In nov-dec 2018 I was with my brother Hans 5 weeks on a holiday trip in Cuba which has a the wonderful and unspoiled nature and plenty Spanish colonial style cities. Cuba has a genuine Latin culture. The people are as nice as in other Latin counties but it is really safe and relaxed, which is not always the case in South and Central America. I expect this safety is there while the control of the Communist regime is very strong and embedded in every aspect of society. I did not notice much inequality and poverty. Cuba stands out with the other Caribbean Islands with its unique social and economically way of living. Maybe, Maybe this culture is strong enough to be able to manage the foreign banks and enterprises in the future. The modern world economic climate and culture is geared in accommodating the big tech (google facebook etc.), banks and big corporations. Brexit will show us too.
This blog is build around photo series. For those who want more than just photos (click on the image left) , the text below gives information about the Cuba and its social-economic system.
In general the Cubans whom we met did see the regime as inadequate, a nuisance and hindering them from developing one’s own life. However this Communism makes that everyone has a house, food, education and medical care. Although on a low to medium level of welfare. Boredom was the main feeling. It has to be said that we met mainly people who worked in the tourist industry and earned more than the common Cuban. Their profession is/used to be professor, engineer, sports instructor, biologist etc. I have the impression that people with less possibilities and urge for initiatives were more in favor of the Communists regime due to the security which it offers. It has to be said that the true and proud Communist regime is still strongly present and not at its end of shelf life. But how this government will manage the divide in society between those who earn a good living by dealing with tourist and those who work in formal government sector for a minimum wage is to be seen. Running a Airbnb bed and breakfast professionally can generate 1000usd/m income compared to a senior surgeon earning 40usd/m and a sales person in a shop 12usd/m
There are two ways to be a tourist in Cuba,
Option one; book a tour on a cruise ship or an all in holiday in a resort and visit on a regular basis interesting places by bus or
Option two; travelling on your own by bus and taxi to the places you think are interesting and sleep in Casas Particulares, private houses.
Option one is the cheapest and is what the government prefers while all the benefits are hers and the easiest to manage socially. Option two, going ones own way makes benefits more for individual entrepreneurs (cuentapropistas) who like to use their capacities. We did just that. In this way I could talk with Cubans about their way of living and their thoughts about living in this regime. It also confronted us with the greedy way our dollars were extracted in Havana. We felt we were just dollar trees, jumped on by grasshoppers. We were glad to leave Havana how interesting is was and enjoyed the other parts of Cuba. While Cuba is big, we did not visit the east coast with its beaches and resorts and hotels but stayed in the south west (Santiago de Cuba, the department Granma, Trinidad and Cienfuegos )
One has to be aware that traveling outside the tourist areas can complicate maters. Cubans are not allowed to accept foreigners to sleep in their house unless they have a license. We experienced that if such a house is not near, then people are to scared for the CDR (explaned later) to take you in, even if they should like to do it. Paying with our CUC(converted usd) was sometimes not possible. I wanted to buy bread at a panaderia in the remote Topes de Colantes were no shops are. The lady said: I can sell bread to everyone but not you. I: but I can pay with “monera nacional” . No, it was not possible to sell something subsidized to a foreigner. So we were stuck to restaurants. What I write here can be different next month. Cuba accommodates rapidly to tourists, the financial needs are high.
The images which give an impression of what we did see and experience;
My conclusion after 5 weeks
Cuba is beautiful, unspoiled with a relaxed style of living with a pleasant population. They have lots of time chat (Spanish in general). Not many people feel lost, the state cares for you. A good and free health system and free education are established. Food and housing are secured. The environment is not heavily polluted, everything broken will be repaired during the first 50 years of usage. Houses are not stuffed with all those superfluous items like in our world. Consumption is mainly functional.
Many Cubans don’t like the situation but accept what’s going on. One can easily encounter people who support the current situation with all their heart. In general the Cubans are a kind of tired of the slow pace of advancement. Younger people are connected with the internet and encounter another world. In the next 20 years there will develop a group of Cubans which have more money to spend then is necessary to fulfill the basic needs. How will this work out? We will see.
This all is accomplished thanks to the Communistic system. This revolution was needed. Cuba is a totalitarian state but did not run into dictatorship like other states. But should I like to live here? Not really, I am not used that every move I make is noted. But a farmer from the remote, drugs infested countryside in Colombia should possibly come to a different conclusion.
About the everywhere visible reminders of the revolution.
Fidel and the revolution are heavily promoted on billboards. But Fidel, Raoul, Che and Camilo were not the first starting a revolution.
A few of the most important for Cuba as a state:
1868–78 Ten Years' War against the Spanish was started by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes , seen as the Padre del Patria
1879–80 Little War led by Calixto Garcia
1895–98 Cuban War of Independence. the "Cuba Libre" movement, led by José Martí and general Antonio Maceo Grajales,
Several wars and revolutions later Fidel, Raoul, Che, Camilo and Almeida succeeded with a the revolution that made Cuba independent. 1953-59 Cuban Revolution
However Cuba has been involved in many more revolutions from others in the years to come. (Algeria, Angola, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Venezuela,to name a few) The USA does not tolerate anything which not supports their interest in the Americas. (Monroe Doctrine) From their point of view their involvement in Cuba, Grenada, Costa Rica and threats to Venezuela are justified and needed.
José Martí has to be mentioned and is honored widely, too by the Castro’s. He was a revolutionary with vision and very different mentality from the common Latin revolutionairy, as far as I can what is written about him can believe. He stated that South and Central America could only be free and cultural independent if the society was based on "welfare and prosperity of all, independently of class, occupation or race. That meant getting rid of the Spanish culture of authoritarianism and colonialism. He admired the industriousness climate in the US but feared their from England inherited imperialism.
The basic problem in most South and Central American countries is the local Spanish descendant (creole) upper class who initiated the independence struggles which was not on including the fate of the indigenous and African slaves. So until today in most countries those groups are the victim of suppression of the old hierarchiey and mentality with the roots in the Spanish-Arabic culture.
In this sense, I think, is Cuba an exception. It was a revolution based on the country side, the farmers and that shows. I did not sense any discrimination of race. The Spanish had already eradicated all indigenous so there are mainly Spanish and African descendants mixed with quite a few other immigrants from Europe, Africa and neighboring islands in the Caribbean. The inequality is surprisingly small. A waitress in a restaurant earns 12usd/m, a doctor 40usd/m and both get free healthcare and education and food rations. (the real income is higher while there are now more ways to earn extra income on the free market). The society is quite calm and relaxed, nothing like the Latin aggression which I can encounter if I treat someone wrong. Or if there is alcohol in play. Cuba is Latin American but definitely different in a positive sense.
More about the social-economical situation of Cuba
Cuba is an old style, communistic centrally planned-economy. And that shows. Only state, cooperative, farmer, personal and joint-venture property are entities. So a bigger then one persons private restaurant has to be a joint venture with the government. The state proclaims now that it will change to a more market oriented economy, not by heart but it is forced so to survive. For the people of Cuba it will not make a great difference in the short term. For those who work for tourists like us it does. Private (individual) ownership is gradually allowed for more and more professions. But what does not change is the grip the government has on corporate, anonymous ownership, banks and investments, IE capitalism. They try to harness it. That sets Cuba apart from the common capitalistic economies as in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. With reason and not bad in its own right.
A plan economy means that most of the enterprises, also those which have the letters SA (Ltd) in their name, are run by a governmental organisation. Thus all the chain shops like Pan Americana, cooperativas and yellow taxis, the majority of restaurants (paladars), bus companies and much more work along the rules which are in detail set by the state . 3 out of 4 jobs are paid by the government. This is the strength and weakness of this system. It kills all initiatives for most people but also makes a very relaxed society possible. The absence of commercial pressure to be a consumer is remarkable. Personally I like that.
The government acknowledges that cuentapropistas (independent workers) are essential and a needed to develop new ways in generating welfare. That sentiment used to be different and still people call small shop owners and independent taxi drivers “a capitalist”.
Cuba as a nation is independent and proud, so are the people. But in economic sense it is still a country which gets its income mainly from agriculture, mining and tourism. Agriculture is in decline, communists are apparently no farmers. Food has to be imported shamefully. Manufacturing industry is limited to what basically is needed. Developing creative, new products which can be exported is not the strength of a planned economy. Tourism is the only service industry. All this is not enough to develop the country and maintain the roads and houses and keep the lights on and the fridge running. There has to come money from somewhere.
Luckily the Russians helped Cuba from the 60th to the 90th until the Russians themselves got in problems. Russia was the main export/import partner and too sole supplier of oil and knowledge. Still a Cuban can talk with melancholy about the quality of Russian engineering and the way the infra structure was build up.
In the 90’s, when the Russians left, Cuba lost approximately 80% of its imports, 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped by 34%. The import of oil decreased by 90%. The “Período especial “ (special period) a period of scarcity began and lasted almost 10 years.
Due to lacking imports local food production had to increase. While imports of fertilizer etc failed a sustainable agriculture developed. Food rationing became needed and is still in place today. Every household has a little notebook in which is noted how much rice, salt, sugar, oil and matches etc they already got for free this month.
Transport by private cars stopped in that period. The well known trucks with canopies were introduced to allow cheap mass transport to and from work and still are there. As well as the “Camels”, flatbeds converted into bus. Standard modern buses are mainly for tourists.
Food and medicine were scarce. House construction came to a halt. The Wiki link below explains how come that in Cuba one can be sentenced into jail for 5 years for killing a cow. I expect such a law maybe exists only in one other country, India. And it still is valid as a Cuban told me.
The Communistic regime is not able to organize a flourishing agriculture, not in Russia, North Vietnam, nor in Cuba. Cuba is fertile, has sun and rain and plenty of space but still the agricultural production is sub on par and declining. Working on the countryside is not in favor for the Cuban, nor in most other counties.
This special period had a lasting influence on how the society is organized today. Still a person can only buy 40L gasoline per month for his private car.
In Cuba was lucky , in 2000 Chavez came into power and Cuba received another time oil in exchanged for Health Care, education, sports, Science and technology. Actually we met a professor in sociology who works in Venezuela and was raving about it. All goes well over there.
Cuba is preparing for the next challenge. When Venezuela collapses, Cuba is another time cut off from their oil supply. This will be again a disaster while the tourism industry, the most important source of income for many workers , needs an uninterrupted power grid for the airco’s , Wifi and buses and taxis to visit beautiful places.
How the government is able to manage this society and its economy in a way very different from its surroundings?
After some efforts to overthrow the new revolutionary regime Fidel Castro decided that there should be Eyes and Ear embedded in society to defend the revolution. Each neighborhood is controlled by a Comité de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR). About 70% of the population is member of a CDR. The CDR has to check out contra revolutionary activities. But also organizes people to work on community projects. Like vaccination campaigns and building houses as community. We met a woman from Santiago de Cuba in Havana. She explained me that the CDR Representative of the neighborhood reported her existence here in Havana within 1 or two days to her neighborhood in Santiago. I asked if it is allowed to paint “Fidel has to go” on the wall is allowed. Yes she said, but the representative of the CDR will paint it over at 5 o’clock AMi.
Human right organisations are negative about the existence of the CDR while it induces human right violations. I agree with that. But the actual situation in Colombia and the US is not very good for many groups in society either. Both are democracies and obey human rights. It is difficult to get the right picture, taking in account ones own bias induced by ones own culture. And the CDR´s are experienced very different from the Communist system as it was in East Germany. In Cuba the communistic system was and is more or less voluntary and the leaders did not turn into dictators.
But it is a lackluster happening.