Re: Prostitution in Cuba

[Armand Diego <causebellum@xxxxxxxxx>]

Two decades before the fall of the Soviet Union, the
state bureaucracy was trying to clamp down on
drinking.  Not because it was a "new" problem or
because the Kremlin had any problem with the social
custom of "drinking."

They tried to close down pubs, arrest people found
drinking during working hours and they did many other
things.  They just went to the statistics and found
out that absenteeism was so high and pervasive than
entire branches of industry were losing and losing
big.

That problem was a pre-announcement of larger, deeper
and broader crisis in the Soviet Union and had little
to do with the "capitalist penetration" of USSR's
society.

The question of prostitution in Cuba, which is not
separated and distinct from the general problem of
mass hustling on the streets, is a *big problem* not
because the moralistic overtones of the existence of
prostitution per se, but as a more widespread symptom
of both cracking of the political regime, passive
resistance to it, demoralization of layers of society
and a generalized economic crisis.

It is utopian to think that the lifting of the embargo
will bring about economic bonanza of the sorts that
will make those hustling on the streets, not only
prostitutes,to prefer a job to their present
activities. If anything, will increase the numbers of
people doing it as they are probably more profitable,
and will be even more profitable if more visitors go
to Cuba.

It is also idealistic to think that the Cuban
government is not only worried about it, but it
doesn't exercise certain degree - I would say much
more than in some capitalist societies - of coercion
to stop it or at least to maintain it at manageable
levels.

They have an special police, the "Tourist police"
massively deployed in areas where tourists frequent to
detect, prevent and dissuade - and eventually arrest -
those who are in infraction of the law on these
matters.  No matter where tourists are, they will be
approach by these cops if they are in turn approached
by the hustlers.

The hustlers - in fact most Cubans - are not allowed
in hotels and other facilities where hard currency is
accessible and this is essentially - I believe -
directed to prevent the Hustlers from having an open
field.  On the streets are more manageable.

Rather than a moralistic issue, the re-appearance of
prostitution is a black eye for the revolution in
terms of the politics of it.  One of the most powerful
elements of the anti-imperialist revolution of 1959
was precisely the end of the prostitution, gambling,
black market and corruption of society brought about
by the grips of the Mafia and other criminal cartels
on branches of the tourist industry under Batista.

For a while, during the first two decades or so of the
revolution, prostitution was almost ended, not by
bureaucratic mandate or police action, but essentially
overwhelmed by the initial revolutionary optimism of
the population and the relatively better economy. So,
for the Cuban political regime is of the utmost
concern that scourges of the past are coming back to
haunt them. And this is reasonable so as they are the
obvious symptoms of things not going well.

As absenteeism in the Soviet Union was the first
passive, non progressive form of opposition to the
regime, the proliferation of hustling in Cuba is also
a similar phenomena.

Of course the imperialist will use it - limiting the
criticism to prostitution and not hustling in general
as they probably see hustling as an innovative form of
neo-capitalism -- but I think the analysis and
prevention of the spread of "hustleism" is of a
tantamount importance for Cuba, its working class and
the left in general.

Of how, if it is, is solved and applying which methods
will depend to a limited extend the future of Cuba and
its political regime.  We did know how was the
reaction of Fidel and the Cuban authorities in 1980.
They just allowed 120,000 of those characterized as
hustlers, criminals, homosexuals (their words not
mine) and other "undesirables" to leave.

They know that that did work only on a limited form. I
don't think they have a firm policy in place now, but
I do know they don't want the Mariel experience to be
repeated.  Hopefully, they would do the right thing.
And they won't have any use for simply whining and
stating that the bulk of the problem is just a
moralistic issue from the propagandists of capital.
They know better.

DA



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