People,
Economy and Environment
Survival in the Museum of the Revolution
© Armando Menocal, Wilson, Wyoming,
2001
Copying Permitted if Attributed to Source
Survival in
the Museum of the Revolution
The
New Dual Economy
The People
Attitude Toward Americans And The Embargo
Recommended Reading
Survival
in the Museum of the Revolution
| "In Cuba, we are lucky because we have a great sense
of humor, as well as a joie de vivre that is in direct contrast
with the somberness I have observed in my trips to the former
socialist countries of the East." Or, as a Cuban friend
reminded me, "We might be poor, but we're certainly not miserable." |
The reality of life in Cuba is ambiguous, easily fitting into
either "glass-half-empty" or "glass-half-full" themes. Tourism
is booming. La Habana has malls which are crowded with Cubans
spending dollars. The government has re-instituted Christmas as
a holiday, claiming that fewer workers were needed to cut sugar
cane. In December, 1998, there was a public demonstration, followed
by arrests, however, but the fact is that it happened in La Habana
and was reported. Dissidents still get busted, but most are released
quickly. The reality of life for almost all Cubans, however, is
not about possible easing of political repressions or even Christmas
shopping, but a daily struggle to get by on meager state-rations
and earn some dollars.
For the poor, and particularly the rural poor, the 40 years
of Revolution has meant tremendous improvements in their lives.
La Habana maybe the only third-world capital with no-shantytown,
no sewage or garbage-swollen streets, and no begging or children
born into hopeless, intractable poverty. In fact, La Habana is
surrounded by a green-belt. Almost all Cubans have a place to
live. However, everyone lives in a multi-generational homes; parents
expect that children will remain in the home and raise their families
there. Cubans are said to "own" their homes, but they cannot rent
or sell them, and if they let someone stay there for 6 months,
they can't be removed--ever.
Health care and education are universal; illiteracy practically
does not exist in Cuba. Every neighborhood and village has a clinic
with a doctor and nurse living there; however, there are no drugs
or anti-bioxtics or medical or diagnostic appliances. For that
reason, Cuba is now one of the world leaders in holistic care,
herbal medicine, and accupuncure. At the same time, vitamin deficiencies,
low-birth weight babies, typhoid, and TB are rising. The government
prohibits Cubans from buying medicine, even at the government's
own dollar stores. This example illustrates the overriding importance
of collectivism in Cuba: equality, perhaps the ultimate communist
value, means that if something vital can not be provided to
all, it can not be allowed to any.
| "One woman gave a passionate defense, not directly of the
revolution or socialism, but of Cuba's education and public
health systems. I sat in her well kept apartment, a tranquil,
tidy oasis in a decaying, clamorous 12 story building. You
summoned the single elevator by sticking your head through
the missing window into the shaft, and shouting your floor
number, 'el diez.' She recounted her rise to middle-class
thanks the education available to all Cubans. 'In Cuba,' she
asserted confidently, 'no one goes without food.' As I left,
I asked my Cuban companion if he agreed, and he shrugged,
'yes, but she rents rooms to Cubans, but only takes
dolares.'" |
Cuba's brand of Marxist-Leninist socialism is total and reaches
all aspects of Cuban life. All economic activity is planned and
operated by the government, according to policies controlled by
the Communist Party of Cuba. As the Revolution turned from a nationalist
to a socialist one, the government took over banking, major industries,
and a majority of the Cuba's farmlands. Then in 1968, the government
nationalized the surviving 58,000 small businesses--from street
vendors to repair shops. All self-employment and private trading
were banned. Everyone became an employee of the state. State enterprises
need not turn a profit. All prices are arbitrary.
Perhaps only in North Korea is this form of doctrinaire Communism
still being pursued. Cuba has not allowed the opportunities for
individual enterprise that exist in China; nor is there the safety
valve inherent in the blatant corruption in Vietnam or Cambodia.
Cracks in the state-run economic system opened after the collapse
of the massive subsidy from the Soviet Union. Cuba's economy shrank
by 40 percent, similar to decline in the United States during
the Great Depression. Imports, including food, dropped by three-quaters.
Fidel coined the euphemism "Special Period in Peacetime," "periodo
especial", and it continues today. Austerity measures alone proved
insufficient.
Small farmers were permitted to sell "surplus" produce in private
markets, and some "under-utilized" state lands are in private
production -peculiar characterizations since production of the
principal cash-crop, sugar, has dropped by more than 50 percent
under state-control agriculture. Private food markets may be the
closest to a free market in Cuba. Prices are not regulated by
the government. Only 24 percent of cultivate land remains directly
under government control.
In 1993, Cubans were allowed to set up a small number of personal
or family businesses, primarily to support the resurgence of the
tourism industry. Cubans were permitted to rent out private rooms
to tourists and to serve food in their homes, although they could
not expand or employ anyone beyond the owner's family. People
began operating private restaurants, workshops, repair shops,
and renting rooms. Artisans hawked their wares to tourists.
The instant popularity of self-employment brought a quick reaction
from the government. Higher and higher license fees, constrictive
regulations, and periodic crackdowns followed. Self-employment,
called "cuentapropistas" by the government, has been checked to
suppress the reemergence of a class of private entrepreneurs.
The number of licensed self-employed entrepreneurs has declined
about 20 percent from its peak in 1996.
| Cuba's small capitalists face less friendly future.
While Cubans have long worked on the black market as everything
from tire patchers to shoe repairers, legal private enterprise
got its start in 1993, at the worst point of Cuba's post Soviet
depression. They became restaurant operators, window repairmen,
pizza vendors, art teachers, car washers, sign painters, bicycle-taxi
drivers, locksmiths, dog groomers, electricians and pony ride
operators, among more than 150 approved occupations. Today
the picture is very different. The island's officials have
cut off new licenses for private work and have come to see
existing private businesses as little more than a stopgap
measure on the road back to restructured socialism. "There's
no reason why, if certain regulations are followed, this sector
should not remain, said Jose Luis Rodriguez, Cuba's economics
minister. "But we do not stimulate it because we do not believe
it is the way to get the country out" of its economic difficulties.
Laurie Goering, Chicago Tribune, June 20, 2001 |
Also in the 90s, the government allowed foreign investment in
joint ventures and in wholly owned businesses. State-owned enterprises
were reorganized as autonomous unites, thus free of central planning
and able to retain any earnings. (Look for "S.A." after their
names.)
The government switched from imprisoning Cubans caught with
dollars to legalizing the dollar. Then, without releasing Cubans
jailed for holding dollars, the government opened stores to sell
consumer goods, from televisions to roller skates to perfumes,
which could be purchased only for dollars.
Foreign press and commentators often characterize these changes
as an evolution toward capitalism--"capitalismo frío" or
cold capitalism. In fact, the rhetoric has remained hard-line,
and capitalism is checked and modulated. The practical effect
of the changes was to create a "second economy" outside the scope
of the centrally planned economy, made up of a few free markets,
self employed entrepreneurs, and joint ventures and state enterprises.
However, Cuba has not abandoned central planning or socialism.
| Cuban leader Fidel Castro said his country will make major
social and economic leaps in the next few years, providing
the world with one of the most perfect examples of socialism.
Castro also said he is optimistic about the future of socialism
because, "Cuba has identified its problems and has the resources
to build a nation ever more just and equal and in accordance
with the ideals of socialism." He did not use the word "communism"
during the broadcast on Radio Havana. CNSNews.com, March 02,
2001 |
The dollar stores and enterprises are still state agencies. For
example, Gaviota, a state-enterprise owned by the military and
run by generals, is a conglomerate of resort hotels, travel and
transportation companies, and a chain of department stores.
There is no "market economy" except for private food markets
and the few self employed entrepreneurs. The government enterprises
set prices; there is little competition between them. Generally,
state dollar stores will the same models of items, at the same
prices.
Cubans employed in state enterprises and even joint ventures
are employees of the government and paid only in pesos. Foreign
companies are required to contract workers only through Cuban
state agencies, which receive hard currency payments for the workers'
labor but in turn pay the workers a fraction of this (usually
5 percent) in pesos. For example, the government may charge the
foreign company $200 a month for an individual employee; pay the
Cuban employee 200 pesos, or $10, and pocket the remaining $190
of the employee's salary.
Hard-liners in the government remain in control. The "negative
effects" of free enterprise, usually defined as any inequality,
are suppressed. Periodic crackdowns have followed since 1996,
including crackdowns on Cubans having contacts with foreigners.
Despite the introduction of foreign investment and limited self
employment, Cuba remains essentially a Communist system.
| Police and Commerce Ministry inspectors have been engaging
sweeps of street vendors, most of whom are very poor retirees,
seeking to supplement their meager pensions. Typically, the
vendors sell sundries such as candles, small religious prints,
some food items, and newspapers. One vendor, Matildo Reinaldo
Crespo Díaz, said that both he and his epileptic daughter
must make do on his pension and whatever else he can scrounge
up. "I had 27 candles and 10 razor blades for sale. He was
fined four months income. "I don't have the money to pay the
fine and no way to get it either; I sell candles but I am
not a thief. If they put me in jail for not paying the fine,
my daughter will have no one to care for her," he said. January,
2001. |
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The New Dual Economy
| "One head of garlic cost a half day's salary," lamented
one man in his 50's shopping at a farmer's market, who asked
not to be identified. "We go hungry, or we invent a way to
live, to somehow get dollars through contraband, whatever
it takes. Here, no one lives on their salaries alone."
New York Times, Jan. 11, 1999. |
Cubans struggle to survive in a dual economy, one in pesos and
another in dollars. Cubans can use their pesos to obtain a few
subsistence items in government peso stores, called "bodegas",
or exchange their pesos for dollars to spend in the dollar-only
stores.
All Cubans are paid wages in pesos. Wages average the equivalent
of $8 to $10 a month. A doctor, dentist, or professor earns, at
most, $20 a month. Although housing, transportation , health care,
and education are subsidized, survival on wages alone is difficult,
if not impossible.
Every Cuban is issued a ration card, a "libreta", for items
in the peso "bodegas". Although the libreta lists everything from
beef to gasoline, none of these are available. At peso bodegas
Cubans can only get rice, sugar, peas, and cooking oil, and perhaps
a little tobacco, coffee, beans, and soap. There is no meat, no
vegetables. Children under seven receive milk, some eggs and meat.
Add a bread roll a day, and that is about it.
For everything else, Cubans must shop at state-run dollar-only
stores or at the private food markets, where prices, though reasonable
by American standards, are too steep for Cubans trying to live
on $9 or $10 a month. The government's answer: crackdown on the
vendors who buy produce from farmers and transport it for sale
in the markets.
For consumer goods there are many state-run, dollar-only department
stores that have spread across the island in less than a decade.
Malls, food courts, and commercial advertisements, operate side
by-side with the empty shelves in state-operated peso stores.
Both are state-run enterprises; the prices in one are just in
dollars and 20-times higher than the other.
Thus the reality of life for Cubans is a daily struggle to get
by on meager state-rations and earn additional pesos or dollars.
Some Cubans receive dollars from family members in other countries.
Everyone else must hustle. Engineers pedal bicycle rickshaws because
they can earn three times more in tips from tourists than their
salaries. Doctors and schoolteachers supplement meager state incomes
running gypsy cabs or engaging in black market sales. This ingenious
moonlighting is known as "inventando" or inventing. Stealing from
the government is commonplace, and fuels the black market in everything
from cement to gasoline. Cuban economists estimate that nearly
half the country is now earning some income in dollars.
So, farmers, those with rooms-to-rent, paladares, and private-taxis
are surviving, perhaps thriving in relative terms. But Cubans
with these opportunities are very few, particularly outside of
La Habana.
| Why can't a country with rich natural resources, excellent
climate, and educated people feed itself? Perhaps, it's
the vanishing chickens. The local chicken farm in Mantua closed
and residents have only been able to obtain three eggs so
far this year through the government's rationing system. When
the farm originally closed, officials said it was because
there was no way to transport the chickens. By the end of
the year, the official line had changed: there were no chickens
to fill the empty henhouses. There have been other explanations
as well; there is no feed, the cost of producing an egg is
not economically justifiable. Residents, who would like to
be able to buy an occasional egg, are wondering where all
the chickens went. February 20, 2001. |
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The People
The Moon Handbook says that Cubans are different from all their
Caribbean neighbors in one important respect: they combine the
southern joy of life with a northern work ethic and intellectual
ability that makes them unique achievers. The work ethic is evident
in those struggling within the boundaries allowed for self-employment.
The enduring success of the Revolution is education. Education
is Cuba is free and universal. Cuba has one of the highest proportions
of university graduates in the world. Although Cubans are hard
pressed to find books, visitors will discover that Cubans are
sophisticated, highly knowledgeable, and erudite.
| It's not surprising that well-educated Cubans clamor for
jobs as cabdrivers, bartenders and hotel maids. A chemical
engineer mixing daiquiris at Havana's Parque Central Hotel
might collect $20 a day in tips, while his state-employed
counterpart earns a comparable amount monthly. One cabdriver
left his job as a military jet pilot. Another gave up his
engineering job, saying, "It beats peddling a bicycle 25 kilometers
to work in a factory." But what about all that education?
Talent? "You can have talent or you can have food," he says.
"Eating is better." Kathleen Parker. Chicago Tribune. March
14, 2001. |
Education is highly politicized, seen as a key tool to instill
communist thinking. Children begin each morning with the chant
to "be like Che." The University of Havana may be the only school
of higher education with a monument of a military tank. In 1999
and 2000, all mass demonstrations featured children reading and
singing the regime's messages.
Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Cuba's education
is the emphasis on shipping students to work for months at a time
on collective farms. Junior high students spend 45 days a year
"en el campo", on the farm. Almost all high schools are rural
boarding schools, with students living and working on farms, splitting
their time between study and work. Despite the shortage of busses
and gas, this results in mass migrations. Students travelling
to-and-from the schools, and parents doing the same to visit their
children and particularly to provide them food, because of the
boarding schools' notoriously poor and insufficient food.
| Diarrhea outbreak affects hundreds of students.
February 27, 2000 (Rafael Peraza, APO) - Up to 550 students
may have been affected by an outbreak of diarrhea in Artemisa,
just outside of Havana. Between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. students
started trickling in to the Ciro Redondo hospital, all with
the same symptoms: diarrhea, fever and stomach aches. The
students all attend the Molino del Rey secondary school and
the Mártires de Kent middle school. By 11 a.m., over
150 students had checked in at the hospital. The schools involved
are both "schools in the countryside," where Cuban students
do agricultural labor during the school year. Independent
specialists pointed out that these schools frequently have
contamination problems with their water and food. Public Health
officials who were called in have not made any statements. |
Despite the importance that Cuban families and the government
place on education, motivation is becoming a problem, as students
drop out of universities and vocational schools because they see
little point in becoming a professional when waiters, guides,
and pimps make more money. Similarly, other Cubans freely quit
jobs (men must work) or even ask doctors to issue "certificados",
(certified medical excuses) to escape work. Unemployment may be
preferable to jobs that pay little or are so boring--an orthodontists
with no materials may spend her time just visiting patients. A
doctor, engineer, or a lawyer earns twice as much as a laborer,
but that difference may just be $8 a month.
| CIENFUEGOS. Several physicians from the area of Cienfuegos,
in central Cuba, have left the island recently in spite of
the official obstacles for doctors to emigrate. Each has found
a wrinkle that has allowed him or her to skirt regulations
which require a five-year waiting period for physicians or
other health professionals who want to leave Cuba. Nogueras
Rofes, CubaNet, May 17, 2001 |
Cubans are indulgent with their children. Family bonds are strong.
Cuba could be the paradigm for "family values". Parents don't
just take their children to and from school, they will travel
across town to bring them a daily "merienda", snack or lunch.
Cubans will share whatever they have with their families, neighbors,
and even visitors.
The predominance of the family, however, does not mean, as many
in America equate, an inhibiting moral code. Cuba is a sexually
permissive society. Promiscuity is widespread. Both sexes are
unusually bold. Cubans enjoy coquetry, and men and women frequently
exchange suggestive overtures. Overt eyeing of an attractive women
is expected, probably intended and even welcomed. Fidel has said
that Cuban women don't walk, they sway. One writer summed it up:
for both sexes, seduction is the national pastime.
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Attitude Toward Americans and The Embargo
Remarkably,
there is no resentment among the Cuban people toward Americans
or even the U.S. government. The United States has invaded Cuba
several times, most recently in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs. Cubans
hear about terrorists supported by the U.S. who blew up a domestic
airliner and in 1998 set off bombs in a hotel killing innocent
people. And in a country where finding food to survive and any
medicine is a struggle, the U.S. restricts the sale of food and
medicine. (Yet, the State Department's official statement on U.S.
policy toward Cuba is: "Support for the Cuban people is the central
theme of our policy.")
In 1996, when Cuba's economy was devastated, and hunger became
common--it was said that cats, dogs, even the animals in the zoo
disappeared--the United States Congress passed and President Clinton
signed the Helm-Burton Law, which threatens retaliation against
international humanitarian institutions that provide aid to Cuba.
Helms Burton also attempts to sanction foreign companies doing
business in Cuba. Canada, Mexico and the European Union responded
with tit-for-tat retaliatory laws that impose fines on companies
that comply with the U.S. law. Helms-Burton is a frequent target
of the Cuban propaganda apparatus. It has been condemned by the
Pope and the Organization of American States. President Jimmy
Carter called it the "stupidest" thing my country has done. The
State Department counters that U.S. is the largest donor of humanitarian
assistance to Cuba, but the amount is less than one-tenth the
estimated U.S. exports of food and medicine to Cuba if there were
no embargo.
| U.S. Seizes Medical Equipment Bound For Cuba. Federal
customs inspectors officially seized crates of heavy medical
equipment from demonstrators of Maine's Let Cuba Live at the
United States border for not having a license to ship it to
Cuba. The equipment seized included two anesthesia machines
and related medical equipment and neonatal equipment. U.S.
Customs Service spokesman Dean Boyd said inspectors are storing
about 41 packages of the 90 the group had planned to ship
to Cuba via Canada."There was nobody accosted or roughed up,"
Boyd said. "There was no violence. We never detained anybody."
The heavy medical equipment was ordered seized by the U.S.
Department of Commerce and Office of Foreign Assets Control,
he said. Donna Perry, Portland Sun Journal, July 5, 2001 |
Although the Revolution may find more support among Communist
Party stalwarts and enamored tourists in their Che T-shirts and
beret, the Cuban people uniformly oppose the U.S. embargo. Cuba's
Catholic bishops call it "cruel''. The embargo strengthens the
government's grip. It becomes the excuse for economic failure.
It allows Fidel Castro to portray Cuba as a victimized David to
Washington's Goliath, and himself as the defender of Cuban nationalism.
Cuban dissidents do not support the embargo. A leading human rights
activist calls the US embargo, "an odd way to demonstrate support
for human rights.'' As one European diplomat put it: "This government
wouldn't last a year if the embargo were lifted."
| Two Right-Wing Views on the Embargo: Elpidio Nuñez,
president of a Florida meat packing company who has been involved
in the exile movement for four decades: "This is the best
opportunity that we have to fight for freedom in Cuba. If
we send an adequate message to the Castro regime, it will
disappear." From Philip Peters, a former Reagan and Bush I
official, writing for the libertarian Cato Institute: "More
than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fidel Castro
remains in charge in Havana, despising capitalism, taunting
the Cuban-American community in Miami, theorizing about the
evils of globalization, and keeping up with every imaginable
statistic about Cuba. He has been in power for 41 years, outlasting
U.S. strategies from the Bay of Pigs in the early 1960s to
the tightened economic sanctions of the 1990s. The wide array
of U.S. sanctions has failed to promote change in Cuba and
has allowed Castro to reinforce his arguments that the United
States promotes economic deprivation in Cuba and seeks to
abridge Cuban sovereignty." |
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Reading: Recommended = Bold
The Classics (Great Books, But Not Very Relevant To Cuba Today):
Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana (1958)
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952), and To
Have and Have Not (1937). Less well known is Hemingway's Islands
in the Stream (1970).
Elmore Leonard, Cuba Libre (Set in 1898 at the time of
the Cuban independence struggle; even out as an audio book)
H.L. Mencken, A Choice of Days, (See Chapter XVII, about
El President Mario Menocal)
Contemporary Fiction
By Cuban Expatriates Or Non-Cubans:
Arenas, Reinaldo, Before Night Falls: A Memoir. Viking,
New York, 1993.
| Because of what Reinaldo Arenas the writer had to say about
reality in Cuba, he was disregarded in the U.S. by the intellectual
and academic community very much dominated by the pro-Castro
left. His books were virtually ignored, and in many instances
left-leaning groups disrupted his lectures. The U.S. gay groups,
dominated by the pro-Castro left, also rejected Arenas' work.
He was forced to live a life in the U.S. of abject poverty.
Three years after his suicide in early December 1990, his
autobiography, "Before Night Falls," was published in the
U.S. Now, some of these groups of misinformed American gays
and lesbians used by the pro-Castro left are
desperately putting together an effort to discredit and bury
this film about his life, because it goes against what they
choose to believe about Castro's Cuba. Agustin Blazquez
is a Washington-based documentary film producer and director.
|
Blackthorn, John, I, Che Guevara (2000), A thriller premised
on fiction that Fidel has retired, and an elderly, reincarnated
Che is running for president against post-Castro Communists and
Miami expats. A reviewer said: "What's winning about the novel's
premise is the opportunity it affords the author to consider the
Cuban people apart from the government." Actually apart from Fidel
Castro himself, since he's the force behind other current fiction
set in Cuba.
Garcia, Christina, Dreaming in Cuban (1992) (Very
good). Her 2nd book is The Aguero Sisters.
Infante, Guillermo Cabrera, Three Trapped Tigers.
Iyer, Pico, Cuba in the Night (1995) (Mostly about the
visitor, but by one of the best travel writers).
Smith, Martin Cruz, Havana Bay (a thriller by the author
of Gorky Park; OK, if you like the genre, and it is timely).
Valdéz, Zoé, Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada
: A Novel of Cuba (very good) and a new one, I Gave
You All I Had (1999), a ole to a lost Havana from pre-revolution
to present.
Wendell, Tim, Castro's Curveball, is good read by a sports
writer, building on the (incorrect) myth that Fidel once signed
to pitch for the NY Yankees. It gives a sense of pre-revolution
Cuba, but is inaccurate on current events and situation.
White, Randy Wayne, North of Havana, another thriller set
in Cuba.
Authors in Cuba:
Ponte, Antonio José, In The Cold OF The Malecón,
City Lights, 2000
Non-Fiction
Castañeda, Jorge G., Companero : The Life and Death
of Che Guevara. The best of the many biographies
of Che Guevara, and available in paperback and in spanish
(November 1998). Thorough, unflinching, yet passionate; makes
Che understandable, even if much less admirable. And excellent
gift for Cubans.
Díaz-Briquets, Sergio, and Pérez-López,
Jorge, Conquering Nature: The Environmental Legacy of Socialism
in Cuba (1999). The book takes its title from a pledge
by Fidel Castro to conquer nature. The authors have done an excellent
job of using secondary sources, since primary ones are not available
inside or outside of Cuba, to assess the impact of four decades
of socialist rule.
Harvey, David Allen, Cuba. A large picture book by the
photographer of the 1999 National Geo cover story about Cuba.
Mendoza, Tony, Cuba Going Back (1999, U TX Press,
paper $19, hard $40). An excellent introduction to the reality
of Cuba today with beautiful images.
Miller, Tom, Trading with the Enemy (1992). A excellent
general description of Cuba , written about the situation in 90-91,
the worst of the "special period", Cuba's euphemism for the post
USSR-subsidy.
Other Books:
Codrescu, Andrei. Ay Cuba! A Social-Erotic Journey (its
title gives you the idea).
Perez, Louis A. On Becoming Cuban. Publisher says its a
sweeping cultural history.
Szulc, Tad, Fidel, A Critical Protrait. Morrow, New York,
1986. Contrary to title, a complementary bio of Fidel
Thomas, Hugh, Cuba Or the Pursuit of Freedom. Da Capo Press,
1998.
Timerman, Jacobo, Cuba: A Journey. Knopf, New York, 1990
