CASTROLOGY FOR FORTUNE TELLERS AND MISERY TELLERS
It was a trip with a deadline.
Going to Cuba today is like climbing the slopes of Kilimanjaro to see a disappearing African glacier. It’s like visiting Tibet before it is thoroughly “modernized” by its Eastern neighbors. It’s like lying on a beach in Maldives before ice from Antarctic melts the islands away from human memory.
Cuba too is a species nearing extinction. But unlike in the era of domino-like fall of communist regimes, one can hardly react to the country’s current plight with triumphalism. A large number of Cubans yearn for a change, but it is unlikely to happen on the day the dictator dies. The regime is bound to outlive Castro due to a combination of three factors: the reliability and ubiquity of its repressive security apparatus, the economic and ideological support from Venezuela and the inflow of hard currency from tourism. Through a fallacy of composition I contributed to this last factor by deciding to circumvent US travel restrictions and visit Havana in December.
I had never shared the illusions of revolutionary romanticism so readily espoused by many of my Western European friends. Indeed, my interest in the events of 1950s and 1960s was always of strictly historical nature. Castro and his regime were of marginal relevance to my political interests, of secondary importance for my travel plans and of zero utility for my professional activities. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, I did not pay much attention to Cuba because the future developments seemed just too predictable to rivet my globetrotting mind. And yet, once again, Castro’s political longevity defied expectations. After the disastrous “special period” (1991-1994), the regime embarked on a measure of liberalization, marked by successful tourism promotion and exemplified by orthogonal cultural exports which ranged from poignant films (“Fresa y chocolate”) to son music revival (“Buena Vista Social Club”). Throughout the 1990s, tourist infrastructure improved and numbers of visitors soared. Accounts were invariably positive, not least due to superficial ideological convergence of Western European and Cuban anti-Americanism. Unlike post-Warholian images of Mao, t-shirts and hats emblazoned with images of bearded revolutionaries combine an active political message with chic status of committed Salonsfähigkeit. But beyond this puerile uniformization, visitors spoke of Havana’s legendary wonders, endless fiestas and easy girls (and boys). The waft of Hemingway’s and Carpentier’s shadows beckoned many an intellectual.
My expectations were not so high, but, as it turned out, familiarity with many other Latin American countries prepares one poorly to deal with the shock of the time machine that Cuba is today.
Soon after arrival, one discovers just how different the path of the nation’s socioeconomic development has been. Behind the façades of UNESCO-renovated stately buildings in Havana Vieja, power supply is erratic, water pumps unreliable and services grumpy. Still, the old quarters are a treat. Elsewhere, wide highways never suffer from traffic jams, even though many cars unexpectedly pull over to let their drivers transform themselves into instant engineers. Indeed, the image of an automobile swallowing its driver who seems to plunge into the car’s entrails quickly becomes one of the most enduring images from the island.
But the vintage automobiles have been duly singled out as one of the chief reasons to visit Cuba before the end of the communist rule. The fans of Dodge, Mercury, Plymouth, Studebaker and Nash Rambler will not be disappointed. I would expect, probably mistakenly, that most of the Guevara t-shirted Euro-folk would rather be interested in the 1970s Zhiguli, Lada and Polski Fiat. The difference between the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary cars is not only in their look, but also in the economic value they carry for the drivers. Those who drive the pre-1959 models actually own them and the average value ranges between $7000 and $9000. By contrast, the post-revolutionary cars cannot change ownership. The regime has thus successfully pruned the potential for the development of a secondary market.
And the very term ‘market’ seems to be a bad word in Havana. A port city with a bay and a poetic embankment, it strikes the visitors as entirely devoid of any fish markets. Indeed, there is not a single fishing boat in sight. This does not mean that there is no fish in the sea. Locals do dive in, illegally, to support their families’ daily staples: eggs, rice and plàtanos. Most food is rationed and even cooking oil may be hard to come by. A friend employed in an agency fumigating mosquito-breeding areas needed to borrow a bici-taxi during the day in order to earn extra money and feed his two children on that night. Whatever private restaurants (paladares) were opened in Cuba in 1990s, they have now either closed or have been taxed out of profitability. As a result, they serve food unaffordable except for those tourists who planned a weekend in Bora Bora and just whistle-stopped over in Havana for a couple of hours.
The fact of the matter is that the recent crackdown on the freedoms unleashed by tourism is quickly strangling the industry. The government banned the use of dollars and euro in the circulation. The “convertible” peso seems to be pegged to euro, but if you exchange dollars, the government will take a 10% cut. In addition, all the prices for foreigners have skyrocketed in the last two years. Worse for Americans: since credit cards from US banks are not allowed, you quickly fall back into the local diet of eggs, rice and plàtanos. This is just as well, as you can now sit with the locals and learn more about the glory of the revolution.
Làzaro, one of my rice co-eaters, was quite open about the ultimate objective in his life. At 24 he is resigned to get out. The problem is – it costs about $5000 to leave Cuba. Since the average Cuban earns the equivalent of between $10 and $15, Làzaro will be about 58 when he manages to get out, just by drinking water and eating rice between now and then. Meanwhile, foreigners are expected to pay the equivalent of 15 Euro for a pineapple… The extraordinary endeavor by the regime to prevent wealth accumulation is thus working wonders. Surprisingly however, free accommodation, health services and education have not quite obliterated other economic goals.
Some astute individuals do manage to collect the money and either take the lancha to Florida or risk traveling with Cubana Airlines through Moscow and Madrid, where many of them get stranded. Many Europeans are mystified by Cubans’ willingness to find a way into the United States. Baseball and family links aside, it may simply be that culturally and economically, the US provides more space for poor Hispanic immigrants in search of a support network. I have heard of one individual who continued his odyssey for two years, traveling from Madrid further to Ecuador, then over to Chile, finally ending up arrested in Argentina (his papers expired). He made it to the US, eventually, two years after his initial departure for Moscow. Motorcycle diaries anybody?
Many others would love to experience this sort of adventure, or at least young Guevara’s. The problem is, Cubans are not allowed to leave the country for leisure. Ricardo, another local friend who offered rice and eggs, admitted that seeing “something else” is his ultimate dream. “All we see on TV is just Cuba, Cuba, Cuba”. Later that day I stumbled on a comment in my 2003 version of Lonely Planet. The same guidebook that criticized US travel restrictions to Cuba referred to all-world travel ban that Cuban citizens suffer as a “subtle constraint”. What was that author smoking?
Smoking is one good reason why intrepid Americans try to see Havana. Cigar aficionados may visit as many as three cigar factories and see laborers skillfully pack, roll and press the world-famous brands. It is in one of the cigar factories that I detected a scheme that should somehow allow their originators to accumulate enough wealth to leave the country. Other means include illegal (untaxed) sales of clothes from someone’s apartment and middle-making in tourist activities. But such opportunities were severely curtailed by the Resolution 10, adopted in 2005 and outlawing any tipping by foreigners and limiting any casual contact between Cuban citizens and foreign visitors. Foreigners are not allowed to take bici-taxis (a type of a rickshaw). Prostitution, always a source of parallel wealth, has now effectively disappeared from tourist-frequented areas. Accumulation of tourist and non-tourist-related activities is also considered illegal. Big numbers of uniformed and plain-clothes police watch over the potential transgressors. A system of well-hidden cameras on the corners of Havana Vieja further ensures that locals, chased from the main alleys, do not stray.
Nor should foreigners. These days, with Castro’s survival uncertain, police nervousness begins to eat into tourists’ freedoms too. A walk on the famed Malecon embankment should not be too casual if you’re within a 300m radius of US Interest Section. Stragglers who dare to stare at the azure waves for too long are promptly whistled away by the police. Nor should anyone get too close to Havana University during the school’s holidays. Expect whistles and troop reinforcements. There were some other buildings from which I was turned away, but I could not identify their revolutionary value prior to attracting attention from excitable guards.
An English couple I met in Pinar del Rio province admitted that after three days in Havana they felt it was time to leave. But if you listen to oppressive TV and radio propaganda, three days may seem like an eternity. What the locals refer to as “government”, is known in the official lingo as “revolution”. You protect the revolution, you defend the revolution, and you have a choice: revolution or death (alternatively: homeland or death). Among my favorite slogans was “We Are Doing Fine” (Vamos bien). A close second pick was “Fidel is our fatherland”. It is this suffocating cult of the individual that may make the regime so jittery these days. Many Cubans may still hold a nostalgic deference to Castro, however surreal the slogans. All the other heroes – from Cienfuegos to Guevara are long gone and Raul Castro lacks the charisma of his brother. But the propaganda does not rely uniquely on the cult of individual. It exudes confidence (“we have had another difficult year for Cuba’s development, but the signs are that the coming year will be much better”) and rapacious nationalism (“fight the American aggression”). Since Cuban nationalism was always floating in an ‘internationalist’ semantic soup, it was a potent export to Spanish speaking countries where Castro’s undeniable rhetorical prowess could be transmitted in direct. Meanwhile, close neighbors in the Caribbean who did not share the same linguistic code, from Haiti to Jamaica and Bahamas, hardly even took notice.
Ironically, one of the great beneficiaries of Castro’s ultimate demise is Hugo Chavez. Although never officially anointed by Castro as his ideological successor, Chavez now enjoys a de facto supremacy in Latin America’s left-wing populism. His fiery oratorical skills should not be underestimated and the support he provided for Castro’s struggling regime has been symbolically reciprocated in the streets of Havana, in the offices and on the bici-taxis.
Castro’s clique appears grateful to Chavez for maintaining on life support a regime that graciously offered its citizens free health care and education. Indeed, the self-styled Bolivarian revolution readily espouses some of the chief themes of post-revolutionary Cuba. But these were achievements of 1960s. Today it is Chile’s economic model, and not Cuba’s that has blazed the trail for the most durably successful development avenue in Latin America. Chile’s brutal dictator eventually stepped down. Until physically reduced by a prolonged disease, Castro never contemplated such a step. And even if Cuba’s famed educational system may indeed be superior to many of its neighbors, what is it worth if the academics have to drive bici-taxis? Cuba’s economy cannot absorb all those highly educated people and sending unemployed sugarmill workers back to university simply points to the degree of wastefulness in the resource allocation as determined by the bureaucrats. For all the praise that communists get for such achievements, this structural mismatch may actually have deeper roots than the constraints of the political system. Cuba actually shares the predicament with another country freed from Spanish rule in 1898 – the Philippines. Just like Cubans, Filipinos are today prized workers overseas. The critical differences are that the Filipinos provide their families and their economy with billions of dollars of remittances each year. Cuban doctors and teachers are exported by the government’s decision to ideologically akin destinations, such as Venezuela or Africa. As a result, Cuban families are unlikely to come away enriched from the separation.
On my way back to the airport, the radio propagandist let the words squirt like a spitting cobra. Over 25 minutes, I heard it all again about the American threat, about Bolivia’s fantastic economic prospects in the wake of nationalization of its gas assets, about the unity in the name of the revolution. The driver and other Cubans in the car reacted with cynicism, giggles, and sarcastic requests “for more”. A common propaganda poster in the streets of Havana demands “another 48” years of revolution. I now very much doubt it will happen. The tragedy of Cuba lies not only in Làzaro’s unfulfilled dream of travel, Ricardo’s family’s hunger, Raul’s little tobacco scheme or taxi drivers’ fear of the police. The drama is that the current system is unsustainable and therefore finite. But the country is poorly prepared to deal with the challenges of the future. The deeply seeded nationalism will not make it a comfortable terrain for foreign companies and the country’s educational system, unparalleled in some fields, leaves it unprepared to face the day when Cubans will have to take charge of their own affairs without the big, or the little brother watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment