Island that Dared

by Dervla Murphy

  ‘They don’t want to come back,’ scoffed Sofiel. ‘They’re doing OK where they are. It’s the Yanquis want to come back and that doesn’t give me tension. We’re ready for them!’

  As we talked on, I opined that the rest of the world urgently needs to learn from Cuba how best to cope with climate change. Then I began to suspect that Nicanor was taking a professional interest in me. He remarked that foreigners’ impressions of Cuba must be conditioned by the baggage they bring with them, not only in the narrow pro- or anti-socialism sense but as regards personal preferences and standards. I agreed. Given my aversion to how the world has changed within my lifetime, naturally Cuba charmed me – increasingly, day by day. Its genial air of shabbiness and the level of physical comfort (lowish) matched what I’m used to in my own home. And where ‘People Before Profit’ is no mere slogan but a way of governing, the level of psychic comfort is very high.

  ‘Do you feel depressed’ – probed Nicanor – ‘by the monotony of the shops and the media and ideological hoardings all over the place?’

  ‘Quite the reverse!’ I retorted – and explained how liberating it is to have ingeniously exploitative advertising replaced by exhortations to be loyal to the Revolutionary ideals, work together for the common good and so on.

  ‘I wish,’ said Nicanor, ‘our hoardings were as successful as yours! But yours encourage human weaknesses while ours try to overcome them.’

  Sofiel indicated a long line of black and white photographs, much enlarged, hanging above the café tables. These showed people thronging Havana’s streets in late January 1959 when guns were numerous and obvious. ‘Study the faces,’ urged Sofiel. ‘See the difference?’

  The difference was startling. Those expressions ranged from bewildered to scared, tired, sad, hungry, timid, defiant. The Cubans were awaiting the fruits of their Revolution. Sofiel said, ‘When you compare then and now, you know our hoardings have worked!’

  In 1859 Richard Henry Dana described the latest addition to Cuba’s racial mix. On Havana’s streets he noticed ‘men of an Indian complexion, with coarse black hair. I asked if they were Indians, or mixed blood. No, they are coolies! Their hair, full grown, and the usual dress of the country which they wore, had not suggested to me the Chinese; but the shape and expression of the eye make it plain. These are the victims of the trade of which we hear so much. I have met them everywhere, the newly arrived in Chinese costume, with shaved heads … I must inform myself on the subject of this strange development of the domination of capital over labour. I am told there is a mart for coolies in Havana. This I must see, if it is to be seen.’

  That same year Lord Elgin, recently appointed Britain’s ‘special plenipotentiary’ to China, excoriated Britain’s two main opium-trading companies, Dent and Jardine. Both also traded in slaves, labelled ‘indentured labourers’. His Lordship did not approve of ‘Kidnapping wretched coolies, putting them on board ships where all the horrors of the slave trade are reproduced and sending them on specious promises to such places as Cuba’.

  Many died at sea but between 1853 and 1874 a hundred and thirty thousand or so were delivered to the cane plantations. At Havana’s mart they fetched US$400 apiece and during their eight years of indentured labour they were poorly fed, given two suits of clothes annually and paid a monthly wage of US$4.

  In 1902 General Wood, Cuba’s US administrator, prohibited this trade; it hampered his ambition to entice thousands of Spanish settlers, to make Cuba an island safe for whites. However, when the price of sugar soared, during and after the First World War, many more Chinese arrived illegally.

  Meanwhile, in the early 1870s, a separate contingent of voluntary Chinese settlers had arrived from California. These were merchants, keen to invest their savings in Havana where they grew the island’s first mangoes (a sensational and lasting success) and added the cornet to the African drums and rattles, and to the trumpets, trombones, clarinets and guitars that make up a typical Cuban band. Barrio Chino soon developed, a compact, self-sustaining district with its own shops, newspapers, theatre and restaurants. In general whites scorned the Chinese and blacks hated them; the outlawing of marriages between blacks and Chinese was scarcely necessary. Yet the latter, like the Taino, have made their subtle genetic mark. Peter Marshall notes: ‘It is not uncommon to see a person with green oriental eyes, straight black Indian hair, African features and a light brown skin. The Cuban population is a living testimony to the beauty of racial mixing.’

  To celebrate the new millennium Barrio Chino (close to San Rafael) was gaudily restored at China’s expense. Again restaurants line its narrow streets (pedestrians only, the décor theme-parkish) but by now few of the residents look Chinese. In an enormous courtyard the Cuba-China Friendship Society sponsors a daily ti’ chi session, regularly attended by Pedro. My being uninitiated astonished him – ti’ chi is popular throughout Cuba – and one dark morning we set off together, taking care to avoid the pavement’s deep holes. When Pedro pushed open a wicket gate in a high wall we exchanged Centro’s dinginess for scarlet and gold – streamers and wall-hangings and an outsize Chinese flag all glowing by the light of two tall lamps. Sessions begin with the raising of Cuba’s flag on a ten-foot staff – a ceremony prolonged that morning, with some loss of dignity, by tangled cords.

  Our teachers were a burly middle-aged Chinese woman and a slim young mulatto with Chinese eyes. Both wore nylon track-suits and the female of the species was much stricter than the male. She took the advanced class, including Pedro, and barked her criticisms. The young man made allowances for tyros’ clumsy wobblings and advised us kindly. Those scores of enthusiasts represented a complete Cuban cross-section: all skin shades, all bodily shapes from muscular wiriness to flaccid fatness, all age-groups – the senior an eighty-three-year-old black woman, a new recruit seeking relief for her rheumatism. The junior was a possible for the Beijing Olympics, a white teenager apparently made of rubber. Here was another example of that most agreeable feature of Cuban social life, the mingling of generations. This has a two-way civilising effect, helping older people to remain sympathetically interested in youthful concerns while the young benefit from what their elders have learned the hard way. Our exclusive ‘Youth Cult’ – a notoriously lucrative segment of the consumer society – has the opposite effect, dividing communities into apprehensive oldies hurrying to get home from Bingo before the swearing young come stumbling out of their pubs and clubs.

  I found ti’ chi mentally quite exhausting, despite all the movements being so simple, slow and gentle. Yet at the end of two non-stop hours I was simultaneously feeling extra-energetic and ready to fall into a deep sleep – very odd. When I sought a tape of the hauntingly beautiful accompanying music none was available; this is not a commercial enterprise.

  A political spiel followed, translated for me by Martin, a retired physics professor who uncannily resembled José Martí. We were reminded that the CIA/US Interests Section continue to use agents disguised as tourists in their new ‘Transition to Democracy’ campaign – why some Cubans clam up when vigilante-types notice them making friends with (as distinct from being polite to) foreigners. As we left, Martin spoke with Pedro, then invited me to drink coffee in his Vedado home – to which he cycled while I followed on foot.

  This top-floor flat, mainly furnished by books, overlooked a large garden where a black man, bare to the waist, was digging in a leisurely way. ‘I moved when my wife died,’ said Martin. ‘Two rooms are OK for me, I exchanged with a big family, making a little arrangement about meat – the grandfather is a farmer. It’s illegal to profit on housing but now everyone does illegal things, they were going crazy here with growing kids!’

  I asked who was responsible for garden-care.

  ‘Elba, whose family once owned the house. She lives in the ground-floor flat – chose to stay when most of her kind left. She’s adaptable, many could have stayed if they’d accepted change. Fidel never wanted to drive out the bourgeoisie en masse. No one was evicted
from their home. Some were even allowed to keep a second home in the country or by the sea – if they shared it. This house is typical, made into four flats, one for the original owners. As that generation dies out – Elba was born in this very room in the 1920s – all becomes state property. That’s the big change, no one can inherit wealth, we’re all expected to earn our living. People could keep their interest from Cuban investments but the US embargo blocked interest from foreign investments. When houses and farms were confiscated the state pension system started, with compensation paid in regular fixed monthly instalments. Elba’s family estate was big so she’s always been able to afford one servant and a gardener – which surprises a lot of visitors to communist Cuba!’

  At noon we graduated from coffee to rum and discussed Guantanamo Bay where Martin’s father, a Cuban naval officer, spent thirty-two years. In 1958 he retired and before long had become a fidelista. He lived another thirty years and latterly admitted to a troubled conscience: he hadn’t actively participated in the routine torturing of anti-Batista prisoners but he knew what was happening … His son and I then discussed the use of the word ‘crime’ to describe the misdeeds of ‘authorised forces’ – a long discussion.

  Martin was amused by my reaction to the ‘Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba’ and its appointment of Caleb McCarry as ‘Coordinator’ – his first task to tour European capitals enlisting support for the Commission.

  ‘How dare they?’ I furiously demanded. ‘And to admit publicly they’re investing millions in “regime change”! Why does the US still feel such a rabid compulsion to subjugate Cuba?’

  ‘Partly wounded pride, no one else has successfully defied them for so long. Most commentators miss the point, calling it Fidel’s defiance. He’s no superman, able to stand alone against “the colossus of the north” – Martí’s phrase, now become a boring cliché. Don’t get too overheated about this Commission, nobody associated with it understands our Revolution so it’s not as dangerous as it sounds. Fidel succeeded because most Cubans wanted to go where he was leading them. What’s condemned as his ‘dictatorship’ seemed benevolent to the average citizen. Yes, it was flawed by accepting the Soviet model, and handicapped by the Yanqui blockade – but still better than anything we had before.’

  Martin’s attitude didn’t reassure me, especially when the Commission’s Second Report (July 2006) recommended ‘eighty million dollars over two years to continue developing assistance initiatives to help Cuban civil society realize a democratic transition. The Commission also recommends consistent yearly funding of Cuban democracy programs at no less than $20 million on an annual basis thereafter until the dictatorship ceases to exist.’ Among a population of eleven million, eighty million dollars could be destabilising. On almost every page of this Report the phrase ‘free and fair election’ recurs, often three or four times.

  Cuba has of course been here before. In 1900 Elihu Root, a Republican lawyer, was chosen by Washington to organise the island’s future. He agreed with General Wood, the military governor, that ‘the mass of ignorant and incompetent people’ should be excluded from voting in Cuba’s first post-colonial elections. A restricted suffrage of literate males over the age of twenty, possessing at least two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of property, or who had fought against Spain, kept the electorate down to five per cent of the population. This would ensure ‘democratic’ backing for annexation – or so thought Root and Wood. However, the formerly rich class, supposedly in favour of union with the US, didn’t bother to vote. Its members were indifferent to Cuba’s future, only concerned to salvage what they could from the imperial wreckage and get out. The pro-independence parties won, enraging Root and Wood. Drastic action was needed. In Root’s view, the US was morally obliged to set up ‘a stable and adequate government’ before withdrawing the troops. (Just as it is a century later, in Afghanistan and Iraq.) He wondered how to ‘get rid of the adventurers who are now on top’ – i.e., the Cubans’ elected representatives. Thus was born the Platt Amendment of unsavoury memory.

  In the 1901 Cuban Presidential election Tomas Estrada Palma, a US citizen born in Cuba, was elected unopposed. Bartolome Maso, the anti-Platt candidate whose popularity far exceeded Estrada’s, withdrew when General Wood stacked the electoral commission by appointing five Estrada supporters.

  The February 1904 elections for the National Congress exposed Cuba’s inability to run a ‘free and fair’ election campaign. The Republicans, Estrada’s party, were the more adroit fraudsters but their victory was not acknowledged by the Liberals, who boycotted Congress.

  Estrada ran again in December 1905, massively supported by Washington’s man in Havana and opposed by the Liberal’s José Miguel Gomez, Governor of Santa Clara. Once more the opposition candidate withdrew, deterred by the tension in the air and the fast-accumulating evidence that Estrada’s re-election was a certainty, no matter how many voted for Gomez. Thousands of thwarted Liberal supporters then resolved to oust the government; twenty-four thousand men, the majority black, set out from Pinar del Rio and one Havana journalist referred to ‘the butchers of Africa’ seeking revenge. When the insurrection became countrywide Estrada begged for US military intervention. Instead, President Roosevelt despatched two negotiators to Havana, to reconcile the Liberals and Estrada, but the latter wasn’t interested in reconciliation. By 1906 he needed the Marines to protect his position.

  Soon Estrada resigned, leaving Cuba ungoverned because his cabinet had to follow suit. Hastily Roosevelt sent in the Marines ‘to establish peace and order’. Then Charles Magoon arrived, a lawyer who had just completed his term as Controller of the Panama Canal Zone and was to spend the next three years as Cuba’s de facto colonial governor. His main tasks were to oversee the training of a new army and the construction of new legal and electoral systems. This last challenge was taken up by Colonel Enoch Crowder, a military ‘hero’ renowned for killing Indians (New Mexico’s Apache in 1886, four years later the Sioux led by Sitting Bull). ‘Crowder’s Rules’ applied to the 1908 elections won by the Conservatives, a party put together by Crowder, using all the bits of the old Estrada coalition.

  In 1916 Mario Menocal y Deop, a Cornell-educated sugar multi-millionaire, shamelessly bent Crowder’s Rules to ensure his re-election as Conservative President. The votes cast far outnumbered the registered voters, the Liberals again rose up in their wrath and the Marines returned for six years.

  Before the next election, President Menocal urged Colonel Crowder to manipulate the electoral law, so that he could bend it so deftly no Liberal would notice. Crowder spent eighteen months on ‘amendments’ – to no effect. When the Conservative Alfredo Zayas claimed victory in November 1920, the Liberals demanded a replay, supervised by what are now known as election monitors – appointed by President Wilson. This demand was granted but extreme violence disrupted the new campaign, causing the Liberals to abstain. Zayas was once again declared President, in May 1921, a month before the total collapse of Cuba’s banking system. In April the National Bank’s controlling shareholder had hanged himself from his flat’s balcony. Many other bankers then scarpered and the few remaining banks (mostly US) threatened to follow unless Crowder were appointed US ambassador to Havana.

  Zayas held office until 1924 when at last a Liberal was elected: Gerardo Machado y Morales, whose campaign had been funded by his US boss, head of the unscrupulous and immensely powerful Compañia Cubana de Electricidad. Machado soon turned Cuba into a military dictatorship and in 1928 didn’t bother to call an election but announced that he had given himself another six years in office. Ambassador Crowder overlooked this constitutional hiccup and advised the State Department to do likewise, praising Machado for affording the US ‘the closest possible co-operation’.

  When a 1933 revolution had got rid of Machado there were several more failed experiments with parliamentary democracy. Improbable coalitions, juntas and alliances came and went, as did interim Presidents, US advisors, coup plotters and Mafia
bosses. A new word was minted to describe Cuban politics: Gangsterismo.

  This was the Batista era. For quarter of a century Fulgencio Batista, in 1921 a nineteen-year-old private in the army, controlled Cuba – playing various roles. The first mulatto to rule the island, he presented himself as a genuine Cuban, being of – allegedly – Indian, Spanish, African and Chinese descent. In the late 1930s the hitherto illegal Cuban Communist Party (only distantly related to Fidel’s Party) was admitted to the political arena. At this stage Batista needed their support.

  The 1939 Constituent Assembly elections gave the Autentico Party and its allies forty-one seats, Batista’s party and the Communists thirty-five. This Assembly produced a new and vastly improved constitution with a promising social-democratic flavour. Henceforth all adults over twenty could vote – even blacks and women. Trades Unions were given a civilised degree of power and racial segregation was outlawed (easier written than done). Race-based political parties of course remained illegal; the fear of ‘a black republic’ never faded. One US resident of Havana, Ruby Hart Phillips, commented in her diary on Batista’s influence: ‘Sergeant Batista really is good but he’d better be careful those negroes don’t get the idea that the island is completely theirs and go out to help themselves to anything in sight.’

  The sergeant became President in 1940 and for four years maintained his popularity by respecting (more or less) the spirit of the new constitution. Yet in 1944 his rival, Grau San Martin of the Autenticos, won by a huge majority; US corporate interests, and others allergic to social-democracy, had funded his campaign. At first it seemed he might betray his sponsors but soon he took a sharp right turn and split his own party by opposing a new Communist-led labour organisation, the Confederation of Cuban Workers. To prove beyond doubt his value to his backers, he ordered an army captain to shoot Jesus Menendez, the black leader of the powerful sugar union.