La rivoluzione cubana – se di “rivoluzione” ancora è lecito parlare – ha da meno di due settimane compiuto sessant’anni. E non pochi – tra questi l’inviato di World Policy Review, William M. LeoGrande, si chiedono se l’isola sia, a dispetto della piuttosto veneranda età sulle soglie di un cambiamento radicale. La conclusione è – prevedibilmente – alquanto interlocutoria. Qualcosa si va muovendo, soprattutto grazie all’arrivo di internet. Ma nulla ha ancora neppure sfiorato le strutture portanti di un regime intrinsecamente autoritario. Ecco l’articolo
Sixty Years After the Revolution, Is a New Cuba Emerging?
William M. LeoGrande Monday, Jan. 14, 2019
Is the Cuban Revolution reinventing
itself at age 60? That was my unmistakable impression during a visit to Cuba
last month. Change is in the air as the island celebrates the anniversary of
the 1959 revolution.
Last year, Raul Castro stepped down as president in favor of his protégé,
58-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, who promised a “new Cuba”—a government more open
and responsive to people’s needs. In the ensuing months, three
constituencies—the churches, the private sector and the arts community—took
advantage of that promise to launch organized campaigns pushing back against
government policies they opposed. And in each case, the government backed off.
The internet played an important role in these campaigns. Since 2009, when
Cuban leaders decided that a wired nation was essential
for a 21st century economy, internet access has exploded. The government has
opened over 800 public Wi-Fi hot spots and cybercafés in the
past five years, and home internet access became available in 2017. By the end
of 2018, nearly half the Cuban population had personal cell phones—illegal
until 2008—and there was 3G internet access for anyone who could afford it,
though the price is still out of reach for many.
These changes have made possible new forms of communication, networking and
organizing via social media.
The first battle began last July, when the government issued over 100 pages of new regulations
on the private sector, covering a wide range of operations: food safety, labor
contracts, procurement, taxation, the allowable size of private businesses. The
new rules were widely interpreted as an attempt by conservatives in the
government to limit the growth of the private sector, which had come under
intense criticism for black marketeering and tax evasion.
But private entrepreneurs pushed back,
pointing to the government’s own economic plans that envision the private
sector as an important contributor to growth and employment. They wrote to
government officials and met with them, while also speaking out publicly about
the damaging effect the new rules would have on the economy.
When the final regulations were announced last month, several that had caused
the most resentment were dropped. The government’s decision to revise the
regulations was based on “the opinion and experiences of those directly
involved,” explained
Minister of Labor and Social Security Margarita Gonzalez Fernandez.
The one area where the government refused to retreat was on regulations
governing “almendrones”—private taxis for Cubans that run regular routes and
charge in Cuban pesos. The new regulations limited fares, forced drivers to buy
gasoline at filling stations—instead of on the black market—and required safety
inspections. More than 2,000 taxi licenses were canceled when vehicles failed the
tests and hundreds of drivers turned in their licenses because they couldn’t
afford to buy fuel at the government’s prices. In late December, drivers staged
a work stoppage by
refusing to pick up passengers. Havana’s transportation system, always
aggravating, became insufferable. But the government held firm and the taxi
revolt petered out, although two weeks later, the minister of transportation lost his job.
The government also backtracked on a new law, Decree 349,
requiring artists, musicians and performers to register with the state and pay
a 24 percent commission on their earnings from private engagements. It also
prohibited work with pornographic, violent or racist content, and empowered
state inspectors to shut down any offensive exhibition or performance.
The precedent of organized interest groups mounting successful campaigns to change government policy is now established.
Since the 1980s, Cuban artists have
had more leeway for critical expression than other social sectors, and they
guard that space jealously. Decree 349 sparked a revolt of the literati, with
widespread protests by artists who feared a return to the dark days of heavy
state censorship in the 1970s. Social media served as the platform for
mobilizing opposition both within the Cuban arts community and among artists
abroad. Silvio Rodriguez, one of Cuba’s most popular singers, came out publicly
against the law on his blog. After dozens of meetings
between various groups of artists and musicians and officials in the Ministry
of Culture, the government agreed
not to enforce the law until implementing regulations could be worked out in
consultation with the arts community.
From August to November, some 8.9 million Cubans debated the draft of a new
constitution in their workplaces, neighborhoods and schools. Communist Party
members were ordered not to argue with even the most radical proposals for
amendments, and the ensuing debates were freewheeling, often lasting past their
scheduled time. Among the main topics: whether the president and state
governors should be directly elected by voters; whether the concentration of wealth
and property should be allowed; whether terms limits and age limits for leaders
were a good idea; and whether the Communist Party should be subordinated to the
constitution and hence the law. But the article drawing the most attention and
debate was one recognizing same-sex marriage.
Mariela Castro, Raul Castro’s daughter and a long-time activist for LGBTQ
rights, managed to have the draft constitution recognize gay marriage. The
proposal sparked an unprecedented public campaign
in opposition led by evangelical churches and supported by the Catholic Church.
Not only did church leaders speak out against the provision, believers put up
posters reading, “I’m in favor of the family as God created it,” and “Marriage
is the voluntary union between a man and a woman.” Gay rights advocates
countered with posters of their own. In the town hall meetings to discuss the draft
constitution, the gay marriage issue was the most contentious, raising the
possibility that opponents, with the churches’ approval, might vote “no” in the
referendum on the constitution scheduled for Feb. 24. The prospect of a
significant “no” vote led the government to drop the provision
from the final draft of the constitution with a promise to consider it later in
an upcoming revision of the Family Code.
This unanticipated surge in political mobilization by well-organized
constituencies resisting state policy, from private sector regulations to gay
marriage, is remarkable. No comparable campaign has been allowed in Cuba since
the early 1960s. The government’s willingness to not only tolerate these
organized challenges but to change policies in response to them indicates a new
openness to public debate.
To be sure, none of these issues brought into question the basic structure of
the Cuban system. But the precedent of organized interest groups mounting
successful campaigns to change government policy is now established, and it
will be hard for the state to prevent future mobilizations around more
sensitive issues to come.
William M. LeoGrande is professor of
government at American University in Washington, D.C., and co-author with Peter
Kornbluh of “Back Channel
