The American Spectator : An Old Man's Island

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An Old Man's Island

By George H. Wittman on 8.19.11 @ 6:07AM

Walk down any street in contemporary Cuba, and all you will see is failure.

To lure a Cuban into actually telling you what he thinks requires something akin to a blood relationship, so it's hard to know how the average citizen feels about his country or the direction in which it's headed. The view of the illegal taxi driver in Santiago de Cuba on the eastern tip of the island is quite different from that of his worldly counterpart in Havana. But one thing is consistent: No matter his political stance or economic status, the ordinary Cuban always believes his country is at the center of global affairs. Cuban girls are prettier, jazz is more original, dance is more imaginative and baseball players are better than anywhere else -- except maybe for a few Dominican shortstops. These viewpoints ring increasingly false. It should be clear to everyone by now that Cuba is a failing country, and that the Cuban Revolution was a failed experiment.

About one hundred thousand Cuban Americans are said to make their way to and from Cuba each year, though some say that figure is much higher. The economic impact (even beyond the amounts of money brought into Cuba clandestinely) is immense, as each traveler is now authorized by the American government to legally bring into Cuba $3,000 in cash. This comes in addition to the $500 quarterly allowed for U.S. residents to send to even extended family members in Cuba. Religious organizations can receive unlimited remittances, and those really add up.

Despite some initial disagreement, there now seems to be a consensus around the figure of a minimum of $1.2 billion as the amount remitted yearly from Cuban Americans to their relatives in Cuba. Of this, the Cuban government assesses about 20 percent in various fees. If Cuban expatriates and their now adult children had not fled to the U.S. and elsewhere, the economy of Cuba would be in far worse shape than it is today. That's one of the many ironies of the Cuban Revolution.

Meanwhile, one of the more tragic scenes of contemporary Cuba plays out each day along the ramshackle streets of Cuban communities. There are laws that control any business designed to make individual profit. Gratuities in hard currency or convertible pesos from tourists is one of the exceptions, as is money made by clandestine taxi operators in their ancient and dilapidated vehicles running on stolen gasoline. So professionals, such as teachers and lawyers, vie for part-time employment as waiters to earn foreign currency tips.

Although the Cuban Government under Raul Castro's leadership recently loosened the restrictions on small private businesses, the ordinary citizen still doesn't enjoy forking over license and operating fees to officialdom. Individuals eking out an income often revert to a certain device that Cuban soldiers brought back from their tour in Angola during the 1970s and 1980s.

In Africa's poorer urban environs, women set out on the ground each day a selection of what they have acquired to sell -- from fruits and vegetables to private possessions such as clothes and household supplies. In Cuba this form of marketing has become known as candongas, which is a play on words meaning "trickery." Instead of placing the goods for sale on the ground, the Cuban peddler lines it all up on a cot or some other homemade platform. Here private possessions of everything from auto parts to used shirts and pants are sold -- but without government licenses or taxation.

Paladares, the unlicensed neighborhood restaurant, is another way ambitious entrepreneurs get around government regulations. As many chairs as possible are jammed around a few tables. The comparatively cheap food can range from edible to not-so edible, but that doesn’t inhibit the crush of clientele. It's a real moneymaker for the proprietor, but these untaxed, unlicensed establishments last only about a year at best. Nonetheless the fly-by-night system works. Many lower-level officials eat at the paladares.

For people who know their way around or know people who know someone who knows his way around, everything needed can be purchased in Havana. Computers, videos, Harley Davidson sweat shirts -- they're all available for a price. The Ministry of Interior has a vast operation aimed at controlling this strictly illegal trade. It fails regularly -- except when it doesn't want to. That's why there is a regular roundup of sellers and buyers.

August 11 was Fidel's eighty-fifth birthday. One wonders what he possibly could have celebrated -- other than still being alive. He and Raul have been around for a long time, but as revolutions go, Cuba's is put-putting along like the decrepit American cars that now -- more than anything else -- are the still living symbols of 1959.

About the Author

George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (63) | Leave a comment

Groad| 8.19.11 @ 6:23AM

Michael Moron's paradise. Just remember, the state run medical care is 'free'. The Oborg collective wants the US to be more like this.

PCC| 8.19.11 @ 11:26AM

Just lift the embargo and overwhelm them with market capitalism. Is that so difficult to understand?

PsychoDad| 8.19.11 @ 4:06PM

Did it work with the USSR? In any event, Cuba has THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD to trade with. Is that doing anything constructive?

JmsA| 8.21.11 @ 1:44PM

What do you think has been going with the Canadians, Spaniards, Italians, French, etc., etc., etc.?

massmile| 8.19.11 @ 12:58PM

We are on the way to becoming Big Cuba - thanks to the Marxist ideologue in the White House.I am a 26 years old nurse, young and beautiful. Now I am seeking an older gentle man who can give me real love , so i got a username Annababe2011 on---a'ge'l'es's'da'te. C óM---it is the first and best club for y'ounger women and older men, or older women and younger men,to int'eract with each other. Maybe you wanna ch'eck it out or tell your friends.

Kitty| 8.19.11 @ 7:00AM

I remember hearing someone remark that many of the cars in Cuba were of 1957 vintage, that the country was frozen in time. However, they do have great music. We love the Buena Vista Social Club.

Timothy L. Pennell| 8.19.11 @ 7:10AM

Now, change the name - CUBA - to DETROIT or GARY or NEWARK or CAMDEN or to Parts of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles......
Pick any LIBERAL STRONGHOLD.
You don't know where they are?
Just follow the Black Racist FLASH MOBS, Robbing Stores, Smashing Store Fronts, ATTACKING PEOPLE for being a DIFFERENT RACE.

Pecos Pete| 8.19.11 @ 8:32AM

TLP: You are so correct. The USA today is the early Cuba of Fidel Castro. Federal regulations mean that farmer's can't "make" dust when they drive a tractor in the field. Youngsters can't operate a lemonade stand. A yard sale is illegal. The TSA is body searching you and your 5 year old. We are on the edge of disaster.

Appleby| 8.19.11 @ 7:18AM

When I was in Grade 5, Castro was hailed as a saviour and his revolution was prominently featured on a wall-sized poster of Great Events of the Year on our classroom wall. At some point -- after the photo of him plucking a chicken in a major New York City hotel, as I dimly recall -- the teacher quietly scissored that entry out, and for the rest of the year we kids mused over that hole.

Mike Hawk| 8.19.11 @ 7:56AM

Cuba isn't failing. It failed long ago and is now just rotting. When the Castro regime is done and the thugs overthrown (likely) a revival may occur that would astound and dismay the left as Cuban expats reinvest in their homeland. Cuba was once the jewel of the Caribbean dispite the authoritarians in charge. Even under the Bastista regime there was a largely free market. Right now there is none.

nister| 8.19.11 @ 8:31AM

What a pantload. Under Batista there was a mafia fiefdom where the peons could slave in the canefields or prostitute themselves to boorish tourists.

JmsA| 8.19.11 @ 8:52AM

Nister, you ignorant fool, learn the facts before you go around spewing old, leftist lies.

http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba Facts Issue 43 December.htm

nister| 8.19.11 @ 5:18PM

JmsA, you brownshirturd, leave the revisionism to your fascist masters.

JmsA| 8.19.11 @ 9:33PM

Thank you for not only reading my brief post but also for also revealing to all your boundless ignorance and/or hypocrisy.

JmsA| 8.19.11 @ 9:36PM

Hey, Nister, you dumbsh**t, those statistics were gathered by the U.N. in 1958, just prior to Castro's takeover.

Mike Hawk| 8.19.11 @ 9:59PM

Yo nister, fascists were/are Socialists . I guess your head is stuck in terminal optic/anal inversion.

Don Corleone| 8.19.11 @ 8:52AM

True. Castro brothers follow the steps of Mussolini and Hitler. Mussolini all but finished Sicilian mafia and Hitler done in with the crime in Germany. Dictators can't tolerate competition, you moron.

maximumrandb| 8.19.11 @ 8:56AM

So things are better now? Castro and a communist dictatorship was the ONLY alternative?

Mike Hunt| 8.19.11 @ 9:09AM

It was still a free market,eh?

JmsA| 8.19.11 @ 9:14AM

Hey, Nister, why don't check this out, too? It might just give you a clearer picture of what socialist/communist tyrannies do:

http://www.therealcuba.com/

Steve A| 8.19.11 @ 9:29AM

Yeah, but at least they had 57' Chevys under Batista.

Mike Hawk| 8.19.11 @ 10:04AM

Nobody said Bastista was a good guy. It is a simple truth however that the corruption and autocracy of that regime was better than the brutality of the Castro/Che Guevara terror abject poverty that followed. Batista would probably eventually have been thrown out in favor of a more republican form of gummint had the Communist thugs not taken over.

Michael Tomlinson| 8.19.11 @ 10:55AM

Under Batista (the first non-white leader of Cuba) Cuba was economically prosperous. Among Latin American nations, Cuba was third in per capita income (Venezuela and Argentina were #1 & #2).

Sadly, the rich elitst law student white Castro came to power and not only destroyed the economy, but slaughtered innocent men and women who refused to kow tow to the dictator and embrace his Marxist hell. Knowing that you can see why Obama and Democrats are so fond of Castro.

Mike Hawk| 8.19.11 @ 11:14AM

DOn't forget the brutal sadistic Che that the leftists adore. He was a murderous psychopath venerated by the left as a freedom fighter (he died begging for mercy from soldiers in the Bolivian army ( I think it was Bolivia). He was given none,

Occam's Tool| 8.22.11 @ 4:10PM

If I recall, Cuban medical schools under Batista were also good.

Redstateboy| 8.19.11 @ 12:32PM

nister..... so This is what passes for Liber-ul intellectualism eh?? So those poor schlubs living in Cuba are much, much better off under 50 years of living on Fidel's Plantation then they were under Battista? Why Can't Liber-uls Ever ManUp and just admit their Political Philosophy SUCKS! Liber-uls must be the shallowist pieces of Human Garbage - Evidence through-out HISTORY clearly demonstrates Liber-ulism is Cancer to a every Society in finds as a host - eventually killing it.

nister| 8.19.11 @ 5:35PM

Never came close to saying anything like what you assert..I simply took issue with an idiot poster's tissue of lies.

You sound like you're trying to convince yourself that unbridled, unregulated capitalism is the one and only. Remember, when you're shivering in the dark..only Commies huddle together for warmth.

PsychoDad| 8.19.11 @ 4:08PM

Viva Batista! Morte' a Castro! Merde a Castro!

Big Leo| 8.19.11 @ 7:56PM

Nister is an idiot. Cuba went from being second or third in income for all of Latin America to so far down the list it's hard to determine just where they are. If it weren't for American remittances, they'd be even worse. Go there and see for yourself like I did.

nister| 8.21.11 @ 11:47AM

Leo, you're the tool. You and others put words in my mouth, then mock those words. I called Batista's Cuba a hellhole..if you want to believe otherwise, more fool you.

Rich D| 8.21.11 @ 4:36PM

Hmmm...most prosperous hellhole that I ever visited (including Haiti, Malawi, Costa Rico, and Mexico). Every shop, no matter what the specific merchandise offered also had coffee for sale (the brewers were in the windows). Now they lack both coffee and sugar. The streets were busy, the cars ran, I was safe, and the nightclubs had great entertainment. One small man played every size harmonica from two inches to two feet. Sure, Batista was a nasty dictator, but Castro's death toll will far exceed his. One does not have to approve of Batista to condemn Castro.

Were you there then?

I'm reminded of the only intelligent thing that Ted Turner ever said - about Castro - "He's a helluva guy." Indeed.

Butch| 8.19.11 @ 6:03PM

Knew a young man educated in a European prep school and College in America who was from an important family in Nicarauga. Lost his family but escaped with his life (but no money at all)with the aid of an American. He was a college student of mine, worked his way through college servinng up burgers at the MacDonald's by the campus.and He became very successful in insurance in Miami after he graduated. He visited me 25 years later a couple of years ago, and I asked him if he ever returned. He said yes, but that it would never be the same--more or less ruined by the communists. After he saw it, he had no desire to return.

Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 8.19.11 @ 8:47AM

At least Castro's Cuba has the honesty to call themselves Communist, so you can kind of understand why the place is a total failure. Detroit on the other hand, was one of the largest Cities in the USA (I think 5th in the 50's?), and now has less than half that left, and still falling. Which one is the bigger failure, Communist Controlled Cuba, or Democratically Controlled Detroit?

The day the Castro's are taken out (which will be a good day), Cuba will come back to life again, what will it take to save Detroit? The UAW? The Chevy Volt? Another Corrupt Democratic Mayor (maybe one that doesn't get set to jail)? How about a thermonuclear bomb dropped right on the remnants of Government Motors (and then turn it all into farmland)?

Cuba's a Communist Nation, that's basically been in a smalerl version of the Cold War with the Greatest Super Power on Earth for almost 50 years now, and that kind of stifles growth a bit. Detroit is a City in a Country that was once the Freest on Earth, with all the advantages that go with that Freedom. So what the hell is their excuse?

It's the Democrats!! It's always been the Democrats!! Cuba's got a better future than Detroit does, and that's a crying shame!!

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.19.11 @ 9:08AM

Well, Sergeant,
Detroiters have been voting with their feet....in droves.
Only the dumbest...or the connected are still tere.

Mike Hawk| 8.19.11 @ 10:07AM

Except thet don't need to cross 90 miles of open sea to leave Detriot. Shark problem is the same though.

Pat| 8.19.11 @ 3:26PM

Mike, good one. And Detroit’s famous – or infamous - Mayor Coleman Young once tried to impose an “exit” tax to keep employers from leaving Detroit for the burbs’ – not exactly a Berlin Wall but something Fidel would have understood. And your other point was perceptive as well. Cubans built their own version of one way U-Haul rentals, they called them rafts and hoped their seagoing U-Hauls would survive the open sea and flounder in sight of Miami Beach. Those sea going Cubans and one-way U-Haul renting Detroiters shared the same reasoning – any place is better than here.

And those who choose to remain? We’re required to feel sorry for them – OK, we’re real sorry y’all stay in Havana or Detroit, but ultimately it’s your choice – plus, you folks might be the primary reason so many of the others left.

And the Detroit Free Press swears Detroit is a great community – despite the recent, record breaking 14 shootings in less than 24 hours. And the Havana Daily News probably feels the same way as the Free Press – their readers enjoy a tropical paradise with a great collection of vintage Fords and Chevys for sale.

Rich D| 8.21.11 @ 4:40PM

I'd wonder how many actually choose to remain - they probably have no other options. Even the blacks are leaving in droves, so don't claim "racism" (we're all one race). Those who try to repair houses have the new fixtures, wiring, and plumbing stolen the night that they are put in.

KyMouse| 8.19.11 @ 10:17AM

My alma mater, Agnes Scott College, presented an alumnae tour of Cuba several years ago. I wish I still had the brochure, which promised meetings with government officials and visits to (Potemkin) villages -- and, of course, updates on Cuba's glorious healthcare system.

I didn't go. Nor do I usually tell people that I went to Agnes Scott, which wasn't so far Left when I went there.

cowgirl| 8.19.11 @ 12:03PM

We are on the way to becoming Big Cuba - thanks to the Marxist ideologue in the White House.

RCV| 8.19.11 @ 2:42PM

I visited Cuba last year for a couple of weeks with a group of American Judges and Lawyers. we travelled on our own, with no minders or guides, and spoke with people of all kinds at lunch, dinner and on the street. Some impressions:

1. The country is a beautiful mess. It's falling apart thanks to the economic wonder that is communism. (The Castros have however managed to convince many in Cuba that their economic problems result not from the idiocy of the communist economic system, but from the US embargo.) It's like being in a 1950s time capsule, except that everything is falling apart - crumbling buildings, infrastructure, etc. The only good things are the wonderful old American cars, lovingly restored on the exteriors and held together on the inside with baling wire and anything else people can find to work.

2. The only people who support the Castro regime today are elderly rural peasants, who remember the conditions under which they worked during the Batista regime and who are grateful for medical and dental care to which they have access and believe their lives to better. No one whom I met under 50 years of age feels that way. They like the concept of "equality", but as one person told me, "We'd all like to be equally prosperous instead of equally poor." Young people especially chaff at restrictions on their right to travel, to open their own business, to read and listen to opposing opinions. But even they have universal disregard for what they call "the Miami Cubans' -- they don't consider them legitimate Cubans nor want their input on Cuba's future.

Everyone we talked to, with the exception of older peasants, openly makes fun of and jokes about the Castros and looks forward to their swift demise.

JmsA| 8.20.11 @ 10:10AM

Wow! You visisted Cuba with a bunch of lawyers. That's nice. Guess what, I was born there, lived there, and have family there. Did you bother to ask any of those you met whether the work for state security, G-2, etc.? I suspect not. Sounds like you were having too good a time to concern yourself with such matters. As far as I know, there are at least five different types of internal security services in Cuba. I'm sure you met some of them, maybe the guy serving you drinks at the resort, or even the guy driving you around. That's why you were told what you were told about the Miami Cubans or the "Mafia" as Castro refers to them. They could not tell you what they really think. Unless you have lived in a dictatorship, particularly one like that in Cuba, you would not understand. And you don't.

"...they don't consider them legitimate Cubans nor want their input on Cuba's future."

They may not want their input, but they sure like to take the illegitimate Cubans' dollars (the Cuban peso is worthless). Did any of them mention to you that they are already making arrangement to sell their beaten down properties to those not legitimate Cubans when the dictatorship ends, and take the money and leave Cuba?

Funny, I never heard any farmers, incuding the old ones, express their love for Castro or the Revolution, as they confided in my father, a doctor as he made housecalls on them, about their disdain for Castro, whose goons took what they grew and forced them to work in collectives.

Ever heard of El Escambray? This is a mountainous region in central Cuba, in the former province of Las Villas, where less than 5,000 guajiros/campesinos (farmers) rose in armed rebellion against Castro, who referred to them as bandits. It took Castro and at least 50, 000 troops, including advsisors from the USSR nearly six years to defeat the poorly armed farmers, from 1959 to 1965. Did you know that? You sound to me like a compañero; that's what the commies call each other in Cuba.

RCV| 8.20.11 @ 11:48AM

I just related what a mess the communists have made of beautiful Cuba, and how very single person under 50 we met with yearns for freedom, despises the Castros and looks forward to their deaths, and JmsA calls me a "campanero"!

RCV| 8.20.11 @ 12:01PM

And I'd add that the only "driver" I had during the time I was in Cuba was the young guy who drove the bus into Havana, who told me the minute he could get out, he was going to move to Italy, after he went out to celebrate Castro's death. Sorry if I "sugar-coated" things in your view!

Occam's Tool| 8.22.11 @ 4:14PM

Judges and Lawyers...eeek, RCV, I'd have shot myself first!

RCV| 8.22.11 @ 6:31PM

No offense, Occam, but can you even imagine going on tour with a group of Psychiatrists? Oh, Lord, spare me!

Occam's Tool| 8.22.11 @ 4:15PM

Well, RCV, they will take their money, though....

Skippy| 8.19.11 @ 3:43PM

I was born in Cuba prior to the Revolution, at USNAS Gtmo.
My parents said it was a Caribbean paradise.
I have always wanted to see it in person.
Now, not so much.
Great what Communism can to...even to Eden.

RCV| 8.19.11 @ 5:09PM

When communism falls there at last, the place will be a paradise again. The coasts and beaches are beautiful, and you can still catch the wonder and excitement of old Cuba at The Tropicana -- still going strong every night - you expect Ricky Ricardo to come out any moment -- and in the old colonial Spanish architecture in the larger towns you pass through. In Havana, the Old City has been lovingly restored thanks to UNESCO -- it's the only thing in the whole country that's in really good shape, and gives you a glimpse of what Cuba will be again when economic freedom returns.

vatvince37| 8.19.11 @ 8:17PM

Because my son was assigned to the US Special Interests Section in Havana, my wife and I were granted easy permission by the US Treasury - it was necessary - to visit Cuba in 2002, where I saw up close and personal the destructiveness of Castro's communism. As a former Foreign Service Officer who served in Latin America, I speak reasonably good Spanish, and my conversations with those whom I engaged in conversation indicated that they awaited their leader's demise before things would change. Castro survives, but, without question, things have gotten worse. Aside from being propositioned on just about every street in Havana by young teen-age girls, and presented with faux boxes Cuban cigars to buy, the emptiness of stores and the double-standard of what foreigners and native born Cubans can buy is appalling. Extranjeros - foreigners - can buy an ice cream in a park with no difficulty, if you pay in dollars. Those with Cuban pesos stand in interminable lines, as they do with just about anything they can afford to buy. But I would take serious issue with any American traveling with any official group which visited Cuba and was not shadowed by the Cuban Security Force, which was trained by the East German Stasi. You just didn't see it, but they were there, I assure you.

nice| 8.20.11 @ 11:20AM

Nonetheless the fly-by-night system works. Many lower-level officials eat at the paladares.
http://www.jerseys-hats-store.com
http://www.honey-gifts.com

Fly| 8.20.11 @ 11:24AM

Knowing that you can see why Obama and Democrats are so fond of Castro.
http://www.summer-products.com
http://www.ainibag.com

MyGirlFriday| 8.20.11 @ 2:17PM

Mr. Wittman,

Your fine article has been posted on the Babalu Blog Website by Alberto de la Cruz. This is the website I go to in trying to understand what is and is not going on in Cuba. It is also a site that I recommend to all those lovers of Castro and Che Regimes.

Richard Baker| 8.20.11 @ 11:02PM

I always find it amazing that Che is hailed for anything. He was a murderous thug who thought himself a world famous guerrilla fighter when in fact he was inept, at best, and the Bolivians and US Army Special Forces didn't have to look far to find him while he was crashing around lost in the jungle. Maybe Fidel did send him there to be killed as Che was competition for the bearded Leader.

POST American| 8.21.11 @ 12:27AM

---The Castros, one of the largest landowning
families in pre-'revolutionary' Cuba. Surely
not only 'players' ---but 'innies'.

Well known that the place has been actually run
for decades NOT by Fidel, but by his in the shade
sidekick brother Raoul.

The 'dialectically' neat situation brought in in
1959 have always been a prime indicator of
some kind of Masonic collusion in this set up.

NOTE: the divided zone extremity is virtually
the creation of the Masonic 'design' ---and
virtually unknown until their 'on the go'
20th century antics.

AS the hideous world agenda of USURY-DEBT
driven standardization (ie cultural elimination)
and EUGENICS (ie population extermination)
become, by the hour, more well known,
there IS hope that Cuba will one day again be
the beautiful, charming place it was and more.

Robert Fahl| 8.21.11 @ 10:36AM

Take a look at Cuba. Take a HARD look. Cuba is the future of our country, IF we allow a Liberal Socialist government to continue our tailspin into povery, bankruptcy, hunger and FAILURE. Our last hope is 2012. If the American electorate returns Liberal Socialists to congress and the White House, it won't be long before every night is "Beat Whitey Night," our streets look more like Havanna, than any other city in the world.

RCV| 8.21.11 @ 9:32PM

Oh, puleez......

Occam's Tool| 8.22.11 @ 4:13PM

RCV---Obama is a failure, and things are going to get worse unless we get someone else in in 2012---not Hillary.

RCV| 8.22.11 @ 6:32PM

Obama-Clinton is what you will get in 2012. Mark my words and see you in Minneapolis.

Philadelphia 76ers| 8.22.11 @ 12:00AM

veri nice

Triana| 8.22.11 @ 4:35AM

ohhh bagus banged post nya :)

http://healthoutside.blogspot.com

Farhan| 8.22.11 @ 7:06AM

cuba is one of many failure country

_________________________
http://sticky.tk

mattikallio| 8.22.11 @ 6:35PM

If the American electorate returns Liberal Socialists to congress and the White House, it won't be long before every night is "Beat Whitey Night," our streets look more like Havana, than any other city in the world.