[Previous entry: "Nader Says Kerry 'Blew It,' Ensuring Bush Will Win Race"] [Next entry: "Sebastião Salgado: Be fruitful, and replenish the earth"]

09/10/2004:

"The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future"

by Pete Bohmer
Understanding Cuban society objectively is incredibly difficult, given 45 years of unremitting US propaganda against Fidel Castro, the Cuban government and Cuban society. Even for those individuals critical of the U.S. mainstream media, constantly hearing the Cuban government called a dictatorship that has failed its people, influences our perceptions. So do interviews or discussions with Cubans who have immigrated to the United States, most of whom are very critical of the Cuban system. I urge the reader to be open to the following article which presents a viewpoint at variance with the mainstream one of Cuba. This positive, but not uncritical analysis of Cuba, is based on in-depth study of Cuba for more than 35 years, two visits to Cuba in the early 1990’s, living there for four months in 2001, and the recent trip I made with 23 students in April and May, 2004.

To understand Cuban society, we have to place the political economy of Cuba today, its successes and real problems, in the context of the following:

1. 400 years of Spanish colonialism. This began with genocidal attacks against the indigenous people of Cuba, followed by an economy organized around sugar plantations, where most of the labor force were enslaved and super-exploited Africans. Slavery ended in 1886, but extreme racism and economic segregation of blacks continued until 1959.

2. U.S. domination and aggression. During the 1895-1898 Cuban war for independence, the U.S. intervened militarily, claiming to support independence for Cuba, but then dominated Cuba economically and politically until 1959. As a condition for the U.S. ending its military occupation of Cuba, Cuba had to sign the Platt Amendment, which was the basis for establishing the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Today in Guantanamo, prisoners from around the world are being held indefinitely with no rights and subject to brutal treatment by the U.S. military. In addition, the U.S. and Cuban elites dominated Cuba from 1902 to 1959, with the U.S. sending troops and supporting Cuban governments who were favorable to U.S. investors and undermining those who weren’t.

Full Article: zmag.org