Raúl Castro: a flash in the American pan
Louis A Perez, Jr
Cuba seems to reveal itself to the outside world in a manner akin to a shooting star: it suddenly lights up the night sky, brightly if briefly, and disappears again into the darkness. A flash of headline news—an emigration crisis, for example, or the papal visit—seizes public attention for a day or two, whereupon the island returns to obscurity. The news reports of the ill-health of Fidel Castro in 2006, and Castro’s resignation two weeks ago are cases in point. The speculation about the future of a post-Castro Cuba originates mostly with commentators who have little knowledge of pre-Castro Cuba or, for that matter, of Castro-Cuba. And it is precisely this context which is vital at this juncture in order to understand the larger implications of recent developments in Cuba.
The orderly transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl suggests that the long awaited political succession did indeed occur as planned, and without incident: no riots, no demonstrations, no protests. It was long assumed that Vice-President Raúl Castro would succeed to the presidency of the Republic. He has. Public life in Cuba has continued normally, even if in private a brooding uncertainty often insinuates itself into casual conversation. Political succession in Cuba was an unremarkable political event, so unremarkable in fact that North American media interest in Cuba waned within forty-eight hours of the news of Raúl’s succession: there seemed nothing more to write about. Cuba thus receded again into obscurity.
Developments in Cuba have revealed once again the stunning inadequacy of the US response to change in Havana. A combination of misconception and misinformation, wishful thinking and willful cynicism, have been the hallmark characteristics of the US policy for almost 50 years. Despite years of official US pronouncements bearing on transition in Cuba, when the transition commenced Washington had little new to offer. Early on, Raúl Castro indicated a willingness to open negotiations with the United States, “to settle the long US-Cuba disagreement.” The United States indicated no such willingness. On the contrary, as in the past, a Cuban offer to negotiate with the Americans was received in United States as a sign of weakness, proof that 50 years of economic sanctions were having the desired effect—“to hasten” the downfall of the Cuban government—and hence an incentive to maintain the embargo against the island. A policy of no change from Washington was the response to Raúl Castro’s overture. No new policy initiative, no new directions: just “staying the course” on a 50-year failed policy. Cubans were thus caught between the Scylla of no negotiations—“intransigence”—and the Charybdis of willingness to negotiate – “weakness.”
The Cuban sin has its origins in the nineteenth century, when Cubans developed a conviction that they too had a destiny to pursue, that they too had a claim to self-determination, and that they too had a right to sovereign nationhood. All through the second half of the nineteenth century against Spain, and through the first half of the twentieth century against the United States, Cubans repeatedly mobilised to make good their aspirations of independence. They succeeded in 1959, but their success could not pass unpunished. The proposition of Cuba beyond the control of the United States was inadmissible, if for no other reason than control was as an end unto itself; as George Orwell suggested in 1984: “the object of power is power.”
US policy bears the purpose of punishment: it is punitive, it is pathological. Only the total and unconditional removal of Fidel and Raúl Castro can vindicate the policy that the United States has sustained for 50 years. The policy recalls the purpose that President Ronald Reagan pursued with Nicaragua, where he would have been happy if they had said “uncle.”
US sanctions have assumed a life of their own: their very longevity serves as the principal rationale for their continuation. It has proven increasingly difficult to abandon a policy to which ten presidential administrations over half a century have dedicated themselves, even if the policy has failed utterly to achieve its purpose. On the contrary, its failure served as the last and only rationale for continued enforcement: that the policy has not yet accomplished what it set out to do simply means that more time is required.
At its core, the American purpose has been to deny Cubans space: space to adjust, space to adapt – space, in short, for Cubans to accommodate themselves to the logic of the post-Soviet world, to which almost everyone on the island acknowledges Cuba must acquiesce. American pressure serves to impede change in Cuba. And the Cuban government must make changes, precisely to survive. The effect—if not perhaps the purpose—of US policy is to deny Cuba the space within which to pursue transformation. The Americans do not seek a government reformed but rather a government removed. These responses leave the Cubans with little space with which to pursue change, for even their disposition to make concessions serves only to increase the intransigence of those who support sanctions.
American policy bears discernible traces of obsessive compulsive attributes. US policy makers and power bearers seem incapable of rational discourse on the matter of Cuba. There is no small amount of merit in the comment made by Wayne Smith, that Cuba has “the same effect on American administrations as the full moon has on werewolves.” The Americans normalized relations with China. And they normalised relations with Vietnam. And with Libya. They sent the New York Philharmonic to perform in North Korea. Yet after fifty years, Cuba remains quarantined. How deeply the Americans must feel the hurt occasioned by the Cuban revolution.
Widely regarded as America’s preeminent scholar on Cuba, Louis A. Perez, Jr. is J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History and Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina
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