Cuban
railroad to freedom?
Soren Triff. Posted on Thu, Aug.
28, 2003 in The
Miami Herald.
Cuban Americans see their migration to the United
States as African-American former slaves saw the
Underground Railroad to the North -- the only
way to freedom. But it is almost impossible for
other, well-intentioned Americans to see it the
same way because the Cuban migration issue has
been left in the hands of interest groups for
too long.
It is true that it's up to Americans to make
a decision on whether Cubans travel to America
to escape from a dictatorship or just to enjoy
the American way of life. They also have to ask
politicians whether there is an ethical and political
action available to respond to the migration of
Cubans in the short and long term. Another question
to be answered would be whether Americans will
let bureaucrats and politicians use the ''securitization''
of foreign policy to cover for the lack of a foreign
and migration policy.
But to do so, we have to be willing to move on
to a post-Cold War scenario. If we look into the
present situation from the perspective of a civil/international
conflict, we will see that Cuban migration is
a consequence of an unresolved civil internal
conflict sustained by the structure of the Cuban
government. Simply put, the system constantly
produces educated middle-class people, but it
does not have a place for them inside the authoritarian
society. It has to expel them one way or another.
The system cannot sustain both their middle-class
dreams and a mere survival economy. The bureaucratic
structure is not capable of finding a place for
all of them, even as modern-day slave workers.
On the other side, the regime doesn't allow them
to find work for themselves as free agents inside
the restrictive society. In this condition, a
civil conflict easily 'overspills' into an international
conflict.
The U.S. government needs to see the Cuban migration
as an ''overspill'' to international conflict
from civil struggles similar in many ways to what
has happened in places such as the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Ivory Coast
and now Liberia.
VIOLENT CLEANSING
In these countries, we can see the same pattern,
no matter how different their social, political
and economic status. In all, a small group takes
control of the resources, proclaims itself guardian
of the sovereignty and self-determination of the
people, finds the support of a foreign state,
promises to end the nation's ills and starts a
ritual violent ''cleansing'' -- be it through
firing squad, exile, prison, torture, disappearance
or forced migration. The rest must submit to a
modern-day slavery condition.
In countries where the concept of capitalism
and citizenship existed already in some way, society
reverts to a pre-capitalist structure where people
give up the right to own property and their civil
and political rights. Citizens become ''subjects.''
The concept of equality for all is substituted
by privilege for the few. Obedience is the only
accepted relation between the governor and the
governed.
The public should be able to see that Cuban migration
to the United States is only a small part of an
insidious machinery. Regime treatment of the ''subjects''
includes different forms of modern-day slavery,
migrant-worker abuses, forms of manumission disguised
as payment for legal documents and human trafficking.
A failure to understand that Cuban migration is
part of a vast apparatus that uses humans as merchandise
means that it will be difficult to find an answer
to the problem.
ROLE OF THE PRESS
Understanding the nature of Cuba's ''underground
railroad'' is the best way to prevent a civil
war today or a humanitarian intervention tomorrow.
Washington bureaucrats, Cuban government and Big
Business benefit from public ignorance and the
status quo. If the American liberals and the press
don't make people aware of it, who will?
In the meantime, Cuban Americans will continue
to see migration as an ''underground railroad''
to freedom without understanding why others don't
see it as such. Others in turn will give way to
suspicion and fear without considering what is
behind those menacing faces coming unexpectedly
from the sea.
Soren Triff is a columnist for El Nuevo Herald.
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