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By Marifeli Perez-Stable, stablem@fiu.edu. Posted on Thu,
Jul. 11, 2002 in The
Miami Herald.
Life is stranger than fiction. And so it has been in Cuba recently: hundreds
of marches, millions of signatures, live broadcasts of National Assembly
deputies declaring socialism irrevocable, with ordinary Cubans supposedly
hanging on their every word. All because 11,000 citizens signed the Varela
Project's petition, which asks for a referendum that offers a common-sense path
to improve life in Cuba.
This pantomime may be the end of a stretch that began in the early 1990s.
Then, many expected the regime to fall, or at least make meaningful changes.
Neither happened. Fidel Castro balked at anything more consequential than modest
economic reforms, and the elite lined up behind him. Ordinary Cubans turned
ever-deafer ears to official harangues. A balance of sorts was struck.
In Cuba, reforms were frozen in mid-1995, but still a moderate recovery
ensued. Except for the rafter crisis in 1994 and the riot on Havana's waterfront
in 1995, the citizenry appeared calm. The regime had survived against all odds
and seemed set for the long haul, or at least until after Castro's wake.
Washington whispered hints of change.
LOYALTY PLEDGES
Then Elián González was rescued from the Florida Straits.
Castro mobilized the country with some success, as most Cubans empathized with
the father's right to get his son back. Since then, weekly town gatherings,
nightly round-table discussions on TV, loyalty pledges and
revolutionary-vigilance brigades have demanded a nearly nonstop performance of
outward support from ordinary Cubans.
The new crusade to render socialism irrevocable has raised the temperature
further. Yet the balance of the past decade already may have begun to totter.
Former President Jimmy Carter's visit, which spotlighted the Varela Project, may
have tipped the international balance. Now the world is asking more forcefully:
Why doesn't Cuba change? Decline in tourism and remittances after Sept. 11,
uncertainties in oil supplies and the closing of nearly half the island's sugar
mills, all manifest a new economic downturn.
Rhetoric aside, the Bush administration has not really applied a markedly
harsher policy. Congress still could seek to lift travel restrictions and allow
U.S. credits for food purchases. That, however, would be less likely if Castro
carries out recent threats to close the U.S. Interests Section and abrogate the
migration agreement.
The regime is approaching a crossroads of three paths:
• Continue with more of the same. But this avenue may already be
exhausted. Castro has not been able to work up the same enthusiasm for the five
men convicted of spying for Cuba last year in Miami as for the return of Elián.
Yet he could keep on trying.
• Engage in a new frenzy of mobilizations, which could be risky. How
long ordinary Cubans will oblige Castro's insatiable thirst for feigned
expressions of allegiance is anyone's guess. Down this road also could be
confrontation with the United States -- with uncertain outcome -- that
conceivably would fan nationalism and give Castro the cause he needs to raise
the pitch higher.
• Implement economic measures la China or Vietnam, re- ducing the
number of marches and putting the economy at the heart of policymaking.
No doubt, the latter is the reasonable alternative. Unfortunately, the first
two are more likely in the short run.
FOR A FREER SOCIETY
Even if some measures are taken, such as legalizing entrepreneurship, these
likely would come, as in the 1990s, with so many rules that positive effects
would be tempered. Castro's aversion to market reforms takes second place only
to his hatred of capitalism. ''It's the economy, stupid!'' has no place in the
fidelista world view.
Yet it isn't just the economy that needs urgent attention, but the
establishment of a more-open, freer society: in short, democracy. Cubans are
citizens, not masses. Castro is incorrigible, but what about others in the
government elite?
Are they really set on eternal socialism? Probably not. That's for the best
-- for their own self-interest and prospects for a peaceful transition, which is
in everyone's interest. But their waiting until the wake might not do.
Continuing to acquiesce to Castro's delirium could damn their political future.
Even with him alive, they could run into a citizenry roaring ''Enough is
enough!'' The question becomes ever more pressing: When will they stop giving
the comandante a pass?
Marifeli Pérez-Stable is a professor of sociology at Florida
International University. | 
