The problem of Cuba: some thoughts

Panel meeting of the Union of Young Communists (UJC). Photo by Cde. Raul Palmero.

Cuba is once again in the mainstream news. This can only mean the prism through which all US mainstream media view the global South has discovered new grist for the mill. How, it remains to be understood, does a free press, uncontrolled by the US State Department or US secret agencies, all, and in unison, ask the same questions, make the same demands, hold the same prejudices of any number of things, including Cuba's Revolution?

But they do. So, the grist was a small, 100-person protest in Cuba's eastern city, Santiago de Cuba. Cubans protested the shortage of food and the incessant blackouts.

The same free press did not cover the protest of thousands in support and solidarity with Palestinians suffering under apartheid Israeli genocide.

Cuba is suffering. As hard as that is to say as a supporter of that Revolution, it must be said. Too many of my comrades, who do not live in Cuba, wax on and on about the achievements of the 1959 Revolution - literacy, health care, housing, education, culture - as well as its exemplary demonstrations of global solidarity with its medical brigades, which go all over the world practicing the skills of saving lives, while the US plants more than 800 military bases around the world.

Highlighting Cuba's successes does not mitigate its current and growing problems. These problems, given the conditions, are unsustainable. 

I voted for Biden for one reason, and one reason only: he campaigned to reverse the harsh sanctions Trump had imposed on Cuba and vowed to restore Obama's policy. That was enough for me to ignore his previous record in the US Senate.

Biden won. He did not reverse Trump's sanctions. He added more of his own!

But that is one problem of Cuba. That problem was thoroughly and beautifully unpacked in Fidel's 1960 speech to the United Nations General Assembly. It took him 4-1/2 hours to complete his lecture, during which the US representative walked out, and the global South countries cheered. (Fidel spoke for over 7 hours at the Third Communist Party Congress in 1986).

Fidel at the UN - September 26, 1960

Nothing much has changed since Fidel's speech with regard to the US, but much had changed otherwise. 

The USSR has been destroyed.

China has become a capitalist country governed by a communist party.

The other problem of Cuba is its friends. Yes, they wax about the "triumphs of the Revolution," as I am guilty of doing. But they are reformists at heart who are quick to concede false narratives about the country they claim to support. 

The best example of this was when US House Rep. Barbara Lee was barred from a Congressional subcommittee on Cuba by former CNN newsreader, Maria Elvira Salazar. Lee conceded to Salazar's notion that broad discussions aren't and cannot be had in Cuba. Lee conditioned having such discussions on the US lifting the blockade and allowing "entrepreneurs" to thrive. This is the liberal view of things. It's also false history.

Cubans have had many broad discussions on all levels of its society.

In short, the problem of Cuba is its supporters are Gorbachevistas and Kerenskyists. There's not a communist nor Marxist, nor Marxist-Leninist bone in their bodies. They are more AFL and no ounce of CIO. They believe in their heart of hearts that free trade with the Revolution will dissolve that Revolution peacefully. This was Obama's belief. This was USAID's belief.

Many of these supporters run organizations on the left.

This is supposed to be the better option to the "rightist" position of violent uprisings and a color revolution.

I am not Arab, nor Muslim, am not Palestinian. But when I see US and European Palestinians rise in defense of Gaza and Palestine, I hope I betray the same uncompromising feeling about Cuba and its Revolution. I hope that I am as clear and as clear-sighted, and that I will call things by their right names, without nuance.

If the genocidal blockade won't be lifted, it must be broken. This cannot mean only food and medicines. It must also mean adding to Cuba's technological prowess, stifled by the blockade and the exodus of its people. With those medicines and medical equipment must go doctors and scientists to collaborate with Cuba's. All sectors must emulate this. Building a socialist society is a mass project by the hands of the masses.

UJC-Havana. Photo by Cde. Raul Palmero.