Cuba: Eileen's Reflections after a Visit February 2008

for my Global Citizenship class, Sociology 433A, by Eileen Dombrowski
I took these pictures of billboards through car or bus windows, so they're a bit blurry. I found interesting both the presence of many political messages and the absence of any commercial advertising.
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The communist Cuban Revolution (1953-59) against oppression had many of the characteristics of the American Revolution: desire for freedom, equality, and justice; huge support from the population; and moral and visionary leaders. The “heroes of the Revolution” are pictured throughout Cuba - the 19th century philosopher and poet Jose Marti whose ideas influenced the rebels, and the rebel leaders themselves, notably Che Guevara, Camillo Cienfuegos, Raúl Castro, and Fidel Castro, who was elected President (1959).

Unlike some other expelled colonial powers, the United States has remained fierce in its opposition ever since, backing an unsuccessful invasion in 1961(in the Bay of Pigs, where I was just a few days ago) and maintaining an embargo designed to bring down the Castro government. Although the embargo has been modified in form several times over the past 47 years, it basically forbids American companies to trade with Cuba (though there are exceptions at the moment), attempts (not entirely successfully) to prevent other American trade partners or aid beneficiaries from having any commercial dealings or diplomatic relations with Cuba, and forbids American citizens from entering Cuba. The embargo, disputed within the United States by many Americans and condemned almost annually and almost unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly, seems to me to be more passionate than rational.

Why does a huge superpower have such a fixation on trying to subdue tiny Cuba, which now poses no threat?

• For one thing, many of the rich Cubans and Americans who were dispossessed when the Castro government nationalized industry and land ownership (joined later by other Cubans) hate Castro intensely for seizing their property and businesses. They have become a powerful lobby group in Florida - a swing constituency in a swing state, so with disproportionate American political power.

• For another thing, the Cold War entrenched and exacerbated the division between the US and a communist country just off its coast, far too close for comfort. The Soviet Union poured aid into Cuba from roughly 1960 to 1990 and established missile bases there in the 60s, with missiles pointing toward the US. I'm old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and know now, from revelations by President Kennedy and equivalent ones from the opposing KGB, how close the world really did come to nuclear war. Although the cold war is over, the memory remains, and many Americans still seem to equate “communism” with “the evil enemy.”

• For a final thing, the Cuban defiance has challenged American power gallingly - a challenge that Castro plays to his advantage in holding out at all cost against “Yankee imperialism” and blaming all the extensive problems of the economy on the United States.

It's worth noting, however, that the antipathy between their governments is not an antipathy between most Cubans and Americans; if permitted to do so, they would probably be visiting each other's countries in great numbers.

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Above left, at the Bay of Pigs: "Giron. First defeat of Yankee imperialism in Latin America" Above: "3 weeks of the embargo is equivalent to materials for finishing the national highway." The web address above the billboard needs no translation. Neither does the message of the billboard below. All three of these giant posters assert national identity through opposition to the United States.
Another major approach to building unity and pride in the nation seemed to be the assertion of the positive values for which Cuba stands. Below: "Our arms: Morality, Reason, and Ideas," "Revolution is Unity," and "Revolution is never lying of violating ethical principles."