The Cuban Reality

Cuba: July 6, 2011

I want to write of a formula for understanding Cuban politics and culture. I want to say that all of these poor and oppressed people, holding together through music and art, would be happiest if we were able to remove the evil Castro regime and let them breathe freedom. Or I want to say that the manipulations of the Cuban government have turned the Cuban citizenry into brainwashed masses.

I would like to write that the people I have met are just like we US citizens but for the happenstance of history which compels us to live different stories. Or I would write that a continuation of a US blockade is the best/worst solution to putting pressure on the government to shift and to enter the international community as a constructive democratic force.

Of course, none of these statements can be defended easily.

As we continue to meet government officials, teachers, ordinary Cubans, and everyone in between, I am confounded by a values system, a culture, which fits uncomfortably into political ideology. The amalgamation is difficult to judge in simple terms. Scenes stand out as corrupt, others as noble. Most are something different.

My absence from this blog for the past few days is due to our journey to Pinar Del Rio, a region southwest of Havana where cell service is dead and the internet is a near mystery. It is an area slowly growing into its role as a tourist destination, an industry which became necessary for Cuba after the Special Times when Russian aid dried up.

A quintet of musicians performs for us while we are plied with complementary drinks and offers to buy CDs. We are taken to a volunteer service for children with Downs Syndrome and told that they are funded entirely through the sale of art produced there. We are shown a new community computer facility where anyone can learn basic programming and OpenOffice software skills, but are reminded that, sadly, the computers are ten years old, another problem from the blockade. We are asked to be interviewed by reporters from the national radio network to offer our opinions on the Cuban Five Heroes (we decline). When our new friends Miguel and Maria in Havana complete their meal and conversation with us (see previous blog entry), they ask us for 20 CUC (about $25 US) for “special milk for their children.”

We are told that marijuana is never grown in Cuba, not ever, but that drugs have now entered Cuba with the beginning of tourism. We are told that any Cuban can begin a new career at any time by returning to the university for a new fully-paid education. We are told that women forced to stay home to raise children with special needs are granted a full salary in compensation. And we are advised that since the internet connections are poor, citizens cannot use email that sends outside the country; more, since there is so much misinformation about Cuba on the global internet, the country is creating its own Spanish-language Wikipedia for its own people so they may know the “Cuban Reality.”

“Reality” and “The Cuban Reality” are terms we hear repeated often, and we can hear the capital letters in them. They are spoken without irony, however, as if the sincere belief in Cuba is that the rest of the world (or at least the United States) is living a delusion about one of its closest neighbors. Cuba is, after all, on the US list of nations sponsoring terrorism.

And these incidents may serve to strengthen the prejudice most Americans have against Cuba; they do mine. There isn’t “another side” to Cuba, in this regard. I wish to describe these next incidents as “the same side.” That is, they are so integrated into the people, their culture, that my separating them here is merely and artificially for rhetorical effect. My mind has sought to divide them, but the Cuban Reality may be that they are inseparable.

The quintet of musicians perform at an ecological park, a sustainable restoration of a mountain and valley environment ravaged by careless use of resources prior to 1950. Within the park is a community of farmers, foresters, and artists. One painter says to us, “It is important to feel useful. By creating this art of the flora of Latin America, I can share it with everyone.” He offers to sell us nothing, but shows us his collection of Charlie Chaplin photographs.

The leader of the Downs Syndrome center has created an accessible art technique she calls PaintingDowns. We marvel at the art produced by children who many developing nations might cast aside. The program was funded for many years by the Swiss and administered through Catholic ministries. They are houses in a government building. The children come from miles away to work here, to paint and to sing and to dance. Their smiles could not be more genuine. We dance with them.

At the computer center, the interest of those taking classes is real, the programming skills are valuable, and while they hardly have modern equipment or free access to information, the facility (one of dozens in the country) is impressive. One student asks us to tell him more about Edgar Allan Poe, who he is researching. Another is struggling with a programming language. A third plays “Plants vs. Zombies” when the instructor is not looking. School teachers can assign their students homework on a computer now; and they can do it. And the limited access only creates a hunger for more.

The reporter for the Cuban Five we meet at a welcoming bash of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). While we were anxious at first (this organization was initiated in 1961 as a neighborhood “watch” for dissidents), we were surprised that the “meeting” resembled more of a block party. There was karaoke, dancing, speeches of warmth, and some amazing fruit dishes prepared by each of the women of the neighborhood. While the music boomed through the streets, we stumbled through cross-language conversations about schools, raising children, and the powerful closeness of neighbors. I was embarrassed to say that after 15 years in my own neighborhood, I still do not know all of mine well.

Song, dance, a willing dropping of the curtains of privacy to let others into their lives, art, greetings with kisses, an integrity in the belief of opportunity and equality for all, and an equally compelling resolve that most of the problems of Cuba do not result from a failed system of economics and politics but from a “blockade” and an imperialist US imprisonment of five heroic defenders of Cuban sovereignty. Cuba seeks American friendship without conditions.

I have not researched the Cuban blockade with enough thoroughness to render an opinion on it. More, like most Americans, I knew nearly nothing of the Cuban Five prior to my trip. However, it is very clear to me that neither of these is working within Cuba to bring about internal change. Quite the opposite, the blockade is working very well in Castro’s favor as a scapegoat (accurately and inaccurately) for Cuba’s domestic failings. The campaign to release the Cuban Five is similarly an effective sympathetic symbol to focus political energy on a US antagonist.

That Cuba is doing its best to secure its information monopoly and form it into a “Cuban Reality” is clear. Would a release of the blockade see a flood of US tourism and US culture, thus undermining that ideological power? Perhaps. Would it alter, however, the larger belief system of the Cuban people, provoking them to embrace democracy, global educational standards, and “middle class lifestyles?” Maybe not.

Politically or not, the Cuban identity is not rife for change. There seems on our visit little anxiety, little restlessness, little excitement for much that is different from what they already have.

And who can challenge those ideals? Equality for all; free health, education, food, and shelter for all—fundamental human rights; an intimacy with neighbors, family, and friends, and a spontaneous readiness to make more; a willingness to initiate grassroots programs to meet local needs, driven by a common desire to improve and contribute to one’s community; and a heart of music and art.

A thunderstorm rolls in from the south across the sparsely-forested mountains, and for the first time since we’ve been here, the temperature drops below a steamy 90 degrees. A trio of local musicians has arrived and is pounding out complex rhythms with zeal. A crowd is gathering around them, and this time there are no CDs to buy.