Cuba: January 18-29, 2012
by Jack Hoeschler, January 20, 2012
Today we drove about 55 miles from Cienfuegos to Trinidad, a provincial town of about 45,000 that boasts a high school for fine arts. This school has a total enrollment of only 42 and accepts only 10 students per year from an applicant pool of about 100, even though it serves a 3-4 province area with a population of over 500,000. It is housed in an old pre-revolutionary army cavalry barracks and base. The students had reportedly gone home on a 3-day-long weekend but I am not sure whether or not we were being shown a Potemkin Village with examples of excellent student art on the walls, but no real programs.
My suspicions were raised when I examined the books on the library shelves and found them dusty and unlike what I would expect for a high school library. None seemed to have been opened or even touched lately. My next alarm went off when I found the tanks at one end of a print making room and later a ceramics room full of junk. These tanks gave no evidence, especially noteworthy in the ceramics area, of any recent use for preparation of clays and other artists’ materials. My last alarm went off when I peeked into three of the dorm rooms and found them to contain only 6 or 8 bunk beds that had been completely stripped of any evidence of use; it looked as if they were in summer storage mode. When I asked about this I was told (but did not believe) that the students took everything, including their bedding, home with them when they left.
The other thing that struck me was that there was no running water in the place and clearly there was no expectation of any. The water was being delivered as we passed from a water wagon to two 500-gallon tanks standing beside the dormitory area. From these, one apparently drew water to carry to the kitchen and the bathroom to pour into the sinks and toilets as needed. When I asked the director about his three top priorities for improvement, I was told of the need for teacher training and other typical academic concerns; not a word was said about running water.
Our guides, who were experienced and not necessarily apologists for the regime, believed that the school was legitimate. Others in the tour were quite proud of it and the accomplishments of its students – indeed, the exhibited artwork in both the classrooms and the gallery, was of high quality for student work – though very traditional and conservative in technique and subject selection.
Our drive to and from Trinidad threaded through rural areas, areas that stood as stark indictment of the regime and the system: the fields were mostly fallow or overrun by the Marabou bush – a thorny exotic that grows higher than a horse and completely chokes out any productive use of the land, even for grazing. These areas were once famous for large sugar cane plantations but are now essentially useless except for areas were skinny horses, scraggly and primitive cattle, and some goats were grazing. The government is attempting to encourage people to return to agricultural pursuits since Cuba imports over 70% of its food, but clearly the existing system of state ownership of the land is not sufficient to encourage any real husbandry.
Since the “Special Situation” that arose after the collapse of Soviet support in 1991, the entire farm economy has regressed to animal traction for want of economical fuel or tractor parts, and we saw fields being plowed with two oxen and primitive dagger, not broad plows. This serious deterioration in methods and efficiency was lamented but praised as being more environmentally friendly. Once again, the Soviet system of centrally planned agriculture and land tenure shows its failure, even after its demise.
The greatest challenge facing the people of Cienfuegos and Trinidad is the prospect that the American embargo of Cuba might be lifted. Apart from the disruption of the economy it would cause, tourism will unleash on these provincial areas near the coast a plague of “boat people” similar to the crisis perplexing far better prepared tourist destinations like Florence, Italy. I speak, of course, of the damage done when the huge cruise ships disgorge 3,000-5,000 gawkers onto a small or even medium sized city for a day of spoilage without any offsetting contribution to the local economy. The passengers will eat breakfast and dinner on the ship, not spend any money in local hotels and only purchase tchotchkes and other tourist junk (made in China?) because they only want to look, eat lunch (in tasteless mass feeding facilities required to seat more than 500-1000 at a time). Cuba needs to adopt the type of severe restrictions Ecuador has imposed to protect the Galapagos Islands from being loved to death by the cruising tourist hordes. The ecology of Cuba is equally delicate and susceptible to being crushed under the feet and litter of the boat people.
The legal and political issues associated with such a restrictive regime are particularly difficult to contemplate because there will be tremendous pressure from the bus companies, the restaurants, and the edges of the tourism industry to allow more rather than fewer visitors into the area. The port of Cienfuegos is well suited to accept large cruise ships, and there will be the usual voices in favor of local port and harbor enhancements pressing to allow the blessings of the new visitors to be showered upon the populace. There will be pressure on the roads, on the narrow streets, and on the public hygiene facilities because of these tsunamis of tourists who will quickly wash in and out of town on a daily basis. Small and picturesque communities like Trinidad will be woefully unable to respond to the onslaught.
It is interesting to speculate how long the Castro system could survive if the US embargo were to be lifted. It seems to me that the pervasive and pernicious influence of Western popular culture would quickly undermine the regime unless it erected something like the Berlin Wall. If the end of the embargo started to allow western products on the shelves of Cuban stores, there would be, I believe, an overwhelming pressure for jobs to pay for those seductive goods. Similarly, the demand to open the internet would be irresistible and, in turn, the corrosive and seditious freedoms that the internet would unleash would be as inevitable as the Arab spring. If only the U.S. were sophisticated enough to see the strength of these aspects of popular culture in contra distinction to the force of our armed forces.
It seems clear that the embargo has created a certain sense of solidarity among those who must suffer through its privations. It also seems, however, that the communist planned economy has greatly failed, plain for all to see. Seventy percent (70%) of the country’s food must be imported even though Cuba has a most felicitous climate. If the Cuban farmer were allowed to pursue his own best interests and if he were allowed to own outright a productive minimum area of land, it would seem that this scandalous situation could be reversed. Because the farm economy is so primitive, however, and because the cost of imported petroleum from Venezuela is so significant (even though Chavez is subsidizing his friend Fidel), care would need to be taken to introduce appropriately sized technology like small tractors before large and modern production agriculture machinery could be introduced. If the economy were to be opened to outsiders, there is little doubt that well capitalized and sophisticated farm interests from the West could and would take over the countryside in short order, and the natives would be relegated to wage labor at the low end of the scale.
It would be interesting to think about such help as the U.S. farm co-op movement could give to the Cubans. We drove by one co-op farm which was characterized by dreadful Soviet style 4-story public housing plopped down incongruously in the countryside. We did not stop in to see how they ran things, but it definitely did not look prosperous. Indeed, nothing about Cuban agriculture looks prosperous, efficient, or productive. As we drove closer to Havana, we saw scattered large fields that were reasonably well plowed (but not further prepared for planting, it being late January). These were of a size that it was clear they had to belong to a collective farm, but little else suggested success. All agreed that a time clock mentality was not appropriate to farming but no one could or dared suggest a solution.
We had several meetings in Havana, as well as in provincial towns, with city planners and historians who were concerned with restoration of the decayed historic fabric of their areas. They were doing their work through and in the name of cooperatives or civic entities charged with such work. The money came from the municipal budget. The job facing them was immense, but on the whole they were sophisticated, hardworking and proud of the work they were doing. It was clear that they did not think of using an NGO to do such work – indeed, they could hardly think of anything that an NGO could do. This was one of the big differences between how we might approach historic preservation and how they do.
Generally, these people were concerned about the impact of the tsunami that would hit them if the embargo were to be lifted. They generally hoped that it would just crumble slowly so that Cuba could gradually adapt to the new, post embargo, reality. Few, however, wanted to say what they saw happening in the next five years. They kept their eyes and thoughts on their day-to-day work and avoided predictions or prognostications (lest, I presumed, they get into trouble for advocating or even thinking about matters above their pay grade).
Miguel Coyula, a now-retired architect and urban planner in Havana was typical in his sophistication (he leads tours in English for National Geographic groups and consults with the NTHP). The most he would say is that there are majorities in the community who would simply invite the wave of perceived prosperity that would call for a lifting of the embargo without any thought about its negative consequences.
We also met with artists, composers and representatives of the Spanish equivalent of ASCAP, an organization that protected and attempted to collect royalties for copyright owners abroad. They explained that they did not compete with, but clearly cooperated with, the CCAC, the state owned domestic intellectual-rights association. They would be breaking the law if they were to compete with a state-owned entity domestically. In the course of our discussion, we identified several business opportunities or service needs that were not being addressed. For example, it is illegal to run a business that would rent sound equipment to performers for big performances. Everyone needs to own and supply his own speakers, sound and light boards and stages for any show of any size. When the Pope comes to town or there is another big rally or gathering, all the sound equipment in the entire town is pooled to meet the need. When we suggested that this might represent a service that CAEL would provide its members, they declined lest they be put in jail. They agreed that such a service might be provided by the state established Union of Artists and Composers (UNIAC), but they agreed that UNIAC simply did not think that way.
The state is so hostile to individual businesses that it has only recently allowed the private sale of homes. Prior to this, a home seller could only swap a home with another and quietly exchange some money on the side to cover the difference in value. Similarly, cars can now be sold, where this was previously forbidden.
The principal exception to this antipathy toward private business has been the 10-year-old law allowing privately owned and operated B&B’s and restaurants called paladars. It seems clear that this paladar system may provide the only source of entrepreneurial training for Cuban society. Indeed, it is illegal and unthinkable for them to have a business school or an MBA type degree. Several of our speakers commented on the lack of business or management training in the country. The only close example they could identify was a course at the University of Havana for the management of historic patrimony. No one suggested that accounting training might provide a basis for such business/management type classes. Likewise, law school was never thought of for this role. We did not ask, but no one suggested the internet as a modality for management training, either.
As happens so often, it is instructive to observe as a foreign visitor the blind spots that afflict the locals once ideology takes command.
It is interesting to observe how little the law means in daily life. The laws cover many things but, if not enforced, like the pedestrian rules, they are meaningless. On the other hand, if Fidel says something it quickly becomes the law.
Another interesting thing to an outsider is how hostile the state and the law have been, until literally the past months, to free or business enterprise. We have continually identified what we thought were business opportunities or market needs that could provide the basis for a good business only to be told that such an endeavor would be illegal.
Within the past month the government has published a list of 180 allowed businesses. The first, narrow wedge into private business was the Paladar – private home restaurants – which were authorized about 10 years ago. These provide the only business training available.