Green Lizard
February 13, 2001
Author's Note: The troubled land of Palestine provides
preciously little of it right now, that is why I offer
you my article about Cuba, for change and hope. In Cuba,
the local Jews are fully integrated in the society and
exercise their abilities for the common good. While we
hear of the growing social differences in Palestine,
Cuba shows the opposite way. The title is taken from a
poem by Nicolas Gillien, the Cuban poet.
Cuban rhythms are heard in Montparnasse on lively
Parisian nights. In Tel Aviv, Buena Vista is screened
non-stop. Europeans drink the Cuban cocktail El Mojito:
a stream of lemon that blends with Cuban silver rum over
peppermint leaves. Around the world, Cuban cigars are
displayed on the shelves of the upscale stores, and the
Swedes and Canadians walk around showing off their
Caribbean tan. Cuba is back after ten years of dark
oblivion, like an atomic submarine emerging through the
ice pack. It is in fashion, and following the fashion, I
took a plane to La Habana Jose Marti airport.
Havana is blooming at the entrance of its deep bay, and
the old cannons of the Three Moorish Kings' Fortress
still protect the narrow channel. Huge Cadillac and
Buick limo of the 30-40s, showing their age, solemnly
roll her streets, like domesticated dinosaurs, taxis of
the Jurassic Period, as unrushed as old battleships. The
former mansions of colonial planters and American Mafia,
domesticated and showing the wrinkles of age, are now
occupied by ordinary folk like you and me.
Well-worn like a favourite old sweater, unpretentious
and cosy, Havana is a safe town. One can walk her
streets any time, day or night, sober or drunk. In the
permanent class war fought on our planet, Cuba remains
in the hands of its people. Beefy riflemen do not loom
in front of her palaces. It is the only place outside
Europe, where you don't constantly run into riot police
and tough bodyguards lurking in dark glasses. Your eyes
immediately notice the absence of ubiquitous signs of
globalization - there are no Coca-Cola or McDonalds.
Even better, there are no ads at all. Nothing calls you
to buy a new Hoover or oh-so-necessary new washing
powder. TV carries no commercials. Poor Cuba pays double
in order to broadcast the sport events without
'sponsorship' ads. This country opted out of the rat
race, it stays clear of IMF, it does not seek American
loans, and its officials do not traffic in heavy
briefcases stuffed with Franklin notes and destined for
Swiss banks.
Cuba turned out to be a total surprise for me. Years of
propaganda convinced me that it is a poor totalitarian
country headed by a senile dictator. The reality was
completely different. There is no suspicion, secret
police, armed guards, and 'mind police'. Cubans write
wonderful poetry, shoot original films, freely discuss
or write on any subject. Thanks to the American embargo,
they remained immune to the American mass-media
influence. In comfortable movie theatres they screen
French, Spanish and even Iranian films. It makes you
wish that America's blockade of Cuba would be extended
to the rest of the world. However, there is no
anti-American mood on the streets - because every second
Cuban has a relative in Miami.
There are no brawls and street fights; the caballeros
and campaneros do not even quarrel with each other. In a
month, I never heard a voice raised in anger. Cubans
seem to have surgically removed their acquisition drive
and channeled their energy into music and love. The
perfect beauty of Cuban men and women, the descendants
of the Spanish settlers and African slaves, emphasizes
the Utopian nature of Cuban Socialism. They look like
ideal creatures from a future world envisioned by
Campanella or Moore. Men are handsome and manly. They
ride the sierra in their broad-brimmed hats; their blue
eyes of Galician hidalgos look friendly and courageous.
The implacably shapely legs of mini-skirted girls - a
result of sun, good diet, health care and genes make
Cuba the place to restore one's damaged belief in the
good nature of Man. This is a place to give your
shopping mania a rest and pause to live and ponder life.
Utopia does exist, and it is in the Caribbean Sea.
Lest I be suspected of any bias, I search compulsively
for the dark spot on this incomprehensibly lovely
picture and I find it. The Cubans are bad cooks. There
is no decent dinner to be had for love or money, even a
lot of money. With food, Cubans can do the impossible
and spoil even an omelet. The local food is bad for the
stomach, but good for the waistline. This fault is a
sign of Providence, so we would not mistake Cubans for
angels.
A society is judged by its attitude to children, mused
Chesterton, the original thinker, who unfairly
remembered only for his Father Brown stories. He would
consider Cuba the only right society in the world. Cuban
kids do not beg and steal, they are not used and abused,
they do not have to work for a living, they do not know
hunger. The cute, clean and joyous children in shorts
and scout neckties walk the Havana streets in the
crocodile formation (as Brits say), holding hands. Their
dress is colour coded - the kids of elementary school
wear blue, while the high school students don mustard
highlighting their smooth dark skin.
I banish the dreadful thought that Cuba could become
like her Latin American neighbors, that these kids would
wash the cars of the punters instead of schooling, and
these gorgeous girls would give themselves away not for
love but for money. But Havana remained steadfast after
the collapse of Moscow, Berlin and Warsaw in early
nineties. Until then, the Soviet Russia was Cuba's main
treasurer, supplying the island with fuel and technical
equipment, buying her sugar and guaranteeing a certain
minimal living standard for the rebel republic. Moscow's
pro-Western coup d'etat of 1991 put an end to all that.
The victorious nomenclature convinced the people, that
the Russians would live as good as the Swiss, provided
they cut off the Cuba aid. Cuba was the reliable ally
and the outpost of socialism on the American continent.
Yeltsin's Russia did not need outposts. To the hearty
approval of New York Times, Moscow turned the valve off.
Cuba was left without fuel, its Soviet-made technology
rusted without spare parts. The US embargo turned into
an Iraq-style siege. Cuba could not sell its sugar.
Official Washington counted the days before Havana's
collapse. Radio Marti broadcasting from Miami promised
the Cubans a rosy future, if they would only surrender.
Cubans switched to fried bananas and rice, water and
electricity were in short supply, important projects
were frozen. In such circumstances, the elites of poor
countries leave their poor to their own fate, rob the
state treasury and run to Geneva.
The Cuban elite, the barbudos, proved to be different.
These are the men and women who had repulsed the
CIA-trained mercenaries at Playa Giron, smashed the
South-African armour in Angola, and did not flinch in
the face of nuclear threat. And they still remain with
their people, despite the temptation to cross over to
the victorious side. Like a big family, all Cubans
became poor, but did not lose their dignity. They
remained poor, but equal. Poor but proud. They shared
their rice and smiled. They withstood the temptation
where everybody else failed.
For a visitor from a land, where the difference between
the poor Deheishe and rich Ramat Aviv is bigger than the
gap between Upper East Side and Upper Volta, it was a
lesson in humility. I discovered the country where
children do not beg, where there are no homeless, where
everybody has access to health care and education.
Incidentally, it is the country without a class of
noveau riche adorned with golden trinkets, without
yuppies in flashy Mercedes cars and without overpaid
generals and greedy thugs.
There is a reason for the current upsurge of interest to
Cuba. A new wind is blowing in the world. The decade of
neo-liberal ascendancy is over. It was an awful decade,
though Tom Friedman would tell you otherwise. It started
with the collapse of Soviet Union and with destruction
of Iraq. It continued with Oslo treaty, establishing
apartheid in Palestine, and bombardment of Serbia. In
America, democracy was pushed aside in favour of
corporate rule behind a flimsy veil of irrelevant
elections for figurehead puppets.
The mainstream American press became as servile to the
new rulers as Brezhnev's Pravda. Not a word can be heard
on behalf of the weak and defeated, be it Palestinians
or Iraqis, Cubans or Haitians or America's own exhausted
and overworked labor force. The incredible fusion of the
power of the media and entertainment industries
projected Beverley Hills fantasies to a world that has
seen its poor grow poorer, while the rich became
fabulously rich. We now inhabit a planet where the
difference between the poorest and richest strata in the
social order rivals the disparities in the ancient Roman
Empire. The high life of rich bankers and their coterie
has been paid for by the desperate poverty of untold
millions.
If we keep up at this pace, the gulf between rich and
poor will certainly expand and we will leave to our
children, a world of homeless, rootless, migrant
workers, and the super-rich and their bodyguards. As has
happened previously in history, the dark forces are
bound to overreach. The market economy wet dream ended
with the Seattle bang. People found their voice in the
Web, while Seattle and Prague proved that the West is
not spiritually dead. The siege of Iraq is slowly
eroding and the mean spirit of Madeleine Albright has
departed. As Churchill said after al-Alamein, it is not
the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.
As I walk the past the jolly cafes of Montparnasse, I
find myself drifting back to my memories of the rhythm
of Cuban life and miss them badly. Where are you, my
green lizard with eyes of wet stone?..