No matter how lightly we pack for our first trip to Havana, how much we plan to leave behind, we cannot help but arrive with all manner of excess baggage in tow.
Led to believe that Havana is the Western Hemisphere's version of Pyongyang, a bleak spot where a hungry and impoverished populace toils under the thumb of an unfeeling tyrant, we unwittingly cart along a number of hefty suppositions as to what lies in store, only to discover that they're flimsily founded on an invidious brew of lies, paranoia and plain bloody ignorance. Bleak it most definitely is not. For all Havana's crumbling structures and piles of rubble, its disintegrating roads and toxin-belching jalopies, its plethora of armed policemen and sun-bleached billboards espousing their pat, revolutionary slogans, it remains an inviting, vibrant and intoxicating city. Salsa blares from boom-boxes placed everywhere at opened windows, filling the tropical air with sexy, brassy music and, no doubt, drowning out the puritanical incantations of revolutionary doctrine which, for forty years, have yet to subdue the hedonistic Afro-Cuban culture. Marxist maybe, but communism here has a certain cha-cha-cha. Hungry? Hardly! Food is not difficult to find, though variety and quality are, and nobody starves in Havana. Nor are they impoverished: everyone has a roof over his head and no one is evicted from his home or has his electricity supply (intentionally) cut off; every child is given an education and every person has free healthcare. The Habaneras are friends with their neighbors and kind to strangers, and one can walk the streets, anywhere and at any time of the day or night, without fear of being mauled, mugged or murdered.
Regardless of whether one sees Castro as savior or tyrant, the truth is that his revolution has bestowed dignity, social justice, healthcare, education and peace upon a nation which has suffered from centuries of maltreatment. Indeed, the Cuban masses have never been better cared for by any prior government than they are under the current system. To learn of Cuba's history during the past five hundred years is to understand, with ringing clarity, why the revolution was, if not inevitable, then at least successful.
To understand why it now appears to be failing is more complex and will require a healthy dollop of hindsight to be fully and wisely grasped. Nevertheless, the fact remains that, today, Cuba stands pummeled by an unworkable socialism on the one hand, and by a voracious market economy on the other and, frankly, what began more than forty years ago seems spent, a notion underscored by the palpable sense of pathos in Havana, a perception of a glory (never quite attained in the first place) that is fading fast and shows scant sign of resuscitation.
No doubt, when faced with aggressive enemies or imminent destruction, it makes sense to focus the nation by limiting its prerogatives and "Patria o Muerte" has long been one of the revolution's pet dictums. But soon, those exiguous nominations of either "patriotism" or "death" will simply not be enough, for they negate an entire slew of ideals that span their gelid extremes. There will have to be other choices for the Cubans, other points of view.
In response to predictions that his country is in transition, Raul Castro, brother of Fidel and minister of Cuba's armed forces, has stated that "...you cannot cover the sun with your finger". The coming eclipse, however, will not be obfuscation by a single digit, it'll be from a fistful of cash. The revolution, which neither the crushing US embargo, nor the collapse of a generous USSR subsidy, nor countless CIA plots ever managed to undermine, is finally face-to-face with its nemesis.
Pink-skinned, camera-toting, snack-munching Mojito-swilling tourist dollars have come to town. The desires they stoke for more-more dollars, more things, more need, more-more will destroy the "old" ways. Yes, the bad, the autocracy, the suppression of information, the police state, the restraint on travel, the incarcerations... all that, but along with it, the good too, for they are part and parcel of the same reality, and Cuba, in order to chase after individual profit and personal freedom, will need to relinquish much of its collective conscience. Hopefully, a trace of what was the humanity born of common forbearance, will endure in Cuba Nueva, and the compassion still so heartily proffered by the people will not be usurped, too readily, by modernist demands for all the rights but none of the responsibilities.
The road is yet to be paved by what unfolds, the demise or survival of communism (or maybe its evolution); the lifting or continuing of the US embargo; the impact of life after Castro; even the possible involvement of the Cuban-Americans, but whatever that may be, the course has already been set, and Cuba is, without question, a country in transition.
cubatraveler.com /adventures for independent thinkers for details, email
October 27, 2007, 4 persons, 10 days, all inclusive from Mexico City (2 seats available)
March 14, 2008, 4 persons, 10 days, all inclusive from Mexico City (3 seats available)
May 11, 2008, booked, 10 days, all inclusive from Mexico City (3 seats available)
