[Marxism] TEHRAN TIMES: Cuba -- If change is in the air, does prosperity lie ahead?

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(This Black journalist from the United States has travelled to
Cuba regularly through the years. He writes also for the San
Francisco Bay View and other Black Community publications.
This is a salutary alternative to the whining nay-saying of 
the dominant corporate media on Cuba. This is a good current 
look at Cuba in the present conjuncture.)
===============================================================

TEHRAN TIMES
Saturday, May 24, 2008

Cuba -- If change is in the air, does prosperity lie ahead?
By Jean Damu

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=169320

While aging anti-Castroistas in Florida and New Jersey continue to
terrorize gullible U.S. politicians into supporting their quixotic
dreams of returning Cuba to the ranks of U.S. gangster economics,
this island nation has defied all rational odds against its socialist
survival.

Today while it not only remains the planets' inspirational outpost of
humanitarianism and social justice, in fact Cuba appears to be
thriving.

How is it possible? Just a decade and a half ago Cuba faced economic
ruin as 30 percent of its economy vanished overnight with the
dismantlement of the Soviet Union. People were hungry and it was not
unusual to have to wait all night for a bus to get home.

Unbelievably, today it's actually easier to get fresh fruits and
vegetables in the various municipalities of Havana than it is in many
neighborhoods of largest cities in the Americas.

Here vegetables and fruits straight from the ground and the trees are
available at prices most Cubans can afford.

Sleek new buses maintain regular routes, the vintage U.S. cars, for
which Cuba has long been famous, while not extinct are becoming rare,
the stores are well stocked and the people are generally well
dressed.

Life definitely seems to be on the upswing here and change seems
evident everywhere.

Relaxing in the shade of a private home in the seaside resort village
of Guanabo, just 25 kilometers east of Havana, a foreigner who has
seen Cuba in the best of times and worst of times can be forgiven for
concluding that Cuba's new found prosperity is based on three things:
China, Venezuela and tourism.

And while China, Venezuela and tourism have impacted Cuba with many
much needed benefits, including oil, busses and tourist industry
jobs, it would be selling Cubans and their socialist vision short to
say that others are primarily responsible for their recent successes.

The truth of the matter is that as early as 1996 the Cuban economy
began to grow at the very healthy rate of eight per cent per year.

During that period, euphemistically referred to as the "special
period", Cuba began to radically diversify its economy by recruiting
foreign investment and turning toward tourism as a source of badly
needed currency.

More recently, in 2006 specifically, with the emergence of Venezuela
and China as major players in the global marketplace, Cuba's foreign
exchange earnings jumped by 30 percent thanks largely to income
derived from the export of medical services to Venezuela and several
Caribbean islands.

Cuba used a portion of its foreign earnings to purchase 7,000 buses
from China's Yutong Corp.

It is these new Chinese buses that now ply the streets of many of
Cuba's cities and have made the old tractor driven camellos, the old
tanker looking buses that resembled camels, onto which several
hundred people at a time would jam themselves, invisible throughout
major portions of the island.

Plans to refurbish the Cuban railway with Chinese rail cars and
locomotives, built especially for Cuba, apparently still have not
happened as Cubans openly disparage the rail system.

But other changes, some more deep-seated but less visible, are now
becoming apparent.

For instance the supposed crisis of leadership that most of the world
assumed existed when it was announced Fidel Castro, due to his
diagnosis of cancer, would temporarily step down as head of state, it
turns out was never a crisis at all.

The national media in the U.S., taking its cue from the Bush-occupied
White House, ground out stories designed to embolden the anti-Castro
communities, telling the world that either the Cuban people would
rise up in the wake of the rudderless Cuban ship of state and
re-impose democracy (read capitalism), or alternatively the people
would be distraught with grief at the impending demise of their great
leader and social turmoil would result.

Neither scenario was anywhere close to accurate.

Cubans interviewed in the street on their way to work after it was
announced Fidel was seriously ill with just limited chances of
survival took time out to chastise the Cuban leader for working too
hard and not taking better care of himself.

In fact, the Cuban people's confidence in the Cuban system, with or
without Fidel, was reinforced during the general elections held
earlier this year.

In a move that took no one by surprise the ailing Castro announced he
would not run for re-election.

And while no one was surprised that Raul, Fidel's 76-year-old
brother, was elected to replace the elder Castro as president of the
Council of State, what was somewhat surprising were the indications
of the ever increasing role of Blacks and women in the Cuban
political process.

In the wake of the January elections, 35 percent of the National
Assembly members are Black, up from 33 percent in 2003 and 28 percent
in 1998. Forty-three percent of the National Assembly members are
women, making Cuba one of the worlds' leaders in the percentage of
women in representative government. The U.S. Congress is made up of
just 16.8 percent women by comparison.

Despite all these positive indicators it would be a mistake to give
the impression life is easy in Cuba. It is not and it never has been.

So questions remain. Especially: How will the younger post-revolution
generation respond to the challenges confronted by Cuba in her
constant struggles with her great imperialist neighbor to the North?

Indications are the youth may not be so patient.

In what is now a famous incident in Cuba, in February, a student at
the University of Computer Science, Eliecir Avila, stood at a
microphone in a meeting with National Assembly President Ricardo
Alarcon and asked pointed questions about the Cuban economy. When, he
asked, could Cubans expect to be allowed certain rights and
privileges citizens of other countries took for granted?

All his questions were good questions; questions many Cubans, not
just the youths, were asking themselves.

What was equally interesting about the Alarcon-Avila exchange was
that an enterprising computer science student recorded the
question-answer exchange on a cell phone video, downloaded it to a
computer and put it on the Internet.

It thus became an item of island-wide, even international discussion.

While it was reported in some quarters of the U.S. that Avila was
later arrested by Cuban authorities, the truth is that he was taken
to Havana, put on a television round table forum and the discussion
on Cuban economics and conditions of life continued.

Some answers to the students' questions were not long in coming.

Late in April, the Council of State, the elected representative body
of the National Assembly that carries out policy between sessions of
the Assembly, announced new economic and social reforms that would
allow Cubans access to services and consumer products heretofore
denied them.

It was an impressive, if token response to Cubans' desires to "look
like everyone else."

It was a token response because allowing Cubans access to tourist
hotels, and lifting restrictions on the sale of cell phones,
microwave ovens, DVD players, items that were formerly restricted to
conserve energy, is only meaningful if people have the economic
capacity to purchase such things. Most still do not.

But the willingness of the Cuban government to listen to the people
and to respond in some measure is a clear signal Cubans think Cuba is
well on the road to recovery.

Of course, given the free market nature of the global economic system
that exists now, likely Cuba will never return to the days when the
socialist world gave fair and equal sustenance to the Cuban economy.

But change is in the air and you have to like Cuba's chances of
flourishing once again


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