(In November, 1998, I went to Cuba as part of the delegation that was to include the Mayor of Mobile. We went there to celebrate the 479th year of the founding of the village originally called San Cristobal de la Habana. I was asked by the magazine Business Alabama to write a story and to gauge any changes I may have witnessed during my trip three years earlier. This web page contained that story until recently and has now been updated. )
The police in Cuba do not enjoy the respect that our police get. As part of the state apparatus, they are viewed with suspicion and they, in turn, appear to view everyone as a malefactor. Tourists are treated deferentially by the police. This also breeds discontent since many Cubans feel that tourists are gorging themselves while they are facing privation.
Mistrust and hatred for the police is also partially
wrapped up in the issue of racism. Understanding the
issue and treatment of racism is really much more
difficult in Cuba. There, too, it is not condoned. And,
the population - while officially 60 per cent white - is
highly mixed. You will see couples and families
comprising every possible genetic combination. But racism
is endemic there. It comes up in every conversation and
in every context.
Havanans also appear to have a rural bias that translates into racism, especially against those from Oriente Province. Because no one wants the job, policemen are recruited from the countryside. Service with the police can also supplant conscription. As a result, many of the police are rural, undereducated, boorish and, ofttimes, black. A Cuban, innocent or guilty, will brazenly confront a policeman. The level of discourse can be quite unnerving.
I left the discussion, partly because I didn't believe we could make any headway with the officer's intransigence and partly because I believed that my friend was going to get pummeled. But, he finally talked us out of our problem and we were on our way to get a room.
We had made out reservations over the internet but hadn't made any deposit or heard back from them. We got to the Nacional and indeed we had the reservations we had made through the internet.(Click) At least that went right.
We take our friend out for a beer and we got ripped off. We are bummed and went home early.
Cubans have their needs administered by the state. They live on poorly rationed essentials and meager fixed salaries.("En Cuba No Falta Nada" is the name of a salsa song that disparages Fidel Castro's assertion that no one in Cuba is lacking anything.) There is a brisk black market trade in the cash crops of cigars, music and art. Everyone lives by their wits, engaging in some form of legal or illegal scheme.
When the bottom fell out of the Cuban economy many of those scams developed into officially condoned activities. The free trade that has survived the state economy is small potatoes stuff like renting rooms, gypsy cabs, artisan work, and private restaurants (paladares), all now begrudgingly regulated as part of economic reform.
In 1994, the government introduced farmer's markets at which state and private farmers can sell above-quota production at market prices. There are also open air fairs ( ferias ) where artists sell art, music, food and tourist items. Downtown's Plaza de Armas, where one of these is located, and the surrounding area, has really changed.
The downtown area is full of shops that actually have things in them. The restaurants are doing a brisk tourist trade. Before, it was really difficult to find much for sale anywhere. The quantity and the quality of things for sale has drastically increased. It is now full of goods and there is a lot of the high grade art for which the Cubans have traditionally enjoyed a reputation.
The party scene in Cuba had been vibrant. Drawn by the opportunity to see some of the world's premiere salsa groups, the discos had been packed and the bacchanal was in full throttle. Now, after a period of closures, they operate under severe scrutiny and absurd strictures.
I asked my dance companion what had happened to change things in such a short time. "In Cuba," she says, "things are always changing, if you come back tomorrow it will be different." Because it is a one-party state, the Cuban government can institute changes rapidly. It is the average citizen who must constantly compensate for every dip and turn and, like the Ginger Rogers quip, do it backwards and in high heels.
At Estadio Latino-Americano (Latin-American stadium) to see a baseball game, I spoke at length with an older man who worked in the sugar cane industry before his retirement.
He is very pro-state, but not uncritical. He has lived under both systems, was a militant at one time and seems to be rooted pragmatically. He acknowledges the strides made by Castro's pragmatism, but sees a further need to break out of socialism's intrinsic restrictions.
It is a moribund system and must adapt further, he notes. "We used to
harvest with ox carts and harvest was x. Now we have all sorts of
resources and can't do it," he said. He thinks its because the managers
now don't have the incentive. Old system managers got part of the
crop.
He is also
bitter about Angola's cost in economic terms and in the loss of two million men. The money spent on the expansion of revolution was a lost opportunity to rebuild Cuba. Fidel Castro is a hero to him but he also recognizes that Fidel has been there a long time and above criticism. "He has made terrible mistakes that if anyone else made they would be gone."
The rental of rooms is now licensed and regulated. I stayed with a nice middle-aged Cuban couple and their son. At one time she and her family did very well because the three of them were well employed. She recounts the suffering of the "Special Period", the time during the economic crisis of the early nineties. But, she can see that things are getting better.
She rents out the room to supplement her salary which has been cut since she became disabled. She explains the complicated daily process of making ends meet. "We spend most of our time trying to figure out honest ways to make a living, " she said. Nowhere is the complexity of their situation more evident than the maddening currency situation under which Cuba lives. The government and the average citizen must compensate for and plan on a constantly shifting playing field.
In a supposedly classless society, there exist two
parallel economies (Cuban and Tourist) with two
interrelated monetary currencies. If I go
to the ball game with a Cuban she would, theoretically,
pay a peso and I would pay a dollar. The contradictions
are heightened by the fact that the official currency, the
Cuban Peso, is worth a fraction of the other official
currency, the U.S. Dollar. (The Convertible was
introduced a few years ago and it has an exchange rate of
1:1 to the dollar. Mostly, however, trade is done in
dollars.)
In planning her household our landlady must balance what she will receive for rations, what will be available at the farmer's market, at what price, and the two different and fluctuating exchange rates. "We get confused," she admits. But the confusion, double talk and contradiction is not limited to the Cuban side of the equation.
Basing their actions on the old-fashioned notion that relations between the citizens of countries can't be a bad thing, the Mobile-La Habana Society has nonetheless had to deal with some old world realpolitik . On his initial trip to Havana Higginbotham had extended an invitation to his Havana host Mayor Pedro Chavez to visit Mobile. That invitation was subsequently sabotaged by the US authorities. The 1994 trip by Dow was questioned by our authorities, causing some of the more jittery participants to drop out.
In 1993 the Bishop of Havana's Methodist Church was allowed to visit Mobile but Havana's Chamber of Commerce President was denied a visa. Our state department felt his visit was "not quite routine". And, in 1998 an embarrassed Fernando Perez, First Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section, would come from Washington, D.C. to Mobile to personally protocol Mike Dow concerning the Mayor's upcoming visit and the Cuban decision to withdraw their invitation to him.
The US Treasury Department, it seems, had forewarned the Cubans that "Fully Hosted" visits by groups meant what the regulations said they meant, that the members of the group would be required to have all of their needs paid for by the Cuban government. The Mobile group would be carefully watched. The Cubans had just seen their friends from the Port of Jacksonville embarrassed by the imposition of sanctions.
They did not want that to happen to Dow and they weren't anxious to be caught in the middle of another fracas. The mayor understood. In fact, he was so appreciative of their efforts that he invited Fernando de Remerez, the current head of the Cuban Interests Section, to Mobile. He will visit on April 5 and 6.
Understandably, the Cubans do not premise their plans as somehow contingent on the survival of any one personality. They act only on the assumption that their country will be here for the long haul and that what they must do is work at improving all facets of their economy.
It is a multi-front war and towards that end, they have aggressively sought to foster relationships with the ports of Jacksonville and Mobile. These offer the comforts of proximity, size and modernity and the political tranquility that Miami and Tampa lack. In the past four years Perez has traveled extensively to Mobile, a sign that the cash-strapped Cubans consider Mobile an important touchstone in their campaign to normalize relations between the two countries. "We will never forget that you were the first. You will always hold a special place for us."