When Bush II rants on about ‘liberating Cuba from the Communist tyranny of one-party rule’ he is riding the wrong horse. The ideal of single-party rule, symbolising national unity, derives from Martí’s thinking and is therefore respected by Cubans as no Soviet imposition would be. Martí’s Cuban Revolutionary Party healed many of the wounds caused by faction fighting among Cuba’s ‘rebels’ and also united the island’s revolutionaries with their exiled supporters in the US and elsewhere.
After his exile in Spain, Martí lived for seven years in the US, working as a political journalist and studying US democracy. He had this to write in 1885:
Capitalists, in exchange for laws that are favourable to their undertakings, support the party that offers those laws … Both parties govern equally abusively wherever they govern, for both are slices of the same people; since upon no major question do they differ, but are divided equally … Elections are quite costly. The capitalists and large companies help the needy candidates with their campaign expenses; once the candidates are elected, they pay with their slavish vote for the money laid out in advance.
By the 1880s multi-party politics was already distrusted in Cuba as a device used by the Spaniards to weaken the revolutionary movement. Nowadays the system is distrusted because US intervention (already planned and funded, as Caleb McCarry repeatedly informs us) could only return Cuba to the era when the US embassy selected candidates for all elections, assisted by special envoys sent from Washington. Caleb McCarry is not the first of his kind; several US Mafia leaders then living in Havana influenced the choice of candidates as no Cuban citizen could do. There is enough gruesome evidence strewn around the globe to prove the undesirability of importing US-style democracy-cum-free-marketeering.
The common assumption that ‘the Red threat’ ignited US hatred for ‘Castro’s Revolution’ is wholly false. Two years before Fidel defined the Revolution as ‘Socialist’, and before the new Cuba had even established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, President Eisenhower signed the Pluto Plan, authorising the CIA to destabilise Cuba. Quite simply, Washington saw the island as US property – now stolen. In 1963 Robert Scheer and Maurice Zeitlin wrote:
The tragic course of US-Cuba relations has been encouraged and accelerated by the US government’s foreign policy towards Cuba. That policy acted both to change political attitudes among the Cuban leaders and to increase the probability that men already holding Communist or pro-Soviet beliefs would move into positions of influence and power within the revolutionary movement.
The Revolution’s first year saw an extraordinary upsurge of popular energy as control of workplaces and neighbourhoods was secured, without violence, by the ordinary people. Interim town councils replaced the batistianos. Every aspect of public life was quickly and bloodlessly transformed, something that could not possibly have been done without the support of the majority. Incredulously the world watched as Fidel and his compañeros issued one thousand five hundred (or so) laws and decrees in the first nine months of 1959 and formed a well-trained armed militia, ignoring the US State Department’s increasingly angry shouts and the recall of the US ambassador. Never before in Latin America had a new government got away with calmly and methodically implementing its nationalist/reformist programme in opposition to US interests. Within eighteen months the old political parties had faded away, not repressed or intimidated but having accepted their irrelevance; the arrival of the barbudos really had marked a popular revolution, immune to civil disturbances or faction fighting. Meanwhile outsiders continued to expect the barbudos to be overthrown but at the Bay of Pigs those to whom that task had been delegated were themselves defeated – a victory which sealed the Revolution’s triumph, filling the Cubans with pride, confidence and gratitude towards their leaders.
For several years Revolution-speak was innocent of tedious Communist formulae. The Movement’s anti-oligarchic and popular character was emphasised but without mention of the proletariat or the working-class, per se. Fidel made it clear on 12 March 1959 that if the rich and privileged abandoned their privileges their contribution to the new Cuba would be much appreciated. ‘The privileged will not be executed but privileges will be.’ He warned the rich not to try to evade revolutionary measures through bribery and corruption. ‘I ask everyone to make a sacrifice, to continue making a sacrifice for the country through this creative effort, because the Revolution doesn’t preach hatred, the Revolution preaches justice … ’ Two days later Fidel’s little brother, the twenty-eight-year-old Raúl, echoed him – ‘To those who in miniscule numbers are against the Revolution, we tell them in good faith – because in principle we don’t wish evil for anyone – we make a patriotic appeal to them to adjust to the new situation, to adapt to the brilliant process which began on the First of January.’ In June Fidel pointed out that those attempting to light the class fuse were the counter-revolutionaries. Addressing more than one thousand members of the Havana Bar Association, he demanded, ‘What do they want? To provoke class war? To incite class hatred when it is our wish that the Revolution should be seen as the work of the whole nation?’ Many in that audience heeded him and became essential props of a process that needed a whole flock of legal eagles to oversee its legitimate development.
Fidel has repeatedly been accused of hyper-duplicity because in March 1959 he spoke of elections within the next two years or so, when the new regime had settled down – while allegedly he was planning to consolidate his dictatorship. In a TV interview he replied to US journalists, ‘We are favourable to elections, but elections that will really respect the people’s will, by means of procedures which put an end to political machinations’. He spoke of the need for genuine democracy rather than elections. ‘The government now is at the service of the people, not of political cliques or oligarchies. We have democracy today, for the first time in our history. What is really odd is that those who have no popular support talk about elections.’ Unsurprisingly, given the people’s memories of past elections, a June opinion poll, run by Bohemia magazine, showed sixty per cent against elections and ninety per cent in favour of their new government. Most Cubans clearly saw the difference between liberal multi-party democracy and their new revolutionary democracy. Hence their reaction to the First Havana Declaration, approved by more than a million people assembled in the Plaza de la Revolucion on 2 September 1960. Hostile historians dismiss this event as ‘mob rule’ or ‘crowd hysteria’, quoting no more than a phrase or two. In part, Fidel said:
Close to the monument and the memory of José Martí, in Cuba, free territory of America, the people, in the full exercise of the inalienable powers that proceed from the true exercise of the sovereignty expressed in the direct, universal and public suffrage, has constituted itself in a National General Assembly.
The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba expresses its conviction that democracy cannot consist only in an electoral vote, which is almost always fictitious and handled by big landholders and professional politicians, but in the rights of citizens to decide, as this Assembly of the People is now doing, their own destiny. Moreover, democracy will only exist in Latin America when its people are really free to choose, when the humble people are not reduced – by hunger, social inequality, illiteracy and the judicial system – to the most degrading impotence. In short, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba proclaims before America:
The right of peasants to the land; the right of workers to the fruit of their work; the right of children to education; the right of sick people to medical and hospital attention; the right of youth to work; the right of students to free, experimental and scientific education; the right of Negroes and Indians to ‘the full dignity of man’; the right of women to civil, social and political equality; the right of the aged to a secure old age; the right of states to nationalise imperialist monopolies, thus rescuing their wealth and national resources …
Those hostile historians who jeer at ‘crowd hysteria’ fail to see the connection be
tween that Plaza de la Revolucion Assembly and its Latin American background as elucidated by Professor D. L. Raby:
The idea of the people taking up arms to achieve liberation is central to Latin American political culture, and it by no means excludes other forms of struggle and participation. It is intimately linked to the concept of popular sovereignty, that sovereignty really does reside in the people as a whole and not in the propertied classes or in any hereditary group or privileged institution. The people, moreover, constitute themselves as political actors by collective mobilisation, not merely by passive reception of media messages or individualised voting. The secret ballot is undoubtedly regarded as essential, but as inadequate unless accompanied by mass organisation and mobilisation … Hence the resonance of the term ‘revolution’ tends to be positive, unlike in contemporary Europe or North America where it has come to be associated with irrational violence or dogmatic sectarianism. For the same reasons, ‘democracy’ in Latin America is popularly associated with collective rights and popular power, and not just repressive institutions and liberal pluralism.
Considering the functions of the provincial assemblies and the National Assembly, Isaac Saney has written:
The goal of achieving unity and consensus is central. The unanimous votes that occur are not indicative of a rubber-stamp mentality but of a consensus that is arrived at through extensive and intensive discussion, dialogue and debate that precedes the final vote in the National Assembly: the end-point of a long, conscientious and sometimes arduous process … A critical aspect of the Cuban political system is the integration of a variety of mass organisations into political activity. No new policy or legislation can be adopted or contemplated until the appropriate organisation or association representing the sector of society that would be directly affected has been consulted.
Castroist democracy has gradually evolved into something quite original, by means of various constitutional adjustments, and Arnold August describes Electoral Law No. 72 as ‘At first sight … an incomprehensible labyrinth’. I do not intend to lead you there; suffice to say that the municipal elections are by far the most democratic. The Cuban municipality is like no other and not at all what the term suggests to our ears – a city authority. It may be part of a large city but according to Article 102 of the Constitution:
The municipality is the local society having, to all legal effects, a juridical personality. It is politically organised according to law, covering a surface area that is determined by the necessary economic and social relations of its population, and with the capacity to meet the minimum local needs.
Down on the ground (an important place) Cubans elected to run their municipality do a lot of serious decision-making. Delegates are elected for two and a half years, provincial assembly and National Assembly delegates for five years. Sixteen is the voting age, for all Cubans except convicts and those declared mentally disabled by a court. Any citizen over sixteen may be elected at municipal and provincial levels though delegates to the National Assembly must be over eighteen. No organisation is allowed to nominate a municipal candidate but any individual can nominate any other individual on the voters’ list for that constituency. Approximately fifty per cent of National Assembly delegates, from whom the Council of State is chosen, start out as municipal delegates. The National Electoral Commission has no legal link with the state and candidates for any of the assemblies are ineligible to serve on it. Electoral Commissions must be established at least three months before polling days, voter registration being one of their main responsibilities. An unusual feature of Cuba’s election season is the vast body of volunteers who for nine months devote much time and energy to ensuring orderly and efficient polling days and vote-counting.
To avoid the Soviet Union’s unhealthy symbiosis, the Party is legally prohibited from intervening in municipal elections where delegate nomination is genuinely free. At the National Assembly level, the Party does control the membership in a roundabout but effective way. Only fifteen per cent of adults belong to the Party yet seventy per cent of National Assembly delegates are members. The other thirty per cent includes representatives of religious faiths and of the arts and sports world.
The keystone of Cuba’s participatory democracy is the nomination of municipal candidates by a show of hands at small public meetings. Tens of thousands of these local gatherings take place, on average lasting no more than thirty minutes. Participation is not compulsory but about seventy per cent normally attend; on polling day the turn-out everywhere is in the late 90s. The procedure is, Alejandro assured me, a Cuban invention, uninfluenced by any foreign systems. It is extremely ingenious, and hermetically sealed against corruption/vote-rigging, but much too intricate to be presented in a résumé. Those deeply interested in psephology may find the details in Arnold August’s Democracy in Cuba and Peter Roman’s People’s Power.
The Council of State, controlled by the Communist Party, takes all major decisions with island-wide implications. These are ratified by the National Assembly which meets only twice a year but staffs numerous specialist commissions to do a lot of necessary boring work. Occasionally, at Party level, democracy raises its pretty head and popular views, wishes and judgements are taken into account. In preparation for the 1992 Constitutional amendments small groups met and debated various issues in eighty-nine thousand workplaces, schools, universities and community halls. A distillation of their comments eventually reached the legislators and was respected. In 1993–94 a similar number of ‘workers’ parliaments’ debated the major economic reforms then being proposed. The opinions voiced were synthesised and considered and those held by a majority caused legislative changes – notably of taxation.
To us this form of participatory democracy is a novel notion. Imagine a proportionate number of ‘people’s parliaments’ gathering in Britain, by request of the government, to discuss, for instance, the Poll Tax, or closing mines or post offices, or the introduction of university fees, or an airport extension or new Tridents. Then try to imagine Britain’s democratically elected government giving consideration to voters’ views … But would we Minority Worlders appreciate this sort of collective involvement in running our countries? It requires a certain expenditure of mental energy – and time. Moreover, despite having regular access to ‘free and fair elections’, and complaining so often about governmental decisions, we seem to feel terminally disempowered in relation to decision-making. But enough of fantasy-land – let’s return to Manzanillo.
Most Cuban cities share the background motifs of smugglers, sugar, slaves. Long before Manzanillo’s founding in 1784 its natural harbour was a smuggler’s favourite. During the nineteenth century it prospered as quite an important port and its wealthier citizens built mansions displaying a taste for whimsical Moorish flourishes. At sea-level one is scarcely aware of the Caribbean’s nearness: just occasionally a patch of blue sparkles at the end of a street. But then, from the steep, densely populated hills that semi-encircle the colonial centre, one is overlooking the Gulf of Guacanayabo’s dazzling expanse. Nowadays Manzanillo is chiefly renowned for its Rebel Army associations. Here Celia Sanchez, Fidel’s right-hand woman, clandestinely set up the supply base without which the Rebels could not have survived.
The colectivo put me down at 3.15 when sun-scourged Manzanillo was not lively. In a shadeless open-air cafeteria, facing Parque Cespedes, the bar was closed – no one in sight. Eduardo in Mayari had recommended a casa particular and provided a street sketch. I sat on an iron chair to consult this – then leaped up with a burnt bottom. Clutching that scrap of paper I crossed the park diagonally, pausing to admire the sphinx statues in each corner, the fake nineteenth-century lamps and the enchanting Glorieta Morisca, designed by a Granada architect, where the municipal band plays regularly and bridal couples pose for photographs. Most such Cuban agoras are in all-day use but here not even one bench was occupied. Although my casa particular was quite close, I felt slightly dizzy on arrival.
An open street doo
r led directly into the living-room and I gatecrashed a celebration; relatives and friends had gathered to drink the health of a new-born baby. I was enthusiastically received as another friend rather than the new p.g. Liqueur glasses of some powerful homemade alcohol, dark brown and syrupy, were being rapidly downed and refilled. The infant’s plastic crib (made in China, very fancy with a nylon mosquito net) stood on high legs in the centre of the room. A three-year-old first born was having displacement problems and querulously demanding everyone’s attention. On a low altar beside my bedroom door a black Virgen de Regla/Yemaya, clad in flowing blue and white robes, had to be included in the party; at intervals people offered her a sprinkle of that strange herb-flavoured potion, or a few peanuts, or a scrap of coloured thread or ribbon.
Later I got the family sorted out. Juana, the abuela, suffered from obesity and her daughter-in-law, Rita, was going in the same direction. Manuel, her English-speaking son, worked at the local ship repair yard and had a not unusual grievance. In 1994 his father and an uncle took off for Miami accompanied by Manuel’s two sisters, then in their late teens. Father had promised to ‘claim’ his wife and thirteen-year-old son once he had ‘settled’; instead, he was lost to view. In due course Juana presented Manuel with a step-father, Viktor, a wispy little man who seemed in danger of being suffocated in the marital bed should his wife roll over in her sleep. Viktor operated a horse-bus and his eighteen-year-old daughter, Margarita, a student nurse, was the fifth member of the household. The jolly scene I had witnessed on arrival was misleading. Placid Juana, who apparently loved everybody, was at the still centre of a maelstrom of animosities. Margarita criticised Rita for continuing to work part time as a free-market vegetable seller though she had a year’s maternity leave on full pay. Rita insisted that the three-week-old baby was perfectly happy on his abuela’s lap sucking expressed mother’s milk from a bottle. Viktor sided with his daughter which provoked Manuel to condemn him for overworking his horse. Rita objected to Manuel’s gambling on cockfights which made it necessary for her to sell vegetables. Carlos, the first-born, reacted predictably to all these simmering (and often loudly overboiling) dissensions. He was the only unhappy child I met in Cuba.
Island that Dared Page 50
