Change is Coming to Cuba

fidel-castro-dead

Sit back, grab a mojito, and experience the resilient joy and spirit of the Cuban people. KCTS 9’s TV special about my trip to Cuba earlier this year is now available to watch online.

Venturing to Cuba offers a chance to befriend a poor and struggling island society that is, in its own way, an inspiration. It’s a one-of-a-kind time warp, free of the strip-mall banality of our rich world. But with Castro gone, pent up change is likely to sweep Cuba. And that includes a tsunami of American tourists.

Did you visit Fidel’s Cuba? I would love to hear about your travels.

Comments

17 Replies to “Change is Coming to Cuba”

  1. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I am under the impression that the Trump Administration is going to undo everything the Obama administration has done. I would love to go to Cuba, our family has been talking about going next spring. I hope it can happen!

  2. I’ve been to Cuba 3 times-just got back a few weeks ago.It’s amazing!We go to visit a pastor friend there.The churches are so loving+kind.Can’t wait to go back.Horse+cart,bikes,50’s cars,Russian trucks,beautiful beach we went to.Another world

  3. We went to Havana the of October of this year and enjoyed our visit so much that we hope to return next year for a longer visit. We went on our own with prepaid overpriced hotel rooms just so we could see for ourselves what would be available next time. We found the people gracious and patient with our pigeon Spanish. I do hope that we are not allowed to take over their precious island…it would be a shame. They need our money and any help but I would hate to see it become another ccharmless Caribbean island.

  4. castros thugs consist of army, navy, air force, coast guard. customs and immigration…all are one and are loyal to castro and i will tell you not to get on their bad side as they absolutly can and will do anything they want to you for no reason. i have been through it for giving two bike to needy. i would say give it 10 years to clean the thugs out before i go back.

  5. Ry Cooder and Buena Vista Social Club brought home to me how much we have hurt those Cuban people who were like me: interested in family, a vital culture and maybe even some economic prosperity. We denied two generations of normal (apolitical) Cubans a chance for a normal life.

    Lost in the propaganda from Florida’s wealthier and equally vital Cuban emigres is how similarly brutal and repressive the Battista regime was. From what I understand of those days ‘tourism’ meant Mafia, payoffs and gambling. The great musicians were just the ‘tinsel’ on a tourism package. When will los Cubanos ‘catch a break?’

  6. I read a book by Rachel Kushner – Telex from Cuba, fiction, but an eye-opener about life in Cuba before Castro. The author’s grandmother lived there and kept journals the author used for her story. It pains me to read about the greed and plunder of the island. Corporate-run sugar cane plantations and exploitation of the locals and Americans and foreigners who came to get richer. It is a very good story but sad.
    I love Ry Cooder and the Buena Vista Social Club’s music. I would like to see the Cuban people have a chance for freedom and prosperity. Castro and Communism are a moral blight and I am glad to see the sun for the Cuban people.

  7. Interesting comments, especially the one from LesLein.I fear that US schools are not doing an adequate job of teaching young people about the oppressive Castro regime. Also fear that a generation of US citizens are “learning” about Castro and Cuba from the likes of celebrities like Colin Kaepernick (his praise for education and health care under the Castro regime strikes me as extremely ignorant— you wouldn’t praise Hitler for improving the Germany economy, right?) and the Kardashians, who apparently filmed some TV shows in Havana. Like any other destination, US tourists have the choice of visiting Cuba, staying isolated in five-star resorts, and learning absolutely nothing or traveling with a desire to learn as much as possible about Cuba’s history and its people. I’m sure that some of us will choose the former, while others will choose the latter.

  8. To seclude this country from the world hasn’t in 50 years exactly helped the Cuban people. I don’t think that anyone would agree with the Castro regime, but I think after decades it is time to think forward and see if these people can be helped. They have no voice because until now they have no connection to the rest of the world. In a way we are punishing them because 50 years ago they ended up with a terrible dictator.

  9. Hey, Cuba is welcome to throw off the failure of communism and it’s lingering regime, and engage the world community any time it desires, but right now it seems to be priding itself on all the self-inflicted damage and its traditional role of sticking it to the US of A!

    We’ll see how badly Cubans want to be helped now that change is a possibility.

  10. ‘Cuba offers a chance to befriend a poor and struggling island society that is, in its own way, an inspiration. It’s a one-of-a-kind time warp, free of the strip-mall banality of our rich world. But with Castro gone, pent up change is likely to sweep Cuba’

    First off, there is little chance that Cuba is going to change much in the immediate future. The repressive Castro regime remains in place even if the dictator that replaced the dictator is dead.

    That being said the above quote makes Cuba sound like some kind of romantic and quaint place. No mention of the political prisoners, abuse of human rights, lack of the First Amendment rights Americans enjoy in all our glorious “banality” of a capitalistic society.

    The left of Mr. Steves’ ilk mourn the loss of Castro with comments like “he spent more on education than the prison system.” That’s because indoctrination is essential to maintain a dictatorship. Dealing with lawbreakers (including dissidents) is cheap since it doesn’t cost much to line up your enemies and shoot them where they stand.

  11. My brother has been an ardent Cuba supporter in word and deed for many years. He has traveled there several times and I went once. I’ll write here what I tell him and it ain’t pretty.

    In the fifties Cuba was statistically just behind Argentina and Venezuela (a very different Venezuela) in regional wealth creation; the standards in health and education were high relative to other countries in Latin America. The trouble was the horrible inequality and grinding rural poverty. Batista and his cronies were all too happy with American gangsters and corporations as long as they could take their cut. What Castro promised was democracy and hope. Unfortunately the redistribution of wealth, in particular land reform was anathema to the hemispheric status quo. In Guatemala an elected reformist government was brutally overturned by a well documented CIA backed insurgency. The following 20 years was a slaughterhouse. Argentina born Che Guevara barely got out of there alive and learned all too well that the Americans will never tolerate a democratically elected regime with a radical agenda due to their belief in , as Henry Kissinger said of Chile in 1973, such results emanating from “the irresponsibility of its people”. Washington was addicted to the old post second world war “made in America” tenet of identifying National pride with Communism.

    I don’t believe that Castro ever read Das Kapital … I don’t think anyone could … but waving the banner of marxist leninism resonated with his confrontational persona of snubbing his nose at the stronger while, conveniently, facilitating cheap oil in exchange for sugar quota exports to the USSR when their natural trading partner in the US boycotted both. So … democracy aborted,idiotic policy makers in Washington dreaming up fictional accounts (probably for their own self aggrandizement, paranoia and promotion) and Soviet willingness to fill the void partially occupied by an ideologically inept Cuban administration without clear direction.

    To what end?

    Castro was quite willing to blow up the world in 1962 and Khrushchev realized their new ally was uncontrollable. Moreover if it wasn’t for one Soviet submarine officer, the one out of three who vetoed an on board missle launch after losing radio contact with Moscow we would probably have had that third world war of annihilation.

    On a personal note I have a vivid memory of “duck and cover” exercises (which were pointless but eased the worries of parents because the school was “doing something”)and bawling my eyes out exclaiming to my mother, “I don’t want to die!” It became one of the defining moments of my almost shortened life.

    The American policy should have been the same as followed by West Germany and their “Osten politic”. Even that fervent anti communist MinisterPresident Franz Josef Strauss of Bavaria finally came to the same conclusion just before he died. East Germany became hooked on western credits and thereby were sucked into the western vortex as theirs, and all other, communist economies crumbled under the weight of bureaucratic centralism. This is precisely what Castro and other elite party members came to fear – western consumer values infiltrating their idea of creating the “new man” who would be willing to live on a rationed diet of basic commodities while feasting on party propaganda led by blowhards.

    For both, the status quo was equally comfortable – maintain the David versus Goliath myth in Cuba and keep the American people agitated by the Red boogeyman 90 miles across from Key West. The model was politically successful for 50 years.

    PS … if you are Conservative and disagree then you are in the same camp as my brother but for different reasons.

  12. >But with Castro gone, pent up change is likely to sweep Cuba. And that includes a tsunami of American tourists.<

    Change will come, but not as quickly as you believe. Raoul is still in charge, and his chosen successor is unlikely to want to lose control. However, change will eventually come to Cuba. No one enjoys poverty and a police state.

  13. “On a personal note I have a vivid memory of “duck and cover” exercises (which were pointless but eased the worries of parents because the school was “doing something”)”

    I remember those exercises as well. Those probably didn’t upset us as much as it may have the children in other parts of the country as it was the same “assume the position” for tornado drills. As they say, though, little pitchers have big ears, we all knew (roughly) what was going on, and it was a frightening time.

  14. I was in Cuba early Sept 2016. I am old enough to remember Batista, frequent flights on Habana air lines from Miami, and the $10 boat ride to Havana from Key West. Here is how I remember it:
    We were happy to see Castro come. To do business in Cuba you always had a 50% partner, Batista, a brutal despot.
    Unfortunately Castro came in and became a 100% partner when he nationalized everything. Naturally we were not happy with the loss. We placed sanctions. This hurt as we were the major trading partner. We figured that Castro would be out soon and arranged the Bay of Pigs. Castro found a willing source of support, USSR (Russia). Much of the disaster that we see today is from the sudden loss of Russian support with the collapse of the USSR.
    Cuba lost 10% of its population, not the “1%” but 10%. This was its money and brains. This is the Miami Cuban community that has different views than the people left in Cuba, especially after the purges. The US not buying their sugar hurt them more. We subsidize the US sugar industry, making an environmental disaster in Florida.
    It is hard to compare income in Cuba with other countries. Folks do not need to pay for health care,room and board. I got the feel that their standard of living is not that different than that of their neighbors.
    I also think that most Cubans are happier with their leader than we are with our present of next leader. Castro’s brutality is not a change from what was there before him. He also controls information that the people receive. Those making $50 a year cutting cane in 1950 are definitely better off today.
    As we consider our relationship to Cuba, I see things we might learn as we sanction Iran and see Russia moving in.
    I do not think Cuba has a good government and have no desire to live there. I am also not supporting normalization of relationship with Iran.

  15. I want to go to Cuba in February or March 2017. Does anyone have any recommendations. Is it best to go with a tour company or can we go as a small group? How many days would you recommend? Any information will help.
    Thanks!!

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