Barry Farber. NewsMax.com.Tuesday,
Jan. 17, 2001
Cuba has got to be the only communist country in the world that's 100
percent Marx: 50 percent Karl and 50 percent Groucho.
What other communist country refuses to let the visitor spend the local
currency, insisting instead on the dollars of the Great Capitalist Satan,
America?
What other communist country brags about the "capitalist injections"
(free enterprise restaurants, private plumbers, private English teachers, etc.)
it claims do such a fine job keeping communism going?
What other communist country bans the music of the Beatles yet has a statue
of John Lennon in one of its more prominent public parks? (It's a sitting statue
on a bench. Visitors like to be photographed sitting beside John Lennon. The
statue is so eerily realistic I had to poke a finger through his eyeglasses to
see whether there was a glass lens or merely a hole!) Cubans suspect that Fidel,
who banned the Beatles' music, thought he was approving of a statue not of
Lennon but of Lenin!
In what other communist country do you hear the song "Guantanamera"
189 times a day and never one note of the communist "Internationale"?
Official Cuban government guides, carefully screened by the communist
authorities for their political reliability, explain food procurement in Cuba
bluntly enough to be fired, imprisoned and possibly even executed in other
communist countries.
Our guide forthrightly explained it as follows. There's a three-step method
of getting enough to eat, she said. First, there's your ration; every Cuban gets
a small allotment of rice, beans, cooking oil, and a few other items including
milk for all children up to age 7. Then, the explanation continued, there are "dollar
stores" where Cubans with dollars procured from tourists as tips or from
relatives in America or elsewhere may go to buy food for dollars, not Cuban
pesos. And lastly, the guide perfunctorily explained, there's the black market!
How do the Cuban people feel about Fidel Castro? In the absence of
elections, opposition political parties and a free press, you look for clues.
The first clue comes when you see Che Guevara's picture virtually everywhere and
Castro's picture virtually nowhere. Name another communist leader who willingly
cedes media fame and credit for the state of the union to deceased associates.
A much stronger clue came to me and my daughter Celia through the medium of
music. The set-up requires we back up a few decades.
In 1956 I happened to be in communist Yugoslavia. I was walking down the
street in downtown Zagreb, now the capital of Croatia, when I heard a song
booming out of a record store. It was a song about the leader, Tito, that was
hilarious because the words "Tito, Tito, Tito" made up 90 percent of
the lyrics. I knew that song would break them up when I got back to North
Carolina, so I went into the shop and asked for a copy.
The young woman behind the counter dutifully reached for a record (Remember
them?) when suddenly six burly Croatian men appeared. "Don't sell him that
[expletive]!" they said. "Sell him some of our Croatian folk music."
The men supposed I was an American who didn't understand Serbo-Croatian, but I
understood well enough to gather the following. The flustered young woman told
them, "That's what he asked for." They hammered back: "He's a
foreigner. He doesn't know what he wants. Don't you dare sell him that Tito
[another expletive]!"
I prevailed, walked out with my record, and North Carolina was indeed
delighted with my musical evidence of communist sycophancy to the strongman
Tito.
Jump to Cuba in 2001. A band of musicians came over to make sure we heard "Guantanamera"
yet another time. I was feeling expansive and decided to stage a little
experiment.
"I was here in 1959 when Fidel took over," I told them. "And
there were some great revolutionary songs that everybody was singing." I
then launched into song. "Ahora hay muchos Fidelistas," I sang. "De
boton en la solapa, que tenian carnet y chapa, de la porra de Batista. Justicia
para mi pueblo, para mi pueblo justicia."
Translation: "Now there are many Fidel followers who wear his button in
their lapels but who used to hold important positions in the dictatorship of
Batista. Justice for my people. For my people, justice."
Call it a freak or a fetish, I happen to know a lot of communist songs from
different communist countries, and I know the typical reactions when folks from
those countries hear them. The most anti-communist Bulgarians, for example, are
delighted to hear an American haul off and sing some ridiculous Bulgarian
communist fight song from the 1950s. I would have bet money that, regardless of
the musicians' real feelings about Fidel, they would have laughed and cheered
and shouted "bravo" when an American tourist in Cuba surprised them
with a pro-Fidel song from 1959.
Wrong! The table serenade was over. The musicians winced and walked away.
Those Yugoslavs in 1956 didn't want to hear any songs about Tito, and those
Cubans in 2001 didn't want to hear any songs about Castro.
My daughter Celia was invited to return to America from Cuba by boat from
Havana to the Florida Keys. She leapt at the chance, but not as
enthusiastically, I suspect, as she leapt ashore after a crossing which I hope
was not as harrowing for her to experience as it was for me to hear about. It
was a sturdy, seaworthy catamaran that slept eight, but the 7-foot waves made
everybody so ill the rum and the food were never touched throughout the 22-hour
voyage.
Celia helped me understand in a more profound way than I had before how
totally desparate the Cubans are who try to escape in much smaller boats and
even rafts. They know those waters. Can you imagine being so opposed to what a
dictator is doing to your homeland that you're willing to bet your life at
disadvantageous odds in an attempt to get out?
How do they feel about Fidel? There's a danger that my lifelong detestation
of dictatorships tinctures my assessment, but I believe a famous old joke from
European dictatorships could now be applied to Cuba.
It's the one about the American tourist who we'll pretend goes into a bar in
Havana and asks the Cuban on the stool beside him how he really feels about
Fidel.
The Cuban looks furtively both ways to make sure the blatant question did
not attract anyone else's attention. Seeing it has not, the Cuban motions the
American to follow him. He leads the visitor down the block, then to a dark
alley, then to an alcove in an abandoned building off that dark alley.
The Cuban then whispers to the American, "Don't tell anybody, but I
LIKE him!"
See Castro's
catastrophe: a visit to today's Cuba
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