Cuba is ready for change

Guest column: Cuba is ready for change
October 5, 2009

HAVANA — The anticipation of change here is as thick as the air that
drenches a body in sweat in the time it takes to walk a single block in
this sprawling city.
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Change was the mantra of Barack Obama's historic presidential campaign —
and it's the hope of virtually everyone in Cuba these days.

Some are seeking geopolitical change.

"We are ready to sit down with the United States to have a discussion
about everything," said Josefina Vidal, director of the North American
division of Cuba's foreign ministry.

Vidal, inspired by stepped-up diplomatic contacts with the United States
since Obama took office in January, told me her government is eager to
broaden its dialogue with the Obama administration.

She cited a long list of what her government wants from America,
beginning with an end to the economic blockade imposed on Cuba nearly a
half-century ago.

Others hope to achieve change through art.

Gloria Rolando is a small, soft-spoken Cuban filmmaker who believes Cuba
must confront its past before it can secure its future. She recently
returned to Havana from Santiago de Cuba, a city in the southern region
where she was doing research for a film about one of this nation's
darkest chapters — the massacre of members of the Independents of Color,
a Cuban political movement wiped out in 1912.

The group, created in 1908, consisted mainly of black veterans of Cuba's
war of independence, which Americans call the Spanish-American War.

Over a few days in the spring of 1912, the Cuban army hunted down and
killed more than 6,000 members of the Independents of Color. Successive
Cuban governments have largely suppressed the history of this awful
event. But Rolando's effort to make a movie about what happened recently
won the backing of the Cuban government, which will make it easier for
her to finish.

Digna Castaneda, a senior history professor at the University of Havana,
is more contemplative about the idea of change — but no less hopeful.

"This is an important moment for both the United States and Cuba," she
said. "No one ever thought a black man could be president of the United
States. That's a victory your country must share with us. It has brought
change to your country, and I think it will help bring change to mine."

Cubans are ready for change. What form it will take is still unclear —
and less important than its anticipation. It is the subtle breeze that
stirs the imagination of Cubans about possibilities for a better life
and improved relations with its American neighbor.

Guest column: Cuba is ready for change | greenbaypressgazette.com |
Green Bay Press-Gazette (5 October 2009)
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20091005/GPG0706/910050516/1269/GPG06/Guest-column--Cuba-is-ready-for-change