CUBA – LAND OF PARADOX, LAND OF SORROWS

2006-08-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

A land with a mutual loathing of the USA but where the preferred currency is the US dollar; led by Castro since the revolution ousted the hated regime of Batista in 1959 when beaches and hotels were signed ‘NO DOGS OR BLACKS’ but now replaced with beaches and hotels that welcome tourists but exclude all Cubans (except for staff or exiled Cubans returning as tourists).

A land which purportedly has the most benevolent free health service in the world (which doesn’t quite stack up under analysis) where nurses, doctors and surgeons alike earn between $7 and $20 a month. Indeed that wage scale applies to all jobs and disciplines, whether it is teachers, lawyers, truck drivers or road sweeps. For those who are in the tourist industry, e.g. waiters and barmen (or waitresses and bar women if you insist I be boringly politically correct) can earn $200 a day in tips.

A land which had television (beamed in via the US) long before Europe now broadcasts sterile footage of past glories (we were there during the anniversary of the thwarted Bay of Pigs invasion) or bland political pronouncements but excludes any external programmes unless censored for taste and political content. Although you are able to find illegal MTV broadcasts in some homes – much watched by the young who are dismissive of the anti American stance of their elders. For the youth, MTV represents what they are missing. How are they to know it is an extreme embellishment of Western society.

Intricate classical Spanish colonial buildings proliferate the island. Once resplendent, they are now fallen into disrepair, languor and decay. Streets and boulevards, once magnificently cloaked in luscious blooms of purple, yellow and red, now coated in a sad grey canker of dust. Pavements and roads, punctuated with pot holes, some five feet deep and filled with waste, keep the wandering tourist on full alert. Dog faeces, criss-crossed by the tyres of cars and cycles and smeared with foot prints, add to the air a permanent pungency which clings to your nostrils along with the oily smoke billowing from the vintage 1950 American cars which snort and stutter through the mayhem.

A small elite class and a mass living a few steps above poverty. Although salaries range between $7 and $20 per month, the minimum necessary to survive is considered to be $30. The shortfall gives rise to a blossoming black market which the State acknowledges by turning a blind eye to the pilfering necessary to survive. Bakers can sell you wheat; mechanics supply oil; butchers some extra meat and cigar makers will offer cut price Havanas. How those in the service industries fare I know not. But there has been a swing away from the professions as teachers, lawyers and doctors realise they can earn more in a week as a waiter (or waitress!) than they can earn in a year in their chosen profession. This has prompted the State to introduce new laws banning its citizens the freedom of career change – whatever profession you choose on leaving school is the one you must retain until you retire.

The richest people in Cuba are probably the Jineteros, a new breed of Cuban wide-boy (and this time exclusively male it seems!) who will hound you on the streets and offer to act as your guide or supply you with anything from cigars, women (or men!), cocaine, rum, indeed anything the tourist desires. They take a cut of anything they supply. If they arrange for you to eat in restaurant they will expect to be fed plus they will badger the restaurant manager for a percentage of the take. They are the unofficial leading edge of Cuba’s entrepreneurial spirit. Their activities are illegal if course, but the government can do little to control it. The police (on wages of $7 to $20 of course) can be persuaded to look the other way if a favoured jinetero slips them a few dollars. Money, even in the controlled environment of this communist state still speaks a powerful language of its own.

Being rich in Cuba poses problems. Most evidences of wealth in the West – luxury cars or homes are simply unavailable in Cuba. A surfeit of wealth is shown in the purchase of electronic goods, or designer label clothes illegally smuggled in by merchant sailors. For those lucky enough to have relatives abroad the payment of $120,000 can secure a legal passage of escape. Only those involved in illegal activities can ever hope to acquire such wealth.

There has been very little housing development since 1959. Essentially, the house your family lived in at the time of the Revolution is the house you retain. Regardless, all homes are the property of the State. This does have some advantages: no rent is charged – accommodation is free. But renovations are also the responsibility of the State and salaries are simply too meagre for occupants to undertake repairs. Hence the wholesale dilapidation of Cuba’s buildings. Overcrowding within households is also a danger. Daughters that marry will usually move to the house of their new in-laws, sons stay in the house of their parents. Partitions of households to generate some privacy is widespread, but the most common response is to limit family size – which intrigues me further when you realise that Catholicism is the established religion. Perhaps that’s where the Cubans get their innate sense of rhythm!?

In 1959 the Cubans, filled with the fervour of revolution, were proud, gregarious, charming, benevolent and expectant. But decades of unfulfilled ambition have left them lethargic and drained as they see the world passing them by. At their best they are now living in hope; at their worst they are the living dead, awaiting the passing of Castro and the evolution of change. It is tragic because they are a sparkling, educated people filled with the better elements of communism – equality, learning, (they have the highest literacy rate in the world – 95%) and a sense of humanity. However, they have freedom of class but no freedom of speech and little freedom of movement (even internally) or career. And they have fear. Fear of the system, fear of expression and fear of the security forces. The State knows best and they must stay within a system stifled by dogma and an inertia of its own making. International travel remains a painful dream – the hurt is in the imagining of a world which they can never savour. More than one Cuban confided to me that ‘Cuba is an enormous gaol - an island with bars.’

But what are the alternatives – can the lack of freedoms be compensated for? There is little crime, next to no drugs, few staggering drunks and no-one starves. Indeed, most Cubans appear vibrant and healthy and, even amongst the dust and fumes of Habana, they look clean and neatly dressed. Tourists can walk the night down dark alleys without fear of attack. In that respect it is safer than its close neighbours Jamaica and most of South America. Few beggars roam the streets – this is not the mendicant ridden subcontinent. People do not need to eek out livings in the gutters and doorways – the State takes care of all...the State controls everything. Even the Casa Particulares (our equivalent of Bed & Breakfast) which are one of the few evidences of private enterprise (along with joint venture European hotel chains), pay heavy tax on anticipated sales. Even in Cuba, taxes and death are the only certainties!

Happiness in Cuba is found in entertainment: their music and their dance. It seems that they can all do one or both. To see Cubans at their happiest, see them dance. But for unfettered joy, you need only look at their children. Parks, pathways, back-streets are their playgrounds. Knockabout games of baseball, (another legacy of the despised USA) usually played with makeshift balls of tightly compressed paper and broom handle bats, are sufficient as they dash and squeal amongst the passing cars and pedestrians. Happy and too young to see the iron bars?

Relaxing here by the private pool attached to the historic Hotel Sevilla (Al Capone once took the whole of the 6th floor for himself and his entourage) I represent, with my fellow tourists, the living paradox of Cuba. Here we are, emblems of the triumph of the West: cold, superior, patronizing, distrustful and cautious. The high surrounding wall and wrought iron railings shielding us from the attentions of the Jineteros and prostitutes; eying one another and noting nationalities by dress labels (increasingly difficult in this era of homogenous designer clothes). In this watery cocoon, shaded by delicately trimmed palm trees, the earthy reality of the streets is replaced by Western aloofness: naked camaraderie by civilized distain.

I have hope for Cuba. I have faith in Cubans. Change needs to come, but it must be measured and delicately paced if we are to avoid the chaos of Eastern Europe. It needs the gentle intervention of capitalism if the ideals and sacrifices of revolution are not to be wasted. They cannot do this alone. It takes experience of free market economies to build a healthy capitalist system from scratch. And that is where the danger lies. What is needed is the intervention of a benevolent group of Western economists (not easily found!) who can introduce and monitor, strictly, investment of multinational businesses. In this endeavour I suspect the Cubans should look towards Europe, not America, as the old prejudices and suspicions will hinder acceptance. Le Carré once lamented that the tragedy of Russia was they longed to be European but were becoming American. In Cuba they long to be American: let us hope they become European.

CUBA - LAND OF PARADOX, LAND OF SORROWS

CUBA – LAND OF PARADOX, LAND OF SORROWS