Nick Miroff
By Nick Miroff
Almost 54 years after its turn toward the Soviet Union, Cuba is at another defining moment. With its state-run economic model exhausted, US relations on the mend and the long Castro era coming to a close, a subtle shift is under way to once more make Cuban nationalism the meaning of its revolution. Younger generations of Cubans will have to decide if they believe that.
The revolution’s many detractors say it has been little more than a ruse for the Castros to remain in power. If so, they are nearly out of time. Fidel is 88 and too frail to appear in public. His brother, Raúl, is 83, and says he will step down in 2018, leaving him three years to redefine Cuba’s relationship with the United States and hand off an economic and political system capable of enduring beyond the brothers’ rule.
They have long depicted their revolution as an evolutionary process, not something that ended with guerrilla victory in 1959. They also insisted Cubans be for it or against it, and two generations later, this has produced a kind of collective revulsion at politics.
In the years before failing health forced him aside, Fidel Castro declared a “battle of ideas” in a last-ditch effort to rescue younger Cubans from the ideological contamination they had incurred in the post-Soviet austerity period. He wanted to warn them against the temptations of capitalism, individualism and materialism. It was too late.
Cuba today is a place where many young people idolise the United States and display little patience for the state-run economic model that has left much of their country in ruins. There is no stigma anymore toward entrepreneurship or private business. Real estate agents in Havana’s newly liberalised housing market signal quality with the phrase “construción capitalista,” meaning a property that was built in the pre-Revolutionary period, when people cared about aesthetics and workmanship.
Indeed, nearly everything beautiful about Cuban architecture comes from this era, and the more communist authorities had to promote the island’s attractions for its tourism industry, the more Cubans themselves began to internalise their “capitalist” heritage as a better time.
In the Raúl Castro era, Cuba’s revolutionary politics have receded. Gone is the constant churn of rallies and marches denouncing “the Empire.” There is no spellbinding leader speaking for hours on end.
Ask young Cubans today what the purpose of the revolution was and chances are they’ll say free health care and education. Canada has that too, of course, as do plenty of other liberal democracies whose citizens enjoy far more freedom and prosperity.
Few believe they have anything to lose by economic liberalisation, or that Cuba could stop being a place where people look out for their neighbours, help strangers in the streets and live without fear of gangs or criminals. They do not see a trade-off, or worry that Cuba will end up more like Mexico or the Dominican Republic than Miami.
“We have no alternative to opening up to private enterprise,” said Roberto Veiga, a founder of the civil society group Cuba Posible, which advocates gradual reform. “But the younger generations don’t see a risk to the sense of equality and dignity that are positive achievements of the revolution.”
Since taking over for his brother in 2006, Raúl Castro has allowed Cubans to travel abroad, buy and sell their homes and run small businesses. The purpose of these liberalisation measures is for more socialism, he insists, not less, and state-run companies will remain the core of Cuba’s model.
Cuba’s updated version of socialism is one that eagerly partners with foreign capitalists to run heavy industries and all-inclusive tourist resorts. It is building luxury hotels and golf courses with Chinese bankers. It appears ready to roll out a red carpet for US businesses willing to help break the trade embargo.
But with every tentative turn toward market economics, Cuban socialism becomes more slippery, less coherent, sending believers in the revolution looking for meaning elsewhere. Some appear to be turning back to the same Cuban nationalism Castro offered long ago.
It’s an interpretation of the revolution that reaches back to Cuba’s founding as a nation, and the bitterness left by the 1898 Spanish-American War whose very name left Cubans out after their excruciating three-decade fight for independence. The United States kept Guantanamo Bay, and for decades afterward it reserved the right to intervene on the island at its whim.
Castro’s revolution, in this version, was the event that truly fulfilled the wishes of independence hero José Martí and ended US domination of the island.
On government calendars and stationery, 2015 is “Year 57 of the Revolution,” and that too is a milestone of sorts.
The period between Cuba’s founding as a republic in 1902 and the Castros’ rebel victory — the country’s entire pre-Castro history — spans just 56 years and seven months. By the next Jan. 1 anniversary of their revolution, they will have been in power even longer.WP-BLOOMBERG
By Nick Miroff
Almost 54 years after its turn toward the Soviet Union, Cuba is at another defining moment. With its state-run economic model exhausted, US relations on the mend and the long Castro era coming to a close, a subtle shift is under way to once more make Cuban nationalism the meaning of its revolution. Younger generations of Cubans will have to decide if they believe that.
The revolution’s many detractors say it has been little more than a ruse for the Castros to remain in power. If so, they are nearly out of time. Fidel is 88 and too frail to appear in public. His brother, Raúl, is 83, and says he will step down in 2018, leaving him three years to redefine Cuba’s relationship with the United States and hand off an economic and political system capable of enduring beyond the brothers’ rule.
They have long depicted their revolution as an evolutionary process, not something that ended with guerrilla victory in 1959. They also insisted Cubans be for it or against it, and two generations later, this has produced a kind of collective revulsion at politics.
In the years before failing health forced him aside, Fidel Castro declared a “battle of ideas” in a last-ditch effort to rescue younger Cubans from the ideological contamination they had incurred in the post-Soviet austerity period. He wanted to warn them against the temptations of capitalism, individualism and materialism. It was too late.
Cuba today is a place where many young people idolise the United States and display little patience for the state-run economic model that has left much of their country in ruins. There is no stigma anymore toward entrepreneurship or private business. Real estate agents in Havana’s newly liberalised housing market signal quality with the phrase “construción capitalista,” meaning a property that was built in the pre-Revolutionary period, when people cared about aesthetics and workmanship.
Indeed, nearly everything beautiful about Cuban architecture comes from this era, and the more communist authorities had to promote the island’s attractions for its tourism industry, the more Cubans themselves began to internalise their “capitalist” heritage as a better time.
In the Raúl Castro era, Cuba’s revolutionary politics have receded. Gone is the constant churn of rallies and marches denouncing “the Empire.” There is no spellbinding leader speaking for hours on end.
Ask young Cubans today what the purpose of the revolution was and chances are they’ll say free health care and education. Canada has that too, of course, as do plenty of other liberal democracies whose citizens enjoy far more freedom and prosperity.
Few believe they have anything to lose by economic liberalisation, or that Cuba could stop being a place where people look out for their neighbours, help strangers in the streets and live without fear of gangs or criminals. They do not see a trade-off, or worry that Cuba will end up more like Mexico or the Dominican Republic than Miami.
“We have no alternative to opening up to private enterprise,” said Roberto Veiga, a founder of the civil society group Cuba Posible, which advocates gradual reform. “But the younger generations don’t see a risk to the sense of equality and dignity that are positive achievements of the revolution.”
Since taking over for his brother in 2006, Raúl Castro has allowed Cubans to travel abroad, buy and sell their homes and run small businesses. The purpose of these liberalisation measures is for more socialism, he insists, not less, and state-run companies will remain the core of Cuba’s model.
Cuba’s updated version of socialism is one that eagerly partners with foreign capitalists to run heavy industries and all-inclusive tourist resorts. It is building luxury hotels and golf courses with Chinese bankers. It appears ready to roll out a red carpet for US businesses willing to help break the trade embargo.
But with every tentative turn toward market economics, Cuban socialism becomes more slippery, less coherent, sending believers in the revolution looking for meaning elsewhere. Some appear to be turning back to the same Cuban nationalism Castro offered long ago.
It’s an interpretation of the revolution that reaches back to Cuba’s founding as a nation, and the bitterness left by the 1898 Spanish-American War whose very name left Cubans out after their excruciating three-decade fight for independence. The United States kept Guantanamo Bay, and for decades afterward it reserved the right to intervene on the island at its whim.
Castro’s revolution, in this version, was the event that truly fulfilled the wishes of independence hero José Martí and ended US domination of the island.
On government calendars and stationery, 2015 is “Year 57 of the Revolution,” and that too is a milestone of sorts.
The period between Cuba’s founding as a republic in 1902 and the Castros’ rebel victory — the country’s entire pre-Castro history — spans just 56 years and seven months. By the next Jan. 1 anniversary of their revolution, they will have been in power even longer.WP-BLOOMBERG
