Cuba’s post-Castro revolutionary transition

By
James Early                                                                          Read Spanish Version

The
following piece was originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus
on Monday, March 10, 2008.

Fidel
Castro’s decision to officially relinquish his elected post as
president of Cuba once again defied the conventional, but stagnant
"wisdom" of U.S. pundits and many Liberal, Right, and Left
ideologues and politicians alike.

Dogmatic
allegiance to anti-Communist Cold War canards accounts for his
Miami-based critics, the U.S. government, and major news outlets
being uninformed, as usual, about what’s happening in the socialist
republic of Cuba. And unreflective, often dogmatic, ideological
precepts have left many supporters of the Cuban revolution out of
touch with the revolution’s self-diagnosed ailments and
prescriptions.

Widespread
debates and frank recommendations have emerged within the Cuban
government and Cuban society over the past year since Fidel’s
originally temporary successor, now newly elected Cuban President,
Raul Castro, called for more critical reflection and recommendations
to improve the quality of government and the quality of life in the
not-so-vibrant Cuban revolution.

Changes
among political representatives elected by local communities, open
verbal and written criticisms about past errors in governance,
over-reliance on the Soviet Communist experience, criticism of
transportation woes, food shortages, low salaries, racial
discrimination, homophobia, and even criticism of aspects of the
vaunted health care system are easily found among the 60-plus on-line
magazines, parastatal publications, and official speeches from
leading government and Communist Party officials inside Cuba.

New
atmosphere

Shortly
after assuming the post as acting president, Raul Castro told a group
of students that they should be "fearless" in speaking up.
And to his compatriots in governance, he asserted: "The person
who plays the role of director needs to know how to listen and create
the atmosphere so that people can express themselves with total
freedom."

How
to unleash the gains of the revolution, and how to give the highly
educated Cuban people greater opportunities is a recurring question
throughout this new period of debate and policy recommendations.

Younger
Cubans, including Communist Party members, avidly advocate for a
modernization of the Cuban Revolution. In fact, in the discourse
between Cuban citizens and Cuban political officials you see such
terms as "participatory democracy" and public criticism of
the lack of opportunity for the well-educated citizenry to improve
their lives and advance the principles and the goals of the
revolution. To the surprise many, and perhaps to the dismay of
hard-line anti-Castro Cuban Americans and many mainstream Republicans
and Democrats, Cubans — yes Cubans inside Cuba — have recently
employed the expression "transition" to mark the depth and
breadth of their desire and intent to renovate their socialist
experiment, which many there openly describe as outdated, with
contemporary needs and possibilities.

Fidel
revered

Of
course there are Cubans who disapprove of the revolution. But they
are by all accounts a very small percentage of the population and
they should not be lumped in with those citizens who disapprove of
how the revolution has been managed and its deficiencies, but not
with its goals.

Where
then does or should this Cuban transition lead the U.S. public and
our government? First, we must face reality and accept the fact that
despite the dislike to hatred that some Americans feel toward Fidel
Castro, he is roundly applauded, even idealized, in Cuba and in many
quarters of the world. He is revered, and not just in Latin America
and the Caribbean, for the humanistic goals and social
accomplishments achieved under his nearly half-century of leadership
as Commander and Chief of the Cuban Revolution. The Cuban people have
demonstrated in the face of persistent ideological, military, and
terrorist threats from the United States that they and no other
entity will determine the fate of their country and their democracy.

So,
for all those who profess such deep concern for the Cuban people, now
is another moment in history to honestly step forth and engage Cubans
and their government on the terms they negotiate inside their own
country. To do otherwise would be to remain mired in a bellicose
anti-democratic and imperial policy against the Cuban government and
objectively against the Cuban people, a policy increasingly rejected
throughout the Hemisphere and around the world.

Opportunity
for Cuba-U.S. relations

Latin
American and the Caribbean nations have made a clear turn to engage
Cuba and to reject the aggressive posture and policies of the United
States. Spain is working closely with the Cuban government and the
United Nations on human rights issues, and the Cuban government is
responding to the mutually respectful approach. Echoing public
statements repeated by Raul Castro, Josefina Vidal, the Cuban Foreign
Ministry’s director of North American affairs says: "Cuba is
ready and willing to sit down at any table with the U.S. government
to discuss every difference we have, without preconditions."

Can
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain make a transition in
U.S. policy and join the rest of the world in collegial debate and
compromise with the Cuban people and the Cuban government? We, the
people of the United States, need to take advantage of this moment of
change and insist that our government join the sweeping hemispheric
tide towards a new era in relations with Cuba.

James
Early, the Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Smithsonian
Institution and a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is a member of
the board of trustees of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is also
on the board of the U.S.-Cuba Cultural Exchange project and spent 10
days in Cuba earlier this year.