
Even before the Soviet collapse, my Cuban friends had begun to spend
hours each day "resolviendo problems" (solving problems) related to
daily needs. This usually involves buying goods on the black market. One
Cuban sells people's property to other Cubans for his profit.
All Cubans understand they live under a virtual state of siege, but to
attribute lack of free speech, assembly and press to the U.S. blockade
trivializes Fidel's "battle for ideas." How to coincide a campaign to
promote critical thinking if the state threatens to jail or punish some
of those who ask critical questions? In films like Strawberry and
Chocolate or Guantanamera Cuban cinema raised profound questions about
the course of their society. Such critiques do not appear, however, in
the daily press, radio or TV.
Washington's policy helped vitiate Cuban freedom. Even before Washington
backed the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA had mounted
assassination attempts and sabotage efforts directed at Cuba's economy.
Terrorism was joined by a trade embargo. These aggressive actions
continue, but do they justify after almost 48 years of revolutionary
education a continuing state of intolerance for dissent?
What will induce post-Fidel governments to extend greater trust in
sharing governance to their educated population? Or will they simply
continue to "give" them health care, education and subsidies for
necessities? What responsibility do citizens owe to the governing
process? Fidel and the Party have mobilized people around U.S. threats,
-- "the Helms Burton embargo tightening, Elian Gonzalez, and Bush's
interventionism -- but they have not encouraged free societal debate
about how each sector, each block would deal with Bush's blatant
interference in Cuban internal affairs.
Last year, God apparently told Bush to direct Cuba's transition through
the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, co-chaired by Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Their
July 10, 2005, report said that the United States must "ensure that the
Castro regime's succession strategy does not succeed."
This Commission smelled like a rotted Platt Amendment, which the U.S.
Senate tacked onto Cuba's Constitution in 1902, allowing Washington to
intervene at will in Cuban affairs. The Cuban revolution arose from such
annexationist notions. Yet, U.S. threats still spread anxiety waves and
sometimes lead the government to arrest "dissidents."
In 1968, I filmed the documentary Fidel. In it he said that full
socialist democracy will occur when every Cuban participates daily in
political life. Now almost no Cubans can express themselves politically
about foreign or economic policy. Under Fidel, however, Cubans became a
proud and healthy nation. Their soldiers carved a permanent niche in
African history, Cuban doctors forged a record of selfless sacrifice
throughout the third world, artists, writers and athletes also etched
their names in the world's creative annals. Fidel's will and vision led
Cuba to this.
When Fidel passes, according to a new chiste or joke, "Fidelismo without
Fidel" will reign. That leaves "ismo." In fact, Cuba has stable
institutions and a growing economy. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez
has made substantial investments on the island, as has China. U.S.' plan
to isolate Cuba have fallen apart with Chavez and newly elected Bolivian
President Evo Morales. Indeed, most of Latin America formally recognizes
and has routine commerce and exchange with Cuba despite decades of U.S.
pressure to prevent it. Cuba even has a trade agreement with Brazil and
Argentina, an accord that rejects the U.S. embargo. Last year, drillers
discovered a sizeable and rich supply of oil off Cuba's coast, an energy
problem solver, a source for investment and foreign exchange.
Cuba's healthy and educated population doesn't want to start paying
rent, or tuition. Indeed, what sane person would trade free health care
for HMOs--part of Washington's "privatize everything" scheme?
Unlike most Latin Americans, Cubans enjoy substantive rights. Despite
the constant refrain ("no es facil") Cubans don't work as hard as their
neighbors, nor suffer anxieties that they'll have no access to health
care, or go homeless. Cuba's transition team of experienced Communists
can strengthen socialist institutions by opening up discussion on key
decisions to its educated population.
Several former U.S. officials have asked for advice on future U.S.-Cuba
policy.
I respond: First, get a policy rather than assume the eternal
application of the Monroe Doctrine. "Make contact," advised a New York
Times editorial. Follow with "a prompt lifting of the economic embargo
could strengthen the mistreated Cuban middle class and help it to play a
more active role in the future political transition." (August 2, 2005)
The Times' editorial writer did not define this "middle class," which
historically owns property; not so in Cuba.
Some on the left refuse to criticize Cuba. They often compare Cuban
infant mortality or education to that in the United States. But the left
should expect more from the place where socialism first arose in this
Hemisphere.
In 1989, Fidel executed admitted narco-traffickers General Arnoldo Ochoa
and Colonel Tony LaGuardia. In 2003, Cuba jailed 75 "dissidents." When
those events occur, "Cuba hurt." (Eduardo Galeano)
We expect bad behavior from Bush, but when Cuba violates socialist
principles, we feel sick in the soul. Cuba matters. That's why I write
critically about it--and the great man who forged it as a proud and
socialist nation. Cuba's friends don't deny. They offer critical support.
/Viva Fidel!/
*Saul Landau's* new book, /A BUSH & BOTOX WORLD,/ will be published by
Counterpunch Press. He can be reached at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
(From counterpunch.org)
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