Journey to the 2nd World, Part 10 - Thoughts on Cuban/USA relations

[jamesq]

Despite my current love of Cuba, I'm not blind to the fact that Castro is a dictator. He cracked a lot of heads to make the omelet that is now Cuban society. Cubans are not in any way free, except in the gross sense that they are free from obvious death due to starvation and lack of medical care. If they had any sort of mobility beyond the island there would be a mass exodus. The young (i.e. under-thirty) are especially volatile now according to people we spoke to - they want change and they want freedom. The sort of protests leading to the democratic revolutions that swept eastern Europe in the late nineties seems to be the likely thing to happen to Cuba in the future. I hope so. It'll be difficult but that path is likely to be the one that yields the biggest benefits to Cubans with the least bloodshed.

The US remains the elephant to their mouse - an analogy typically used by Canadians in their description of US relations, but it's probably more apt with Cuba. In Canada's case, the elephant is asleep. In Cuba's case it's awake and angry. That anger manifests itself as the embargo.

The embargo has a couple of major effects: It clobbers the Cuban economy. It keeps the Castro government in power.

Without the embargo, I'm convinced that the Castro regime would have fallen long ago. So why is it still there?

Americans seem to fall into one of several categories when it comes to Cuba.

• Those that don't give a rat's ass about Cuba. They don't like the embargo because they see it as pointless, but they aren't motivated enough to try to change things.
  
• Cuban-Americans and their sympathizers. They have a personal grudge against the Castro regime.
  
• Jingoists and cold-warriors. That Cuba is communist is enough to punish them. That Cuba continues to defy their will even after 46 years infuriates them into redoubling their efforts.

The latter two groups are in a shrinking minority that still gets its way largely because of the apathy of the first group. It helps that Cuban-Americans are a powerful voice in Florida. They can swing enough votes to control Florida's Electoral college. Florida in turn has enough Electoral seats to have a powerful affect on the US federal government. Thus a small group has enough leverage to force everyone else to help them grind their axes.

I read a particularly dumb online comment recently claiming that the embargo worked because it forced Fidel out of office. Apparently economic sanctions cause old age.

So when will it end? When Fidel and Raul are dead I expect. What little support exists for the embargo will fade when the name "Castro" is no longer associated with Cuba, even if the future regime has an unbroken continuity with the current one. Cuba will end up being like China (which the US has no problem trading with) only smaller and with awesome beaches. A democratic revolution could do the trick too. I have mixed feelings about this - on one hand I hope that Cuba joins the Western Democracies. On the other hand you just know that the US will take credit for it (citing the embargo specifically) despite all evidence to the contrary.

When the embargo ends it will hit the island like an atomic bomb. A few examples:

• The price for Cuban products will skyrocket as they gain 300 million new potential tourists/investors/customers. That wonderfully cheap rum I bought will no longer be so cheap.
  
• All those classic cars that are iconic of Cuba will get bought up by collectors.

Through it all the well placed will make a fortune and the turmoil will clobber regular folks. It's happened before and it will happen again. I wonder if the Cuban people will think it was all worth it in a hundred years.

Comments

[ladyerwyn.livejournal.com]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/02/cuba.freedoms/index.html?iref=newssearch



Cubans on new freedoms: 'We'll see how far we go'
By Morgan Neill
CNN Havana Bureau Chief

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- For the first time since Fidel Castro's official resignation, Cubans are talking more about what the government is doing than what it's not doing.


Cubans, like this woman at home in Havana, until now had been denied cell phones. Now they are allowed.

1 of 3 In the past week, President Raúl Castro has legalized cell phone use for ordinary Cubans; granted Cubans access to previously off-limits tourist hotels; and legalized the sale within Cuba of microwaves, DVD players and personal computers. Cubans are welcoming the change, even if the costs are out of their reach.

Georgina Garcia, a retired sound technician, was among those lined up at Dita, a store in Havana's Vedado neighborhood.

"I can't afford to go to the hotels," she said. "But I think it's good anyway. I have the right to go, and I feel the same as the tourists who come here."

Heriberto Gonzalez, a civil worker, said of the new freedoms, "Now that the prohibition has been lifted, we'll see how far we go from here." Watch Cubans react to the loosened rules »

Jorge, who has a small business, didn't want to give his last name. He said, "I think the Cuban people deserved this a while ago. So Cubans look more like the rest of the world, like normal people."

"Now we have to work on the workers' salaries, which aren't enough to meet the prices of a DVD player or a computer."

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Cuba's government had previously forbidden the sale of consumer products under the argument that they consumed too much electricity.

And although computers hadn't yet been seen on the shelves Wednesday, Yamile Batista, the commercial director of La Puntilla department store, said they were among various products that would appear this week.

"We're talking about complete computer systems, 21-inch televisions, DVD players, home theater systems," she said.

Georgina Garcia voiced a sentiment echoed by many in the stores this week.

"I think it's good that I can have a computer and not overpay for it, have to hide it when they come to fumigate my house, worried that they'll see the computer and I'll be sent of to prison for the computer that I overpaid for from somebody who stole it," she said.

Most Cubans can't afford to rent cell phones, stay in hotels or buy any of the new products available to them. The average monthly salary is just under $20.


Those in the stores this week were primarily those with access to hard currency, either from relatives abroad or through jobs in the tourist industry.

Cuba has a two-tiered currency system; Cuban state workers are paid in the Cuban peso, but many products are only sold in the convertible peso, worth 24 times as much.

[jamesq]

And so it begins.

I did in fact see Cubans with cell phones on my trip.

[devoidofthought.livejournal.com]

Not all the democratic revolutions that swept Eastern Europe were peaceful. Sometimes I wonder if the price for democracy is too high. What purpose does democracy serve if it asks for the ultimate sacrifice, and in return, your life will be worse for it.

[bungle-lord.livejournal.com]

You forgot about a couple of other reasons for the American standing.

1. The large Cuban population in Florida who resent Castro and that have a large influence on outcome of Florida elections.

2. The big companies that had their Cuban assets nationalized back when and still want to be compensated for it. Apparently these companies still have influence in the political sphere.

[jamesq]

Those were both subsumed into "Cuban-Americans and their sympathizers. They have a personal grudge against the Castro regime" in my post.