Harry Targ
And
yet Americans are more ignorant of the nature of the Cuban Revolution and
U.S.-Cuban relations than are the people of almost any other country in the
world. Except for those few Americans with access to a handful of liberal and
radical publications the people of this country have been subjected to an
unrelieved campaign of distortion, or outright slander of Fidel Castro and the
revolution he leads. The determined hostility of American leaders to the Cuban
Revolution, the implementation of a system of economic harassment, and the
threat of military intervention, not only endanger the Cuban Revolution, but
increase the tempo of the cold war at home and abroad (Editors,
“The Cuban Revolution: The New Crisis in Cold War Ideology,” Studies on the Left, Volume 1, Number,
1960, 1).
This statement was published in the summer of 1960!
Fifty-five years later the same assessment of United States/Cuban relations
still holds.
The story of the Cuban revolution needs to be retold
as we move ahead to establish a new United States/Cuban relationship.
Cuba was a colony of the Spanish for 400 years, an
economic vassal of the British and the United States for more than 100 years,
and a slave state from the fifteenth century to the end of the nineteenth
century.
The domination of the island by foreigners, juxtaposed
with a culture enriched by African roots (the indigenous people were largely
obliterated by the Spanish), led to repeated efforts to resist colonialism
before 1898 and neo-colonialism after that. Slaves, Afro/Cubans, and Spanish
born landowners seeking freedom from the Spanish crown often rose up to
overthrow the yoke of imperialism.
Cuban Revolutionaries, inspired by visionary poet
Jose Marti, were on the verge of defeating Spanish colonialism in the 1890s. The
United States sent armies to the island to defeat the Spanish and establish a
puppet government to insure its economic and political control. To secure support for the war at home the American
media and popular music were filled with images of Cuba as the “damsel in
distress” and bungling Afro/Cuban revolutionaries. The dominant ideology of the
United States, manifest destiny and white Christian duty, drove the argument
for war on Spain.
After the 1898 war, the United States military, with
the support of small numbers of compliant Cubans, created a government that
would open the door completely for United States investments, commercial
penetration, an externally-controlled tourist sector, and North American
gangsters. The U.S. neo-colonial regime on the island stimulated pockets of
economic development in a sea of human misery. Responding to grotesque economic
suffering in the 1950s a band of revolutionaries (led by Fidel Castro, Che
Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Celia Sanchez, and Haydee Santamaria) defeated the
U.S. backed military regime of Fulgencio Batista.
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 began in the nineteenth
century and was driven by 400 years of nationalism, a vision of democracy, and
a passion for economic justice. This vision was articulated in Fidel Castro’s
famous “History Will Absolve Me” speech given before being sentenced to prison
after a failed military action against Batista in 1953. He spoke of five goals
of his revolution: returning power to the people; giving land to the people who
work it; providing workers a significant share of profits from corporations;
granting sugar planters a quota of the value of the crop they produce; and
confiscating lands acquired through fraud. Then he said, the Revolution would
carry out agrarian reform, nationalize key sectors of the economy, institute
educational reforms, and provide a decent livelihood for manual and
intellectual labor.
The
problem of the land, the problem of industrialization, the problem of housing,
the problem of unemployment, the problem of education and the problem of the
people’s health: these are the six problems we would take immediate steps to
solve, along with restoration of civil liberties and political democracy (Fidel
Castro, “ History Will Absolve Me,” Castro Internet Archive, www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953).
Almost immediately the revolutionaries who had
seized power in January, 1959 began to implement the program envisioned by the
Castro speech. Over the next fifty years, with heated debates inside Cuba, experiments--some
successful, some failed--were carried out. Despite international pressures and
the changing global political economy, much of the program has been
institutionalized to the benefit of most Cubans.
Education and health care are free to all Cubans.
Basic, but modest, nutritional needs have been met. Cubans have participated in
significant political discussion about public policy. And Cuban society has
been a laboratory for experimentation. In the 1960s Cubans discussed whether
there was a need for monetary incentives to motivate work or whether
revolutionary enthusiasm was sufficient to maintain production. Debates
occurred over the years also about whether a state-directed economy, a mixed
one, or some combination would best promote development; how to engage in
international solidarity; and whether there was a need to affiliate with super
powers such as the former Soviet Union. Central to the Cuban model is the
proposition that when policies work they get institutionalized; when they fail
they get changed.
The United States reaction to the Cuban Revolution
has been as the Studies on the Left article
warned in 1960. U.S. policy has included military invasions, sabotage,
assassination attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, an economic blockade,
subversion including beaming propaganda radio and television broadcasts to the
island, efforts to isolate Cuba from the international system, restrictions on
United States travelers to the island, listing Cuba as a state sponsor of
terrorism, and in the long-run most importantly portraying in government
statements and the mass media the image of Cuba as a totalitarian state that
oppresses its people.
On December 17, 2014 President Raul Castro and
Barack Obama announced that the U.S./Cuban relationship would change. The United States and Cuba, President Obama said,
would begin negotiations to reestablish diplomatic relations, open embassies,
and move to eliminate the U.S. economic blockade and restrictions on American
travel to the island. This announcement was broadly celebrated by nations
everywhere, the Pope who had lobbied Washington for the policy change, and
Americans and Cubans alike. Of course, in both countries there were skeptics
and the strong and vocal Cuban-American lobby immediately condemned the
announced policy changes.
Since last December the United States and Cuba have
been negotiating the announced normalization of relations and several steps
have been taken by both countries including:
-freeing the
last three of the Cuban Five by the United States and the release by Cuba of
U.S. agents Roland Sarraff Trujillo and Alan Gross from Cuban prisons
-easing restrictions on remittances from
Cuban/American families to relatives on the island
-using executive action in the United States to
loosen restrictions on American travel to Cuba and reestablishing the capacity
for banking connections with the island
-authorizing flights from the United States to Cuba
by multiple airlines
-giving authority to some companies to invest in
small businesses in Cuba and the increase in trade of selected U.S.
commodities, primarily agricultural products and building materials
-taking Cuba off the State Department list of sponsors
of terrorism
And President Obama deliberated with President Raul
Castro at the April, 2015 meeting of the Summit of the Americas in Panama,
communicating the image of the return to normal diplomatic relations.
However, much needs to be done to complete the normalization
of diplomatic relations. U.S. and Cuban
embassies have not been opened. The U.S. economic embargo has not been lifted. The
Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits foreign companies from having commercial
relations with the island and then the United States, has not been repealed.
And recently the House of Representatives passed a resolution that challenges
President Obama’s executive authority to expand the categories of U.S. citizens
who can travel to Cuba without applying for a license from the Treasury
Department. In addition, many issues of relevance to the two countries such as
those involving immigration, control of drug trafficking, and cooperation on
disaster relief are yet to be resolved.
Most Americans, including Cuban/Americans, support
the full normalization of relations. But a small number of politicians from
both political parties who oppose normalization of relations are using their
legislative and public political leverage to reverse the will of the American and
Cuban people. One example is the misrepresentation of the case of Assata
Shakur, who has lived in Cuba for over thirty years. Shakur, a former member of
the Black Panther Party was tried and convicted on dubious grounds of murdering
a police officer in New Jersey and who fled to Cuba in 1984, is being used by
anti-Cuban activists to resist the normalization of relations, claiming that
Cuba is harboring “terrorists.”
The dramatic gestures by Presidents Obama and Castro
have set the stage for the normalization of diplomatic relations, but more work
needs to be done.
First, activists must continue to pressure their
legislators to repeal the Helms-Burton Act and oppose any efforts by their
peers to re-impose legislation that will stop the process of change. Lobbying
should be complemented by rallies and marches. Support should be given to those
organizations which have been in the front lines of Cuba Solidarity for years
such as Pastors for Peace. In addition, people to people exchanges, community
to community outreach, and high school and university study abroad programs
should be encouraged.
Second, those in solidarity with the Cuban
Revolution should support economic reforms being introduced on the island that
reflect the best principles of the Cuban Revolution: independence, democracy,
and human well-being. The clearest manifestation of these principles is
reflected in the development of work place cooperatives in both cities and the countryside.
Cubans are being encouraged to engage in work that produces goods and services
for their communities in ways that empower workers and decentralize production
and decision-making. Educating the American public to the fact that Cuba is
embarking on new economic arrangements that encourage work place democracy
contradict the media image that the people are embracing entrepreneurial
capitalism.
Third, the solidarity movement should continue the
process of public education about Cuba, explaining the realities of Cuban
history, celebrating Cuban accomplishments in health care and education, and
recognizing the richness and diversity of Cuban culture. Ironically, despite
the long and often painful relationship the Cuban people have had with the
United States, the diversity of the two nation’s cultures are inextricably
connected. That shared experience should be celebrated.
Finally, solidarity with the Cuban people provides
an opportunity to educate Americans to the reality that the United States is
not “the indispensable nation,” but one among many with virtues and flaws.
Cubans have celebrated their own history and culture but have done so without disrespecting
the experiences of other nations and peoples. We in the United States could
learn from that perspective.
