Wary Cubans say they're ready to adapt

Posted on Sun, Aug. 20, 2006

CUBA
Wary Cubans say they're ready to `adapt'
With Fidel Castro ill and his brother temporarily at the helm, Cubans on
the island said they would adjust to whatever happens next.
Miami Herald Staff Report

HAVANA - Within hours of watching a brittle-looking Fidel Castro
confined to a hospital bed, Cubans began using a new catchword around
this tropical city, where attitudes are often as shifty as the sea breeze.

Adaptarse -- adapting to Cuba's new normal after 47 years of strong
Castro rule -- was suddenly the most common word uttered by a wide range
of Havana residents.

Cubans have long used code words and even signs to hint at sensitive
topics in this tightly controlled society. They ''resolve'' some of
their needs on the illegal black market, refer to prostitutes as
''jockeys'' and touch imaginary beards when referring to Castro.

And now there's no more sensitive subject than the island's future under
an ailing Castro or his anointed successor and younger brother, Defense
Minister Raúl Castro.

Enter adaptarse, a word that acknowledges the potential changes but says
little about how the speaker might consider those very changes.

To adapt, it seems, is to turn to the next yet-to-be written chapter of
Cuban history. To resolve, by contrast, has been Cuban lingo for ``to
survive.''

While some in Cuba are facing the future with a mixture of dread,
resignation and uncertainty, others simply express confidence, though it
is hard for outsiders to know whether they really mean it.

BIG CHANGE

A 30-year-old bicycle taxi driver told The Miami Herald it would be a
big change for Cuba if Castro permanently disappeared: ''But what can
you do?,'' he said. ``You'd have to adapt.''

Ricardo, a 23-year-old waiter, said he likes Cuba's socialist system and
has no desire to leave the island: ''If there are changes, I'll adapt,''
he said.

Cuba experts say now that the 80-year-old Fidel Castro has fallen ill
and turned over the reins of power to Raúl, Cubans understand that they
face a new reality -- still undefined but at least within the bounds of
the island's communist system.

`HOPING FOR CHANGE'

''Cubans have absolutely no control of their future,'' said Uva de
Aragón, associate director at Florida International University's Cuban
Research Institute. ``It's always a matter of them adapting to whatever
happens.''

Since the photos and a video showing Castro's poor health were made
public last weekend, the ruling Communist Party has vowed that the
revolution that brought Castro to power in 1959 would continue under the
leadership of Raúl. So far, -- at least publicly -- the government has
remained intact since Castro ceded power on July 31 following intestinal
surgery for an unspecified ailment.

Martha Beatriz Roque, a prominent dissident in Havana, said she believes
that Castro was shown in such a vulnerable state in order to squelch
strong rumors that he was already dead while preparing the population
for his eventual death.

''I think they are preparing for the worst,'' Roque said by telephone.
But also evident, she added, is ``nothing of change. I don't see that
word in the panorama.''

Miami sociologist and Cuba expert Lisandro Pérez said it is no surprise
Cubans have opted to adapt.

''The U.S. theory is that the system is fragile and entirely dependent
on Castro,'' Pérez said. ``People in Cuba see a system that is more
institutionally entrenched rather than based on a person.''

''They see the entire breadth and scope of a system that will likely
survive with or without Fidel Castro,'' Pérez said.

In a statement published last week in the Communist Party's Granma
newspaper, the head of the party's ideological department wrote that
outsiders ``cannot understand that our people trust that the party
leadership does not lie to them . . . that they weep and grieve when . .
. their leader is ill.''

''Every day, more and more people understand that in order to solve the
problems that remain we have to fight, because if we don't . . . we will
lose everything,'' wrote Rolando Alfonso.

Cuba's strongest institutions are the armed forces and the Communist
Party -- both now controlled by Raúl and both now functioning without
any public signs of trouble.

STAKE IN SYSTEM

''I think that there are enough people in Cuba who have a stake in the
system, who greatly benefited from the revolutionary process and don't
want it abandoned,'' said Lisandro Pérez. ``Cubans have not been
presented with a clear, realistic, viable alternative as an option to
the current system.''

''Fidel is all we've known,'' said a woman named Yanil. ``I hope he gets
better. It's a scary time for us.''

Said her boyfriend Alejandro: ``We'll adapt.''
A Miami Herald staff writer in Havana contributed to this report. It was
written by Nancy San Martin in Miami.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/15314567.htm