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<h1 id="reader-title">Cuba Libre, 2017</h1>
<p class="post_meta"> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/lee-artz/"
rel="nofollow">Lee Artz</a></span> - November 22, 2017<br>
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<p>In early November this year, I was invited to
participate in an international conference in Havana on
Global Capitalism in Latin America, co-sponsored by the
Cuban-based Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanos
y del Caribe. More than 75 scholars gave presentations
on a wide range of topics from transnational trade and
investment and the impact of capitalism on the
environment, social inequality, and indigenous rights to
the resurgence of social movements across the
hemisphere.</p>
<p>Much of the work will soon appear in <em>Third World
Quarterly</em>, <em>Monthly Review</em>, and other
journals. The conference was intense and engaging, but
participants also had ample time to witness Havana and
interact with Cuban citizens outside the tourist areas.</p>
<p>I was also personally fortunate to meet with Juan
Jacamino from Radio Havana Cuba and Ovidio Acosta,
senior international editor at ACN (Agencia Cubano
Noticias—the Cuban national news agency). In addition to
some informative exchanges about the Cuban media
practices and the cultural adjustment occurring with
increased foreign investment and licensing of small
business, we spent almost two days walking Havana and
its diverse neighborhoods. Having been to Cuba several
times before, most recently during the “special period”
following the collapse of the Soviet Union, several
things stood out as I witnessed Cuba today.</p>
<p><strong>Construction</strong></p>
<p>Perhaps most striking was the widespread, large-scale
construction appearing across Havana. Cranes everywhere.
Scaffolding everywhere. One obvious and significant part
was the United Nations’ restoration projects in and
around Old Havana—both small homes from the Spanish
colonial days and major projects on former colonial
edifices, castle-like structures and former colonial
institutional structures.</p>
<p>The other noticeable major construction projects were
Chinese and Spanish hotels going up, especially near El
Malecon, the main thoroughfare by the Caribbean Sea.
Again, multi-story buildings with construction
equipment, scores of workers, and cranes operating—even
at night.</p>
<p>The third noticeable construction activity around
Havana was all of the individual homes and apartments
that were in various stages of repair and improvement.
Walking through most neighborhoods, there was a
remarkable number of homes with residents painting
walls, refinishing doors, laying floor tile. Given that
most Cubans are economically challenged, the level of
home improvement was significant. As several Cubans
expressed along our journey, the socialist system in
Cuban still provides all with exceptional healthcare,
education, housing, and basic nutrition—but resources
available for personal consumption are in short supply.</p>
<p>Increased spending on home improvement and consumer
goods reflects the expansion of tourism (which brings
dollars to those working in the industry) and the
licensing of small businesses (which also provides
additional income for some).</p>
<p><strong>Small business</strong></p>
<p>This was the second noticeable change in Cuba since the
late 1990s: individual Cubans can start and profit from
small businesses, including hiring employees. In almost
every neighborhood, there are barbershops, auto repair
shops, food stalls, street vendors, tutors, and bars and
restaurants—and hundreds of self-employed taxi drivers.</p>
<p>Both Jacaminio and Acosta expressed some ambivalence
with the new “opening” of small enterprise, noting the
nudging of social inequality resulting from the
increased income for some in a socialist cultural
economy that shares public resources with all. Acosta
explained that all small businesses need to be licensed,
and a primary requirement is for each enterprise to
provide a social service to their local neighborhood.</p>
<p>Barbers in one neighborhood fund the local park—callled
“barbeparque”—as well as recreational and cultural
programs in the park for families and children. One bar
we visited established a cooking
school—“gastronomique”—for local youth to learn culinary
trades.</p>
<p>In every case, the enterprise applicant must meet with
representatives of the local neighborhood to discuss and
agree on what programs or projects will be provided. The
local CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution)
then monitors to assure the small business fulfills its
commitment. A small, perhaps even symbolic, recognition
of the collaborative culture of human solidarity that
Cuban leaders (including Raul Castro) still promote.</p>
<p><strong>Cultural diversity</strong></p>
<p>One of the most startling characteristics of Cuban
society for visitors unfamiliar with the dramatic
changes following the Cuban Revolution is the manifest
desegregation of daily living. From tourist streets to
every neighborhood, the separation of black and white
does not exist in Havana. Sure, there are some more
predominately black neighborhoods, but none solely black
streets, no exclusively “ghetto-ized” sections where
only blacks live and work. Likewise, there are a few
remaining primarily white sections, due to some families
who have maintained the residence of their ancestors
from before Batista. (Contrary to US propaganda, Cubans
did not have their homes confiscated by the revolution.
There is no real estate market for home sales, but some
Cubans still live in their family homes).</p>
<p>More manifest and transparent is the natural
interaction among Cubans of all ethnicities as
intermingling socially and culturally is common. Couples
hold hands, multiracial families share park benches and
public transportation, work together, laugh together,
dance together. Truly inspiring for the future of
humanity—once the economic incentives (e.g., rent
gouging, race-based pay scales, unemployment) and
institutionalized racism has been dismantled, citizens
gravitate to each other in mutual respect and exchange.</p>
<p><strong>Poverty?</strong></p>
<p>Following the loss of its primary trading partners in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Cuba
suffered economically. It is not possible to build a
socialist paradise—even on a tropical island—if your
primary products are sugar and tobacco. Making matters
much worse has been the concerted US blockade that both
threatens and undermines Cuba’s ability to normalize
relations for trade and finance—given US threatened
sanctions against those too friendly with Cuba. With the
explosion of tourism, Cuba has found an additional
source of revenue, but serving tourists does not serve
domestic equality.</p>
<p>So Cuba is poor by many economic measures. Not poor in
the Mexican maquiladores, Brazilian favela or US urban
blight social inequality sense, but poor in the public
appearance and private goods sense. It is obvious
everywhere. Streets are clean; kids are cheerful; but
there are severe limits on resources, so buildings and
streets are in disrepair (even as increased
refurbishment takes place) and the notorious 1950s US
automobiles are everywhere. No luxury sports cars are
around.</p>
<p>Free health care, free education, no rent, affordable
public transportation, and nutritional basics—but after
that things are tight. Art is everywhere. Museums,
libraries, and schools are everywhere—even if not posh.
Music is everywhere, so local entertainment is available
and affordable. Almost everyone seemed to be carrying a
cell phone. Rice, sugar, flour, and milk for children is
ample and available for all. We had lunch of spaghetti,
pizza, fruit, and pru (a Cuban fermented beverage) for
less than a dollar. Still the consumer goods, shiny
technology, and latest fashion options are in short
supply.</p>
<p>The appeal of self-gratification offered by visiting
relatives from Miami and seen on television stands in
quite a contrast to the adequate, but seemingly mundane,
bare necessities of Cuban daily life. There are
visceral, visible signs of shortages for décor,
appearance, and consumerist leisure, but the streets are
safe, the quality of life is high (educationally, public
health, mortality, or most any other measure from the
United Nations).</p>
<p><strong>Security and democracy</strong></p>
<p>In my week in Havana, I saw very few police of any
sort. A few walked past a public park, stopping to kiss
the cheeks of several acquaintances. Each morning a
couple of police chatted and rested at the end of one
main tourist street. This is no police state. No black
youth get shot down. One sees more cops in any US city
before lunch than can be seen in Havana in a week.
Safety and security and resolution of conflict is
usually handled by citizens themselves, often through
the neighborhood CDRs with local residents who are known
and respected.</p>
<p>Cuba is a democracy. In a few weeks, citizens will vote
in local elections for mayors and council reps. Acosta,
the senior editor at ACN, reported that there are more
than 20,000 candidates in the 168 local elections.
Anyone can run; anyone can be elected. (A few years ago,
a Presbyterian was elected to a local city council,
upending the US charge of no religious freedom in Cuba).
After the local voting, elected representatives will
vote for the National Assembly, a variance from most
other models, but still emblematic of democratic,
representative governments.</p>
<p><strong>Media</strong></p>
<p>As a media critic, I had some extended conversations
with both Jacaminio from Radio Havana Cuba and Acosta
from ACN. Jacaminio explained his role was different
from commercial reporters—he does not write of
spectacles or the lives and pastimes of entertainers or
politicians. Instead, he writes of Cuban citizens, to
“find the heroic meaning in the daily life of the
bricklayer.” Acosta, as senior editor for international
news, on the other hand, reports on global events,
particularly as they affect Cuba, including the Paris
Accords, NATO and UN decisions, global trade activities,
and similar stories. Both of them agreed that public
access to Cuban media was limited—there are no community
radio stations in Cuba, like those that have sprung up
as part of the socialist stirrings in Venezuela,
Bolivia, and Ecuador.While public and community media
across Latin America has been a site for educating and
mobilizing social movements for change, that recent
history has not spurred changes in Cuban media.
Jacaminio and Acosta agreed that the lack of more direct
public participation in media is a missed opportunity to
engage Cubans in critiquing, proposing, and ultimately
strengthening the revolution. Both tempered their
assessment with real concerns about US intervention, the
anti-Castro Miamians, and the general conditions of
insecurity and intimidation caused by the US blockade.
Cuba is so close to the US and such a target of North
American intervention that caution and control over
communication are to be expected and almost justifiably
the default response.</p>
<p><strong>Cuba Libre 2017</strong></p>
<p>On the day of departure from Cuba, the US announced
further restrictions on trade and travel. It will be
harder in the future for US residents to visit Cuba,
even for academic and educational activities. While
continuing to brutalize Cuba, the US policy is intended
to prevent Americans from witnessing what has been
achieved on a small island 90 miles away. The threat of
a good example is perhaps more disconcerting to the
Democratic and Republican party than any immediate
challenge Cuba might pose. They fear that if more
Americans witnessed the cultural diversity, education,
health care, quality of life in Cuba—all under the
illegal US blockade that creates serious problems for
further improvements—more Americans might reject claims
that more equitable policies are possible in the US.
They might ask why the richest country in the world
cannot provide adequate health care, free college
education, decent housing, and environmentally
sustainable nutrition to all. As pat of the conversation
for which way forward for the US, we have a vested
interest in defending the Cuban example.</p>
<p><em>Cuba Libre!</em></p>
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