9 October 1997 Edition
The wonderful spirit of the Cuban revolution
On the 30th anniversary of Che Guevara's death, Brian Campbell - recently returned from Cuba - examines the current state of the Cuban revolution.
In the foyer of the Hotel Sevilla in the centre of Havana framed photographs cover the walls. They show film stars and famous singers from the 30s, 40s and 50s drinking and gambling among the well-dressed gangsters who once ran Cuba's lucrative tourist industry.
Cuba was a mafia heaven - and the largest tourist destination in the Caribbean - where corruption seeped from the heart of the state. A small elite safeguarded US interests while poverty and illiteracy was the lot for the majority of people.
But one photograph stands out from the rest in the foyer of the Hotel Sevilla. It shows Cuban people armed with sticks and hammers on the night of 1 January 1959 when the revolutionary forces had fought their way to victory and the dictator Batista had fled to the Dominican Republic.
The photograph shows the people breaking into the hotel's casino which they then smashed to pieces.
It is a symbol of that great revolutionary moment. Bristling with energy, the picture captures the sweeping away of the brutal regime which cared more for American millionaires and gambling gangsters than the welfare of its own people.
The Cuban revolution set about very quickly building the most egalitarian society in the Third World. Their health service is the equal of any in the world, with a doctor for every 170 families and a doctor and dentist attached to every school. Their education system is also second to none and housing is a priority. Elsewhere in the region slums and shanty towns ring every city. Not in Cuba.
The revolution's achievements are immense and they have been defended against all the odds. But the problems are also immense. The US blockade which, with the Helms-Burton Act, attempts to be worldwide in its scope, forces Cuba into all manner of ingenuity in order to import and export the most basic of goods. The Coca-Cola in Cuba's tourist hotels is bought `illegally' in Mexico. Cuban cigars are smuggled into the US where they are sold on the black market.
In order to break the blockade, the Cuban government is increasingly entering into joint venture agreements with foreign firms. Many of the tourist hotels are jointly owned by companies from Italy, Spain, Canada and elsewhere. In Havana large buses which can carry 250 people - known as `camels' - are supplied from Canada.
Tourism is now Cuba's major foreign currency earner. Last year it grew by 15% and that will be matched this year when 1.2 million tourists are expected to bring in $1.75 billion. New hotels are springing up - hotels with 2,500 new rooms were built in the last year. In Havana, the old part of the city is being renovated with superb attention to preservation. Havana is fast on its way to becoming one of the most stunning examples of colonial architecture in the world. It is not surprising therefore, that Cuba's enemies have launched a bombing campaign against hotels in Havana and the beach resort of Varadero.
But the tourist economy and the links between Cubans and their relatives in the US (there are as many Cubans in Miami as there are in Havana, it is said) led the government to legalise a dollar economy. Today the peso and the dollar are both legal tender.
This has led to its own difficulties. Those who have no access to dollars, either from relatives or by working in the tourist industry, survive on a basic income. This in turn has led to the growth of all the ills accompanying a tourist industry.
Prostitution has openly returned, as have conmen and middlemen who sell stolen cigars in whispered conversations with foreigners. These people are intensely disliked by Cuban workers. I spoke to one man, a doctor, who explained why. He and his wife, a psychologist, earn 650 pesos a month (about US$30) but have no access to dollars. A prostitute could make the equivalent of their monthly earnings in one day. A bartender or waiter working in a tourist hotel could also earn dollars regularly. It creates an inequality which the socialist system has sought to avoid. The government acknowldges the difficulties but it is clear that the battle will be an ideological one - there will be no major policy changes. Investment in tourism will continue despite the drawbacks because it is simply too important to the national economy.
Dollars also come from the United States. Cubans in the US are allowed a 21-day visa to visit Cuba and many of them return for holidays. They are for all the world like the returned emigrants who used to grace Ireland with their fat wallets, generous habits and tales of the New Country. No doubt many of them, like the Irish emigrants, have found the US less than the Promised Land, but the lure of a new life in the States is evident, particularly among young people.
I met a journalist who went to Miami three years ago. Now he was returning for a three week holiday. With his dollars he was taking his family and relations out for a night on the the town. He has two jobs in Miami - as a courier and a barber - and he works round the clock. Life in America is good, he tells me, as returning emigrants do.
I asked the doctor if he ever thought to emigrate to the USA. ``Yes,'' he said, ``but I love my family, my neighbourhood, my friends and...'' He hesitated. ``And I love my flag,'' he said finally. While he was often demoralised by shortages and the effects of the blockade, like everyone I met he supported the revolution. He knew what life was like before 1959 and, particularly as a doctor, he recognised the gains which have been made in Cuba. But the consumerist society is such an attractive vision that many people long for its material world.
`Lila', a former underground fighter who smuggled explosives into Havana in the 1950s and was at the forefront of the literacy campaign in the years after the revolution, said to me, ``there are two privileged classes in Cuba, the young and the old.'' Lila (her real name is Rosa Perez) was intensely proud of Cuba. Indeed, the people are the most patriotic (and the most friendly) I have ever met. Their long history of fighting for independence has left an unquenchable spirit which sustains the revolution against all the odds.
I ask Lila what she thinks of the revolution today. ``I love the revolution and I would give my life for it,'' she says with real emotion. ``Everyone who was here before the revolution would understand that,'' she says. ``We must try to teach the children to understand that too.''
That is the difficult task which Fidel Castro and his band of wonderful revolutionaries are faced with.
It is impossible to come away from Cuba without feeling a sense of pride in what has been achieved. But that is tinged with a sense of foreboding. These are difficult days for a Cuban revolution which has weathered many attempts to sink it. When the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc collapsed, it spelled the end of Cuba's vital trading links. It looked as though its economy might collapse and indeed, right wing Americans set up an organisation designed to share out the spoils.
But the revolution has survived and there is no doubt that everyone whose moral basis is the welfare of the common good has a duty to support it in the difficult months and years ahead.
In the foyer of the Hotel Sevilla in the centre of Havana framed photographs cover the walls. They show film stars and famous singers from the 30s, 40s and 50s drinking and gambling among the well-dressed gangsters who once ran Cuba's lucrative tourist industry.
Cuba was a mafia heaven - and the largest tourist destination in the Caribbean - where corruption seeped from the heart of the state. A small elite safeguarded US interests while poverty and illiteracy was the lot for the majority of people.
But one photograph stands out from the rest in the foyer of the Hotel Sevilla. It shows Cuban people armed with sticks and hammers on the night of 1 January 1959 when the revolutionary forces had fought their way to victory and the dictator Batista had fled to the Dominican Republic.
The photograph shows the people breaking into the hotel's casino which they then smashed to pieces.
It is a symbol of that great revolutionary moment. Bristling with energy, the picture captures the sweeping away of the brutal regime which cared more for American millionaires and gambling gangsters than the welfare of its own people.
The Cuban revolution set about very quickly building the most egalitarian society in the Third World. Their health service is the equal of any in the world, with a doctor for every 170 families and a doctor and dentist attached to every school. Their education system is also second to none and housing is a priority. Elsewhere in the region slums and shanty towns ring every city. Not in Cuba.
The revolution's achievements are immense and they have been defended against all the odds. But the problems are also immense. The US blockade which, with the Helms-Burton Act, attempts to be worldwide in its scope, forces Cuba into all manner of ingenuity in order to import and export the most basic of goods. The Coca-Cola in Cuba's tourist hotels is bought `illegally' in Mexico. Cuban cigars are smuggled into the US where they are sold on the black market.
In order to break the blockade, the Cuban government is increasingly entering into joint venture agreements with foreign firms. Many of the tourist hotels are jointly owned by companies from Italy, Spain, Canada and elsewhere. In Havana large buses which can carry 250 people - known as `camels' - are supplied from Canada.
Tourism is now Cuba's major foreign currency earner. Last year it grew by 15% and that will be matched this year when 1.2 million tourists are expected to bring in $1.75 billion. New hotels are springing up - hotels with 2,500 new rooms were built in the last year. In Havana, the old part of the city is being renovated with superb attention to preservation. Havana is fast on its way to becoming one of the most stunning examples of colonial architecture in the world. It is not surprising therefore, that Cuba's enemies have launched a bombing campaign against hotels in Havana and the beach resort of Varadero.
But the tourist economy and the links between Cubans and their relatives in the US (there are as many Cubans in Miami as there are in Havana, it is said) led the government to legalise a dollar economy. Today the peso and the dollar are both legal tender.
This has led to its own difficulties. Those who have no access to dollars, either from relatives or by working in the tourist industry, survive on a basic income. This in turn has led to the growth of all the ills accompanying a tourist industry.
Prostitution has openly returned, as have conmen and middlemen who sell stolen cigars in whispered conversations with foreigners. These people are intensely disliked by Cuban workers. I spoke to one man, a doctor, who explained why. He and his wife, a psychologist, earn 650 pesos a month (about US$30) but have no access to dollars. A prostitute could make the equivalent of their monthly earnings in one day. A bartender or waiter working in a tourist hotel could also earn dollars regularly. It creates an inequality which the socialist system has sought to avoid. The government acknowldges the difficulties but it is clear that the battle will be an ideological one - there will be no major policy changes. Investment in tourism will continue despite the drawbacks because it is simply too important to the national economy.
Dollars also come from the United States. Cubans in the US are allowed a 21-day visa to visit Cuba and many of them return for holidays. They are for all the world like the returned emigrants who used to grace Ireland with their fat wallets, generous habits and tales of the New Country. No doubt many of them, like the Irish emigrants, have found the US less than the Promised Land, but the lure of a new life in the States is evident, particularly among young people.
I met a journalist who went to Miami three years ago. Now he was returning for a three week holiday. With his dollars he was taking his family and relations out for a night on the the town. He has two jobs in Miami - as a courier and a barber - and he works round the clock. Life in America is good, he tells me, as returning emigrants do.
I asked the doctor if he ever thought to emigrate to the USA. ``Yes,'' he said, ``but I love my family, my neighbourhood, my friends and...'' He hesitated. ``And I love my flag,'' he said finally. While he was often demoralised by shortages and the effects of the blockade, like everyone I met he supported the revolution. He knew what life was like before 1959 and, particularly as a doctor, he recognised the gains which have been made in Cuba. But the consumerist society is such an attractive vision that many people long for its material world.
`Lila', a former underground fighter who smuggled explosives into Havana in the 1950s and was at the forefront of the literacy campaign in the years after the revolution, said to me, ``there are two privileged classes in Cuba, the young and the old.'' Lila (her real name is Rosa Perez) was intensely proud of Cuba. Indeed, the people are the most patriotic (and the most friendly) I have ever met. Their long history of fighting for independence has left an unquenchable spirit which sustains the revolution against all the odds.
I ask Lila what she thinks of the revolution today. ``I love the revolution and I would give my life for it,'' she says with real emotion. ``Everyone who was here before the revolution would understand that,'' she says. ``We must try to teach the children to understand that too.''
That is the difficult task which Fidel Castro and his band of wonderful revolutionaries are faced with.
It is impossible to come away from Cuba without feeling a sense of pride in what has been achieved. But that is tinged with a sense of foreboding. These are difficult days for a Cuban revolution which has weathered many attempts to sink it. When the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc collapsed, it spelled the end of Cuba's vital trading links. It looked as though its economy might collapse and indeed, right wing Americans set up an organisation designed to share out the spoils.
But the revolution has survived and there is no doubt that everyone whose moral basis is the welfare of the common good has a duty to support it in the difficult months and years ahead.