The Revolution Turns Forty - life in Cuba since the Communist revolution

Progressive, The, April, 1999 by Saul Landau

As the Aerocaribe DC 9 began to descend into Havana forty-five minutes after it took off from Cancun, I had an acute sense of deja vu. It was almost thirty-nine years since my first visit to revolutionary Cuba. Up until the last few years, I returned to the island regularly to document the story of Fidel Castro's revolution. I'd landed on the old Havana airstrip countless times. This time when I arrived I was jolted out of my reverie by the new, European-looking airport, complete with decorative plastic bars crisscrossed under the ceiling, a newly tiled floor, and vast spaces for travelers.

I was almost relieved when the bored immigration official yawned at me, just as others had every time I visited. He slowly scanned the information on my passport and stamped the separate piece of paper with my visa. Neither the Cuban government nor Mexican travel agencies that book tours to Cuba stamp U.S. passports. They understand that the U.S. government does not allow its citizens to visit the forbidden isle without a license issued by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Yes, the citizen can lie when he reenters his own country and thus avoid the hassles of U.S. officials who will tell you that going to Cuba without a license, without U.S. government permission, is illegal--and has been for almost four decades. A U.S. tourist who can't resist a fun-filled weekend package tour to Cuba from Cancun--Varadero beach, the Tropicana nightclub, good rum and cigars--may be subject to a fine of up to $100,000.

The immigration official says, "tee-ket." I show him my return ticket to Mexico, proving, I suppose, that I won't camp out forever in Cuba like some old-time hippie who still thinks of the socialist island as a pure people's paradise. He nods, returns the passport, and says, "Welcome to Cuba. Have a nice stay."

The young, rash, and absolutely zany revolution that I first knew in 1960 has turned forty.

The cab driver is guarded for the first five minutes, until he satisfies himself that I am neither a fanatic Fidelista nor a government informant. Then he talks freely. An economist for more than twenty years, he drives a tourist taxi because "it pays better. I have three kids, you know."

We stop at a light in front of an ad for foreign products--something new in the last few years, although the road still passes signs covered in revolutionary slogans as well. "Nothing changes here," he declares. "Very peculiar to live in a revolutionary society that stays the same year after year."

And how's the tourist business? "They say we had 1.7 million last year. Must be good. Who knows? They say it brings in much more revenue than sugar. But I don't have to tell you that with tourism comes a lot of unpleasantness that we Cubans would rather not have to deal with: the jineteras [hookers], of course, and the foreigners who come in and enjoy the hotels we built that were supposed to be for us. But we're in a special period, which Fidel announced almost ten years ago, and we may stay in that special period until I die and then some."

He laughs. He is referring to the speech Fidel made after the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost its multibillion-dollar-a-year subsidy. Since 1990, the Cuban government, without outside support, has fought just to stay afloat, to retain basic medical and social services, as well as its vast education complex, and to provide some subsidized food and other goods to the population.

The U.S. government dealt Cuba an extra blow by passing two brutal laws. In 1993, the Cuban Democracy Act sponsored by then-Representative Robert Torricelli (now a Democratic Senator from New Jersey) tightened the embargo and attempted to destabilize Cuba by supporting dissidents. The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 impedes foreign investment by opening U.S. courts to lawsuits against foreign companies that do business in Cuba.

I ask about Fidel. "Cono, Fidel is wise beyond belief," says the cab driver/ economist. "But between you and me, you shouldn't put people in jail because they disagree with you. It's not natural for anyone to stay in power for more than forty years." He gives a resigned shrug.

The cab driver says that he would choose Carlos Lage to succeed Fidel. The vice president who manages the economy is a humble man in his forties, a medical doctor known for patiently explaining the logic of government economic policy on TV and radio. "Lage wouldn't put people in prison for opening their mouths or printing a newsletter. He wouldn't destroy our chance to watch HBO movies like those malvados [villains] do." He was referring to the recent decision by the Communist Party ideology chief to eliminate the ingenious devices Cuban citizens invented to pick up satellite TV and augment their own two channels.

"I see more traffic each year," I comment. Cars new and of rare vintages, fume-spitting trucks, "Camels" (two-humped buses pulled by truck cabs), bicycles, and horse-drawn carts fill the road. The driver agrees that the number of cars has increased. "But there's economic stagnation," he adds.