Cuba changing, faster than Washington
By Alan Farago (as Gimleteye)
From the Eye on Miami blog
Fidel Castro is outliving Fidel Castro. The statement is bitter fruit for many Miami Cubans who waited decades to dance on Fidel’s grave. Change is coming to Cuba, faster than [to] Washington. The hard liners still control Cuba politics in DC. But the unwillingness to change — for fear of losing Miami-Dade’s Cuban American voters — mirrors the inability of our own politics to cast aside failed economic models. We cling to the belief [that] an economic recovery will refloat the debt-laden, capsized ship of hyper-consumption. Then we will fix the rigging, keel-haul Fidel, and continue our merry ways.
America’s follies are increasingly irrelevant to the rest of the world. Life goes on. Fidel outlives Fidel. A younger generation of Cuban Americans is ready for change, and so is a younger generation of Cuban leadership that understands models of economic development in formerly command and control economies offer a range of options and not just capitulation to Miami.
There is the nub of it. While conservative Cuban Americans — mainly, but not exclusively of the GOP — have consolidated their grip on local construction and development by uniting votes against a vilified dictator, Cuba has reached out to Brazil, Spain, Canada, Germany, and of course Venezuela, to build some sort of superstructure over their own decrepit socialist enterprise; like building a new Miami International Airport over the scavenged carcass of what existed to serve an earlier, simpler time and corruption. Cuba under Fidel made many, many mistakes, but the one mistake it did not make was to embrace the political and economic culture that made Miami.
This is a harsh statement but one that takes into account the deformation of representative democracy in Miami and the economic crash in one swoop. Fidel and the ruling junta are ready to change — it is inevitable — but not to make nice with the Miami Cuban Americans who stir their own pot (here) with dreams of exporting their recipes to Havana. It is unlikely to happen, and I — for one — would welcome to hear from Cuba, why not.
Gimleteye is the name used by Alan Farago in his Eye on Miami blog. For the past 20 years Farago has written, worked and volunteered to advance civic engagement and issues related to the environment and politics.
