10 Replies to ““I felt the desire to live there, at least for a while, then checked myself.””
Americans, generally speaking, on the subject of Cuba are not rational. Michael Totten in the Middle-East talks to ordinary people and leaders of Hezbollah, or whatever jihadis groups and their politicians. He does good work there.
He seems to think he’s behind the Iron Curtain when he visits Cuba. The Cubans like Americans, Canadians and Europeans and are hospitable to visitors. I know one visitor who traveled around when he was there. He met and joined some local youth on a bicycle camping trip. Bicycles and motorbikes are common and cheap enough.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians visit there and as many or more Europeans each year. It never was an Eastern Block country. Culturally, it’s Latin American/Caribbean. It’s a different mind set. Even during the Cold War ex-pat Cubans came back to visit relatives.
How Cuba will expand it’s economic development and transition into a modern economy and how can other countries assist that is the question? There are foreign companies involved in mining operations there. What role will the IMF and World Bank play?
It has a high literacy rate, higher levels of education than Dominica or Haiti. It has higher level medical education system than undeveloped countries. Vaccinations and medical care is more developed than other areas of the economy.
They could, for example, as the Philippines does, export nurses to countries that have a shortage and who send money home to families as part of the nations economy.
It has the potential to transition to be more like a Caribbean Costa Rica.
For more than a year, emigration for Cubans has been legal.
Compared to the Middle-East, which has financed terrorism war and Islamic supremacism all over the world, Cuba isn’t a problem.
For the developed world, helping Cuba modernize will be much more easier than, for example Haiti, where much of it is stuck in the 18th century.
As for a lack of satellite TV dishes, that’s probably a good thing. The internet is educational e.i. SDA, commercial TV lowers your I.Q.
Good post except that you’re bent and know little about the place. Cuba already exports their doctors and gets paid $900/mo by receiving countries. Their “medical schools” are at a technicians level – and typically 200 graduate a year and cost the Cuban government about $2 each / month to train (appreciate that the instructors are paid about $20/mo. Infection prevention – how about that cholera outbreak last year?
As far as right to travel… only if the government approves a passport – which is reserved for those they can control with family and those that don’t have economic value outside of Cuba.
Motos are about $2000 (8 years of an adult stipend) if you can get a license and can pay off someone to allow you it.
They charge returning Cubans a sales tax on ever gift brought in for family members.
Sherritt Mines of Canada has operated there for years – even tried to run the phone system and operate some local power plants.
And as far as the IMF and World Bank goes – Cuba has a credit rating of zero – it has never once repaid a debt to another nation – except when the US sent a boatload of chicken during a famine – that one Fidel made a big deal of cutting a check.
Your last comment shows your lack of knowledge – no ordinary Cuban has access to the internet.
Brian F could have added the cost of an exit visa, that quaint holdover of all communist havens. The cuban government had promised they’d do away with it. Have they?
In addition to the cost of a passport must be the cost in real cuban wages to gain it. Currently just under 6 months salary. Does that sound reasonable? http://www.nysun.com/foreign/huge-costs-confront-cubans-who-seek-to-travel/88153/
and Larry, Cuba was a modern country prior to the Castros seizing power.
ttp://www.worldisround.com/articles/346790/index.html
Yes, Cuba was a modern country relative to it’s neighbouring islands. Getting it to modernize into a 21st century leading island in the Caribbean is the task at hand.
The costs of emigrating to work to work in a Western country will be covered by the country or organization hiring them. Once that begins it will be self-sustaining and will expand.
If we import temporary workers from Mexico and other places we can do the same for Cubans.
Your article was from January 2013, we need some from 2014 to see what has happened in the meantime. Also, there are plenty of Cuban ex-pats who would sponsor friends or relatives.
Again, American sources tend to be more vitriolic than seeing the potential for change.
Of course, the current regime is dysfunctional, most Cubans understand that. Start the transition by educating the skilled in how modern production and a modern economy works.
The idea isn’t to depopulate the island, it is to modernize it. That by it’s nature has a major political effect. A new generation would be amazed by a 6 to 10 percent GNP growth rate, which is normal for an underdeveloped economy.
I’ve been traveling for years and written and published a book on it. Do interviews with radio stations on Cuba every month or so.
My favorite meme I use is “Cuba doesn’t have a government, it has a propaganda agency…”
Just search Youtube for videos pre-Castro – you’ll see the most modern country in Latin America, with cars everywhere, buildings all maintained, people – of all races (there are a fair # of Chinese there as well) dressed as well as on 5th Avenue strolling down the shopping districts.
Useful idiots, for some reason like defending commie dictators.
On a trip last year there was an “educational exchange” in my hotel from the USA. And woman said loudly “we must preserve this.” I wondered if she meant the prostitution, poverty, police statism, crumbling buildings, lack of water and power and the delicious odor of two stroke engines.
Don’t know why one would want to live in Trinidad. It was a tourist trap when I visited. It was the only place where I was warned by locals to watch for snatch ‘n grabs. And those @#$%ing cobbled streets. Hell to drive on and to walk on. Best not to get too drunk. Prices were relatively high and somebody always trying to sell trinkets and home-made crap. And it was not a quite place. People think that because there are little or no vehicles, particularly in the photos of Trinidad, that it is a rather bucolic town. I found the noise from the people in the streets of Trinidad irritatingly high. And I’ve stayed in both major cities in Cuba. That and the Italian men on their clapped-out moto guzzis driving around like idiots.
I liked Cienfuegos a lot more. The local Rastas were fun to watch, if only because it was a kind of personal, in your face rebellion against the authorities. That and the blonde descendants of Soviet submariners. And the massive black construction laborer contentedly sucking his thumb during his lunch break. It was nice to know that I could take a $60 flight over to Jamaica for a day trip if I wanted. Prices were cheaper, the pace was relaxed and I didn’t have to check my wallet every few minutes to see if it was still there. And by the way, there actually more than two types of local beer in Cuba.
And Cubans also vacation in the Escambray, although those vacations tend to take the form of work brigades picking coffee. And from what I saw, there were far less cops – although the few I saw were well armed – and check points through the mountains and people were hitching rides to get across. Might have had something to do with the continued armed opposition to Castro in those mountains for years following his “victory.”
Generally, these articles by Mr. Totten give me the impression that he’s not wandering far from the bus.
Relative to its neighboring islands? no, in 1958 Cuba had a higher average caloric intake than most of the economic leaders of the first world, as well as being in the top few places in the world (per capita) for such consumer commodities as Tv’s, radios, wash machines. The neighboring west indies countries were hopelessly behind.
Articles more recent than 2013? What’s the point? It takes nearly that long for anyone in Cuba to save up for a passport, and the cost to those cubans wanting to travel hasn’t changed. What has happened after january, 2013 is that the number of arbitrary political arrests are back up to 2010 levels. 853 in December, 2013 for a yearly total of 5718 Hardly an improvement. http://babalublog.com/2014/01/05/year-ends-in-cuba-with-highest-monthly-political-arrest-total-for-2013-and-over-5700-dissident-arrests-for-year/
Sending remittances from first world countries won’t help, it’s another layer of welfare that helps this month but does nothing for actual improvement that lasts longer than month to month. Think, “trade not aid”
How much aid would need to be sent so the average cuban could afford to buy a new Peugot? currently for sale in europe for about $29,000 while in Havana for about $260,000.
Those vitriolic americans that you refer to, would dearly love to see change, after all, they’ve already lost their country for 50 years + Those that write the Babalublog, widely viewed as being an authority on cuban affairs, are almost all sharing in cuban heritage.
As for vitriol, it’s hard to top Che:
“The negro is indolent and lazy, while the european is forward looking and hard working” … widely published, perhaps most notably by Humberto Fontova in his book, Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him.
That explains the lack of blacks within the upper echelons of power within Cuba. Didn’t that used to be called apartheid? Another government program gone wild, and isn’t government the reason for Cuba’s problems.
Less government = more freedom.
All communists are evil, and it matters not one bit what race they are whether hone grown or foreign.
Here’s a piece I wrote a while ago:
Cuba – The Isle of Lies
09/15/2012
A few weeks ago I clicked a Facebook ad for luxurious “Boomer Tours” in Cuba. Being somewhat interested in that topic, I clicked a little deeper. I noticed that one of the local guides proudly made a claim to be a personal friend of Che Guevara – who, of course, wasn’t exactly a role model for those interested in human rights. More, perhaps, for those interested parties that wish to learn how to execute and imprison political opponents and get away with it.
A click later I learned that the organizer of the tour is a self-confessed Trotskyist. Which is fine – our society allows anyone to pursue any philosophy they wish. And any party, if it gets a sufficient share of the votes in an election, can receive federal funding for their party. I have many friends within the entire spectrum of philosophical positions – and we get along because we have more in common that we have in differences.
Which is the way that democracies act.
But it’s not exactly that way in Cuba. Down there if you speak up you risk a term of re-education in a resort called Villa Marista. Which ain’t five stars.
To the organizers’ credit, they don’t try to hide their beliefs. A click and a Wiki search and it’s all there. Cuban propaganda is alive and well, and the internet does set us free. It’s easy to discover a bias that a writer of an article might have or, like Yoani Sanchez, to actually blog from Cuba about government abuses of the governed.
Lenin described those westerners who support communism as “Useful Idiots” and he would be smiling in his hereafter about this if he hadn’t been such an atheist.
A few years back, I was encouraged to write a novel as a sequel to one written by a famous friend of mine. We decided that Cuba would be a terrific place in which to place the plot and characters. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time in Cuba with lots of Cubans, and I think I have a pretty good understanding of how they live day-to-day, even though I will never have to worry about what I say in public, or whether my family will eat protein at least once this week.
When does a revolution stop becoming a revolution and start being recognized as a misguided philosophy with a status present that is an insult to all those who believe in human rights?
Lies are a permanent part of life on the Castros’ island paradise lost. Younger Cubans have to lie about their opinions of the government, its leadership and their opinion of the United States. Old Cubans lie about Fidel Castro because those lies are the only opinion they’ve ever been allowed to have. The Cuban politburo lies about everything it does, and just about everything everyone else does; especially the USA. The Castros spew lies constantly but are so absent from reality that they seem to believe them.
Fidel has always lied about his form of democracy. It started with his “temporary” suspension of free elections soon after he took power. Lie. While every few years Cubans are forced to go to a ballot box and vote for Communist Candidate tweedledum or Communist Candidate tweedledee, this temporary suspension is older than I am, and not likely to really become temporary any time soon.
Another great lie is that Cuba is an egalitarian paradise; where all are equal and everyone gets a great education and has tremendous health care. But as in Animal Farm, the pigs are more equal than others. In Habana, for example, loyal Fidelistas, virtually all of Spanish extraction, are rewarded with pleasant accommodations in nicer areas like Vedado and Miramar. Those who unfortunately are not in favour, who are mostly black, live in tenements in Central City on narrow streets filled with rubble that serve as both sewers and playgrounds.
There is only one way to survive in Cuba. Theft. At least Fidel considers it theft. It’s participation in the black market. A typical family stipend is between 10 and 20 dollar equivalents per month. Families are provided with housing (of a sort), a ration booklet that provides rice, beans, potatoes, milk (if you’re a pre-schooler) and a few other staples. The ration coupons have some value as they can be used for items to trade. Sick looking green onions and tiny garlic bulbs can be purchased at markets for a pittance. But meat isn’t on the menu and eggs are treated like they are laid by a golden hen.
But what a family really has to do to survive is to somehow scrounge for something, anything of value that they can trade. It might be a coupon for a pair of shoes (size 11, men’s black). They might be given chintzy curios and mass produced Cuban art to sell to naive turistas. Every month workers in tobacco factories get a box of cigars to smoke (but really to sell to gringos).
The young and old share the responsibility to come up with stuff to trade. Grannies dress up in Santarian priestess costumes to have their picture taken by tourists for a fee. Children look for kind foreigners who will give them a buck because they’re cute. Some young Cubana’s dream of having a child with a rich tourist and, if the Dad has at least some ethical standard, an annuity by way of child support.
Yes. There is prostitution. And yes many “northerners” from Canada, Germany, Italy and England conduct the most heinous of all acts of economic imperialism; they travel to Cuba to have sex with young people, mostly girls. White haired Decembers from the north are often seen with dusky Aprils from the South. I try to show my disdain any way I can when I see this. I’m hardly a moralist, but these guys feel rich and handsome in Cuba by throwing ten dollar bills around like man-hole covers and I don’t like it.
A key source of income for families is to have at least one family member that somehow has access to tourists. They may work in a hotel, restaurant, drive a taxi (legal or illegal), or act as “tour guides”.
Almost all the official jobs that are tourism related are given to those of the Spanish persuasion. The “tour guides” are almost all black and risk their freedom if they get noticed doing the wrong thing by the wrong people. You will know them by their furtive catch phrases as they pass you in the streets of Old Havana, “Chica, Senor?” “Cigar, Senor?” “Restaurant, Senor?” Trust me. Chances are almost 100% that the cigars are fake, the girl is somebody’s daughter who despises her source of income, and the restaurant will be over priced. (Private restaurants – paladares -were the only way to go up to a year or so ago when Fidel started taxing them to death and dropping the prices at government restaurants. He has succeeded in pricing these entrepreneurs out of business. But I’d not be the least bit surprised that even if they’re without customers that they are still forced to pay protection money to the boss.)
Public Health? Cubans have admirably healthy people at least partly because their lifestyle prohibits them from enjoying the goodies that make us die prematurely. They pretty much can’t help but avoid obesity – they can’t get their hands on enough food to get fat. Rum, even at a CUC (dollar equivalent) a bottle is really beyond their budget. Drugs? Really, really beyond their budget.
They don’t die in car accidents because no one has cars (but the few vehicles there do put out an admirably unhealthy quantity of exhaust). Cuba brags about it’s low level of infant mortality, and the lack of unhealthy life choices helps this, but so does abortion on demand which isn’t reported in any of their stats. And as far as drugs, ordinary Cubans do not have access to any, from Lipitor down to Aspirin. I had a friend die last year – a great musician – who died of a staph infection incurred when he was having his back scoped.
But if you’re down there doing a documentary, they’ll invite you to have a kidney or cornea transplant.
Schools are pretty good but all the kids are members of Fidel’s version of the Young Pioneers, which was such a rousing success in great democracies like the USSR. Fortunately, around about the time that testicles start dropping and breasts lifting, the political indoctrination of the Communist Party on Cuban youth is forgotten and replaced by a huge desire to have nice clothes and a moto to drive your sweetie around in style.
Safety? Cuba is a police state, so tourists are likely as safe there as in, say, the guest lounge in a Canadian penitentiary. There is at least one para-military on every street corner that tourists frequent. So we’re safe. The entire Cuban security apparatus, including their neighbourhood spies, are there to protect Cuba from Cubans, not to be a significant factor in fighting Bahia de Cochinos Dos.
For locals, nobody has anything so there really isn’t very much to steal. But I do have a friend in Havana who runs an organized crime organization, and there is crime. Just not on an Ocean’s Eleven scale.
Cuba’s “friends” in Canada and the USA brag about how well Cuba manages through a fairly regular procession of hurricanes and tropical storms. But they fail to mention that there is very little in property value there to be lost in a killer storm and Cubans are savvy enough to get out of the way of hurricanes; unlike more wealthy Americans.
The big lie, or course, was the first one. Fidel Castro, according to himself and his Bolshie buddy, Che Guevara, took over Cuba to rid it of a torturous tyrant in Fulgenio Batista. To let his people go.
But, history does not absolve Fidel, as he predicted in his legal defence when jailed for fomenting rebellion in Santiago de Cuba in 1953. History has proven that he is a whole lot worse than his predecessor. Cubans traded one despot for two; either and both Castros are at least as nasty as their predecessor.
First off, Batista was mulatto, not “pur laine” Spanish, and mixed race and black Cubans had lots more opportunities to get ahead under Batista than ever under Fidel.
Pictures of the Batista time reveal that Batista’s Havana was a true jewel – among the most civilized of all Latin American cities with the highest standard of living and a thriving middle class. The architectural look of the place was spectacular and photos of Cubans on the main shopping street, San Rafael, reveal an eclectic population of well dressed, multi-hued and happy people shopping and having fun.
And in terms of treating political opponents badly, Batista only sent Fidel to jail for 3 years for starting a bloody rebellion. Fidel throws drunkards in the slammer for complaining about not having food to eat. And he provides vacations for newspaper journalists who don’t appropriately honour him with praise.
The next big lie is everything about Commandante Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. And the one after that is the myth of Fidel ever ceding power to his younger and much dumber and meaner brother.
But those are tales for another day. Meanwhile, in the words of one of the most famous Cubanos, Fidel has a lotta esplainin’ to do.
As far as why people would live in Trinidad? Because they have to.
Cubans are not allowed freedom of movement.
Americans, generally speaking, on the subject of Cuba are not rational. Michael Totten in the Middle-East talks to ordinary people and leaders of Hezbollah, or whatever jihadis groups and their politicians. He does good work there.
He seems to think he’s behind the Iron Curtain when he visits Cuba. The Cubans like Americans, Canadians and Europeans and are hospitable to visitors. I know one visitor who traveled around when he was there. He met and joined some local youth on a bicycle camping trip. Bicycles and motorbikes are common and cheap enough.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians visit there and as many or more Europeans each year. It never was an Eastern Block country. Culturally, it’s Latin American/Caribbean. It’s a different mind set. Even during the Cold War ex-pat Cubans came back to visit relatives.
How Cuba will expand it’s economic development and transition into a modern economy and how can other countries assist that is the question? There are foreign companies involved in mining operations there. What role will the IMF and World Bank play?
It has a high literacy rate, higher levels of education than Dominica or Haiti. It has higher level medical education system than undeveloped countries. Vaccinations and medical care is more developed than other areas of the economy.
They could, for example, as the Philippines does, export nurses to countries that have a shortage and who send money home to families as part of the nations economy.
It has the potential to transition to be more like a Caribbean Costa Rica.
For more than a year, emigration for Cubans has been legal.
Compared to the Middle-East, which has financed terrorism war and Islamic supremacism all over the world, Cuba isn’t a problem.
For the developed world, helping Cuba modernize will be much more easier than, for example Haiti, where much of it is stuck in the 18th century.
As for a lack of satellite TV dishes, that’s probably a good thing. The internet is educational e.i. SDA, commercial TV lowers your I.Q.
Good post except that you’re bent and know little about the place. Cuba already exports their doctors and gets paid $900/mo by receiving countries. Their “medical schools” are at a technicians level – and typically 200 graduate a year and cost the Cuban government about $2 each / month to train (appreciate that the instructors are paid about $20/mo. Infection prevention – how about that cholera outbreak last year?
As far as right to travel… only if the government approves a passport – which is reserved for those they can control with family and those that don’t have economic value outside of Cuba.
Motos are about $2000 (8 years of an adult stipend) if you can get a license and can pay off someone to allow you it.
They charge returning Cubans a sales tax on ever gift brought in for family members.
Sherritt Mines of Canada has operated there for years – even tried to run the phone system and operate some local power plants.
And as far as the IMF and World Bank goes – Cuba has a credit rating of zero – it has never once repaid a debt to another nation – except when the US sent a boatload of chicken during a famine – that one Fidel made a big deal of cutting a check.
Your last comment shows your lack of knowledge – no ordinary Cuban has access to the internet.
Brian F could have added the cost of an exit visa, that quaint holdover of all communist havens. The cuban government had promised they’d do away with it. Have they?
In addition to the cost of a passport must be the cost in real cuban wages to gain it. Currently just under 6 months salary. Does that sound reasonable?
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/huge-costs-confront-cubans-who-seek-to-travel/88153/
and Larry, Cuba was a modern country prior to the Castros seizing power.
ttp://www.worldisround.com/articles/346790/index.html
Yes, Cuba was a modern country relative to it’s neighbouring islands. Getting it to modernize into a 21st century leading island in the Caribbean is the task at hand.
The costs of emigrating to work to work in a Western country will be covered by the country or organization hiring them. Once that begins it will be self-sustaining and will expand.
If we import temporary workers from Mexico and other places we can do the same for Cubans.
Your article was from January 2013, we need some from 2014 to see what has happened in the meantime. Also, there are plenty of Cuban ex-pats who would sponsor friends or relatives.
Again, American sources tend to be more vitriolic than seeing the potential for change.
Of course, the current regime is dysfunctional, most Cubans understand that. Start the transition by educating the skilled in how modern production and a modern economy works.
The idea isn’t to depopulate the island, it is to modernize it. That by it’s nature has a major political effect. A new generation would be amazed by a 6 to 10 percent GNP growth rate, which is normal for an underdeveloped economy.
I’ve been traveling for years and written and published a book on it. Do interviews with radio stations on Cuba every month or so.
My favorite meme I use is “Cuba doesn’t have a government, it has a propaganda agency…”
Just search Youtube for videos pre-Castro – you’ll see the most modern country in Latin America, with cars everywhere, buildings all maintained, people – of all races (there are a fair # of Chinese there as well) dressed as well as on 5th Avenue strolling down the shopping districts.
Useful idiots, for some reason like defending commie dictators.
On a trip last year there was an “educational exchange” in my hotel from the USA. And woman said loudly “we must preserve this.” I wondered if she meant the prostitution, poverty, police statism, crumbling buildings, lack of water and power and the delicious odor of two stroke engines.
Don’t know why one would want to live in Trinidad. It was a tourist trap when I visited. It was the only place where I was warned by locals to watch for snatch ‘n grabs. And those @#$%ing cobbled streets. Hell to drive on and to walk on. Best not to get too drunk. Prices were relatively high and somebody always trying to sell trinkets and home-made crap. And it was not a quite place. People think that because there are little or no vehicles, particularly in the photos of Trinidad, that it is a rather bucolic town. I found the noise from the people in the streets of Trinidad irritatingly high. And I’ve stayed in both major cities in Cuba. That and the Italian men on their clapped-out moto guzzis driving around like idiots.
I liked Cienfuegos a lot more. The local Rastas were fun to watch, if only because it was a kind of personal, in your face rebellion against the authorities. That and the blonde descendants of Soviet submariners. And the massive black construction laborer contentedly sucking his thumb during his lunch break. It was nice to know that I could take a $60 flight over to Jamaica for a day trip if I wanted. Prices were cheaper, the pace was relaxed and I didn’t have to check my wallet every few minutes to see if it was still there. And by the way, there actually more than two types of local beer in Cuba.
And Cubans also vacation in the Escambray, although those vacations tend to take the form of work brigades picking coffee. And from what I saw, there were far less cops – although the few I saw were well armed – and check points through the mountains and people were hitching rides to get across. Might have had something to do with the continued armed opposition to Castro in those mountains for years following his “victory.”
Generally, these articles by Mr. Totten give me the impression that he’s not wandering far from the bus.
Relative to its neighboring islands? no, in 1958 Cuba had a higher average caloric intake than most of the economic leaders of the first world, as well as being in the top few places in the world (per capita) for such consumer commodities as Tv’s, radios, wash machines. The neighboring west indies countries were hopelessly behind.
Articles more recent than 2013? What’s the point? It takes nearly that long for anyone in Cuba to save up for a passport, and the cost to those cubans wanting to travel hasn’t changed. What has happened after january, 2013 is that the number of arbitrary political arrests are back up to 2010 levels. 853 in December, 2013 for a yearly total of 5718 Hardly an improvement.
http://babalublog.com/2014/01/05/year-ends-in-cuba-with-highest-monthly-political-arrest-total-for-2013-and-over-5700-dissident-arrests-for-year/
Sending remittances from first world countries won’t help, it’s another layer of welfare that helps this month but does nothing for actual improvement that lasts longer than month to month. Think, “trade not aid”
How much aid would need to be sent so the average cuban could afford to buy a new Peugot? currently for sale in europe for about $29,000 while in Havana for about $260,000.
Those vitriolic americans that you refer to, would dearly love to see change, after all, they’ve already lost their country for 50 years + Those that write the Babalublog, widely viewed as being an authority on cuban affairs, are almost all sharing in cuban heritage.
As for vitriol, it’s hard to top Che:
“The negro is indolent and lazy, while the european is forward looking and hard working” … widely published, perhaps most notably by Humberto Fontova in his book, Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him.
That explains the lack of blacks within the upper echelons of power within Cuba. Didn’t that used to be called apartheid? Another government program gone wild, and isn’t government the reason for Cuba’s problems.
Less government = more freedom.
All communists are evil, and it matters not one bit what race they are whether hone grown or foreign.
Here’s a piece I wrote a while ago:
Cuba – The Isle of Lies
09/15/2012
A few weeks ago I clicked a Facebook ad for luxurious “Boomer Tours” in Cuba. Being somewhat interested in that topic, I clicked a little deeper. I noticed that one of the local guides proudly made a claim to be a personal friend of Che Guevara – who, of course, wasn’t exactly a role model for those interested in human rights. More, perhaps, for those interested parties that wish to learn how to execute and imprison political opponents and get away with it.
A click later I learned that the organizer of the tour is a self-confessed Trotskyist. Which is fine – our society allows anyone to pursue any philosophy they wish. And any party, if it gets a sufficient share of the votes in an election, can receive federal funding for their party. I have many friends within the entire spectrum of philosophical positions – and we get along because we have more in common that we have in differences.
Which is the way that democracies act.
But it’s not exactly that way in Cuba. Down there if you speak up you risk a term of re-education in a resort called Villa Marista. Which ain’t five stars.
To the organizers’ credit, they don’t try to hide their beliefs. A click and a Wiki search and it’s all there. Cuban propaganda is alive and well, and the internet does set us free. It’s easy to discover a bias that a writer of an article might have or, like Yoani Sanchez, to actually blog from Cuba about government abuses of the governed.
Lenin described those westerners who support communism as “Useful Idiots” and he would be smiling in his hereafter about this if he hadn’t been such an atheist.
A few years back, I was encouraged to write a novel as a sequel to one written by a famous friend of mine. We decided that Cuba would be a terrific place in which to place the plot and characters. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time in Cuba with lots of Cubans, and I think I have a pretty good understanding of how they live day-to-day, even though I will never have to worry about what I say in public, or whether my family will eat protein at least once this week.
When does a revolution stop becoming a revolution and start being recognized as a misguided philosophy with a status present that is an insult to all those who believe in human rights?
Lies are a permanent part of life on the Castros’ island paradise lost. Younger Cubans have to lie about their opinions of the government, its leadership and their opinion of the United States. Old Cubans lie about Fidel Castro because those lies are the only opinion they’ve ever been allowed to have. The Cuban politburo lies about everything it does, and just about everything everyone else does; especially the USA. The Castros spew lies constantly but are so absent from reality that they seem to believe them.
Fidel has always lied about his form of democracy. It started with his “temporary” suspension of free elections soon after he took power. Lie. While every few years Cubans are forced to go to a ballot box and vote for Communist Candidate tweedledum or Communist Candidate tweedledee, this temporary suspension is older than I am, and not likely to really become temporary any time soon.
Another great lie is that Cuba is an egalitarian paradise; where all are equal and everyone gets a great education and has tremendous health care. But as in Animal Farm, the pigs are more equal than others. In Habana, for example, loyal Fidelistas, virtually all of Spanish extraction, are rewarded with pleasant accommodations in nicer areas like Vedado and Miramar. Those who unfortunately are not in favour, who are mostly black, live in tenements in Central City on narrow streets filled with rubble that serve as both sewers and playgrounds.
There is only one way to survive in Cuba. Theft. At least Fidel considers it theft. It’s participation in the black market. A typical family stipend is between 10 and 20 dollar equivalents per month. Families are provided with housing (of a sort), a ration booklet that provides rice, beans, potatoes, milk (if you’re a pre-schooler) and a few other staples. The ration coupons have some value as they can be used for items to trade. Sick looking green onions and tiny garlic bulbs can be purchased at markets for a pittance. But meat isn’t on the menu and eggs are treated like they are laid by a golden hen.
But what a family really has to do to survive is to somehow scrounge for something, anything of value that they can trade. It might be a coupon for a pair of shoes (size 11, men’s black). They might be given chintzy curios and mass produced Cuban art to sell to naive turistas. Every month workers in tobacco factories get a box of cigars to smoke (but really to sell to gringos).
The young and old share the responsibility to come up with stuff to trade. Grannies dress up in Santarian priestess costumes to have their picture taken by tourists for a fee. Children look for kind foreigners who will give them a buck because they’re cute. Some young Cubana’s dream of having a child with a rich tourist and, if the Dad has at least some ethical standard, an annuity by way of child support.
Yes. There is prostitution. And yes many “northerners” from Canada, Germany, Italy and England conduct the most heinous of all acts of economic imperialism; they travel to Cuba to have sex with young people, mostly girls. White haired Decembers from the north are often seen with dusky Aprils from the South. I try to show my disdain any way I can when I see this. I’m hardly a moralist, but these guys feel rich and handsome in Cuba by throwing ten dollar bills around like man-hole covers and I don’t like it.
A key source of income for families is to have at least one family member that somehow has access to tourists. They may work in a hotel, restaurant, drive a taxi (legal or illegal), or act as “tour guides”.
Almost all the official jobs that are tourism related are given to those of the Spanish persuasion. The “tour guides” are almost all black and risk their freedom if they get noticed doing the wrong thing by the wrong people. You will know them by their furtive catch phrases as they pass you in the streets of Old Havana, “Chica, Senor?” “Cigar, Senor?” “Restaurant, Senor?” Trust me. Chances are almost 100% that the cigars are fake, the girl is somebody’s daughter who despises her source of income, and the restaurant will be over priced. (Private restaurants – paladares -were the only way to go up to a year or so ago when Fidel started taxing them to death and dropping the prices at government restaurants. He has succeeded in pricing these entrepreneurs out of business. But I’d not be the least bit surprised that even if they’re without customers that they are still forced to pay protection money to the boss.)
Public Health? Cubans have admirably healthy people at least partly because their lifestyle prohibits them from enjoying the goodies that make us die prematurely. They pretty much can’t help but avoid obesity – they can’t get their hands on enough food to get fat. Rum, even at a CUC (dollar equivalent) a bottle is really beyond their budget. Drugs? Really, really beyond their budget.
They don’t die in car accidents because no one has cars (but the few vehicles there do put out an admirably unhealthy quantity of exhaust). Cuba brags about it’s low level of infant mortality, and the lack of unhealthy life choices helps this, but so does abortion on demand which isn’t reported in any of their stats. And as far as drugs, ordinary Cubans do not have access to any, from Lipitor down to Aspirin. I had a friend die last year – a great musician – who died of a staph infection incurred when he was having his back scoped.
But if you’re down there doing a documentary, they’ll invite you to have a kidney or cornea transplant.
Schools are pretty good but all the kids are members of Fidel’s version of the Young Pioneers, which was such a rousing success in great democracies like the USSR. Fortunately, around about the time that testicles start dropping and breasts lifting, the political indoctrination of the Communist Party on Cuban youth is forgotten and replaced by a huge desire to have nice clothes and a moto to drive your sweetie around in style.
Safety? Cuba is a police state, so tourists are likely as safe there as in, say, the guest lounge in a Canadian penitentiary. There is at least one para-military on every street corner that tourists frequent. So we’re safe. The entire Cuban security apparatus, including their neighbourhood spies, are there to protect Cuba from Cubans, not to be a significant factor in fighting Bahia de Cochinos Dos.
For locals, nobody has anything so there really isn’t very much to steal. But I do have a friend in Havana who runs an organized crime organization, and there is crime. Just not on an Ocean’s Eleven scale.
Cuba’s “friends” in Canada and the USA brag about how well Cuba manages through a fairly regular procession of hurricanes and tropical storms. But they fail to mention that there is very little in property value there to be lost in a killer storm and Cubans are savvy enough to get out of the way of hurricanes; unlike more wealthy Americans.
The big lie, or course, was the first one. Fidel Castro, according to himself and his Bolshie buddy, Che Guevara, took over Cuba to rid it of a torturous tyrant in Fulgenio Batista. To let his people go.
But, history does not absolve Fidel, as he predicted in his legal defence when jailed for fomenting rebellion in Santiago de Cuba in 1953. History has proven that he is a whole lot worse than his predecessor. Cubans traded one despot for two; either and both Castros are at least as nasty as their predecessor.
First off, Batista was mulatto, not “pur laine” Spanish, and mixed race and black Cubans had lots more opportunities to get ahead under Batista than ever under Fidel.
Pictures of the Batista time reveal that Batista’s Havana was a true jewel – among the most civilized of all Latin American cities with the highest standard of living and a thriving middle class. The architectural look of the place was spectacular and photos of Cubans on the main shopping street, San Rafael, reveal an eclectic population of well dressed, multi-hued and happy people shopping and having fun.
And in terms of treating political opponents badly, Batista only sent Fidel to jail for 3 years for starting a bloody rebellion. Fidel throws drunkards in the slammer for complaining about not having food to eat. And he provides vacations for newspaper journalists who don’t appropriately honour him with praise.
The next big lie is everything about Commandante Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. And the one after that is the myth of Fidel ever ceding power to his younger and much dumber and meaner brother.
But those are tales for another day. Meanwhile, in the words of one of the most famous Cubanos, Fidel has a lotta esplainin’ to do.
As far as why people would live in Trinidad? Because they have to.
Cubans are not allowed freedom of movement.