I couldn’t force myself to read in its entirety this latest paean to Communist Cuba, written by an American visitor named Richard Levins for The Monthly Review and cross-posted at Socialist Unity.
However a couple of things caught my eye.
First, even among the most starry-eyed admirers of Castro’s Cuba, there seems now to be a willingness to engage in what Levins calls “revolutionary criticism” of the regime.
But at the same time Levins makes some assertions that go beyond stale revolutionary cheerleading into the realm of the demonstrably false.
He approvingly quotes a commentator who wrote in 2008:
Coming from North America or Europe to a typical Cuban urban neighborhood, the visitor’s first impression might be one of poverty: crumbling or poorly maintained buildings, pot-holed streets, ancient cars, homes where there are few “extras” etc. On the other hand, if you arrive from Latin America or another developing country, other aspects of Cuban life might get your attention: no street kids, no malnourished faces, no beggars, and people walking the streets at night with almost no fear.
Levins writes:
Tourists who are on their own are exposed to less of the proud achievements and more of the dissatisfactions. Cubans are a complaining people. An old joke in Havana stated that, in Cuba, all economic plans are over-fulfilled. All plans are fulfilled, but the stores are empty. The stores are empty, but people have what they need. People have what they need, but they all complain. They all complain, but are all Fidelistas.
I’m sure if Levins had bothered to look up the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, she would have been pleased to introduce him to some of her fellow non-Fidelistas– that is, if she was sure he would not report on them to the Ministry of the Interior.
As for the supposed absence of malnourished faces and beggars, as for people having “what they need”– Yoani wrote about a visit last year to the town of Santiago de Cuba, where she encountered “beggars who ask me for some money for food.”
If you think that’s counterrevolutionary propaganda, here’s a report (with photos) from last year by another North American visitor:
In Cuba, like many other places in the world, abounds with homeless people or people wondering the streets who suffer from mental health issues. There has been a notable increase in the amount of these cases.
According to the experts, due to the extreme weather which devastated the island in august 2008, there has been an increase in the number of homeless people. We can see a great deal of them begging for money in the cities.
In the busy Obispa street in the heart of old Havana we saw many old people reaching out with their hands in the hope that passing tourists will gave them some money for food.
We saw others who were clearly suffering from mental health problems prowling around with their dogs or dressed up in different ways. However, all of them are following the same objective, to nourish their hungry stomachs. Most of them wear torn clothes and are so foul-smelling that it is very clear that they haven’t washed for many days.
It is a common site at the pier in Regla to find homeless people washing themselves and their dogs in the seawater.
The government is unable to control this problem and does not have enough food provisions to feed the whole country, so these people are completely helpless and there is no one to care for them.
You can see them sleeping on the pavement, walls and parks despite the bitter cold. According to the revolution what is important are achievements in economy, health and education. What achievements are they talking about?
This terrible situation is appalling. Let us hope that one day the government is able to resolve it. The hunger of Cubans, along with all their other needs and this forgotten and marginalised sector of society are due a brighter tomorrow.
Or if you need still more visual evidence of Levins’s lies, see photos here, here, here and here— among many others.
And yes– I know that all too many homeless and hungry beggars can be found on the streets of American and European cities. But unlike Levins does with Cuba, I don’t pretend otherwise.
The dilemma of Cuban regime apologists like Levins is that to justify Cuba’s lack of real democracy (as opposed to “revolutionary democracy”) and its suppression of dissent, they need to convince themselves that it has eliminated such capitalist scourges as begging, hunger and homelessness.
Perhaps Levins did not see what other visitors have seen and documented. Or perhaps he simply chose not to see.