The “New” US Policy on Cuba In their new strategy, Washington has moved the focus of attention to Cuba's internal reality, on which they expect to have a more open and immediate impact. Elier Ramírez Cañedo digital@juventudrebelde.cu February 7, 2015 22:48:54 CDT A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann. Any serious analysis on the factors that prompted the December 17 announcement by US President Barack Obama, has to consider first, the heroic resistance of the Cuban people for over 50 years and the strength and wisdom of its historic leadership. Although this is a ground-breaking step, the essential issue remains unresolved, as President Raul Castro explained. The blockade is still in place and the road to “normalization" appears to be a long and complex process. "Our people must understand,” added Raul in his speech before the National Assembly on 20 December, “that under the present terms, this will be a long and difficult struggle that will require international mobilization and American society to continue demanding the lifting of the blockade.” I think stressing this is essential. Otherwise, we would lose the decisive support that Cuba has always had in its struggle against the blockade. If the final lifting of the blockade is not achieved in these years, we must continue taking the issue to the United Nations and other international forums. The struggle against the blockade should not cease and, even when the blockade is lifted, we must not demobilize. There is no need to read between the lines to infer the purposes of the "New Approach" that Obama wants to introduce in US policy towards Cuba. The history of the past 55 years has made us experienced in confronting the most diverse aggressive policies of the United States; but perhaps we do not have the same training when facing a disguised policy of aggression with the same objectives, but through a different approach of cultural, academic, economic and political exchange between both societies, with fewer restrictions. However, I also believe we have enough talent, intelligence and integrity in Cuba for more unity, for adjusting to the new challenges and opportunities that the new situation could also offer in some areas. On this subject, when interviewed by Tomás Borge in 1992, Fidel said: "Perhaps we are more prepared (...) to face a policy of aggression than to address a policy of peace; but we do not fear a policy of peace. As a matter of principle we would not object to a policy of peace, or a policy of peaceful coexistence between the US and Cuba. We would not have that fear; it would not be right; and we would not have the right to refuse a policy of peace just because it could be more effective as a tool for US influence and their attempts to neutralize the Revolution, to weaken the Cuban Revolution and to eradicate our revolutionary ideas." In my view, we should be pleased to have come this far without surrendering an inch in matters of principle, but no one can be fooled into thinking that the ancestral US-Cuba conflict has ended. To ideologically disarm ourselves right now would be suicidal. This is a conflict of systemic nature, and we're headed toward a modus vivendi between ideological opponents. Cuba and the United States have never had a normal relationship: they did not have it in the nineteenth century, or in the twentieth; and as long as the essence of the conflict remains hegemony versus sovereignty, it is impossible to speak of a normal relationship. Using this concept today in its classical sense can be misleading and confusing. Cuba has always advocated for a type of normalization that in no way fits the US vision of the term. The Governments of the United States have always defined it on the basis of domination, which would implies that the island cede ground in matters pertaining to its sovereignty, either in foreign or domestic policy. On the other hand, there is no indication so far that one of the cornerstones of this policy, i.e. subversion in its various manifestations, will cease. On the contrary, apparently it will be increased over time through more creative and artful ways that promote the values and US interests. "The administration,” said the US President, “will continue to implement US programs focused on promoting a positive change in Cuba." Five days after the White House announcements, on December 22, the State Department opened tender to fund programs totalling $ 11 million to "promote civil, political and labor rights in Cuba." The truth is that the US will be more characterized by an emphasis on the cultural war and political-ideological subversion, than by the idea of bringing the island to economic collapse. Also, when the US administration states that it will continue to support Cuban civil society we know what that means: nothing other than the mercenaries who have filled the ranks of a counterrevolution manufactured and financed by the United States. The White House press release clearly states that this administration will continue applying the following ideas in its subversive and interventionist strategy: "helping Cuban citizens to increasingly gain economic independence of the State"; "Cuban Americans being the US main ambassadors of freedom"; “breaking the information blockade"; "supporting civil society in Cuba regarding human rights and democracy"; "empowering the Cuban people and the nascent private sector in Cuba". The main target of the "new policy" will continue to be the youth and within it women, blacks, the self-employed sector as well as artists and intellectuals. Two days after the announcement of December 17, at a press conference, Obama was even more emphatic and clear in his intentions towards Cuba: The meaning of normalizing relations is that it gives us a better opportunity to influence that government than if we did not. (...) But the truth is that we will be better able, I think, to actually exert some influence, and perhaps then to use both carrots and sticks ". What we are witnessing today is that the US has moved the center of its attention to the Cuban internal reality, with the purpose of creating a more open and hasty impact. For Cuba, the challenges are still enormous. 56 years ago, on January 8, 1959, amidst the victory celebration, Fidel said that perhaps from that moment on everything would be harder. I believe that even now, perhaps everything will be more difficult in some areas, especially in the field of cultural and ideological confrontation with imperialism. Similarly, I recall how badly our “mambises” [Cuban soldiers in the War of Independence against Spain] needed José Martí and Antonio Maceo in 1898. The leadership and vision of those indispensable men would have helped Cubans tremendously to meet the challenges of the early twentieth century. Luckily for us, this has happened in life of our main historical leaders, Fidel and Raul, and coincided with the return to the country - as part of that very process- of Gerardo, Ramón and Tony, who along with Fernando and René, are the best vanguard on which we Cuban revolutionaries can count in the present circumstances. The new struggle must be led not only at the level of discourse and reflection --no less important-- but especially in the real and concrete transformation of the everyday life of the Cuban people, both spiritually and materially. Without revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary practice; but it is practice which ultimately transforms reality. That is why Fidel frequently insisted that the Battle of Ideas meant also facts and concrete achievements. And the First Vice President Miguel Diaz Canel has argued that "the best antidote against the enemy´s subversive attempts is to do things right in each place." I also believe that we must face the transformation of our country organically: the economy side by side with ideology and culture. What is required is an even more rigorous and effective war against all those internal ills and shortcomings which sometimes are more subversive than the schemes of our enemies, and make their work easier. In particular, it is necessary to unleash an offensive to death against bureaucracy, inefficiency, corruption, insensitivity, negligence and double standards. As Graziella Pogolotti wisely said to young Cuban artists and intellectuals in October 2013: "... Neo-liberalism proposes a totalizing conception, an economic, ideological, and social conception; disrespectful of the victims, of the losers. It is also cultural: the culture of banality that all of us are consuming to some extent. Our project must also be a totalizing project. Articulated in such a way that it places the political, social, cultural and economic aspects in a different order, also joined by an ideological battle ...” We will have to mobilize the true Cuban civil society to articulate a coherent response to the new stage of confrontation for it to become our primary and most powerful core of cultural resistance. For a long time we have been witnessing a fierce war of symbols; therefore it is unavoidable to strengthen our national symbols and attributes as well as our most popular traditions in the social imagery. The cultural war is not waged only in the present but also in the past; hence to work with the history of Cuba is today increasingly important. To write and disseminate the history of the Cuban Revolution in power, from 1959 to the present, without anathemas or closed areas is in my view a matter of utmost importance. We must work on the development of critical thinking in our youth and adolescents, to provide them with training for debate, and encourage in them an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist vision. Then they will be able to fulfill the prophecy of Fidel, when in 2000, addressing the doomsayers at the service of the Empire, he said: “... I have the courteous duty of warning you that the Cuban Revolution will not be destroyed either by force or by seduction”. * The author holds a PhD in Historical Sciences. He is a concurrent member of the Academy of History of Cuba |
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