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What's Inside
March, 2008
Editorial
Cubans need our help to move beyond revolutionary goals
The news that Cuban President Fidel Castro is passing the torch to his brother Raul Castro is important for Canadians because it allows us to help that country’s 11.2 million people evolve, as the rest of the world has done, into the information age.
Individually and collectively, we are well placed to do it. Canada has never shared the paranoid and aggressive attitude of the US toward the largest Caribbean island, 90 miles south of Florida. The US has invaded and coveted the island for two centuries and was largely responsible for turning Havana into its brothel. Mafia “banker” Meyer Lansky was on the verge of expanding gambling operations in the Melacon seaside area when, in late 1959, Castro’s band of revolutionaries forced the corrupt Fulgencio Batista to flee and then assumed power.
Let us also remember that every president from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton authorized or condoned over 600 attempts to kill Fidel Castro, and that the CIA organized, led and financed the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. All of this helped the proud Cuban people unite behind their leaders.
Still, times are tough in a Cuba where the average monthly income of $16 US is just not enough. Free education, which can take Cubans as far as they wish academically, is appreciated and has produced one of the best-educated and most literate countries in the world. Free health care, though not perfect, has resulted in Cuba sharing with Canada the lowest infant mortality rate in the Americas of 5.3 per 1,000 live births.
But Cubans want more. Cuban university students in an historic town-hall meeting on Jan. 19 openly criticized the government for restrictions on access to the Internet, access by Cubans to Cuban hotels, and lack of freedom to travel abroad. Cuban professionals are extremely frustrated that workers in the hotel and travel industry with access to tips are making more money than highly educated university professors and medical professionals. The housing crisis in Havana is so extreme that some divorced couples continue to live under the same roof and teens often have to share a bedroom with their parents. Survival prostitution is everywhere, with “older” tourists preying on girls who sell themselves for what young women here consider the basic necessities of life.
Historic Old Havana – the best-preserved and biggest storehouse of Spanish colonial architecture – is crumbling. The broadening of free-enterprise opportunities would allow the more ambitious to build the mixed economy that Cuba needs to thrive.
People want more than good education and health care, wonderful as these accomplishments of the revolution are. The Cuban regime has begun to listen. The recent purchase of 1,000 buses from China has eased chronic over-crowding and frustrating long waits for public transportation. This is a concrete sign of a shift from the top-down model to consumer-oriented economic management.
Contact with the outside world gives voice to the increased pressure for change. When you meet Cubans on your vacations, and talk to them, this becomes obvious. Cubans want to be part of the Information Age.
Canadians who visit the island can help. Bring over- the-counter medication, dental hygiene items, condoms, underwear, and pens — all in short supply or hard to get on subsistence level salaries. And take clothes and shoes you can leave behind with people who don’t have access to tourists and their tips.
Visit Havana for at least a couple of days for a look at the architecture and “real life” for the average Cuban.
Ironically, an end to the American economic boycott would do more to push political evolution in Cuba than more attempts to kill Castro or invade the island militarily. Human contact and the flow of dollars when U.S. tourists return to the island is the surest possible weapon the U.S. could ever use. And since both Democratic candidates appear ready to take some bold steps, we foresee major changes in one of the world’s last Communist countries.
