Cuba has been part of the lives of anyone on the Left for the past 50 years – the drama of the revolution, the incredible courage to survive the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the hope it represented for millions.
For a country of only ten million people its impact has been enormous: from survival to leadership of the Left in Latin America, and its relationship with the Soviet Union.
This was always a complex matter with Cuba’s economic survival being dependent on the supply of manufactured goods from the Comecon countries, but its foreign policy was in many ways different.
Cuban support for Angola was crucial in its survival, and critical in turning the tide against the military aspirations of the apartheid regime in Southern Africa. Now Cuban Doctors are the mainstay of a rather shaky health service in Angola and many other countries.
I recently visited Cuba for the third time and travelled around by buses, meeting an extraordinary mix of ordinary people: young people hanging around listening to loud music in the streets and fiddling with mobile phones is a world wide phenomena; older people who were full of complaints about everything; young hustlers in Havana and other cities are a pain. The interesting thing is that all of them recognise that their quality of life was unique in Latin America.
For a country that is so pilloried by the USA, the people are really very pro American in many ways. Baseball is a national obsession as are US films and American cars, although pre 1960 models are the most common. But at the same time the country is fiercely independent and has made enormous achievements.
Since 1960 it has been under US blockade with attempts at invasion, de-stabilisation, and assassination of the leaders, spy surveillance and often terrible shortages that have created real, but shared, hardship.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 ushered in the “special period” when the State Department must have had a wall chart ticking off the days to the collapse of Cuba. The hardships were very real but survival from rapid changes in agriculture, growth of tourism, and export of medical technology ensured Cuba’s survival.
The situation is now much better and Cuba can compare favourably to any country in Latin America in terms of literacy, numeracy, life expectancy, health care, social security and safety. Not only are crime rates low but uniquely in the hurricane region Cuba has had no deaths in more than a decade. So successfully did Cuba cope last year they were able to offer help (refused) to the people of New Orleans.
In 1960 the standard and quality of life in Cuba was appalling for the majority of people, and probably worse than many other countries in the region. A comparison now with Jamaica, Central America or the Dominican Republic will show that the policies of the IMF on debt, trade and structures have brought misdistributions of wealth and power.
The USA and its allies in the continent have always claimed that Cuba represents a threat to them and their way of life. This is true but not in any military sense. Cuba represents a threat by example and this is not lost on the poorest and most dispossessed across the continent.
Amongst the most politically aware in Cuba there is a palpable sense of relief over the events in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Since 1960 there have been enormous convulsions throughout Latin America. The high points of the Popular Unity victory in Chile in 1970 were dashed three years later by the Pinochet coup and the reign of terror through “Operation Condor” for the next decade and more. The Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua in 1979 was eventually defeated by the war of attrition by the USA. For a country that was conquering illiteracy and poverty Nicaragua is now, excepting Haiti, the poorest in the whole region.
The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela with its emphasis on popular participation and provision of health and education is a natural alliance for Cuba. Doctors and teachers from the Caribbean in return for oil are a good arrangement. The new trade agreement between Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela is the antitheses of everything Bush and the Neo Cons want. Instead of the “free” trade ideas of Washington the tri-partite agreement agrees on trade and on development including poverty reduction and education.
The failure of the USA to get its way in the Buenos Aires trade summit last year may be a seminal turning point in the politics of the region. The politics and impetus of the region are moving inexorably to the Left, and challenging all the assumptions of development politics. The Non Aligned Movement summit this September in Havana is assuming enormous importance.
Meanwhile in Washington a shadowy section of the State Department has an office of Cuba led by Caleb McGarry. His task is to prepare for the overthrow of the system in Cuba after the death of Castro. We are all entitled to know what on earth the Foreign Office, under a Labour Government, were doing entertaining this man.
But in Britain too things have changed with a large number of Labour MPs condemning this move and expressing unprecedented solidarity with Cuba.
