Tag: Guantanamo

Birthdays, Americans in Havana and no knickers!

Yesterday was Rafa’s 51st Birthday.  We made a cake and the boys made him a very sweet card to be kept and treasured.  Saskia still doesn’t really know what is going on but she loved the singing and the animals they put on the cake.  I didn’t manage to get to the chocolate shop round the corner (which has old style posh chocs in nice little boxes), due to lots of extra curricula activities and meetings at the boys school.  Neither could I buy Rafa some clothes as I usually do, but we all sang Happy Birthday in 3 languages (French a little bit rusty!) and learnt a new Cuban Birthday song.  Lucky my husband is not a material man.

However, the other event of the day was a little trip to the United States Interest Section in Havana to welcome the new head of mission with a cultural cocktail.  I did not think that this opportunity would arise so soon and I was looking forward to putting on a nice frock and getting involved.  I really promised to be on my best behaviour ……… or at least I will try not to drop any clangers about Guatanamo and how it is not cool or true to call Cubans terrorists while the US is repeatedly breaking international law and, and, and ……… hmmm

Maybe I should start with a few facts!

The United States do not have diplomatic relations with Cuba.  Therefore they do not have the right to have an embassy in Cuba.  What can you expect when Cubans are officially on the US list of terrorists?  So they have this strange thing called the Interest Section in Havana commonly known as USINT.  It acts as a de facto embassy and a place to post provocative propaganda which the Cubans have always responded to with billboards and demonstrations.  They have some weird cover agreement with the Swiss, I suppose because of their neutrality.

I first visited Cuba in June 2005 when Paulo was a baby and Nico was in my tummy still undetected!  We were staying with friends very close to USINT and we were aware of all the propaganda coming out of the electronic billboard and the Cubans paper billboard counter attack.  We arrived in Habana to find everyone in the streets as it was the anniversary of the hijacking of a plane of athletes by CIA backed terrorists.  We learnt that the mother of the friend where we were staying was not in the house, she had been invited to the reception with Fidel as her husband was the pilot who was one of the many people killed by that shocking attack, a story for another day.  And, when I get near a faster internet connection I will post my photos on a separate blog.

Guantanamo Bay is not accessible by land but only into its superb natural harbour and naval base can the US enter.  Matters relating to Guantanamo are dealt with by the US Embassy in Jamaica just across the sea.

And then there is that old matter of the blockade …….   This was put in place in 1962 with the intention of isolating the country and fomenting regime change.  Well that didn’t work did it???  Some people call it an embargo but it is a blockade as the US penalises other countries who are willing to work with Cuba.  The blockade breaks with the basic human rights of 11 million Cuban people: the right to self determination.  The blockade has cost the Cubans over $100 billion over the years.  Not to mention the costs to broken families and health (50% of drugs companies are owned by the US and not allowed to enter Cuba).  In the UN 185 countries condemn the blockade and 2 don’t …….. the US and Israel (funny that).

So with all this buzzing in my head off I went to meet the Americans wearing my best All Saints silk dress and no knickers!  In fact no underwear whatsoever.   I blame Rafa, it was his suggestion.  So I was feeling a little irreverant without even having to open my mouth.  I suppose I could have worn a T-shirt saying stop all blockades and close Guantanamo!

The new Head of Mission (Mission Impossible) in Habana looked pale and shiny and frightened but was pleasant enough.  I managed to meet the British Ambassador who looks like Helen Mirren and seems fun (a Cuban assured me that she was the favourite diplomat in town).  She invited us round to her beautiful old house in Vedado which I have heard is an historical gem.  I met a famous artist who wants to show his work in the film school and a the heads of Reuters and AFP who were both fun and interesting.  We also met Gloria who is head of the Public Relations department at the Office of Interest and was very positive about helping us with the Film School.  We spoke about all the US individuals who have visited the school over the years including Lucas, Coppola, Redford and Spielberg.

The night finished early around 9.30, we were the only ones to dance but I discovered that I can’t dance in my new super comfy Fitflops bought on Northcote road during the London riots.  They stick to the floor.

Next it is our turn to throw the party on Friday for Rafa’s Birthday and to say welcome to the new house, our house to all the friends who helped us move to Cuba.  The house is now a family house with toys and books and shoes everywhere and no longer any protocol.  Anyway I hope it will be the first of many parties we will have in our Havana house in front of the sea.

 

Hard times in Cuba? or Guatemala?

Everyone is telling me that I will be arriving in Cuba for a time of great change and not all of those changes for the good, depending on who you are talking to.  The Cubans apparently are going to go through some tough times as the paternal arm of communism untangles itself and they are left with …….. who knows?  Rations are going, enterprise is arriving, property can be bought and sold and a lot more tourists will be coming they say.  But in the meantime I think your average Cuban will have to suffer to move forward and that does not always seem fair.

Meanwhile in Guatemala the elections are approaching and I realise once more how rightwing this part of the world is.  It seems incredibly possible that they could elect rightwing candidates involved in the genocide of the 80s and there is lots of finger pointing from the right to people who were involved with the guerrilla, as if it is an automatic given that to be involved in the guerrilla makes you more dysfunctional than the people involved with the genocide.  Otto Perez Molina you know what you did in the name of God we have film footage!  When I talk about what I call the rightwing here, they are the kind of people that make Margaret Thatcher look like a pussy cat.  I do not think that even she would have wanted to kill a trade unionist.  Maybe bop them over the head with her handbag if she got the chance but I don´t think she would have been up for massacring a few mining villages up North where I am from, even though they gave her a big headache and did not go easily into a future of mass unemployment and social deprivation.  But I digress …….

When I mention that I am going to live in Cuba, a lot of Guatemalans (most of my friends excluded) have a reaction that I am beginning to find of sociological interest.  It is a kind of trigger response.  The very mention of Cuba seems to make them nervous.  It is as if they have to justify their country´s inability to move out of its poverty and narco violence and corruption by pointing out how great it is that they can buy what they want in the ever increasing shopping malls in Guatemala city or in the pretty tourist shops and delis of Antigua.  How they are free and can fly wherever they want.  (I do correct them on this one though as now any Cuban can leave Cuba for a holiday but like most Guatemalans they don´t have the money).  Anyway, these people don´t seem to have a clue how most of their country lives and that maternal mortality, malnutrition and domestic violence and murder rates are all on the up to name a few social problems.   But evidently as long as the richer people can buy what they want and even fly to Miami to do it, that makes all the other things ok, because they are free to consume.  But right now in Cuba nobody is starving, Guatemala however has a child malnutrition problem that is worse than a lot of African countries.

I begin to think about it a lot this week in the last balmy days before the rains arrive watching the fireflys play in the back garden.  Thinking am I one of those people?  Selfish and happy to live in a bubble.  I have to admit I do like shopping (but in the markets and boutiques of Europe looking for a steal or something entirely unique that I will treasure all my life …… rather than in Gap or Target or Dolce Gabana).  As long as I can buy my nice things for me and my family am I happy to live in a country blighted by violence and poverty?  Can I ignore the realities of Guatemalan society, as long as I surround myself with good people and beautiful things and fine wine?  Issues such as gendercide and chronic malnutrition.  A people who have grown stunted for generations due to the slavery and apartheid they find themselves born into.  It is their fault they should have less children.  It is their fault they don´t know how to eat properly.  It is their fault for getting involved with the rebels. I have heard it all!  I am still baffled as to how people can be starving in a country like this where everything grows.  But one thing I am sure about ……..it is not their fault.

But in the end what can I do?  I have 3 little ones to bring up and that overwhelms me most days.  But I can try to always be informed, know the truth, try to see other people´s arguments and make sure that my children know the truth about both their countries and their adopted ones.  Just keep learning I suppose.

I am not sure why, but certain people from the US think that they are the oracle of world opinion, as they quite clearly are not ………. just go and read some Chomsky, Democracy Now or Consortium news or any quality European paper and you can see that a lot of us have different opinions and we are not crazy foaming at the mouth commies or fundamentalist ragheads (a popular term for Arabs in the US).  A rich surburban gringo in Antigua told me with such authority that Cuba has been a disaster since they kicked the US out.  By that I suppose he meant the Mafia, Batista and the CIA.  And don´t get me started on the weird and shameful existence of Guantanamo.  I am just relieved that there are no longer British prisoners there but Obama´s promise to close it is still pending.  And Cuba has human rights issues!!!

I don´t profess to be an expert in geopolitics and certainly not in the unique and fascinating history of Cuba but I think there is one thing that I will never stop thinking. For better or for worse, Cuba is an ideological miracle and still is.  How the hell did the CIA never manage to poison Fidel?  Just that is a miracle.  I know the Miami Cubans and a large part of US population won´t agree with me but not sure I care!  In fact I have never met people so full of hate as the Miami Cubans.  That can´t be good for them or anybody.  And unfortunately their bad taste and bad humour does get transmitted back to Cuba along with an extra layer of white trash mentality born in the USA.

And yes I am packing carefully for our move to Cuba and I am slightly nervous about being in a no consumer zone but I hope I can survive happily without faceless shopping malls, guns on every street corner, apartheid, darkened car windows, suited bodyguards, awful cable TV with more advertisements than programmes, schools like prisons with gun toting armed guards at the gates …….and all the rest which goes with a narco capitalist state.

I can only promise the Cuban people that I will try to understand and not to judge them when I am living as a guest in their country as they are put through yet another sociological challenge.  Good Luck Cuba!  I will write about and record your hardships and your happiness and your apparently famous ability to resolver.