Cuba Poised Between Past and Future

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Cuba Poised Between Past and Future: Part I


Marcelo Ballvé | 20 Feb 2009

First of a three-part series. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here.

HAVANA, Cuba -- Arriving in Cuba this time felt different straight away. The airport, where I arrived on a flight from Cancún crammed with Cubans and their purchases, was hassle-free. No tour operators solicited me; no cabbies assailed me.

It was the same in touristy Old Havana. Ten years before, on my last visit, I couldn't walk a few steps without having cigars or a lobster dinner pressed on me. This time, whether in the leafy, mansion-studded Vedado section, the shopping arcades near the Capitol, or the curving malecón (Havana's historic seawall), Cubans seemed less eager to shake my money loose than they had once been.


The malecón, Havana's historic seawall, earlier this year (Marcelo Ballvé).

Ten years ago, of course, Cuba was still mired in the so-called periodo especial, or Special Period, the abyss of scarcity triggered by the early 1990s collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of its generous subsidies.

At the time, beneath an easygoing veneer, Cuba had seemed fearful and desperate. Now, though it hardly seemed prosperous, a new sense of calm and stability prevailed. Had Cuba, I wondered, turned the corner?

The co-owner of the Havana guesthouse I stayed in was emphatic that while the crisis isn't over, an adjustment has occurred. "Little by little," he said, "things are falling into place."

But is the progress real or just a superficial appearance?

The question is hardly immaterial. How hard the incoming Obama administration can press Raúl Castro on sticking points like human rights, freedom, and democracy depends in part on how stable the Cuban government is. That, in turn, depends on how well the latter allows Cubans to meet their economic needs and aspirations.

As some Miami-based anti-Castro factions would have it, Cubans remain exhausted and half-starved, the economy anemic, and the government itself near the tipping point of collapse. For its part, the Cuban government, accustomed to exploiting crises to stoke patriotism, doesn't downplay the challenges it faces, which include the aftermath of last year's two hurricanes, a housing shortage and inadequate agricultural base.

Then there's the ongoing U.S. economic embargo, and the effects of the world's financial crisis.


Lining up for bread in Havana (Marcelo Ballvé).

Another quickly mounting problem, ironically, is the byproduct of one of the revolution's undeniable victories, universal health care, which has helped create a rapidly burgeoning elderly and economically inactive population. Add to that the island's low birth rate, and the question becomes how to pay the bills.

Besides Venezuelan aid in the form of cheap fossil fuels, Cuba's government is betting primarily on its tourism sector -- and to some extent nickel and sugar exports -- to keep it afloat economically, while relying on its diversifying agriculture to lower food-import costs, as well as to keep bellies full and discontent to a minimum.

It's a tricky balancing act. Cuba might have put the punishing penury of the periodo especial years behind it for now. But its newfound stability is riddled with "what ifs."

Agriculture's Slow Crawl

For all its hardships, the periodo especial had its upsides. Economic necessity forced Cuban campesinos to readopt practices they'd dropped in the era of plenty created by Soviet subsidies. Meanwhile, the government shifted some of its focus away from state-run plantations focused on commodity crops to allow farming cooperatives and organic crops to flourish.

A network of farmer's markets were created to sell surplus production directly to the population.


A farmer's market in Havana's Vedado section (Marcelo Ballvé).

As a result, the Cuban countryside has regained some measure of food diversity, with fruit and vegetable crops and animal husbandry arising alongside sugar cane, the king of Caribbean crops.

Today, the government's agricultural priorities are evident on roadside propaganda posters, which extol the benefits of chemical-free agriculture. They're also made clear by the rising influence of the 300,000-member ANAP, Cuba's small farmer's association, which has arguably become the dominant political force shaping Cuban agriculture, more so than even the Ministry of Sugar.

Next page: Progress on food shortages and the promise of tourism . . .

The shift to small-scale, cooperative, organic and hydroponic agriculture helped beat back the destabilizing food shortages of the 1990s. But a quick scan of prices at a farmer's market in Havana reveals that Cuba is still a ways from providing its citizens with an array of food at readily accessible prices. A single, relatively light purchase of staples such as tomatoes, beans, onions and garlic costs 10 percent of the average Cuban monthly salary of 400 pesos, while the monthly ration of basics like eggs, sugar and rice provided as part of a government-sponsored food basket is not enough to live on.

So while debilitating hunger might be out of the picture for now, the square meal is still a daily challenge in Cuba. If it is a challenge that is often surmounted, it is thanks in no small part to the indispensable role played by the black market, which supplies what sanctioned means cannot.

A Wager on Tourism

Miramar, a once-wealthy Havana neighborhood, is again an epicenter for the island's elite, and in many ways where Cuba's economic future is being designed. Located there are the offices of Grupo Gaviota, the government's company for over 30 high-end hotels scattered across the island, as well as a handful of new high-rise luxury hotels, reflecting the government's long-term bet on tourism as its all-in-one economic bailout package.


A view of Playa Maguana, a government-run resort near Cuba's northeastern tip (Marcelo Ballvé).

While risky, the investment may pan out even amid an abysmal worldwide economy, given President Obama's promise to ease travel restrictions to Cuba. While analysts predict this would at first be limited to allowing Cuban-Americans more freedom to visit relatives, at 1.6 million strong, they would still give Cuba's economy a major bump.

In addition to being the island's main source of foreign exchange, the tourism sector also brings in droves of foreign businesses in search of government contracts for hotel construction, technology, and transportation. (China sold Cuba a new intercity and urban bus fleet in 2007.)

The Cuban government still controls all aspects of doing business on the island, and has in recent years sought even more control over the tourism industry. It has limited operating licenses issued to families for small, tourist-targeted restaurants or guesthouses, and has taken a tough approach to joint ventures with foreign firms.

Controlled Globalization

Whatever the government's measure of control, tourism amounts to a gradual globalization of Cuba, with Canadians, Europeans, and Latin Americans increasingly bringing outside influences into the country.


Legendary bars, like Hemingway favorite La Floridita, helped attract some 2.35 million tourists to Cuba in 2008 (Marcelo Ballvé).

But tourism isn't the only route for outside influence. The government has relaxed restrictions that once prevented Cubans from owning cellphones, PCs, and DVD players.

The Internet remains highly controlled, with home lines and e-mail accounts accessible only to a select minority. Cyber-censorship, along with more traditional forms of repression, ensures that none of the networking actually threatens the government's power; the Castros continue to ostracize, imprison, and censor dissidents and any form of expression they deem threatening to their revolution.

But the rise to international stardom of blogger Yoani Sánchez -- who recently won Spain's coveted Ortega y Gasset journalism prize -- demonstrates that Cuban censorship is hardly seamless.

Cuba's reality is in many ways more complex than the image many Americans still have of the island. Its Communist system might end with the Castros, but whatever succeeds it will need to reckon with both the limitations and accomplishments they leave behind. The stereotype of a picturesque gulag frozen in time is outdated. Cuba may be hungry for change, but it's not literally starving. The island may be isolated, but it's already very much a part of the world that surrounds it.

Marcelo Ballvé is a contributing editor at New America Media, where he writes about immigration and Latin America. He's based in New York.

Title photo: Legendary bar La Floridita, Havana, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).

 

Cuba Poised Between Past and Future: Part II


Marcelo Ballvé | 27 Feb 2009

Second of a three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part III can be found here.

BAYAMO, Cuba -- Tropi Crema isn't like ice cream parlors found elsewhere in the world. Most days, only a single flavor is available, advertised on a board by the entrance, and there's often a line to get in. Still, for many residents of this tidy city in eastern Cuba, it's irresistible.

One recent afternoon, two middle-aged women sat at the long, crowded counter. Between them they ordered 12 scoops of chocolate ice cream and two pieces of coconut cake. Here and there, along the counter and in the tree-shaded outdoor patio, customers of all sorts dug into similarly outsized orders, their bowls, cups and dessert dishes crowding the tables.


Locals gather outside the Tropi Crema ice cream parlor for takeaway bulk orders (Marcelo Ballvé).

The scene spoke volumes about the economic contradictions shaping present-day Cuba. Bayamo is known for a government program designed to provide ordinary workers with access to what might be described as the rudiments of a consumer lifestyle. As a result, Bayamo has state-subsidized retail shops, night spots, restaurants, and ice cream parlors like Tropi Crema.

Elsewhere in Cuba, this lifestyle is typically restricted to tourists and privileged islanders with a ready supply of the parallel currency known as the convertible Cuban peso, or CUC after its acronym in Spanish. The CUC, introduced in the early 1990s for use in the tourist sector, is worth approximately 20 times as much as the standard Cuban peso (also known as moneda nacional), the currency in which most salaries are paid.

In Bayamo, moneda nacional isn't actually worth more, but thanks to the state-financed program, locals using it can afford rarefied perks, like a sit-down lunch or dinner at a quality restaurant, or ice cream served in authentic sundae glasses.

Window-Shopping and Strip Malls

Tropi Crema's popularity underscores the pent-up demand in Cuba for even the simplest consumer goods and services. The rise of the black market, where illicitly imported brand-name sneakers fetch exorbitant prices, is the unofficial way to meet this demand.


A street vendor in Bayamo shaves ice for a sno-cone (Marcelo Ballvé).

The cash-strapped Communist government understands it must somehow harness Cubans' awakened consumer instincts if it's to compete with the black market and keep up with outside influences trickling into the island. Up to now, most government efforts to offer consumer choices have occurred through the tourist-centered CUC economy. But the Bayamo experiment may signal the government's desire to do the same for the broader swaths of the population tied to the moneda nacional.

For now, the CUC is still the entryway to the nascent consumer economy. In every Cuban city and most large towns, shopping districts host a number of government-operated department stores in which locals lucky enough to operate in CUCs might shop for any number of consumer items -- clothes, shoes, hardware, fabrics, shampoo, or cutlery.


Cubans with access to the CUC can shop for imported goods at department stores like La Época in central Havana (Marcelo Ballvé).

Though highly dependent on cheap Chinese goods, the stores don't exclusively stock imported merchandise on their racks and shelves. Major European brands, such as Nestle and Unilever, already operate factories within Cuba as part of joint ventures with the government.

Large portions of the CUC economy no longer cater primarily to tourists. These days, it's mostly Cubans who shop at the CUC stores. Not everything is available, of course. And what is available tends to be very expensive compared to the average Cuban salary, which is the equivalent of about 20 CUCs monthly.

Not surprisingly, the Cubans who regularly shop at CUC stores are likely to be workers in the tourist trade or successful black marketeers, or those who have overseas relatives sending them money. Whatever the case, the shopping trips are conditioning islanders of all types as nascent consumers. Window shopping and browsing at CUC stores have already become favorite Cuban pastimes.

Next page: Shopping centers for Havana's affluent . . .

In Havana, shopping centers have sprung up. Clusters of stores resembling strip malls dot Miramar, a residential neighborhood known as for its disproportionate share of diplomats and well-connected government officials.

One of them, the Centro Comercial Palco, is known in Havana as the place to go for nearly everything, if you're willing and able to spend a bundle. Of its several shops, one sells lingerie, another hardware, and another leather goods, including shoes and purses.


The Palco shopping center in Havana's upscale Miramar neighborhood (Marcelo Ballvé).

But Palco's real attraction is the supermarket, virtually indistinguishable from its counterparts anywhere in the capitalist world. Whereas for most Cubans obtaining the ingredients for a proper dinner tends to be a daily race against time, those who can afford this supermarket's sky-high prices can get whatever they want, whenever they want it.

Shared Tables

No matter how flexible Cuba's economy eventually becomes, though, old habits die hard. Conditioned by scarcity, especially the brutal years of the 1990s after Soviet aid dried up, Cubans instinctively tend to "super-size" when they order.

A Swiss journalist who has been living in Cuba for a year told me that islanders routinely buy in bulk when a good deal arises, whether in government stores or on the black market, even if they don't really need the clothes, food, or goods on offer.


The well-stocked but expensive Palco supermarket caters to privileged Cubans and foreigners (Marcelo Ballvé).

At Tropi Crema, customers treat ice cream like a bounty that must be exploited lest it disappear. At the counter, I watched as a man with a battered attache case and a rolled-up copy of the day's newspaper ordered a double helping of chocolate ice cream in a tall cup. Once he had finished eating, he emptied his water glass into the cup, swished the liquid around and drank the murky result, so as not to let any of the precious treat go to waste.

At the "to-go" stall to one side, locals gathered with a motley assortment of containers, buckets and jars of all sizes. They then raced to get their bulk orders of ice cream back home before it melted in the Caribbean sun.

Other surprising behaviors and curiosities served as reminders of the newness of Cuba's consumer economy. CUC stores often contain unexplainable items. One I visited in Santiago, two hours east of Bayamo, contained an abundance of life-size stuffed tigers and wolves, for instance.

At the moneda nacional restaurants, patrons routinely slide a portion of the servings off their plates and into plastic shopping bags they've brought for the purpose: instant takeout. I saw this being done with cheeseburgers, and at the pizza parlor a woman folded cheese pies in half before neatly stacking them in her bag.

One custom is clearly a holdover from a more rigidly collectivist past. The first time I visited Tropi Crema, on New Year's Day, the place was nearly empty. When I took a seat at a table by myself, a waitress immediately came over to me. The service was faster than any I had ever received in Cuba, but she wasn't there to take my order. Instead, she pointed to a Cuban woman sitting alone at a table nearby.

"Why are you sitting separate?" she asked, puzzled. I moved to the other table.

In fits and starts, and amidst continuing hardship, Cuba is embracing the trappings of consumerism.

The Cuban government may insist on firm state control over the economy as the shift occurs, but it is almost certain to find the ground irrevocably altered beneath its feet. If it doesn't adapt its policies to the new reality, it may well lose its balance in the end.

Marcelo Ballvé is a contributing editor at New America Media, where he writes about immigration and Latin America. He is based in New York.

Photo: A street vendor in Bayamo, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).

Cuba Poised Between Past and Future: Part II


Marcelo Ballvé | 27 Feb 2009

Second of a three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part III can be found here.

BAYAMO, Cuba -- Tropi Crema isn't like ice cream parlors found elsewhere in the world. Most days, only a single flavor is available, advertised on a board by the entrance, and there's often a line to get in. Still, for many residents of this tidy city in eastern Cuba, it's irresistible.

One recent afternoon, two middle-aged women sat at the long, crowded counter. Between them they ordered 12 scoops of chocolate ice cream and two pieces of coconut cake. Here and there, along the counter and in the tree-shaded outdoor patio, customers of all sorts dug into similarly outsized orders, their bowls, cups and dessert dishes crowding the tables.


Locals gather outside the Tropi Crema ice cream parlor for takeaway bulk orders (Marcelo Ballvé).

The scene spoke volumes about the economic contradictions shaping present-day Cuba. Bayamo is known for a government program designed to provide ordinary workers with access to what might be described as the rudiments of a consumer lifestyle. As a result, Bayamo has state-subsidized retail shops, night spots, restaurants, and ice cream parlors like Tropi Crema.

Elsewhere in Cuba, this lifestyle is typically restricted to tourists and privileged islanders with a ready supply of the parallel currency known as the convertible Cuban peso, or CUC after its acronym in Spanish. The CUC, introduced in the early 1990s for use in the tourist sector, is worth approximately 20 times as much as the standard Cuban peso (also known as moneda nacional), the currency in which most salaries are paid.

In Bayamo, moneda nacional isn't actually worth more, but thanks to the state-financed program, locals using it can afford rarefied perks, like a sit-down lunch or dinner at a quality restaurant, or ice cream served in authentic sundae glasses.

Window-Shopping and Strip Malls

Tropi Crema's popularity underscores the pent-up demand in Cuba for even the simplest consumer goods and services. The rise of the black market, where illicitly imported brand-name sneakers fetch exorbitant prices, is the unofficial way to meet this demand.


A street vendor in Bayamo shaves ice for a sno-cone (Marcelo Ballvé).

The cash-strapped Communist government understands it must somehow harness Cubans' awakened consumer instincts if it's to compete with the black market and keep up with outside influences trickling into the island. Up to now, most government efforts to offer consumer choices have occurred through the tourist-centered CUC economy. But the Bayamo experiment may signal the government's desire to do the same for the broader swaths of the population tied to the moneda nacional.

For now, the CUC is still the entryway to the nascent consumer economy. In every Cuban city and most large towns, shopping districts host a number of government-operated department stores in which locals lucky enough to operate in CUCs might shop for any number of consumer items -- clothes, shoes, hardware, fabrics, shampoo, or cutlery.


Cubans with access to the CUC can shop for imported goods at department stores like La Época in central Havana (Marcelo Ballvé).

Though highly dependent on cheap Chinese goods, the stores don't exclusively stock imported merchandise on their racks and shelves. Major European brands, such as Nestle and Unilever, already operate factories within Cuba as part of joint ventures with the government.

Large portions of the CUC economy no longer cater primarily to tourists. These days, it's mostly Cubans who shop at the CUC stores. Not everything is available, of course. And what is available tends to be very expensive compared to the average Cuban salary, which is the equivalent of about 20 CUCs monthly.

Not surprisingly, the Cubans who regularly shop at CUC stores are likely to be workers in the tourist trade or successful black marketeers, or those who have overseas relatives sending them money. Whatever the case, the shopping trips are conditioning islanders of all types as nascent consumers. Window shopping and browsing at CUC stores have already become favorite Cuban pastimes.

Next page: Shopping centers for Havana's affluent . . .

In Havana, shopping centers have sprung up. Clusters of stores resembling strip malls dot Miramar, a residential neighborhood known as for its disproportionate share of diplomats and well-connected government officials.

One of them, the Centro Comercial Palco, is known in Havana as the place to go for nearly everything, if you're willing and able to spend a bundle. Of its several shops, one sells lingerie, another hardware, and another leather goods, including shoes and purses.


The Palco shopping center in Havana's upscale Miramar neighborhood (Marcelo Ballvé).

But Palco's real attraction is the supermarket, virtually indistinguishable from its counterparts anywhere in the capitalist world. Whereas for most Cubans obtaining the ingredients for a proper dinner tends to be a daily race against time, those who can afford this supermarket's sky-high prices can get whatever they want, whenever they want it.

Shared Tables

No matter how flexible Cuba's economy eventually becomes, though, old habits die hard. Conditioned by scarcity, especially the brutal years of the 1990s after Soviet aid dried up, Cubans instinctively tend to "super-size" when they order.

A Swiss journalist who has been living in Cuba for a year told me that islanders routinely buy in bulk when a good deal arises, whether in government stores or on the black market, even if they don't really need the clothes, food, or goods on offer.


The well-stocked but expensive Palco supermarket caters to privileged Cubans and foreigners (Marcelo Ballvé).

At Tropi Crema, customers treat ice cream like a bounty that must be exploited lest it disappear. At the counter, I watched as a man with a battered attache case and a rolled-up copy of the day's newspaper ordered a double helping of chocolate ice cream in a tall cup. Once he had finished eating, he emptied his water glass into the cup, swished the liquid around and drank the murky result, so as not to let any of the precious treat go to waste.

At the "to-go" stall to one side, locals gathered with a motley assortment of containers, buckets and jars of all sizes. They then raced to get their bulk orders of ice cream back home before it melted in the Caribbean sun.

Other surprising behaviors and curiosities served as reminders of the newness of Cuba's consumer economy. CUC stores often contain unexplainable items. One I visited in Santiago, two hours east of Bayamo, contained an abundance of life-size stuffed tigers and wolves, for instance.

At the moneda nacional restaurants, patrons routinely slide a portion of the servings off their plates and into plastic shopping bags they've brought for the purpose: instant takeout. I saw this being done with cheeseburgers, and at the pizza parlor a woman folded cheese pies in half before neatly stacking them in her bag.

One custom is clearly a holdover from a more rigidly collectivist past. The first time I visited Tropi Crema, on New Year's Day, the place was nearly empty. When I took a seat at a table by myself, a waitress immediately came over to me. The service was faster than any I had ever received in Cuba, but she wasn't there to take my order. Instead, she pointed to a Cuban woman sitting alone at a table nearby.

"Why are you sitting separate?" she asked, puzzled. I moved to the other table.

In fits and starts, and amidst continuing hardship, Cuba is embracing the trappings of consumerism.

The Cuban government may insist on firm state control over the economy as the shift occurs, but it is almost certain to find the ground irrevocably altered beneath its feet. If it doesn't adapt its policies to the new reality, it may well lose its balance in the end.

Marcelo Ballvé is a contributing editor at New America Media, where he writes about immigration and Latin America. He is based in New York.

Photo: A street vendor in Bayamo, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).

Cuba Poised Between Past and Future: Part III


Marcelo Ballvé | 06 Mar 2009

Last of a three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. An accompanying photo feature is here.

SANTIAGO, Cuba -- While standing trial in the early 1950s for his initial, failed attempt to overthrow the Cuban government, Fidel Castro famously declared: "History will absolve me." Ever since, he has manipulated, rewritten and exploited history to advance his political ends.

Castro's use of history as a propaganda tool was underscored this week after two prominent, relatively young Cuban politicians were abruptly demoted. In a surprising shake-up, Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque were stripped of their Cabinet-level responsibilities and replaced by men with lower public profiles.

Raúl Castro, who succeeded his ailing older brother as Cuba's president last year, didn't elaborate on the decision.


Portraits of Raúl and Fidel Castro in Baracoa, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).

But Fidel gave it a telling spin in "Fidel's Reflections," a column he writes from his sickbed. "The honey of power, for which they had not sacrificed anything, awoke in them ambitions that led to an undignified role," Fidel wrote of the ousted officials.

It seemed an allusion to the fact that Lage and Pérez Roque, both younger than 60 and widely believed to covet roles as possible successors to the Castros, hadn't fought in the 1950s insurgency. Neither had they climbed to prominence during the struggles of the difficulty-plagued days following the 1959 victory.


A mural in honor of revolutionary icon Che Guevara in Baracoa, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).

Not surprisingly, they were passed over when José Ramón Machado Ventura, a physician, was appointed last year as Cuba's first vice president and next in line to succeed Raúl. In the late 1950s, Machado extracted a bullet from Che Guevara's foot and later traveled to consult with Che during the latter's internationalist campaigns in Congo and Bolivia, according to a former Cuba analyst for the CIA, Brian Latell. Machado, at 78, is a year older than Raúl, but he's properly steeped in revolutionary mystique.

'Forever Heroic'

Nowhere in Cuba is the intimate relation between history and power clearer than in Santiago, the island's second largest city after Havana. Partly in honor of Santiago's disproportionately large role in the revolution's history, it has been given the motto: "Rebellious yesterday, welcoming today, forever heroic."

Recently, the Cuban government celebrated the revolution's 50th anniversary here. Through events and exhibits, it sought to remind locals and visitors of Santiago's status as a kind of open-air revolutionary museum.

The Moncada barracks are here, a compound of yellow, fortress-like buildings transformed into a museum honoring the Castros' failed 1953 uprising. The building's façade is still pockmarked by bullet holes, remnants of the strafing it received when soldiers still loyal to dictator Fulgencio Batista shot at the attacking rebels.


The bullet-strafed facade of the Moncada barracks in Santiago, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).

One afternoon late last year, a museum guide led tourists through the sometimes grisly exhibits. Signaling with a wooden pointer to a bloodied set of pants hung in a glass case, she said, "the blood stains here represent one of the modes of torture deployed on the revolutionaries -- castration."

Santiago later became a base for revolutionary martyr Frank País, an urban operative who supplied arms, supplies, and information to Castro's rebel army once it was ensconced in the nearby Sierra Maestra mountains.

The revolution's victory was announced in Santiago on Jan. 1, 1959. Rebel columns advancing across the island forced a panicked Batista to abandon Havana for exile. Castro descended into Santiago from his mountain stronghold, and appeared that evening before jubilant crowds gathered in the main square.

On Jan. 1 this year, Fidel wasn't present for the nationally televised 50th-anniversary celebrations, held in the same square where the revolution's victory first crystallized. Instead, it was Raúl who watched from the front row. There were dances, speeches, poems and video montages, many of them peppered with idolizing references to Fidel.

"We know one man doesn't make history, but there are indispensable men capable of influencing its course," said Raúl in his speech. "Fidel is one of them."

Next page: The revolution in multimedia . . .

Fidel was also honored in a photo exhibit on the main square that illustrated his lifetime ties to Oriente, the eastern region of the country where Santiago is located. (The Castro brothers were born and raised in Birán, a rural hamlet just north of Santiago).

The pageantry was the centerpiece of a full-bore multimedia campaign marking the anniversary. On New Year's Day, the official newspaper, Granma, carried a multi-page photo essay of the revolution's defining moments. Meanwhile, Cuban television broadcast black-and-white footage of the ecstatic crowds greeting the newly victorious, bearded revolutionaries 50 years earlier, as they marched across the island towards Havana. Stations also frequently showed a cheerful music video of a song commissioned expressly for the anniversary.


A worker in Havana puts the finishing touches on lettering celebrating the Cuban revolution's 50th anniversary (Marcelo Ballvé).

Martí's legacy

The Castros understand that history isn't simply something for scholars to squabble over. It's a voluminous trove of images and stories that can either serve or undermine their goals. One of Cuban media's specialties is the endless recycling of the revolution's history, its moments of heroism and grit.

Perhaps less visible to ordinary islanders, but probably just as important in cementing the Castros' view of Cuba's trajectory, is the work of government-affiliated intellectuals. In Cuban schools and universities, José Martí, the island's outstanding 19th-century intellectual and independence fighter, is portrayed as a direct spiritual ancestor of Fidel's rebels. The revolution is seen as the ultimate fulfillment of Martí's dream of a Cuba free of the corrupting influence of would-be colonizers like Spain and the United States.

The post-1959 years are portrayed as heroic years of constant struggle to maintain that dream, despite challenges like the U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion and, later, the collapse of the Soviet Union. If, in the meantime, power and control accrued mostly to Cuba's Communist Party, the military, and particularly the Castro brothers, it was only because the revolution's permanent state of emergency demanded extraordinary measures.

Martyrs

Perhaps the most curious case of government-sanctioned historical propaganda is the cult of adoration that has arisen around two of the revolution's most beloved war heroes: not the Castro brothers, but the Argentine adventurer, Che Guevara, and the charismatic Havana native, Camilo Cienfuegos.


A diorama at Havana's Museum of the Revolution depicts combat heroes     Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara (Marcelo Ballvé).

Both died in the 1960s as martyrs to the revolutionary cause: Che in a CIA-backed ambush as he tried to spread revolution in Bolivia, and Camilo in a mysterious plane crash off Cuba's coast. In the Cuban imagination, Che and Camilo fill the same role that popular saints serve in the Catholic pantheon: accessible, warm figures the populace can feel wholehearted devotion towards, without any of the ambivalence many feel toward the Castros, who inspire respect but also fear.

If the Castros allowed the cults of Che and Camilo to thrive out of loyalty to their former comrades, they haven't been shy about exploiting them in government billboards and iconography, including the Cuban currency.

One use of history the Castros haven't allowed, though, is its critical function. Island historians will only openly judge Fidel and Raúl for the authoritarian character of their revolution once they have passed from the scene. Absolution, which Fidel expects, is as unlikely as absolute condemnation. Whether or not one believes the revolution's ends justified its means, it did safeguard Cuba's independence in the face of U.S. hostility and brought a measure of dignity to millions of poor Cubans' lives.

But given history's penchant for upending reputations and tarnishing the heroic sheen of revolutions, it's a safe bet both men will turn at least a few times in their grave once they're gone.

Marcelo Ballvé is a contributing editor at New America Media, where he writes about immigration and Latin America. He is based in New York.

Title photo: A mural in honor of revolutionary icon Che Guevara in Baracoa, Cuba (Marcelo Ballvé).
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