Hoping for audacity

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By
Max J. Castro                                                                    Read Spanish Version

majcastro@gmail.com

Guantánamo:
Why should President Barack Obama give a second thought to this
sliver of land wrested by the United States from the Cubans more than
a century ago as partial payment for granting the island a fatally
flawed form of independence?

It’s
not as if there is a shortage of daunting problems on Barack Obama’s
plate the moment he assumes the presidency. The global economy is
dangerously close to imploding. What began as a housing bubble in the
United States fueled by bad mortgages has spiraled into an
international financial and economic crisis

At
home, the United States has been living above its means and borrowing
from the whole world, especially China. It was a case of the haves
financing a lavish lifestyle with the savings of the have-nots. Now
the chickens have come home to roost, and Americans are finally
feeling, in the form of unemployment, falling home and stock prices,
dwindling pensions, and rising house foreclosures, the pain that
Asians, Argentineans, Mexicans and so many others have felt for
decades as a consequence of the neoliberal brave new world born
during the last twenty-five years. Oh, and did I forget to mention
the disastrous state of our medical system, our educational crisis,
or our dubious honor of having more people per capita incarcerated
than any nation in the world?

Meanwhile,
looking beyond our borders, there is the endless war in Iraq, the
rebirth of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the crisis of the state in
Pakistan (a nuclear power), and an increasingly assertive leadership
in Russia. Lest we forget, there is also global warming, Iran, the
perennial Israel-Palestine conflict, and that pesky Hugo Chávez?

Yet,
despite these monumental problems, President Barack Obama should take
up the problem of Guantánamo sooner rather than later and for
a simple reason. Guantánamo is a festering sore eating away at
this nation’s honor. The very name Guantánamo, a city and
province in Cuba, has become synonymous with infamy. It has become
the most tangible symbol of America’s moral decline under the
leadership of George W. Bush and his band of eager accomplices.

Nothing
would go further in reassuring the world that the change Obama
promised can be believed in than closing the Guantánamo
detention camp and dealing with the detainees there under the strict
rule of law rather than the kangaroo courts conjured up by the Bush
administration. Shutting down the Guantánamo detention center
would be a signal that the United States is rejoining the community
of nations that abides by international law. It would be an act of
basic decency and common sense.

But
the promise of Barack Obama has been about something more than good
sense and decency. It has been about audacity. In this case,
audacity would be to close the U.S. Navy base itself, which is an
anachronism maintained only as a symbol and as an irritant to Fidel
Castro.

The
boldest move of all would be for the new president to declare the
intention of the United States to return the land where the U.S. base
now stands to the people of Cuba in the context of a future bilateral
dialogue between the governments of the two countries. In the
meantime, the land would be used by the United States for peaceful
purposes, such as the training of young civilian volunteers.

Quoting
Martin Luther King, Barack Obama often has spoken of “the fierce
urgency of now.” That phrase could not be more apt than in the
case of U.S.-Cuba relations, which have been in a deep freeze for
half a century. This year Cuba has endured three devastating
hurricanes that have caused incalculable material damage to the
country’s already battered economy. It will take years for the
country to recover.

With
new leaders coming to power in the United States and Cuba, there
could not be a more propitious time to start a conversation than
right now. Long before Fidel Castro was born until this day, the main
bone of contention between Cuba and the United States has been the
issue of Cuban sovereignty. The announcement of an eventual return of
Guantánamo to Cuba would send an unmistakable signal that from
now on the United States intends to deal with Cuba not as a wayward
former American satellite squatting in its backyard but with dignity
and respect.