'Democracy
Delayed' - Post-totalitarianism and Sultanism
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D. NewsMax.com,
September 23, 2003.
When Juan José López, PhD, a political
scientist, proudly dedicated "Democracy Delayed
- The Case of Castro's Cuba" (The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2002) - his first book - to
his wife Myrna and son Juan Carlos, he could not
have anticipated that he would indeed need every
bit of their moral and physical support.
The young scholar would need it to withstand
the all-out attack leveled against his person
and professional reputation at the University
of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he was employed
as an assistant professor. Prof. López's
transgression was unforgivable for he had violated
an article of faith in the leftward-leaning ivory
tower of academia.
In "Democracy Delayed," López
had dared to express the views that Fidel Castro's
tyrannical rule in Cuba no longer enjoys popular
support and that democratic transition in the
Caribbean island is possible - if only the people
led by the democratic opposition had the necessary
material support, as well as independent sources
of information, as the Eastern Europeans enjoyed
in the late 1980s.
Political transformation has not taken place
in Cuba, as it did in East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
and Rumania in 1989, because the hapless Cubans
lack the necessary political efficacy to effect
change since they do not have access to independent,
regular sources of information from within the
island (dissident literature, news, etc.) or from
outside the island (efficient, regular broadcasts,
TV or radio from the U.S.).
The U.S. can help foster a transition to democracy
in Cuba by helping the various dissident groups
with material assistance, promoting samizdat publications
within the island, and providing a regular source
of news and information from the outside by enhancing
the broadcasting capability of Radio and TV Martí,
which are already in place but are ineffectual
because of high-intensity jamming by the Castro
government.
López convincingly argues and provides
cogent information that there is a low degree
of political efficacy "to foment change in
Cuba because dissidents and civil society activists
lack the ability to convey news and information
regularly to the majority of the population."
In developing his thesis, López relies
on a variety of data and sources of information,
which are carefully documented in his notes, index,
and bibliography. In measuring public opinion
in Cuba today, López must rely on the available
data - one is the survey.
Another is the information clandestinely dispatched
to the outside by the intrepid, independent journalists
in the island, posted on web sites such as CubaNet
and LaNuevaCuba.com. Unfortunately, ordinary Cubans
in the island have no access to the Internet so
this news source reaches only Cubans living in
freedom outside the island. Since Cuba is a closed
society, data on public opinion is difficult to
obtain and analyze. López makes up for
this deficiency by not relying on any one single
source, but by drawing conclusions from multiple
data sets and sources of information.
Some of these sources were found to be particularly
reliable because of the consistency of their data.
One is the survey of 1023 recently arrived Cuban
immigrants (December 1998-April 1999) conducted
by Churchill Roberts and Associates and sponsored
by the University of Florida.
Another source is the Centro de Estudios para
una Opción Nacional (CEON), a think-tank
based in Miami, Florida, which provided unprecedented
data from interviews conducted by members of opposition
and focus groups inside Cuba.
Obviously, direct surveys of the population would
have been preferable but they are not allowed,
feasible, or reliable in the closed, police state
society of Castro's Cuba today. Nevertheless,
both types of surveys have been found in previous
studies to be valuable as a proxy for public opinion
in totalitarian states.
Moreover, despite some limitations as López
points out, these types of surveys are "similar
to those that were conducted in Eastern Europe
before the fall of communism among travelers to
the West and among immigrants from countries under
dictatorial rule."
Armed with this evidence, corroborated by multiple
sources, Prof. López asserts that the majority
of the population (up to eighty percent of the
people in one study) opposes the regime of Fidel
Castro.
This assertion, a major tenet of Democracy Delayed,
not surprisingly is disputed by his liberal detractors,
but comes as no news to those of us familiar with
the Cuban situation and who have families still
in Cuba.
That ordinary Cubans are now opposed to the iron-fisted
rule of Fidel and Raúl Castro should not
be surprising given the conditions of economic
decay, worsening standards of living, shortages
of food, fuel, and deterioration of the most primitive
forms of transportation.
Consider the fact that in 1985, the Cuban GDP
per capita was $334, similar to Haiti's. By 1996,
the Cuban GDP had dropped to $91. Only tourism
has kept the dictatorship afloat, but even that
has plummeted since 9/11.
Cubans also increasingly resent the two systems
of medical care - a good system for the nomenklatura
and foreigners (health tourism) and a poor, inadequate
system for the rest of the population. Crime,
corruption, high levels of suicide, alcoholism,
prostitution (sex tourism) and disease are rampant
in the Caribbean island.
Fidel Castro maintains power by brute force and
the use of overwhelming repression. This past
April, Castro executed three Cubans for attempting
to hijack a ferry to reach freedom in Miami. Seventy-five
dissidents were summarily tried and sentenced
to long prison terms for peaceful opposition to
the regime - namely, calling for human rights
and democratic reforms.
So it's incomprehensible that Prof. López's
ideological detractors object to his book, among
other things, because he affirms that the vast
majority of the Cubans are now opposed to the
regime and reiterates that a transition to democracy
is possible, if only the U.S. government would
put teeth into the expressed policy of desiring
a transition to democracy in Cuba.
López asserts that a transition to democracy
can take place, but only if the U.S. would bolster
opposition groups not just morally but with material
assistance - faxes, computers, printed materials,
etc., allowing opposition groups to establish
their own samizdat and reach out to the rest of
the population.
Moreover, new technology is needed to upgrade
Radio and TV Martí so that the population
has a reliable fount of information reaching them
regularly from the outside world - and so that
they would know the whole world is watching them
too, as happened in Eastern Europe in 1989, before
and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Thus, López is convinced that once the
people taste freedom, being buffeted into action
by the liberating winds of reliable news and information,
they will take to the streets and the post-totalitarian,
sultanism type of dictatorship of Fidel Castro
will crumble from within
Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. Author, "Cuba
in Revolution - Escape From a Lost Paradise"
(2002; www.haciendapub.com) and Editor emeritus,
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (formerly,
the Medical Sentinel) of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Faria's book, "Cuba in Revolution,"
is still available through http://www.haciendapub.com.
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