Island of Failed Promises
Younger Cubans have waited all their lives for Fidel to deliver. And now?
The phone woke Yoani Sanchez long before dawn in her 12th-floor Havana apartment. It was a French TV network calling to get her reaction to the Cuban government's announcement: Fidel Castro was finally resigning as president. Half asleep and utterly stunned by the news, Sánchez could hardly think what to say.
That had to be a strange sensation. The 32-year-old Sánchez's fearlessly critical blog, Generación Y, has won rapt attention from Cuba watchers in recent months, making her an unofficial spokesperson for the island's young people. While the party newspaper, Granma, devotes its front page to ponderous "reflections" by the ailing, 81-year-old Castro on climate change, Sánchez writes stinging accounts of daily ordeals in Cuba—like the food shortages at her 12-year-old son's school, or the obstacles facing a young couple who want a place of their own instead of a room with their parents. Sánchez doesn't hide her disdain for Castro and his brother, Raúl, 76, who has sat in as president since Fidel fell ill in the summer of 2006. "They're washed up," she told NEWSWEEK last week. "With each passing day they have less and less time to fulfill their promises."
Most Cubans have been waiting all their lives for those promises to be met. Although the lot of some older Cubans may have been improved by the revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista in January 1959, an estimated 70 percent of Cuba's 11.3 million people weren't even born then. Younger Cubans now mostly identify "Fidelismo" with hardship, especially those who, like Sánchez, came of age during the 1990s. That was the island's "Special Period"—an era of extreme belt-tightening after Castro's aid pipeline dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union. (The nickname Generación Y derives from a Cuban fad in the '70s and '80s for baby names beginning with that letter.) "Unlike our parents, we never believed in anything," says Sánchez. "Our defining characteristic is cynicism. But that's a double-edged sword. It protects you from crushing disappointment, but it paralyzes you from doing anything."
Raised on a relentless diet of antiimperialist harangues and exhortations to ever-greater sacrifice, millions of young Cubans want the regime to cut the rhetoric and make tangible improvements in their lives. Many have given up hope: from October 2005 through September 2007, an estimated 77,000 Cubans fled to the United States, the biggest exodus since the Mariel boatlift of 1980, when 125,000 Cubans escaped to Florida in six months. "Young people are very fed up with the situation," says Julia Núñez Pacheco, the wife of jailed independent journalist Adolfo Fernández Sainz. "Many are escaping, either by hurling themselves into the sea on a raft or arranging a marriage of convenience with foreigners." The couple's 32-year-old daughter, Joana, left Cuba to join her husband in Miami last year.
Most young Cubans' aspirations are decidedly apolitical. Forget about democracy or free speech; the serious focus is on things taken for granted by youngsters elsewhere: freedom to travel abroad, unrestricted access to the Internet, enough disposable income to buy a mobile phone or an iPod—even the simple right to walk into a five-star hotel in their own country and buy a beer. "These young students are asking, 'Why are things banned? Why are we not allowed to leave the island?'" says Miriam Leiva, a prominent dissident leader who once held a high-level post in the Cuban Foreign Ministry. "They look around at other young people grouped on the corner playing dominoes out of boredom, and they want something different."
Raúl Castro has only himself to blame for their undisguised impatience. Within weeks of stepping in for his bedridden older brother, he urged Cubans to blow the whistle on government corruption and to find new solutions for the country's many problems. Cuba's young could hardly have agreed more: sweeping changes were overdue. And what happened next? Nothing. In a major speech last summer, after nearly a year in charge, the younger Castro acknowledged failures that were painfully self-evident: salaries were too low, food production and distribution were dysfunctional and the system remained as full as ever of unaddressed problems.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Q-Tex1966 @ 04/19/2008 4:12:32 PM
Comment: A great article. Most people that live in the United States do not realize how hard daily life is in Cuba, for the average citizen. Having been born in Cuba, and presently looking from the outside, I can only imagine, but I do remember the good days, while growing up. People ask me "why can they revolt?" What the citizens in this great country do not realize is that while one can purchase a weapon, of almost any kind in the US, in Cuba a weapon is owned by the army, and it would be almost impossible for anyone that lives in the island to get one. We (in the US) take a lot for granted, but just imagine if your teenage son or daughter did not have access to the internet, or if they could not drive 20 miles to see a friend. Small things like that do not happen in Cuba, since there are very few cars available to the public, and is costs a lot of money to get on the internet. Of course, you would have to own a PC for that, and probably over 90% of the people in the island do not. Be glad you can post a comment, just as I am doing now, it means you, as well as I, are FREE, something else you do not have in Cuba, freedom.
One last thing, while the article mentions the newspaper Granma, the word does not mean grandmother. Granma was the name of the boat that Fidel Castro and his group used to go from Mexico to Cuba. A lot of people also ask me why they have a newspaper called "grandmother." They don't. Finally, just imagine living under the same government for 50 years, same head honcho, same news, same TV, and all is owned by the state. It would get old after a while, wouldn't it? Now, for those under 40 years old, imagine no MTV, no HBO. Ho wlong would it take you to make a rubber rafgt and try that risky trip to the US. Lets not forget, you have to make it to land, if not they will send you back to the island, what a bummer! I grew up there, loved it then, but now I would even be concerned about visiting.
Posted By: Q-Tex66 @ 04/19/2008 4:11:25 PM
Comment: A great article. Most people that live in the United States do not realize how hard daily life is in Cuba, for the average citizen. Having been born in Cuba, and presently looking from the outside, I can only imagine, but I do remember the good days, while growing up. People ask me "why can they revolt?" What the citizens in this great country do not realize is that while one can purchase a weapon, of almost any kind in the US, in Cuba a weapon is owned by the army, and it would be almost impossible for anyone that lives in the island to get one. We (in the US) take a lot for granted, but just imagine if your teenage son or daughter did not have access to the internet, or if they could not drive 20 miles to see a friend. Small things like that do not happen in Cuba, since there are very few cars available to the public, and is costs a lot of money to get on the internet. Of course, you would have to own a PC for that, and probably over 90% of the people in the island do not. Be glad you can post a comment, just as I am doing now, it means you, as well as I, are FREE, something else you do not have in Cuba, freedom.
One last thing, while the article mentions the newspaper Granma, the word does not mean grandmother. Granma was the name of the boat that Fidel Castro and his group used to go from Mexico to Cuba. A lot of people also ask me why they have a newspaper called "grandmother." They don't. Finally, just imagine living under the same government for 50 years, same head honcho, same news, same TV, and all is owned by the state. It would get old after a while, wouldn't it? Now, for those under 40 years old, imagine no MTV, no HBO. Ho wlong would it take you to make a rubber rafgt and try that risky trip to the US. Lets not forget, you have to make it to land, if not they will send you back to the island, what a bummer! I grew up there, loved it then, but now I would even be concerned about visiting.
Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/29/2008 2:12:10 AM
Comment: IN THIS ENVIORNMENT OF ECONOMIC FEUDALISM WHERE THE MIDDLE CLASS MUST SUFFER IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE pROFITS OF MULTINATIONAL CORpORATIONS, WHO BENEFIT FROM CHEAp LABOR, THE AMERICAN DREAM HAS BEEN LOST.
MULTINALTIONALS FROM INDIA HAVE BROUGHT THEIR CHEAp WAyS TO AMERICA. WE NOW HAVE AMERIANS GOING TO GET HEART SURGERy IN INDIA BEAUSE IT IS CHEApER. OUR INFORMATION TECHNOLy JOBS HAVE BEEN OUTSOURCED TO INDIA.
CHINA WAITS UNTIL WE INVENT IT AND THEN THEy STEAL IT. WHy REINVENT THE WHEEL.
ARABS FINANCIERS OWN OVER TWELVER pER CENT OF OUR ECONOMy AND IN RECENT MONTTHS HAVE "BAILED" OUT OUR BANKS. IN ADDITION, ARAB INTEREST FROM DUBAI AND KUWAIT HAVE FINANCED OUR pOLITICAL LEADERS ENDEVOURS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE pOLITICAL SpECTRUM.. IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE.
We have been fooled by our own government and there is no way any Republican is going to win this election. THE Middle class has had it with all this Bin LADEN terrorist crap. WE are now scared of our own government more than we are of the terrorist because the decisions this government is making on our behalf is not in our best interests and it is killing us. The government is now dominating our civil liberties. They are giving the states millions for Real ID Cards. This is just the start of government intrusion. Combine this with the misuse of the Patriot Act and the future Plans of insurance comPanies and corporations to have full access to our personal records and we have a real crisis.
Credit Card companies have already started selling and sharing our personal information with the private sector. We really have to wake up and protect our constitution it is all we have to defend ourselves against interests that become too rich and powerful in this country. The government keeps expanding and is being predominantly controlled by special interest and lobbyist. The middle class is being weakened and our civil liberties are being threatened. Real ID Cards will not make "us safer" infacat terrorists can obtain fake ones and move about freely. The American people did not vote on Real ID Cards, we need a vote. Our constitution would have to be ammended in order for Real ID's to become legal. I do not know what has happened in Washington but it is getting out of hand. They know what they are doing is unconstitutional so they are trying to bribe the states by offering them money. I hope every state agrees with me and Prevents the federal govenment from imPosing THIS unconstitutional law. If the states allow the government to do this then they would have set a bad Precedent that could lead to further government violations.
WHy IS THERE A NEED TO WIRE TAp EVERy CITIZEN. ARE yOU KIDDING ME. yOU NEED A WARRANT. THIS IS MADNESS. GOVERNMENT IS USING TERRORISM AS AN EXCUSE TO INTRUDE ON OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. THIS IS INSANE.
McCain will continue to implementt these misguided REpublian policies. McCain's ONE HUNDRED year agenda is not in AMERICA"s BEST INTEREST.