Monday, March 12, 2012

Cuba’s Shame

Cuba's Shame
By Jacob Mchangama
March 12, 2012 5:00 A.M.

'He who loses his honor loses everything." So states one of the
propaganda posters, featuring quotations from Fidel Castro, that are
ubiquitous in Cuba. How ironic, then, that Castro's policies are
directly responsible for the daily humiliations suffered by the Cuban
people, the supposed beneficiaries of Cuban socialism.

One aspect of this humiliation is the lack of basic human rights, not
least the systematic violation of freedom of conscience. The suffocating
repression of dissent and pluralism is not immediately visible: A
tourist may well enjoy the charming architecture of Old Havana, the
cheap rum and cigars, the fabulous weather, the salsa clubs, and the
white beaches without encountering any signs of the police state;
indeed, European tourists, especially those predisposed by a romantic
anti-American admiration for Castro, often come away with positive
impressions.

But speak to some of the Island's dissidents — or earn the trust of
ordinary Cubans — and the picture becomes very different. One of the
most prominent Cuban dissidents is the blogger Yoani Sánchez, who has
used social media to great effect in the cause of dissent. I traveled to
Havana to hand Ms. Sánchez the freedom prize my employer, the Center for
Political Studies (CEPOS), awarded her last year, since the regime
refuses her the right to leave the country and receive the many prizes
she has received in places such as Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands.

The award is a piece of the Berlin Wall framed in metal. Despite its
weighing in at 8 kilos, I still managed to get it past Cuban border
control and hand it to Ms. Sánchez. She is in many ways an unusual
person: a truly independent intellectual. Her bookshelves include not
only Mario Vargas Llosa — loathed by many Latin American intellectuals
for his opposition to Castro, Chávez, and other caudillos, as well as
his defense of capitalism — but also Ayn Rand's pro-capitalist bible
Atlas Shrugged, in both English and Spanish. Because of her increasing
international fame, Sánchez has (unlike many other Cuban dissidents)
been spared imprisonment and deportation. But she is still closely
monitored by the regime, which has people watching her apartment,
monitoring her correspondence and mobile phone, and following her around
when she ventures outside her flat. She tells me that the Cuban state
has successfully managed to silence the vast majority of Cubans through
its close but barely visible control of all aspects of Cuban society.
More Cubans might defy the official censorship if the consequences were
"merely" short-term arrest — a phenomenon that, according to dissidents
and human-rights organizations, has increased in the past few years,
after the release and deportation of a number of political prisoners.

The repression is not solely legal and official, but also penetrates the
social realm. Since almost all Cubans are dependent on the regime for
their survival and basic necessities, most are too frightened to speak
out, as such dissent can lead to dismissal, loss of benefits, and social
isolation. Whole families may be affected by one of their members'
crossing of the blurry red lines of acceptable criticism, and therefore
this form of devious social control is very effective. Most criticism of
the regime therefore takes place in closed circles, among families or
trusted friends, rather than in public.

Another favorite regime tactic against dissidents such as Sánchez is the
use of demonization. Sánchez is often portrayed as a CIA-sponsored
stooge of imperialism in the national media; because of the regime's
stranglehold on the media — and because Internet access is severely
limited and extremely expensive — such narratives are difficult to
counter. Accordingly, relatively few Cubans seem to know Sánchez despite
her international fame.

Apart from the representatives of the local "Committee for the Defense
of the Revolution" — essentially a form of neighborhood watch set up in
all residential areas to spy on the activities of citizens — I did not
encounter any visible signs of surveillance of Sánchez. But her fears
are not a symptom of paranoia. That became clear when I visited another
dissident, Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas, the founder and leader of the
Christian Liberation Movement. Payá was awarded the 2002 Sakharov Prize
by the European Parliament for his advocacy of peaceful resistance to
the regime based on values of democracy and freedom of conscience. In
the 1990s, Payá and others sought to rely on the Cuban constitution,
which guarantees the rights of citizens to propose legislation providing
10,000 citizens sign a petition. Payá successfully managed to obtain the
necessary signatures, but his initiative was ignored, and in 2003 many
members of his movement were imprisoned during the so-called Black
Spring. Possibly because of his high profile, Payá, like Yoani Sánchez,
has been spared imprisonment, but not the keen attention of the regime:
He showed us a hidden microphone found in his telephone some years ago.
He also found bugs in his bedroom and living room. Some 20 meters from
Payá's house is parked a shining new car with the green license plates
of the Ministry of Interior, which is responsible for state security.
Payá views the Cuban regime as a "fundamentalist" one not differing much
from other fundamentalist totalitarian dictatorships, whether religious
or secular. He echoes Yoani Sánchez's description of the repression of
Cuban society; he and his family have suffered numerous instances of
intimidation and humiliations at the hands of government officials and
their sympathizers.

The repression suffered by the Cuban people has yet another dimension:
The lack of economic freedom and opportunity makes it difficult for
ordinary Cubans to get by on the rations and meager salaries paid out by
the regime, so many of them are forced to hustle just to make ends meet.
This is a tragedy in a country that — though seriously marred by
consecutive corrupt and repressive regimes — once was among the richest
in the region. In fact, the fertile but mostly uncultivated land, the
majestic but often dilapidated buildings, the lack of stores with
quality goods other than rum and cigars (and the ubiquitous Che Guevara
T-shirts for the historically illiterate), and the general absence of
commerce and industry are a testament to the utter failure of Castro's
revolution.

Not only does this result in widespread corruption — as recently
acknowledged by Raúl Castro himself — but also in more degrading
practices that gnaw away at the moral fabric of Cuban society. According
to Oswaldo Payá, these problems are systemic and inherent in the
ideological nature of the Cuban regime: Cuban socialism is not just a
perverse ideology, it also perverts its victims — forcing them to act
against their conscience in order to survive. The best example of this
is evident at nighttime, when elderly European men walk around the
streets of Havana with young, beautiful Cuban women (sometimes girls).
While some of these relationships are based on genuine mutual affection,
the vast majority of the girls cozying up to foreigners are jineteras
(an informal type of prostitute). Many jineteras are normal girls who go
to school or work but need the extra income to supplement the rapidly
decreasing rations handed out by the regime.

In Europe, these girls would be dating guys their own age, based on
their own preferences, but in Havana "dating" is dictated by the size of
the wallet, not looks or personality. I experience this first hand at
the Malecón, Havana's famous coastal esplanade. Since I look like a
Cuban — and thus an unlikely source of income — I was spared the
attention of the many girls cruising this strip. But the blond Danish
photographer accompanying me was constantly besieged by girls and by
young men essentially operating as pimps. One local girl — aged 20 — we
meet is luckier than most, having been adopted by a European settled in
Havana and thus living comfortably compared with most other Cubans. She
tells us that most of her classmates have sold sex for cash to
foreigners and that the local pimps are often relatives or even the
boyfriends of the girls they are trying to sell to tourists. So much for
the acclaimed honor of the Cuban revolution, and the governments' pious
lectures to the international community about "social rights."

Only left-wing American Hollywood actors and authoritarian regimes at
the U.N. Human Rights Council could be so blind to these indignities as
to characterize Cuba as a success story. The sad truth is that one man's
egoistic pride has resulted in the humiliation of an entire people.

— Jacob Mchangama is the director of legal affairs at the Danish think
tank CEPOS.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/292928/cuba-s-shame-jacob-mchangama

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