Winter/Spring 2000
What We Could Learn from Cuba
From the time Columbus set foot on Cuba in 1492 asking, "Where's the gold?" a value system based on material greed has dominated the Americas. Before the revolution in 1959, which ended the US backed Batista dictatorship, Cuba was renowned as an epicenter of self-indulgence and corruption. After experiencing the worst of capitalism, when US corporations controlled major industries, while the majority of its people remained poor, Cuba has been searching for a more equitable way of sharing its national resources among its citizens.
What I noticed most while we toured Havana by bicycle on the first morning of our recent trip was the relief I felt from the absence of advertising and commercialism, as well as the fun-loving nature of our Cuban guide and bystanders as we paraded through their city. In visiting a senior center, community block party, school, hospital, and family farms, we found a seemingly color-blind society, with a love of life, a generous spirit & a remarkably strong sense of community - one I find lacking at home where self interest is more common than concern for others. Born from necessity, Cuba has become a "green" country. Their model system of private organic family farms provides Cubans with fresh produce for the first time since before the days when all useable land was planted in sugar for export, while food was imported from the US. With a commitment to continue "living in harmony with nature," they may well become the only country free from the harmful agri-chemical companies who have wreaked havoc in other developing nations.
The Cuban constitution provides the right to education, health care, a job, social security and access to culture and recreation for all citizens. As a result, Cuba has a literacy rate of 98.2%, the highest in the Americas, more doctors, art teachers, and olympic gold medalists per capita than any other country, no homelessness, and an infant mortality rate lower in Havana than DC. As reformers slowly privatize the economy, they are justly cautious about losing the hard-earned social and environmental accomplishments of the Revolution, where a philosophy based on inclusion turned the once exclusive Havana Yacht Club over to trade unions and transformed Batista's military barracks into a school for special needs children.
It is now legal in Cuba to own a restaurant in your home, and I was intrigued by the similarity to my own story of starting the Cafe in my house - tables in the backyard, seating people in what furniture you happen to have, customers walking past family members in the living room to get to the restroom. It renewed my appreciation for the beauty and inspiration of small business and the role we play in building an economy responsive to human needs. There was a time when my entrepreneurial blood boiled at the thought of socialism, but I have found in my travels to Cuba that there is something to learn here as well.
Although we criticize Cuba for human rights abuses, nothing they do compares to the genocidal 38-year-old US embargo, condemned by the United Nations as a human rights violation against the Cuban people. While we demand that Cuba adopt a market economy and hold American-style elections, we disregard Cuban elections to the national and provincial assemblies, call other countries democratic who simply murder the opposition, and dismiss the fact that our own elections are largely determined by corporate contributions. While we demonize Castro, we've support-ed numerous death squad dictators to protect US corporate interests abroad. While our embargo prohibits trade with the Cuban people, we permit purchases from sweatshops and forced labor camps in other countries. It is economic hardship caused primarily by the US embargo, not fear of persecution, that has driven most refugees to attempt the deadly crossing to Florida.
Just after our return from Cuba, a boat full of refugees capsized and Elian, a five-year-old Cuban boy, was rescued after his mother drowned. When Miami Cuban exiles, holding Elian against his father's wishes, triumphantly hung a gold chain around his neck, proclaiming that he deserved "toys and Pokemon in the land of freedom," they showed little understanding of a child who had just lost his mother, and was being kept apart from his friends, four grandparents and father in Cuba. They displayed a value system common in the US, which holds material possessions above love of family and community.
Watching Cuban children playing in the parks, dancing at a party, bike riding and rollerblading through the streets of Havana, I saw faces that were bright and happy, self-confident, trusting and care-free, with a sense of well-being. Here there were no Calvin Klein models to live up to, and children are not just another target market. Is Elian really better off in the US where kids have killed each other when they felt left out of the community or desired each other's sneakers or Pokemon cards? Would he feel more valued in Cuba where education and healthcare for children are national priorities, than in the US where under-financed public schools are forced to find corporate sponsors who exploit a captive audience of school children by selling them harmful products like Coke & Pepsi?
Perhaps it's simply easier for us to criticize Cuba as a way to justify our brand of capitalism, than it is to look honestly at ourselves and admit that our consumption-addicted society is not only unhealthy for our own children, but is threatening the future of children everywhere by destroying our natural world. Cuba certainly has much work ahead in developing a democracy, but they have one freedom we don't - freedom from corporate rule.
Globalization under the colonial system practiced by Columbus, where powerful countries exploit indigenous people and natural resources of less economically developed countries, continues today with the power shifted from nation states to corporations. The coalition in Seattle of environmentalists, students, labor unions, farmers, and animal rights groups, protesting corporate control over our lives, is a positive sign that the next millennium may bring a new value system to the global economy. By building an economy based on a society of love and compassion, rather than violence and greed, Cuba may surprise us by taking the lead.
