A note on the Cuban issue .. . .Ive been a bit surprised by how hostile much of CNNs coverage has been on Obamas moves on Cuba. Commentators have gone out of the way to note how repressive Cuba is, how great the hardship under which the Cuban people live. It has been more than five years since I spent a week in Cuba, part of a small group of CCDS members, but I did not find Cuba oppressive, and while there were real problems (at that time the economy functioned on a dual currency level - if you had US dollars you could buy almost anything, but most Cubans were paid in pesos, which didnt have that much value). Cuba had made a remarkable recovery from the dark days after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the support which the USSR had sent. The Old City was being rebuilt, foreign investors from Spain and elsewhere were opening up a serious tourist industry, and life in the countryside seemed good, children seemed well fed. So while Cuba does not have the huge surplus of consumer goods we have in the US, it seemed to me to be doing pretty well - and certainly not fearful. I would urge those who can, to arrange to travel to Cuba for themselves. What I want to stress, however, was how important even small groups of people can be in shifting US policy. For some years moderate and some conservative forces (farmers in the Midwest, for example) have wanted an end of the embargo and a normalization of relations. On the matter of Cuba, it was the US which was the odd man out, not Cuba, which had good links with Central and Latin America, and with Europe.Im not sure most Americans realize how isolated the US was. What held up the normalization? The small group of Cuban refugees in Miami and in New Jersey, deeply anti-Communist, rigid, and fierce in their hostility to the Cuban government, they had enormous influence in Florida and New Jersey politics. The normalization has been a long time coming and marks the gradual isolation of this aging community of Cuban exiles.. It is a mark of the long hard slog by church groups,by some of us on the left, by business leaders impatient for the chance to invest in Cuba, and by a handful of decent national leaders such as former President Jimmy Carter, and, of course, by the remarkable role of the Pope. There is a moral here- change is hard to achieve, and does not come without long and patient work. And it is not as pure as we might think - a mix of people and motives finally broke the back of the exile community and opened the door to reconciliation with this courageous little island.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 09:18:21 +0000
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