A History of the Cuban Revolution (2010) Aviva Chomsky ================================================================ ################################################################ TRECHOS DESTACADOS ################################################################ ================================================================ Probably Cuba’s most influential writer has been Alejo Carpentier, ============================== Carpentier also introduced the concept of “magical realism” into Latin American literature. ============================== literacy campaign and the overwhelming emphasis on education, creating the most literate population in the Americas, ============================== Lunes began publishing in March 1959 and at its height had a circulation of 250,000, becoming “the most widely-read and important literary supplement in Cuba’s history, and in that of the Western world,” ============================== won Cuba’s highest poetry prize. Three years later, however, Padilla was arrested. ============================== Some, like Sartre and de Beauvoir, became permanently disillusioned with the Revolution ============================== U.S. detective fiction in translation was immensely popular in Cuba prior to the Revolution. The first wave of post-revolutionary detective stories tried to recreate the genre to meet revolutionary goals: the villains were representatives of the old, corrupt order, while the heroes worked collectively and were motivated by revolutionary values. ============================== Latin American genre of testimonio or testimony in the 1980s. ============================== newspapers drummed a relentlessly celebratory party line about current events, even while more specialized publications took a much more sober and in-depth view of matters. ============================== in Newsweek that ‘Memorias del subdesarrollo is undoubtedly a masterpiece ============================== Even in ICAIC there were limits, however. Sergio Giral’s 1981 Techo de vidrio or Glass Ceiling, which depicted corruption and racism in contemporary Cuba, was not distributed on the island. ============================== Se permuta used Cuba’s housing scarcity – and housing policy – as a backdrop to a domestic comedy. ============================== the ax came down on Alicia. Only a few days after the film was released, and won an award at the Berlin Film Festival, it was banned in Cuba. ============================== The economic crisis of the 1990s meant that Cuban filmmakers had to turn abroad for funding, which brought both new challenges and new opportunities. ============================== Traditional Cuban son music underwent an international revival in the 1990s with the release of “The Buena Vista Social Club” CD ============================== Newer variations on the traditional forms, ranging from rap to reggaeton, also flourished in the 1990s and into the new century. ============================== Cuba’s government followed other leftist governments in Latin America that “build alliances with the hip-hop movement” in order to take advantage of “the role that hip-hop can play in engaging black youth.” ============================== build networks with U.S. rappers based on race and marginality that transcend national affiliations, they simultaneously generate a critique of global capitalism that allows them to collaborate with the Cuban state.” ============================== The revolutionary government made sport central to its domestic and foreign policy. ============================== Sporting events were also made free, and participation in sport was guaranteed as a right in the 1976 Constitution. ============================== Sport suffered during the Special Period as cutbacks undermined athletic programs, and Cuban athletes faced the increasing lure of defection. ============================== By the end of the 1990s, with defections and cutbacks threatening the Cuban teams’ international reputation, the government began to offer significant material incentives to keep players on their teams. ============================== The upper classes scorned local, traditional, and popular dancing, preferring European forms. ============================== dance, like everything else, was socially divided. The upper classes scorned local, traditional, and popular dancing, preferring European forms. ============================== The revolutionary government set about to democratize access to formerly “high” culture, and to elevate and promote Cuban cultural forms formerly viewed as “low.” ============================== Today, “ballet followers more resemble a sports crowd than the aristocratic elite who first brought the dance form to Cuba,” ============================== Cubans also emphasize that U.S. aggression has served to limit democratic possibilities in their country. ============================== There is an important current of opinion within Cuba that, while still rejecting U.S. conceptions of liberal democracy, coincides with liberal conceptions in some areas such as calling for a free and critical press, and greater tolerance of differing political positions. ============================== Thus there is an important voice among Cuban intellectuals that from a position of support for the Revolution calls for greater political space for debate, a more open and critical press, and greater political participation. ============================== Thus there is an important voice among Cuban intellectuals that from a position of support for the Revolution calls for greater political space for debate, a more open and critical press, and greater political participation. Yet their position differs from that of U.S. critics of Cuba in several significant ways. ============================== siege mentality conditioned by U.S. pressures, ============================== Cuban critics tend to draw a clear distinction between the issue of political openness, debate, and participation, and the idea of a multi-party system. ============================== In Cuba during the 1900s, we had plenty of political parties but no democracy. For us, the multi-party system consistently denied the possibility of an alternative road for the country,” explains ============================== In Cuba during the 1900s, we had plenty of political parties but no democracy. For us, the multi-party system consistently denied the possibility of an alternative road for the country,” ============================== “pluralism cannot be reduced to the organization of several political parties. In fact, ‘actually ============================== for many Cuban thinkers, multi-party democracy is only one form among many forms of democracy, and not necessarily the most attractive one. ============================== the political system has evolved considerably over the course of the Revolution, ============================== food is another aspect of culture that the Revolution vowed to transform. ============================== Cuban diet are rice, beans, meat, and viandas, a category which includes starchy root vegetables and plantains. ============================== The Agrarian Reform and the other social reforms and programs of the first years of the Revolution aimed, primarily, at redistributing the country’s resources. ============================== the government first imposed price controls, and soon, began rationing. ============================== supplemented by processed foods from the eastern bloc, with a distinct Eastern European flavor: ============================== By 1980 locally produced and rationed goods were increasingly supplemented by processed foods from the eastern bloc, with a distinct Eastern European flavor: ============================== By 1980 locally produced and rationed goods were increasingly supplemented by processed foods from the eastern bloc, with a distinct Eastern European flavor: ============================== the most common diet-related diseases became obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes. ============================== animal protein may not be better nutritionally or economically, he saw it as associated with development. ============================== The Revolution made eliminating racial and gender inequality a centerpiece of its goals, yet its approach was very different from that pursued in the United States in the 1960s and beyond. ============================== In Cuba, legal changes came from above, while independent organizations aimed at pushing for social change were frowned upon. ============================== Homosexuals were excluded, and at times openly persecuted, until the 1990s. ============================== The white exodus created a Cuba that was progressively darker hued, and more racially equal. ============================== Government policies and programs also attempted to challenge the negative attitudes towards black cultural forms that permeated Cuban society. ============================== Cubans of all colors seemed publicly in agreement after 1959: there was no need to create specifically black organizations to advance black interests, and there was no need to delve into the cultural foundations of racism. ============================== Cubans of all colors seemed publicly in agreement after 1959: there was no need to create specifically black organizations to advance black interests, and there was no need to delve into the cultural foundations of racism. There was certainly no place for the kind of black nationalism ============================== Cubans of all colors seemed publicly in agreement after 1959: there was no need to create specifically black organizations to advance black interests, and there was no need to delve into the cultural foundations of racism. There was certainly no place for the kind of black nationalism that developed in the United States in the 1960s. ============================== Black nationalists in the United States, though, had varying experiences in, and reactions to, revolutionary Cuba. To some, the Revolution’s insistence on Cuba’s inherent racial harmony was anything but benign. ============================== young Cubans who admired him as a high official of the Black Panther Party. He ============================== young Cubans who admired him as a high official of the Black Panther Party. He got away with a lot of things here for a while, but when he started organizing a Panther chapter in Havana, the shit hit the fan.” ============================== In a number of key socioeconomic areas, Cuba presents a dramatic contrast with the United States and Brazil, ============================== the gap between the races shrank or disappeared in Cuba, while remaining seemingly insurmountable in the United States and Brazil. ============================== – and failures – with respect to racial inequality. In a number of key socioeconomic areas, Cuba presents a dramatic contrast with the United States and Brazil, two other countries with large populations of African descent. In life expectancy, educational achievement, and professional opportunity, the gap between the races shrank or disappeared in Cuba, while remaining seemingly insurmountable in the United States and Brazil. ============================== In a number of key socioeconomic areas, Cuba presents a dramatic contrast with the United States and Brazil, two other countries with large populations of African descent. In life expectancy, educational achievement, and professional opportunity, the gap between the races shrank or disappeared in Cuba, while remaining seemingly insurmountable in the United States and Brazil. ============================== In other areas, the Revolution was less successful both in improving people’s lives overall, and in narrowing the racial disparities it had inherited. De la Fuente noted two in particular: housing and criminality. ============================== “The government’s failure to meet housing demands allowed for the survival and reproduction of traditional residential patterns which combined race with poverty and marginalization,” ============================== Just like in the United States and Brazil, blacks in Cuba were incarcerated at significantly higher rates than whites. ============================== Deeply imbedded cultural beliefs about race may be more resistant to change than are infant mortality rates and economic and educational opportunity. ============================== Both authors argue that an attempt to privilege nationality and class, to disdain racial consciousness and to avoid directly confronting racism per se characterized the Cuban Revolution and limited its ability to shake the country’s racial divisions. ============================== “The Castro leadership would resist and even repress attempts by black dissenters to force the issue into the open.” ============================== the revolutionary leadership also saw sexist beliefs and ideologies as more of a problem than it did in the case of race. ============================== Women were encouraged to form their own organization, the Federation of Cuban Women, ============================== the revolutionary leadership also saw sexist beliefs and ideologies as more of a problem than it did in the case of race. Women were encouraged to form their own organization, the Federation of Cuban Women, ============================== “The FMC never embraced a feminist ideology,” ============================== decolonization was the priority and they considered feminism an imported bourgeois notion that would ultimately divide the working class ============================== In the 1950s, women constituted 13 percent of Cuba’s working population. A quarter of these working women were domestic workers; ============================== In the 1950s, women constituted 13 percent of Cuba’s working population. A quarter of these working women were domestic workers; most others were teachers, social workers, or nurses. By 1980, women comprised 30 percent of Cuban workers; by 1990, they were 40 percent. ============================== In the 1950s, women constituted 13 percent of Cuba’s working population. A quarter of these working women were domestic workers; most others were teachers, social workers, or nurses. By 1980, women comprised 30 percent of Cuban workers; by 1990, they were 40 percent.22 None of these were domestic workers, the category having been outlawed ============================== By the 1990s, over 99 percent of births were taking place in a hospital, and the infant mortality rate had been reduced to 10 per 1,000 – at a par with the far richer United States. ============================== By the 1990s, over 99 percent of births were taking place in a hospital, and the infant mortality rate had been reduced to 10 per 1,000 – at a par with the far richer United States. Contraception and abortion became widely available. ============================== Day care was dramatically expanded, ============================== But the demand for day care greatly outpaced the government’s ability to supply it. In the 1980s and 1990s, Cuba had over a million women workers – and only 100,000 day-care slots. ============================== serious problem during the 1960s and early 1970s, and women often gave up their jobs so they could queue for food.” ============================== Shopping Bag Plan in 1971. ============================== simply drop off their shopping bag on the way to work, and pick it up, filled, at the end of the day – thus avoiding the long line. ============================== On the contrary. In the first decade of the Revolution the (heterosexual) nuclear family was clearly defined as the essential unit of society, and non-heterosexual activity and relationships explicitly proscribed. ============================== during the mid-twentieth century, Cuba’s place as a site for tourism, pleasure, and sin was highly sexualized. It was no wonder, as Ian Lekus has argued, that “the revolutionary government made eradicating this [sexualized] colonial economy a priority … Given the especially sexualized nature of Cuba’s past relationship with the United States … sexual reform became all the more important to symbolizing the revolution’s rejection of Yanqui domination.” ============================== Repression of homosexuality reached its highest point during the first decade of the Revolution. ============================== prostitution was outlawed in 1961, prostitutes too were offered rehabilitation and schooling, and the chance to participate productively in the new society. ============================== Domestic workers too were offered schooling and opportunities to move out of domestic service, which was seen as a linchpin of Cuba’s entrenched social inequality ============================== The UMAP housed persons rounded up as vagrants, counterrevolutionaries, and so-called deviants: homosexuals, juvenile delinquents, and religious followers, including Catholics, Baptists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.” ============================== protests were based not on a positive view of gay rights, but ============================== protests were based not on a positive view of gay rights, but rather against the cruelty and brutality of the camps. ============================== homosexual acts were decriminalized in Cuba in 1979, although statutes prohibiting “public flaunting” of homosexuality remained on the books. ============================== quinquenio gris, the five-year period during the 1970s during which the space for political and intellectual debate was probably at its nadir ============================== Lesbianism remains understudied and often close to invisible. ============================== Their vision of national liberation did not encompass U.S.-style identity politics. At the same time, the ideals of the Revolution and the concept of national unity excluded or ignored some Cuban realities and diversity as well. ============================== ============================== son represented an important symbol of national identity ============================== guajiros. ============================== For 90 percent of the guajiros, a kerosene lamp ============================== another pillar of the Cuban development model was to reduce inequalities between city and countryside by privileging rural development ============================== The first weeks and months after January 1st, 1959, were characterized by a series of radical reforms that drastically redistributed Cuba’s wealth and income ============================== Real wages increased approximately 15 percent through a corresponding decline in the income of landlords and entrepreneurs ============================== Rates for utilities and public transportation were slashed. ============================== capital flight, and social capital flight. ============================== Half of Cuba’s 6,000 doctors, for example, emigrated in the years immediately following the Revolution. ============================== While some Cubans objected, and left the country, many more were inspired by the opportunity to remake their society. ============================== The first years of the Revolution were characterized by an ethos of voluntarism and redistribution mobilized in the service of national redemption. ============================== Campaña de Alfabetización, ============================== Urban students were required to spend time working in the countryside. ============================== In January 1960 the new government created the Rural Health Service, establishing rural health facilities and requiring every medical school graduate to spend a year doing social service work in an underserved rural area ============================== hostility of Cuba’s powerful neighbor, the United States ============================== Cuba’s revolutionary mobilization that would be repeated over the decades: the greater the external threat to the government and the country, the greater was the pressure exerted on the population to close ranks, refrain from criticism, and conform and obey. ============================== By 1963 the attempt to diversify the economy by abandoning sugar production had proved disastrous. ============================== things got much better for the poor. ============================== Che Guevara’s alternative vision, which argued for abolishing the market altogether, won out initially. ============================== moral incentives rather than material reward ============================== the state took over all rental housing and set rents at no more than 10 percent of a family’s income ============================== In return for having basic needs guaranteed, the population was expected to contribute and participate ============================== The larger failure, though, was what happened to the rest of the economy when everything was concentrated on sugar. ============================== Another example was the attempt to reach a 10 million ton sugar harvest in 1970 ============================== The radical, utopian goals of the 1960s were scaled down. ============================== Cuba may have followed the Soviet model of centralized economic planning, but it did not create anything remotely akin to the human rights disasters that occurred in the USSR. In fact, while the “retreat to socialism” meant a return of markets and a retreat from the radical economic egalitarianism of the 1960s, it came with a growing democratization of the political sphere. Existing mass organizations took on new ============================== Cuba may have followed the Soviet model of centralized economic planning, but it did not create anything remotely akin to the human rights disasters that occurred in the USSR. ============================== growing democratization of the political sphere. ============================== Cubans learned English, watched U.S. movies, and longed to visit relatives in Miami. ============================== The heady optimism and commitment that forged popular participation in the 1960s gave way to more everyday, systematic means of participation ============================== Politically too, the Cuban government reorganized itself on the Soviet model. ============================== first Five-Year Plan in 1975. ============================== sold a good portion of its sugar to Western countries: 41 percent in 1974. ============================== encourage foreign investment from the capitalist countries ============================== Falling sugar prices towards the end of the 1970s, though, made Cuba more dependent on its relationship with the Soviets. ============================== The rationing system may have provided for the population’s basic needs, but increasing production to satisfy consumer demand was a constant challenge ============================== scarce goods at inflated prices. Money made an official comeback in the 1970s, ============================== Money made an official comeback in the 1970s, ============================== 1980 with the creation of private markets in a much more important sector: food. ============================== the markets thrived and offered a good quality and variety of produce. ============================== also brought some of capitalism’s problems back. ============================== The government’s commitment to equality continued to reign in other sectors, particularly in the area of health. ============================== In 1984 the country implemented a new “family doctor” program ============================== The number of health care workers tripled between 1970 and 2005, ============================== The Rectification campaign of 1986 seemed in some ways to hark back to the early days of the Revolution. ============================== The farmers markets were closed, as were other small private businesses. Exile visits were curtailed. ============================== could rely on Soviet aid and a guaranteed market at a “fair price” in the eastern bloc for its sugar – shattered ============================== The Revolutionary Tribunals that condemned hundreds of former Batista police, army and security officers to death in the months following the Revolution received far greater condemnation abroad than in Cuba. ============================== Voluntary labor, and support for the Revolution, became conditions for employment. ============================== Those who doubted, hesitated, or chose not to participate found themselves increasingly marginalized ============================== “Within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing,” ============================== in 1965 and 1966, was impressed that “under the loosely administered patronage of the Revolution, the arts have flourished in Cuba and remained refreshingly free of the ideological influence and restraint common to other socialist cultures ============================== In the 1970s the limits shrank considerably, ============================== Cuban intellectuals now refer to the five-year period between 1971 and 1976 as the “gray five years” ============================== the collapse of the Soviet bloc, while bringing a virtual economic collapse, also heralded an era of increased intellectual openness and debate ============================== becoming a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement ============================== the relationship with the United States was so fundamental to the shape and direction of the Revolution, ============================== . government had moved to implacable hostility towards the Revolution and determination to overthrow it. ============================== . government had moved to implacable hostility towards the Revolution and determination to overthrow it. ============================== U.S. government had moved to implacable hostility towards the Revolution and determination to overthrow it. ============================== assassination attempts against Fidel Castro. ============================== From the U.S. perspective, the installation of Soviet missiles on Cuban soil was an intolerable threat, to U.S. safety and to the balance of power. From the Cuban perspective, the missiles were a defense against another U.S. invasion ============================== The only thing that makes the Bay of Pigs unique is that the invasion did not succeed. ============================== The Revolution sought, and the population clearly supported, political and economic independence from the United States ============================== The main questions, as far as U.S. policymakers were concerned, were: Would the revolutionary government protect the interests of U.S. businesses in Cuba? ============================== view that it would be in the interest of the United States and of American business in Cuba for the United States to recognize the provisional government as quickly as possible … They considered that prompt recognition was necessary to establish the most favorable possible climate in which to carry on business. ============================== The Ambassador summarized Castro’s stance: “Revolution neither capitalist, Communist, nor center, but rather step in advance of all. ============================== May 1959 Agrarian Reform, ============================== Land in excess of this size would be expropriated and compensated with 20-year government bonds; ============================== the U.S. Secretary of State cabled the ambassador that “you should make every effort persuade GOC [Government of Cuba] avoid precipitate action in carrying out Agrarian Reform Law in its application American properties.” ============================== We should decide if we wish to have the Cuban Revolution succeed.”21 Other U.S. officials concurred with this continental assessment. ============================== . goals in Cuba, as elsewhere in Latin America, Rubottom reiterated, included “receptivity to U.S. and free world capital and increasing trade” and “access by the United States to essential Cuban resources. ============================== 23 U.S. goals in Cuba, as elsewhere in Latin America, Rubottom reiterated, included “receptivity to U.S. and free world capital and increasing trade” and “access by the United States to essential Cuban resources. ============================== CIA cultivated ties with the U.S. gambling syndicate that operated in Cuba, offering $150,000 for a successful assassination, starting in August 1960 ============================== “the fact that a great bulk of the Cubans … have awakened enthusiastically to the need for social and economic reform.”32 Yet the U.S. goal, he insisted, was precisely the opposite: “we must insure that a successor government comports itself in our interests.” ============================== While denouncing Cuban paranoia about U.S. intentions and activities, the U.S. government was in fact planning for both the invasion that took place at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961 ============================== While denouncing Cuban paranoia about U.S. intentions and activities, the U.S. government was in fact planning for both the invasion that took place at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, and the assassination of Fidel Castro. ============================== planes from this country had been setting fire to sugar cane fields on the island. ============================== The economic side of the conflict escalated when Cuba signed a trade deal with the USSR in February, 1960. ============================== In October, Eisenhower declared an economic embargo of the island, and in January of 1961, severed all diplomatic relations. ============================== It seems likely that assassination was part of the general Bay of Pigs plan. ============================== within three days, the invasion was decisively defeated. ============================== The Revolution’s popularity, both at home and abroad, was strengthened. ============================== In December 1961, Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist ============================== As Robert McNamara explained, “we were hysterical about Castro at the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter,” ============================== “punitive economic sabotage operations” ============================== A special staff in Langley, Virginia worked on projects ranging from placing contaminants in Cuban sugar shipments bound for export, to damaging machinery headed for Cuba. ============================== debated an all-out effort to overthrow Castro, but decided that this “would hurt the U.S. in the eyes of world opinion.” ============================== Kennedy’s advisors had approved the major attack on Cuba’s Matahambre copper mine. ============================== Missile Crisis, or the Crisis de Octubre ============================== to the surprise of the earlier generation of Cold War scholars, many of the claims made by the Soviets and the Cubans, previously denied by U.S. sources, turned out to be true ============================== The Soviets agreed to withdraw the missiles not because of Kennedy’s steely resolve, but because the United States agreed to Soviet demands that it relinquish its plans to invade Cuba – which it did publicly – and that it remove the missiles in Turkey, which it agreed to privately. ============================== our objective is to preserve our right to invade Cuba.” ============================== The brink was far closer than either the public at the time, or later historians, had realized. ============================== Khrushchev’s decision to withdraw the missiles was made without any consultation with the Cubans, who felt that once again, their sovereignty was being made hostage to great power politics. ============================== raids, bombings, and sabotage continued and even increased. ============================== CIA officials involved in the assassination attempts against Castro feared that Cuban forces might have been involved in the Kennedy assassination in retaliation for CIA attacks on Castro; ============================== In April 1964 Johnson called for an end to sabotage raids. Johnson was later quoted as complaining that “we had been operating a damned Murder, Inc., in the Caribbean. ============================== “We wanted to keep bread out of the stores so people were hungry,” a CIA officer ============================== “One of Nixon’s first acts in office in 1969 was to direct the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to intensify its covert operations against Cuba.” ============================== U.S. direct intervention in Latin America increased during the Reagan years (1981–89), ============================== Many Cubans believed that a U.S. invasion of Cuba would be next. ============================== bazooka attack on the United Nations headquarters when Che Guevara was speaking there in 1964, ============================== Omega 7 claimed responsibility for over 20 bombings in New York City and New Jersey in the late 1970s, targeting primarily foreign diplomats and Cuban immigrants who did not follow their hard line against the Revolution. ============================== The basic signal was ‘Go ahead and do what you want, outside the United States’. ============================== Although the embargo had significant economic impact on the island, it did not isolate Cuba politically – in fact, it did more to isolate the United States ============================== Although the embargo had significant economic impact on the island, it did not isolate Cuba politically – in fact, it did more to isolate the United States. Year after year, the UN General Assembly voted to condemn the embargo – with almost total unanimity. ============================== A ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba has been in place since the 1960s, though with significant ups and downs ============================== for many middle-class Cubans, a South Florida vacation was a yearly ritual; for the wealthy, it could be a daily excursion ============================== Between 1960 and 1962 200,000 Cubans left, most of them for Miami. ============================== They still fought to restore their vision for Cuba’s future, but they did it from what some Cubans came to call “el exterior” – outside of the country. ============================== upper classes were simply absent. ============================== in many other ways, Cuba’s emigration was unique ============================== 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act allowed virtually all Cubans who tried to come to the United States to obtain refugee status ============================== Even Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, did not receive the special benefits designed for Cubans. ============================== Operation Peter Pan. ============================== both Cuba and Miami – the prime destination for Cubans leaving the island – were transformed ============================== large majority of those leaving, especially in the first two decades of the Revolution, were white, ============================== Cuban immigrants established “a parallel social structure. ============================== and the changes occurring on the island. Miami’s Cubans had tried to recreate, and preserve, the Cuba of the 1950s, before the social changes of the 1960s that swept both Cuba and Latino groups into the United States ============================== Mariel migrants ============================== Cuban immigrants created a new version of their old Cuba, in Miami, while Cuba itself was changing rapidly. ============================== a “ferocious right-wing frame” that put Miami’s Cubans well beyond the mainstream of U.S. politics ============================== often-independent foreign policy and its stature in the Third World. ============================== While histories of Cuba often portray the island as torn between two superpowers, Cuba’s global relations are in fact much more multifaceted and complex. ============================== The idea flourished in the 1960s as anti-colonial movements grew across the African continent ============================== Politicized African Americans also made connections to black liberation movements in the Caribbean ============================== white liberals were rapidly distancing themselves from Cuba ============================== of the mainstream black community.” “Black Americans,” Gosse concludes, “felt a strong solidarity with the colonial world, and quite easily recognize a colonial situation and the reality of national liberation.” “No one knows the master as well as the servant,” Malcolm X explained upon his highly photographed meeting with Fidel.20 Manning Marable concurs. “No white political leader,” he wrote in 2000, “would ever come as close to receiving this kind of approval from literally every sector of the African American community … Only Nelson Mandela of South ============================== “Black Americans,” Gosse concludes, “felt a strong solidarity with the colonial world, and quite easily recognize a colonial situation and the reality of national liberation. ============================== Cuba also became an early challenger to some international institutions under U.S. control, like the World Bank and the newly founded Inter-American Development Bank ============================== it developed an extremely activist foreign policy ============================== it developed an extremely activist foreign policy. Its military activities around the world placed it second only to the United States, and ahead of the USSR, ============================== Its civilian aid programs became the largest in the world, surpassing even international organizations like the United Nations or the World Health Organization. ============================== Cuba’s goal, as Domínguez’s book’s title suggests, was To Make a World Safe for Revolution. ============================== Piero Gleijeses disagrees. Far from realpolitik, he argues, Cuba’s foreign policies were motivated by revolutionary idealism. ============================== idealism been such a key component of its foreign policy. ============================== The largest Cuban commitment in the 1970s and 80s was in Angola ============================== In Latin America, Cuba has lent varying degrees of support to revolutionary movements and leftist governments. ============================== While U.S. policymakers and media have often portrayed the Cubans as acting as proxies for the USSR, most serious scholars tell a different story. ============================== Moscow, seeking detente with the United States in the 1970s, had little enthusiasm for African entanglements ============================== Cuba, political scientist Julie Feinsilver notes, has created the largest civilian aid program in the world ============================== Cuba was the birthplace of magical realism, the literary style later associated with Nobel-Prize winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. ============================== On one hand, the Revolution has fostered, democratized, and contributed to all areas of culture in ways unprecedented in Latin American history. On the other hand, the Revolution has controlled, censored and restricted cultural production to the extent that numerous authors have chosen exile, and many Cubans complain about the limits on what they can read, listen to, see, or do. ============================== What Bunck derides as the imposition of “correct ideological thinking” Fagen describes as a “culture-transforming process.” ============================== the revolutionary leadership designed projects specifically aimed at creating the “new man” through mobilization and participation ============================== Cultural transformation also had a strong rural component. ============================== Urban Cubans went to the countryside to transform rural culture by teaching peasants to read, but also to transform themselves. ============================== During the 1970s, the period of institutionalization and a return to material incentives, there was also a certain retreat from the utopian goals of cultural transformation. ============================== spring of 1960 found an astonishing 86 percent of the population claiming to support the revolutionary government, with 43 percent showing “fervent” support.7 ============================== fall of the Soviet bloc, which eliminated the trade and aid relationships that had sustained Cuba’s economy for three decades. ============================== Cuban government implemented dramatic economic reforms including opening to foreign investment, allowing some forms of private enterprise, facilitating remittances, and promoting tourism. ============================== Social inequalities increased, and phenomena associated with pre-revolutionary poverty like prostitution and begging reappeared. ============================== Legalizing the dollar in the summer of 1993 was only the first in a series of economic reforms or openings that brought capital – and capitalism – into the country. ============================== By the end of 1996, the percentage of farms under state control had dropped from 82 percent to 24.4 percent ============================== The new policies, while painful and contradictory, were the only way to compensate for the loss in Soviet economic support and both revive the economy and maintain the social services that had become the trademark of the Revolution. ============================== In Cuba, the Special Period led to what one analyst called a “domestic brain drain.”10 Highly trained workers left skilled positions in the state sector for unskilled work that paid more. Education itself became less important. ============================== it looked like more education was going to limit a young person’s opportunity. ============================== Their relatives in Cuba, who had long tried to downplay any connection to the former elites and the Miami exile community, suddenly found that these old relationships were an advantage instead of a disadvantage. ============================== Not all of the changes in the Special Period went in the direction of capitalism. ============================== Not all of the changes in the Special Period went in the direction of capitalism. As Susan Eckstein usefully pointed out, some Special Period reforms were aimed at maintaining and even strengthening the socialist sector. ============================== Not only did health spending increase; so did spending on social security and education. Even during the worst years of the crisis, these areas grew both in absolute terms and as proportion of GDP ============================== While foreign investors have been invited into Cuba, the state maintains certain controls ============================== The government promoted biotechnology, health tourism, educational tourism, and the export of doctors. ============================== In terms of peasant access to land, the 1993 reform actually put more land into the hands of small farmers, by dismantling the state farms and turning them into cooperatives or small plots. ============================== Other inputs became a lot harder to come by, especially those that Cuba had to import with hard currency like pesticides, fertilizers, fuel, and farm equipment. ============================== peasants actually fared somewhat better than the urban population during the economic crisis. ============================== Special Period and resulted in some older patterns of racial inequality resurfacing. ============================== whiter Cubans were far more likely than Cubans of color to have relatives abroad, especially relatives who were part of the first generation of exiles who had prospered in the United States. ============================== So lighter-skinned Cubans benefited disproportionately from remittances. ============================== hiring preferences of the tourism industry ============================== A survey in Havana in 2000 confirmed that lighter-skinned Cubans were more likely to be paid in dollars, and to receive more dollars, than their darker-skinned counterparts ============================== “tourism apartheid.” New hotels catering to foreigners were not only prohibitively expensive, they were positively off-limits to Cubans. ============================== Jineterismo – a range of legal, semi-legal and illegal activities servicing the tourist economy – became rampant. ============================== While overt prostitution was illegal, it was often officially tolerated, though occasional crackdowns occurred. ============================== The influx of the tourist industry and the dollars it brings has also offered different opportunities to men and women. ============================== The derogatory term jinetera [prostitute] and, by association, jinetero, came to refer to anybody who received some kind of benefit from association with foreigners. ============================== What looked like jineterismo in Cuba could be called simply the law of supply and demand in a capitalist country ============================== The United States greeted Cuba’s economic crisis with a surge of publications predicting “Castro’s Final Hour. ============================== lucky few who had access to dollars, ============================== Castro decided to call the bluff of the United States. Cubans wishing to leave by sea, he announced, would no longer be intercepted. The coast was open for departure. ============================== A new smuggling industry emerged, with professional smugglers charging thousands of dollars to bring Cubans to the shores of Florida. ============================== Cuba’s new 1992 Constitution formalized this growing political openness ============================== By the year 2000, some 35,000 to 40,000 people from the United States had visited Cuba under the newly relaxed travel restrictions ============================== By the year 2000, some 35,000 to 40,000 people from the United States had visited Cuba under the newly relaxed travel restrictions, and 750 U.S. colleges and universities had obtained licenses for academic exchanges there.44 ============================== growing incapacity of the state to provide services and products contributed to the formation and strengthening of civil society. ============================== The number of NGOs mushroomed in the early 1990s. ============================== Some restrictions are enforced in harsh and overt ways, well documented and known on the outside. But prison sentences are reserved for Cubans accused and convicted of conspiring with outside forces ============================== cultivating dissidence from within only increased the government’s suspicion of Cubans who seemed too close to foreigners. ============================== Track Two’s focus on cultivating dissidence from within only increased the government’s suspicion of Cubans who seemed too close to foreigners. ============================== Track Two would add a positive side of trying to promote U.S. goals by reaching out to potential or actual Cuban dissidents, trying to foster academic and other non-governmental contacts that would lure Cubans into the U.S. or “pro-democracy” camp. While ============================== Track Two would add a positive side of trying to promote U.S. goals by reaching out to potential or actual Cuban dissidents, trying to foster academic and other non-governmental contacts that would lure Cubans into the U.S. or “pro-democracy” camp. ============================== surge in unemployment, which added to the inexorable growth of economic inequality. ============================== popular discontent with some of the economic distortions introduced by the Special Period reforms. ============================== these social ills were in a sense inherent in economic opening itself, the resulting policies continued to create contradictions. ============================== the period after 2003 saw an attempt to restrict and turn back some of these reforms. ============================== If many of the 1993–96 reforms went in the direction of market opening, the period after 2003 saw an attempt to restrict and turn back some of these reforms. ============================== One example of recentralization was de-dollarization. ============================== Another set of regulations attempted to undo the privileges that workers in the tourist economy had accrued. ============================== paladares [small private restaurants in people’s homes], ============================== Cuba’s failure to go further meant that what happened in Cuba was “stealth statism” or “the pretense of market reforms.” ============================== Archibald Ritter agrees that the Special Period is over, but he does not see this ending as simply a return to the past ============================== Some Cuban economists had been arguing since the 1990s that Cuba’s advantages, and its future, should rest on its human capital. ============================== the energy campaign called for large-scale popular participation and mobilization in pursuit of major change.16 Green billboards exhorted Cubans to save energy. ============================== Pragmatism (1970–86, 1993–96), where economic policies were more market-oriented, followed by periods of idealism (1960–70, 1986–93, 1996–present) where state control, moral incentives, and socialist ideals were emphasized. ============================== continuation of a cycle that has characterized Cuba’s approach since the early days of the Revolution. Pragmatism (1970–86, 1993–96), where economic policies were more market-oriented, followed by periods of idealism (1960–70, 1986–93, 1996–present) where state control, moral incentives, and socialist ideals were emphasized. ============================== Eckstein argues, rather, that pragmatism has governed Cuban government policies all along, with idealism being mobilized to justify decisions taken for very pragmatic reasons – often because there were few other options. ============================== The black-market forces Cubans to live by a double standard, and this is probably its most pernicious effect. ============================== Díaz-Briquets and Pérez-López argue that transparency, rather than control, is the best antidote. ============================== He also notes that the 1986 Rectification campaign, which closed down private markets, in fact led to an increase in black market activity ============================== Cuba was struck with five hurricanes between 2000 and 2005 ============================== the “triple blockade” was exacerbated by a fourth: a series of natural disasters. Cuba was struck with five hurricanes between 2000 and 2005 ============================== Some state-sponsored entities, like research institutions, became independent NGOs. ============================== In the area of gender and sexuality, the new century saw significant advances ============================== there are illegal organizations, that identify clearly with opposition to the Cuban government ============================== the right to sex-change operations under Cuba’s national health system, approved in 2008 ============================== Religious organizations too found new spaces opening at the end of the twentieth century. Cuba’s 1992 Constitution removed language defining the state as atheist, redefining the country instead as a secular state, and banning discrimination against religious believers and practitioners. ============================== Afro-Cuban religions experienced a different kind of political opening in the 1990s. Because they are not centrally organized and have no institutional hierarchy or data collection, it’s harder to measure increases in religious practice. But Santería, in particular, has boomed as a practice and as a tourist attraction. ============================== Many Cubans resented what one scholar termed “auto-exoticism” or “jineterismo cultural” – prostituting one’s culture for dollars. ============================== Cuban film flourished in new ways under the economic constraints that began in the 1990s. ============================== a whole new genre of Cuban film developed out of adversity. ============================== In 1998, the Christian Liberation Movement’s Oswaldo Payá founded the Varela Project, collecting signatures, according to Cuban law, for a referendum that proposed some fundamental changes to the Cuban political system. ============================== Although the results of the economic reforms looked positive in the aggregate, Cuba’s people did not benefit equally. ============================== Both those who lived the experiences, and those who learned about them in school, though, had to face contemporary realities that did not live up to revolutionary dreams. ============================== Both those who lived the experiences, and those who learned about them in school, though, had to face contemporary realities that did not live up to revolutionary dreams. The Revolution was supposed to bring equality – but what was visible in the 1990s and beyond was a growing inequality. ============================== Both those who lived the experiences, and those who learned about them in school, though, had to face contemporary realities that did not live up to revolutionary dreams. The Revolution was supposed to bring equality – but what was visible in the 1990s and beyond was a growing inequality. The Revolution was supposed to bring an end to national economic dependence and the neocolonial relations that entailed, but the 1990s brought a renewed influx of foreign tourists and foreign investment, now heralded as Cuba’s salvation. The Revolution was supposed to create opportunities for Cuba’s people by overcoming underdevelopment, but in the 1990s jobs and opportunities seemed to exist only abroad. The ============================== Both those who lived the experiences, and those who learned about them in school, though, had to face contemporary realities that did not live up to revolutionary dreams. The Revolution was supposed to bring equality – but what was visible in the 1990s and beyond was a growing inequality. The Revolution was supposed to bring an end to national economic dependence and the neocolonial relations that entailed, but the 1990s brought a renewed influx of foreign tourists and foreign investment, now heralded as Cuba’s salvation. The Revolution was supposed to create opportunities for Cuba’s people by overcoming underdevelopment, but in the 1990s jobs and opportunities seemed to exist only abroad. The ============================== Both those who lived the experiences, and those who learned about them in school, though, had to face contemporary realities that did not live up to revolutionary dreams. The Revolution was supposed to bring equality – but what was visible in the 1990s and beyond was a growing inequality. The Revolution was supposed to bring an end to national economic dependence and the neocolonial relations that entailed, but the 1990s brought a renewed influx of foreign tourists and foreign investment, now heralded as Cuba’s salvation. The Revolution was supposed to create opportunities for Cuba’s people by overcoming underdevelopment, but in the 1990s jobs and opportunities seemed to exist only abroad. ============================== U.S. Interests Section. Cason took an active role in promoting and supporting opposition groups in Cuba ============================== The trade embargo was loosened in 2000, with the U.S. Congress allowing sales of food and limited amounts of medicine ============================== however, it made it more difficult for Cuban Americans to visit their relatives in Cuba. ============================== Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez claiming the mantle of continuing the Cuban example. Venezuela also had something the Cubans desperately needed: oil. ============================== leftist parties winning elections from Chile, Brazil and Argentina to Nicaragua, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez claiming the mantle of continuing the Cuban example. Venezuela also had something the Cubans desperately needed: oil. ============================== December, 2004, when Chávez and Castro launched the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y el Caribe), an alternative, socialist model for economic integration in the Americas. ============================== Chávez signed an initial five-year agreement to sell oil to Cuba at controlled prices – in part in exchange for medical and other services – in 2000. The deal was expended in December, 2004, when Chávez and Castro launched the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y el Caribe), an alternative, socialist model for economic integration in the Americas. ============================== In the summer of 2006, a 79-year-old Fidel Castro announced that, due to illness, he was temporarily ceding the presidency to the First Vice President of the country, his brother Raúl. ============================== In Raúl Castro’s first few months in office he proposed various economic steps that excited much commentary both at home and abroad. ============================== shift to a less personalistic and more collective style of leadership. ============================== Obama reiterated that “the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba.” His announcement that he was lifting Bush-era restrictions on Cuban American travel to the island and remittances, and was ready to discuss restoring direct mail and a new accord on migration, was welcomed by many Cubans and Cuban Americans. ============================== Obama reiterated that “the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba.” His announcement that he was lifting Bush-era restrictions on Cuban American travel to the island and remittances, and was ready to discuss restoring direct mail and a new accord on migration, was welcomed by many Cubans and Cuban Americans. This did not, however, constitute a new beginning. ============================== By the end of 2009 hopes on both sides of the border for an end to the hostilities were also dimmed ==============================