When 2 plus 2 is no longer 4

HAVANA — In arithmetic, and until someone demonstrates the opposite, 2 plus 2 equals 4. Not so in politics. If we go over the history of confrontation between the U.S. and Cuba, we can see how the mathematical equation does not apply to the overthrow of the Cuban process.

The invasion of Cuba through the Bay of Pigs in April 1961 was almost a carbon copy of that which in 1954 brought down Guatemala’s elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. So much so, that one of the main CIA operatives for the Cuban invasion had taken part in the Guatemalan action.

That CIA official — Howard Hunt, if memory serves — declared in a documentary that “the old Guatemalan team” had been put together again for the Cuban mission. But the success was not repeated. The invasion of the island was defeated. Two plus 2 no longer equaled 4.

Later, in the 1980s, the model was imported from Eastern Europe, specifically from Poland, where the Solidarity labor union was the highest exponent of domestic opposition. That model was successful, so the design was extrapolated: attract the disaffected, help them logistically, promote them abroad, etc.

But the methodological extrapolations — the first 2 of the equation — did not take into account that Cuba was not Poland, with its own history, its contradictions with the Soviet Union, its different causes for the rise of the socialist state and culture in a broad sense. And Cubans are not Poles.

We are the explosive and unpredictable result of mixed races, and the process of changes in our country — with its good and bad points — did not follow on the tracks of Soviet tanks. That was the second 2 of the failed equation.

Another moment of the failed arithmetic came when, after the Soviet Union and the socialist camp imploded, an event that paralyzed Cuba’s economic and social life, Washington bet on the domino effect. To do that, it passed the harshest laws that the United States had ever implemented against any country. As the pressure built up, the boiler would explode and the Cuban government would fall. But 2 plus 2 was not 4. And here we are, in 2014.

Against all forecasts and counter to the maxim attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits (Fidel Castro studied in a Jesuit school), to wit, “make no changes in times of crisis,” Havana began to make reforms identified as an update of its economic model, which was extremely centralized and state-dependent.

I won’t rehash the measures that, with cautious gradualness and often lacking in an integral or systemic vision, the Cuban government has been enacting. I shall only mention the still-discreet opening to individual or private activities in different areas, to which others will be added. Or the initiatives in new forms of management in centers of service or production, still in an experimental phase, including the emerging cooperatives.

All that Cuba is doing is despite the blockade. Yes, blockade, because even to play baseball in the Mexican League (related to Major League Baseball) Cubans must disguise their nationality, as it seems to be happening with Alfredo Despaigne. That’s unforgivable.

Today, now, different voices, organizations and personalities ask Washington to shift its policy toward the Cuban government. For the first time in U.S. relations with Cuba. the call for a policy change comes from activists who include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are investing economic and political capital, which is by itself significant.

Nevertheless, this demand includes everyone, from those who stand on principles and ethics in international policy, to those with a pragmatic view (costs and benefits of the current policy), to those who want to see again if 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Those who bet on this arithmetical equation want to direct Washington’s flexibility toward an emerging private sector, asking that it be strengthened so it may operate as a lever for substantial political changes. To that sector, it’s axiomatic that economic changes will bring radical political changes, in this case in the political system in general.

So they ask President Obama to provide financial, economic and exchange facilities of various types with the island. The request is exclusive and discriminatory in that it does not take into account the state enterprises. Why? To what end? Consistent with their formal logic, they make mistakes in appreciation.

One of them is to ignore the capacity of discretion contained in the new investments law. Plainly speaking, it’s the authorities who decide who deserves the investments and who doesn’t, and it is they who discuss conditions and other aspects. (I’m not saying I agree with specific levels of discretion in the law; I merely state a fact.)

But let me return to the private-sector lever, which, in its various forms is supposed to spread across the island and become the power that will dismantle the political regime. Has that happened in Vietnam? In China? In those countries, 2 plus 2 has not added up to 4. Reforms in those countries have brought benefits for most of the population, an improvement in their way of life, as well as the emergence of notable socio-economic differences.

When it comes to the behavior of the fundamental political institutions, the Chinese parliament questions its ministers, it demands, it works. Party structures have opened their doors to people and organizations they once excluded and are receptive to consensus. But no “regime change” has taken place.

It is healthy for different sectors, political figures, prominent businessmen, social institutions, etc., each with its own agenda but agreeing on the need to support changes in Cuba, to launch their proposals, set up their lobbies, and open the way for President Obama to project himself, to invite a dialogue.

Havana, I suppose — I wish, I hope — will know how to act, delimiting secondary issues and, above all, assuming the challenges made by the dynamics of interest that its changes are creating. Because Cuba is not yesterday’s Cuba.

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