Business Day. March
30, 2001.
HAVANA The faces lining the dusty, commerce-free street of Cardenas as
President Fidel Castro's motorcade roared into town on Wednesday afternoon were
handsome, healthy looking and sullen unbrightened by the fact that Castro had
with him a special guest, President Thabo Mbeki.
Castro has descended on this harbour town quite frequently in the past year.
It is the home of Elian Gonzales, the seven-year-old poster child of the
revolution whose mother drowned trying to take him to Florida on a raft. He was
repatriated after much US theatre when the courts ruled he should be surrendered
to his father.
If the torpor on the streets was palpable, inside Marcelo Salado primary
school, where Mbeki had been brought to meet little Elian and his classmates,
the atmosphere was electric. "Fidel, Fidel, Fidel," the children in
the snappy uniforms of Pioneers, the Cuban young communist movement, bellowed
rhythmically, followed by refrains of "Mbeki, amigo, el puebo esta contigo"
(Mbeki, friend, the people stand with you).
A choir performed a martialsounding number attacking the US embargo,
punctuated by the pumping of little fists into the air and cries of "venceremos"
(we shall overcome).
It was hard to say which was more unsettling: this, or the cabaret-style
number which had six-year-olds in make-up and skimpy sailor suits shimmying
their hips to some sensual Latin beat blared over the school public announcement
system.
Elian was then brought in to steal the show as part of a cowboy linedancing
routine. The mawkishness was complete when his 18-month-old brother was pushed
out to join him on the dance floor, with Castro beaming on like a proud
grandpapa.
At the end of the show (by this time Mbeki, as so often happened during his
visit here, had become part of the furniture) a group of pupils was ushered up
to Castro to discuss their aspirations on television camera. Happily, they
wanted to become teachers.
This was important, because schools in the region have lately been
haemorrhaging teachers to the tourism industry, where the work may be menial but
the perks include a chance to earn dollars and to move into the privileged half
of Cuba's increasingly apartheid-like economy.
© BDFM Publishers 2000 | 