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CUBA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD TODAY
Cuba shares with the countries of Latin America common ties of language,
Iberian-Catholic culture, and colonial experience. Castro, like Bolivar
and Marti before him, articulates a vision of the united and independent
Americas - 'Nuestra America' - which shapes its own destiny and is not
dictated to by greater powers. As the countries of Latin America and the
Caribbean begin to assert their independence, they are also starting to
trade with their natural trading partner, Cuba. Increasingly, enterprises
in the region are ignoring the blockade, with countries such as Canada and
Mexico leading the way and establishing trading agreements.
This strategy of unity in the Caribbean which Castro articulates really
irks the USA because such a development would hit the US where it hurts -
economically. Following Guevara's vision, Castro still sees the major
conflict in the world as one between the North and the South.
The self-image of Cuba in speeches and publications is as a member of the
Third World, committed as ever to participate in the struggles of the poor
of the earth. Castro works to promote Caribbean unity, to gain a greater
say in the UN and other forums, and to foster what Pope John Paul II calls
"the globalisation of solidarity", as opposed to neoliberal globalisation
which Castro claims perceives the Third World "as a vast duty-free zone
providing cheap labour, where no taxes at all are paid," while it is, inter
alia, "rapidly destroying nature, poisoning the atmosphere and the waters,
deforesting the lands, causing desertification and soil erosion, exhausting
and squandering natural resources, and changing the climate."
Despite visits to Havana by universally respected world leaders such as
Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela and despite world-wide revulsion at
the blockade exemplified in a series of UN votes, the US is even more
hostile to Cuba than it was during the Cold War. "The world," said the Pope
after his 1998 visit to Cuba should "open up to Cuba". Ironically, while
Washington insists on maintaining its stranglehold, the Florida business
community watches in frustration as investors from elsewhere move into the
'open for business' Cuba.
It is of course comparatively easy to criticise the Cuban revolution from
the outside, but it should be remembered that Cubans have had to make their
revolution in difficult circumstances. The leadership has been besieged by
constant US hostility and subversion and has had to transform an economy
which was entirely shaped by foreign interests.
Democracy in the Western sense of parliamentary democracy has never existed
in Cuba, neither during the republican nor colonial period. However, Cubans
have a form of participation never achieved in a Western democracy; both in
the community and the workplace, leaders are chosen by the people and can
be replaced if unsatisfactory. These are areas which have more direct
relevance to people's lives than an occasional vote.
The Cuban revolution has provided a rare example of genuine experimentation
outside the control of superpowers and will ultimately be remembered not
for its economic progress but for the power of its example to inspire the
destitute and the oppressed of the earth to throw off their chains.