[CubaNews] LOUISVILL COURIER-JOURNAL: Castro's enduring revolution

["sonja" <SonRevolution@xxxxxxx>]

Castro's enduring revolution
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080302/OPINION04/803020362
Sunday, March 2, 2008
 
OPED / Sonja Wallace
Castro's enduring revolution
Despite critics, much achieved

By Sonja Wallace
Special to The Courier-Journal

With its loud headlines about Fidel Castro's "resignation" and speculation about "change" and "transition," U.S. media have missed the point once again. First, Castro did not resign; he declined to accept re-election a Cuba's president. Second, Cuba has been "changing" for decades now, ever since the 1959 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Given the context of today's U.S. presidential campaign, consider some of those changes.

One of the first changes in post-revolutionary Cuba was to end the Jim Crow-style racism that existed under Batista.

Another was to institute free health care for all Cubans. The Cuban National Medical System is internationally renowned. For example, the infant mortality rate in Cuba is currently 6.0 for 1,000 live births, compared to the U.S. average of 7.2.

Cuban citizens are also assured low-cost housing and free education at all levels. Again, compare that to the United States, where young black men are statistically more likely to go to prison than to college, and where the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 3.5 million people (including 1.35 million children) will experience homelessness this year.

As a journalist living in Cuba in the early 1990s, I witnessed firsthand Cuba's response to the economic crisis that almost overnight left that country with no fuel, few trading partners and a desperate lack of food and medicine. This happened because 85 percent of Cuban imports came from the former Soviet bloc, and without that, the full effects of the U.S. trade embargo hit Cuba hard.

I saw the effects on my friends and neighbors who could not get their basic needs met because the United States not only refused trade with Cuba, but also threatened and bullied other countries that considered it. In response to food shortages, urban gardens sprung up in vacant lots and patches of green all over Havana. Across the island, a massive campaign began to grow food. The government turned land over to independent farmers and collective farm cooperatives.

Today, Cuba is a model of organic agriculture and food self-sustainability.

During that same period, millions of bicycles were imported from China to deal with the lack of fuel. Water buffalo and oxen were used to plow the fields. Cuba found creative ways to address the loss of fuel imports and to reduce its fuel dependence.

And while people were hungry during that time, none lost their homes, no schools were closed, and when businesses were forced to shut down, their employees continued to receive their salaries.

While I lived in Cuba, I also witnessed a continuation of the public discussions that had begun in the 1980s. Called the "rectification period," this was a time to honestly examine mistakes made in the wake of the 1959 revolution. Dogmatism and rigidity were critiqued. Educational and cultural programs were initiated to counter racism, sexism, homophobia and discrimination against religious practitioners.

What the U.S. media has missed is that Cuba has never stopped changing. The very essence of revolution is change. Discussions begun in the 1980s continue today about economic policies, racism, gender inequality, and gay/lesbian/bisexual and transgender rights. HIV/AIDS education and prevention in Cuba started years before our president could even speak the word "AIDS."

During the years I lived in Cuba and the many times I've visited since, one of the most startling things I have noticed has been the willingness of the Cuban leadership and the Cuban people to openly discuss mistakes made. This is not something I have ever witnessed by my own government or heard from U.S. leaders. Another thing that startled me was the overwhelming participation of Cuban citizens in the electoral process. (In Cuba's most recent elections, 98 percent of eligible voters elected their representatives directly and by secret ballot. Compare that to the United States, where barely half of voting-age citizens went to the polls during the 2004 presidential elections.)

I had the opportunity to meet Fidel Castro at the Latin American Film Festival in Havana in 1994. I was struck by his warmth and openness and the minimal security in evidence around him. In that brief encounter, we talked about the importance of human solidarity and the need for each country and each people to respect the other and determine their own destiny. At that event and since, I have seen that what has protected Castro from the dozens of U.S. assassination attempts made against him has been the Cuban people, the majority of whom love him and all that he represents.

The Cuban Revolution has never been static.

The problem with media in the United States is that in representing the powers-that-be, they cannot see change in Cuba unless it is made in their image: i.e., neo-liberal change, free market "democracy" that actually translates into a country for the corporations, by the corporations. Our presidential candidates arrogantly continue to spout rhetoric about Cuba needing to make changes before it can trade with the United States -- the world's richest nation that has millions of people living in poverty; a land where hate crimes continue to rise and millions are unemployed; the country that brought the world Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and an unpopular and immoral occupation that continues to take the lives of Iraqi and American people.

Perhaps we would do well to question our assumptions and the "information" we are given about Cuba, to ask why our government (which has supported some of the most ruthless dictatorships in the past -- and present -- and has even had a hand in creating many of them) is so focused on Cuba? Could it be that our government fears that other poor countries may take their destiny into their own hands (not to mention their labor and natural resources)? Or is it afraid that we will wonder why we don't have universal health care, affordable housing and free higher education ourselves?

I suggest we stop pointing fingers and playing God, and instead think about the words of Fidel Castro, in response to our presidential candidates' cries for change in Cuba: "Change! Change! Change! I agree, but in the United States."

Sonja Wallace is a filmmaker, writer and activist from Louisville.

Print this article | Go back 


To view the current thirty CubaNews messages:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/messages

If this message was forwarded to you, subscription details may be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

To unsubscribe from this CubaNews group, send an email to:
CubaNews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups. 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:CubaNews-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    mailto:CubaNews-fullfeatured@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    CubaNews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/