Really interesting article about changes and hope in Cuba, including Cubas lifting of restrictions on travel abroad and the change in tone in US relations. If you have a subscription to Foreign Policy, you can read it on-line at the link below. You can also subscribe for 8 free articles from FP per month, which is what we did. Easy and no cost; click on the link to the article and you will be given this option. If you dont want to do that, here is the full article (and sorry for LONG post!): Glimmers of change in Cuba as fear and secrecy fade - FT By John Paul Rathbone in Havana Apartment building meetings are no longer what they used to be in Havana. A few years ago, they were thinly attended affairs. Residents stayed away as nobody listened to their concerns and nothing ever changed: the broken lift, the lack of water. Cubans, remarkably, seemed to have lost their desire to criticise. But today? Cuba can sometimes seem a country in permanent debate. “In my apartment building, the meetings are packed, the conversation voluble, and there is lots of angry finger-jabbing at other people’s chests,” one Havana resident told me. Today, Cubans seem to have regained the ability to speak out, or at least are losing their fear of doing so. It is a sign of the times. Much has been made of Cuba’s “transition” since Raúl Castro took over the presidency from Fidel, his elder brother, in 2008. That Raúl, a former general, is president is a big transition in itself, especially of style. Meetings now start on time. Fidel’s “Battle of Ideas” and much of its vacuous propaganda have been abandoned. Political decisions are no longer taken on apparent whim. Instead, steps have been taken by Mr Castro to roll back the state from the economy. Certain restrictions have been lifted, such as allowing travel abroad. There has been a change in tone in US relations. Indeed, when Havana academics travel to the US, they are no longer asked: what will happen when Fidel dies? Now the more common question is: how do I buy a house in Havana? There is also talk of constitutional reform, albeit within a one party system. Yet perhaps the most striking and progressive difference after visiting the island annually for a decade is psychological: Cubans’ state of fear is lifting. Certain words are no longer taboo. Allusions to Fidel – usually the stroking of an imaginary beard – have been replaced with direct speech. Constructive criticism is even encouraged. “Lack of information, self-censorship and pointless secretiveness are fertile ground for those that seek to destroy us,” vice-president Miguel Díaz-Canal exhorted this month. Granma, the state newspaper, remains as stodgy as ever. But Espacio Laical, an independent magazine that runs critical articles including by Cuban-American scholars, has a print run of 4,500 issues and perhaps 10 times as many readers. Yoani Sánchez, Cuba’s best known dissident, still blogs and tweets. Yet the defiant tread a fine line. Even if dissent from within the ranks is allowed, dissidence remains forbidden and Amnesty International acknowledges one Cuban prisoner of conscience. Most Cubans want to be critical – but also keep their day job. As a result, and for better or for worse, it is now even easier to sustain a casual conversation with a relative stranger on a street corner. FT: So, you welcome private initiative and think Raúl’s reforms need go faster? Cuban: Yes FT: We would never have talked like this three years ago. Are Cubans less afraid? Cuban: Less afraid, but still fearful. They will tell you what they think, but if you pull out a tape recorder they will shut up. FT: Can I quote you from this conversation? Cuban: No. The Latin American heads of state, including Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who arrive in Cuba next week for a regional summit, will witness some of these changes first hand. Jose Marti international airport has been given a coat of fresh paint, and they will see Havana spruced up for the occasion like an old dowager with rouge on her cheeks. They may then ask themselves: “Is Cuba really reforming?” There is no short answer, although a poetic one might compare the reforms to small and hesitant flickerings, akin to the fireflies that Cuban women of society sewed into their hair and silk gowns before grand balls in colonial times. The effect was reportedly bewitching: something beautiful would briefly illuminate itself and then fade. The viewer might even be unsure that he had seen anything at all. Yet then the fireflies would sparkle again, much like Cuba’s reforms. The question for outsiders is how to encourage them.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:56:24 +0000
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