The Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations, Bruno Rodríguez, has declared that the end of the economic, commercial and financial sanctions that the United States applies against Cuba will be a unilateral act by Washington, and it will not be the result of a negotiation or a response to concessions made by the Cuban government.  Cuba has not sanctioned the United States, he noted; it has not applied any discriminatory measures against US companies or US tourists.  Rodríguez made the comments in a telephone interview with the public media of communication in Ecuador.

     The Cuban Foreign Minister further observed that the US blockade continues to be an asphyxiating reality for Cuba.  The recent announcements by the United States authorizing the use of the dollar in transactions with Cuba are empty, he stated, since Cuban banks continue to be prohibited from opening accounts in US banks.  Cuba is not able, he maintained, to have normal financial transactions.

     Rodríguez further noted that relations between the United States and Cuba cannot be considered normal while the United States continues to usurp Cuban territory in Guantanamo and to finance programs and radio and television transmissions that seek to change the Cuban constitutional order.  He declared that Washington retains its objective of dominating Cuba economically and politically, as is indicated by the recent openings in the US regulation of the sanctions in the areas of telecommunications and support for the non-state sector, changes that seek to construct opposition to the government.

     The Foreign Minister observed that the speeches of Obama may be agreeable, but a friendly phrase, a smile, or a gesture of sympathy cannot induce Cubans to forget the long history of the blockade, under which 77% of Cubans have been born.  

     Rodríguez referred to the reflections by Fidel Castro published on March 28, in which Fidel asserted that Cuba needs no gifts from the empire (“Fidel reflects on Obama visit to Cuba” 3/30/2016).  The Foreign Minister characterized the reflections as extraordinarily timely, in light of Fidel’s extraordinary ethical, political and historical authority among the Cuban people, and in general, in international public opinion.

     The Cuban Minister stated that Cuba is disposed to construct a relation with the United States based on dialogue and cooperation, but Cuba will not renounce even a millimeter of the principles of its revolution, or of its independence.

      Cuba has persistently stated that it welcomes the normalization of relations with the United States, but with sovereignty.  It will not modify its political-economic-cultural system in exchange for normalization (see “Cuba insists on its sovereignty” 3/18/2016).  The comments by the Cuban Foreign Minister indicate that Cuba persists in this commitment and has not been persuaded by US President Barack Obama, who indicated during his visit to Cuba that the US Congress will act more quickly to eliminate the blockade if progress is made concerning US-Cuban differences with respect to human rights and democracy.


Key words:  Cuba, Obama, Fidel, normalization

     In “El hermano Obama,” published in the Cuban press on March 28, Fidel Castro writes that “no one should be under the illusion that this noble and self-denying country will renounce the glory, the rights and the spiritual wealth that it has won through the development of education, science and culture.”  It is an important declaration by the historic leader of the Cuban revolution in the aftermath of the visit of US President Barack Obama to Cuba, inasmuch as Obama noted that the US Congress would eliminate the blockade more rapidly if progress were to be made concerning US-Cuban differences with respect to human rights.  Bruno Rodriquez, Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations, in an interview with the Ecuadorian press on March 29, referred to the article by Fidel, and he reiterated that Cuba will not surrender a single one of its principles.  From the beginning of the process of normalization with the United States, Cuba has repeatedly said that it will not negotiate issues inherent to the internal order of Cuba in exchange for the normalization of relations (see “Cuba insists on its sovereignty” 3/18/2016).

      In the article, Fidel criticized Obama for not recognizing during his visit the significant Cuban gains in race relations or Cuban support for the African struggle against racist South Africa.  And he rejected Obama’s call to forget the past, noting that it would not be possible for Cuba to forget nearly sixty years of blockade or the multiple acts of violence directed against Cuba with US support.  

      Obama’s ahistorical perspective, in which he wants to focus on the future and not dwell on the past, has been repeatedly criticized by Latin American leaders and intellectuals, who believe that understanding the past in necessary for understanding and acting intelligently in the present, a precondition for making a better future. Latin American leaders commonly makes speeches that possess historical consciousness and make historical references.  Fidel’s article, for example, began with discussion of the Spanish conquest of Cuba and the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, and it subsequently made reference to the US supported invasion of Cuba by Cuban emigres at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

     Fidel concludes: “We are capable of producing the food and material wealth that we need with the effort and intelligence of our people.  We do not need the empire to give us anything.  Our efforts will be legal and pacific, because our commitment is to peace and fraternity with all the human beings that live on this planet.”

      “El hermano Obama” was amply covered in the international news media.  It received significant coverage and commentary in Nicaragua, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexica, France and the United Kingdom, for example.  

     Now retired from active political leadership, Fidel occasionally writes reflections that are amply covered in the Cuban press and television. These commentaries are important in indicating Fidel’s support for certain tendencies in Cuba.

     Fidel is revered by the Cuban people.  Many in Latin America, including charismatic leaders that had shaped a new political reality in Latin America, consider him the “comandante” of all the world's peoples in movement.


Key words:  Fidel, Obama, Cuba

     The United States and Cuba have profound differences, particularly with respect to interpretations of human rights, democracy, and the role of the state in economic and social development.  These differences are deeply rooted in different histories and political cultures, and they are going to continue in the future.  Therefore, mutual understanding or alliance with respect to conflicts in the world-system cannot be expected; the most that can be expected is coexistence.  

     But Cuba hopes that the coextensive can be civilized, and accordingly, Josefina Vidal, head of the US affairs section of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, maintains that the relations between Cuba and the United States should be characterized by “civilized coexistence.”  For Cuba, civilized co-existence involves mutually beneficial trade; and cooperation with respect to issues of mutual concern, such as immigration and the environment.  And it involves full respect for sovereignty, so that neither nation tries to change the other. Concretely, for Cuba, respect for sovereignty requires that the United States: cease its economic, commercial and financial blockade; return the territory illegally occupied by the US naval base in Guantanamo; cease its subversive programs in Cuba; and end policies that give incentives to illegal Cuban emigration.   The two nations have different histories, different political cultures, different models of economic development, and different projections with respect to political conflicts in the world-system.  However, as neighboring nations with significant historic and familial ties, the two nations could treat each other in a civilized manner, each pursuing its political and economic objectives in a form that respects the sovereignty of the other.  In proposing “civilized coexistence,” Cuba is providing a model for relations among nations that have profound differences in political-economic-cultural systems.

       In his first public declaration in Cuba on March 21, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that the destiny of Cuba is not going to be decided by the United States; and that the future of Cuba will be determined by Cubans themselves, and no one else.  In a similar vein, he declared in a March 22 address to Cuban civil society: “We will not impose our political or economic system on you.  We recognize that every country, every people, must chart its own course and shape its own model.”

      But contrary to these comments, the Obama administration is actively engaged in promoting political change in Cuba.  Obama wants Cuba to develop political structures like those of representative democracy, leaving behind Cuban structures of popular democracy; and he wants less restrictions on business.  To be sure, he wants Cubans to make these changes.  But he believes that Cuban small business owners will be the leaders in this process of change in Cuba, and his policy therefore is to strengthen this class, so that it will become a political force for change in Cuba.  And although he did not specifically say so, this emerging merchant class in Cuba increasingly will have economic connections to US merchants and capital, so that it will become a class that has an economic interest in changes that promote the interests of US capital, such as reducing restrictions on foreign investment.

     Since the December 17, 2014 announcements of the intention to establish diplomatic relations and normalize relations, the Obama administration has been pursuing a strategy of selectively dismantling the US blockade in accordance with the US plan for strengthening the Cuban merchant class.  The announced changes in the regulations have removed limitations on sending money to family in Cuba, and they have greatly expanded possibilities for US companies to support the development of the Internet in Cuba.  These are changes that strengthen possibilities for the emerging Cuban merchant class, as Obama made clear in his commentaries in Cuba.  Meanwhile, significant restrictions on US commerce with to the Cuban state sector remain in place.  So the present structure of the blockade expands possibilities for the private sector of small entrepreneurs, but continues to block commerce that would be beneficial to Cuban state companies. 

     The Obama plan to support the Cuban merchant class, with the intention that it would promote political change in Cuba, became especially clear during the President’s comments at the March 21 Business Forum, sponsored by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce. Listening to Obama’s comments at this interchange with Cuban entrepreneurs, I came to more completely understand Obama’s intention to promote the expansion of the Cuban merchant class, with the intention that it would promote political change in Cuba.  Cuban journalist Cristina Escobar came to a similar conclusion during her observation of the Business Forum.  Immediately following the event, she informed the Cuban television audience that Obama is supporting the Cuban private sector while continuing to maintain restrictions on the public sector.

     In addition, Obama commented during his visit that the administration has made most of the changes in the blockade that it can, and that from this point forward, the change or elimination of the blockade is in the hands of Congress.  This implies that the Obama administration, at least for the time being, is leaving intact the existing regulations of the blockade, which block Cuban state enterprises and promote Cuban private entrepreneurship.  Such a policy is contrary to “civilized coexistence,” for it seeks to promote change in Cuba.  

     Moreover, Obama stated that Cuba could speed action by the Congress to end the blockade through progress in US-Cuban differences with respect to democracy and human rights.  This suggests that the blockade will be removed on the condition that Cuba make changes in its political-economic system, an approach to normalization that Cuba persistently has rejected.  

     The US policy does not respect the sovereignty of Cuba.  It is supporting one sector and blocking the development of another, in support of its own particular interests; and it is applying economic pressure, with the intention of forcing Cuba to make economic changes consistent with its interests.  

      Cuban commentators maintain that Obama could do much more than he has to dismantle the blockage.  Although only Congress can totally eliminate the blockade, Obama, in the implementation of the laws, could make changes that reduce the legal structure of the blockade to an empty shell.  He could, for example, significantly reduce penalties, and enforce the regulations in a selective manner.  There also are a number of specific forms of commerce that the president has the authority to permit.  Such strategies would put pressure on the Congress to end the blockade, adding to the pressure coming from US companies that have already signed agreements with Cuban state companies.

      Obama has called upon the Congress to end the blockade.  But the administration is not applying pressure on the Congress.  Rather, the Obama administration is pressuring the Cuban government to make changes in its political-economic system.

       The United States could pursue its economic interests in a manner that Cuba would consider “civilized.”  It could totally eliminate the blockade, and seek to disseminate its values and obtain support for its economic proposals through dialogue and the exchange of ideas.  It could seek to persuade Cuban merchants, and offer scholarships to Cuban students, without applying economic sanctions that restrict the development of the state sector.  But instead, the US is attempting to use economic coercion to change the Cuban political process.  It is a form of interference in the affairs of other nations that some have called “soft power” or “intelligent power.”  It is subtler than military intervention.  But it nonetheless is an interventionist application of power in the pursuit of economic ends.  It therefore is imperialist, and it is inconsistent with Cuban aspirations to exercise its sovereignty without sanctions.  It falls short of Cuban hopes for “civilized coexistence.”
  
      It is possible that the United States will soon end the blockade of Cuba without obtaining any of the changes in the Cuban political-economic system that it desires.  There is significant international opposition to the blockade, and in addition, the Obama plan for Cuba has unleashed momentum for ending the blockade inside the United States.  If this occurs, the United States would be compelled to pursue its imperialist objectives with respect to Cuba through other means. Meanwhile, the United States will continue to pursue imperialist objectives with respect to Latin America and the Third World, using war and military intervention when necessary, and soft or intelligent power when possible.    

     An alternative vision is possible:  a policy of North-South cooperation, in which the United States provides technical support in accordance with the priorities established by the development projects of independent nations in the exercise of their sovereignty.  A policy of North-South cooperation would be built on a foundation of an ethic of international solidarity and a political commitment to a just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  Such a policy will be possible only when the dominant class is displaced from power by an alternative political party that is lifted up by the popular sectors to defend their interests.

​
Key words:  Obama, Cuba, blockade, sanctions, normalization, human rights, democracy

     Following the visit of Barack Obama to Cuba, Agustín Lage Dávila, Director of the Center of Molecular Immunology of Havana, published an excellent article, “Obama y la economía cubana: Entender lo que no se dijo,” in the Cuban Website Cubadebate.  Lage had the opportunity to engage in conversations with the US delegation that accompanied Obama and to listen to Obama’s three speeches during his visit.

     Lage describes a difference between US and Cuban understandings of the economy, which he expresses as “they” (United States) and “we” (Cuba).  They see the private sector as the principal component of the economy, whereas we see the private sector as a complement to the state enterprises that form the principal economic sector.  They see the spirit of innovation as integrally tied to private enterprise, whereas we see innovation as occurring primarily in high technology and science, which are developed and managed by the state, and which are evident in recent Cuban advances in biotechnology, medicines and vaccines.  They see private undertakings as empowering the people, whereas we see them as empowering only a part of the people, and a relatively small part, for it is the state sector that generates most of our wealth.  They see the private sector as the source of social development, whereas we see the private sector as playing a role in social development, but also as contributing to social inequality and to the erosion of social cohesion.

     Lage maintains that Cuban economic and social development in the twenty-first century cannot be based on the model of US economic development of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  

     Lage asserts that if the United States and Cuba are to proceed on a model of “civilized co-existence,” as has been expressed by Josefina Vidal, head of the US affairs section of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, it will be necessary for the United States to develop a greater understanding of the Cuban people.  All of the Cuban people, and not merely small business owners.

     Lage concludes that Cuba will successfully meet the economic challenges of the twenty-first century to the extent that Cuba: develops the efficiency and growth capacity of the state companies; inserts the state enterprises into the world-economy; connects science to the economy with companies of high technology; develops highly profitable products and services, enriching the portfolio of Cuban exportations; and consciously limits the expansion of social inequalities, through the intervention of the socialist state.

     The United States should stop trying to change Cuba, either through the aggressive form of economic coercion, or through a “soft power” strategy that seeks to create a Cuban middle class that will support US economic interests.  Cuba is an historically colonized and underdeveloped nation, and it has struggled since 1868 to attain its sovereignty.  In the context of that struggle, Cuba has forged a political culture that is different from that of the United States and that includes alternative conceptions concerning the role of the state in the economy.  The alternative Cuban model has important implications for the nations of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, which like Cuba, have been restricted by colonialism, underdevelopment, and neocolonialism.  If US foreign policy were based on the principle of the sovereignty of nations, it would permit the nations of the Third World to find their own way, without interference of any form.  

       Going beyond a policy of non-interference, if US foreign policy were to be based on an ethic of solidarity with the peoples and nations of the world, it would provide technical support to national development projects being developed autonomously by the nations of the world. Such a policy of North-South cooperation would be beneficial to the people of the United States, because it would lead to the political stability of the world-system and to less conflict in the world; and it would increase the global market for US goods and services.

      However, a US foreign policy of North-South cooperation is not likely to occur until the people of the United States form a unified social movement that takes political power from the elite, which has demonstrated since 1980 its unwavering commitment to its particular interests.  


Key words:  Obama, Cuba, high-technology, development, private sector, state sector

       On March 22, President Barack Obama addressed Cuban Civil Society in the Gran Teatro de La Habana in Havana’s Parque Central. As were his other speeches during his visit to Cuba, the event was covered live on Cuban national television.

       Civil society is a reflection of the political system, and therefore the civil society of popular democracy of socialist societies is different from the civil society of representative democracy in capitalist societies.  In representative democracy, elected public officials respond to the interests of campaign contributors and to the dominant class, and therefore often they are not responsive to the common good or the popular sectors.  So the civil society tends to be formed by non-governmental organizations that are critical of the government.  But in popular democracy, candidates for political office are nominated by the people in small voting districts, and there are not electoral campaigns that require financial contributions.  The elected delegates are responsive to no one other than the local voters who elected them.  So governments in popular democracies respond to the interests of the people, to the extent that national resources permit.  In such a situation, non-governmental organizations are not anti-governmental. The tend to see their work as complementing that of the government (see “Cuba and the Civil Society Debate” 4/13/2015).

      In the case of Cuba, the main organizations of civil society are the mass organizations of workers, small farmers, cooperativists, students, women and neighborhoods.  They are non-governmental organizations, supported by the modest dues of members.  Each one of these organizations has a membership rate of more than 90% of the people in its particular sector.  Their leaders, elected by the members, have an important role to play in public discourse, and the Cuban Constitution of 1976 requires that the committees of the national assembly include representatives from the mass organizations in the formulation of new legislation.  The mass organizations are not anti-governmental.  They support the Cuban Revolution as a project that has provided each of these sectors with many advances with respect to their human rights.  In addition, Cuban civil society is composed of various academic, professional, social and religious organizations with particular areas of interest.  Like the mass organizations, they are not anti-governmental, and they see themselves as making contributions to the development of the Cuban socialist project.  And the Cuban civil society includes miniscule anti-governmental organizations that receive funding from foreign sources.  They have very little popular support, being discredited by their association with counterrevolutionary forces outside the country.  

        Most of the members of the Cuban civil society present at the President’s address were not in agreement with much of what he said. But they listened respectfully, applauded at appropriate moments, and discussed the speech among themselves afterwards.

     In the Cuban television news coverage of the event, Obama’s speech was followed by commentaries of journalists and academics as well as representatives of organizations of civil society.  Many described the speech as intelligent, well organized, and emotionally effective in its use of examples.  Obama, they concluded, is a good communicator. However, these same commentators saw the address as limited, when analyzed from a historical and political perspective. Many used the words “banal,” “superficial,” and “lacking in historical content” to describe it.  Many noted that important historical and current aspects of the relation between Cuban and the United States were omitted. Rosa Miriam Elizalde, assistant director of the Cuban news website Cubadebate, expressed disappointment; she was expecting more for such an historic occasion.  Television new analyst Renaldo Taladriz, who appears regularly on the Cuban nightly television news program La Mesa Redonda, said that the occasion would have been truly historic if Obama had expressed an apology for the blockade imposed upon the Cuban people since 1963; instead, Obama simply maintained that the US policy has failed, and that Cuba and the United States should leave the past behind.  Television political analyst Cristina Escobar commented that Obama failed to mention the US role in impeding Cuban progress in the past and the present.

      I myself did not expect anything more.  I expected a superficial and unhistorical presentation, with fundamental distortions in reality caused by significant omissions.  This is standard fare is the discourses of US presidents, political figures, journalists and most academics.  The low quality of US public discourse is a product of the necessity to defend imperialist policies in the context of a proclaimed commitment to democratic values.  In contrast, public discourse in Cuba has a much higher quality.  It constitutes a daily formulation of an historical and global perspective with a commitment to universal human values, in which not only political leaders and journalists participate, but also leaders of civil society, academics and artists (but not “movie stars”). The high quality of the public discourse is an important element in the cultural and political formation of the Cuban people and in the integration of youth into the Cuban revolutionary project.

     Obama’s approach to history is fundamentally different from that of Cuba and Latin America.    Obama wants to leave the past behind, to be not locked in the past, in order to focus on the present and the future, and to concentrate on solving practical problems.  Obama’s ahistorical perspective was expressed at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, and his comments at that time provoked considerable commentary from Latin American political leaders and from Cuban commentators (see “The imperialist discourse of Obama”).  As expressed on March 22 by Cuban historian Elier Ramezer, persons with historical consciousness are not locked in the past; rather, their understanding of the past strengthens their understanding of the present, and enables them to formulate informed visions for the future. Accordingly, Latin American and Caribbean political leaders repeatedly refer to the Latin American and Caribbean history of conquest, colonialism, and slavery and other forms of forced labor, explaining that colonialism created economic structures that are still with us, maintained by neocolonialism and imperialism.  If you do not understand this, you cannot possibly formulate a basic understanding of what needs to be done to create a more just and democratic world.

     Prof. Nestor García took issue with Obama’s superficial description of the differences in the political system of the two nations.  Obama stated that “Cuba has a one-party system; the United States is a multi-party democracy.”  García maintains that, in reality, the two major political parties of the United States are variations on a common political tendency, and both are controlled by the dominating class. One could maintain, he argued, that the United States has a one-party system.  Moreover, the Cuban Communist Party does not control the political process; it does not nominate candidates or participate in elections.  Its role is the political education and cultural formation of the people.   

     Obama further stated that “Cuba has emphasized the role and rights of the state; the United States is founded upon the rights of the individual.”  García observed that Cuba does not emphasize the rights of the state, but the rights of the people; the state represents the interests of the people, through the delegates and deputies of popular power, freely nominated and elected by the people, without the participation of political parties and without campaign financing.  US individualism, he maintained, should not be juxtaposed with the state, but with the socialist ethic of solidarity and international cooperation.  

     Obama also stated, “if you cannot be exposed to different points of view, you will not reach your full potential.”  Indeed so.  Obama seems to be unaware that the Cuban Revolution, from 1868 to the present, has integrated ideas drawn from other lands, including the United States.  And he seems to be unaware that Cuban news programming repeatedly covers events and scientific developments in other nations, including the United States.  In contrast, structures of knowledge and learning in the United States pay little attention to what is being developed in the countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia, or to what Third World leaders think and are proposing.  That is why it is possible the President of the United States, an intelligent and educated man, can be so uninformed about the history of Cuba or its present situation.

       During his visit in Cuba, Obama repeatedly stated that Cubans should have freedom of expression, the right to organize and to form demonstrations of protest, and the capacity to choose their political leaders.  He does not appreciate that all of these political and civil rights are fully respected in Cuba.  Inasmuch as they exist in the context of popular democracy, as against representative democracy, they have a different look, but they are not inferior.  Because they have a different appearance, many persons from the North do not see them. And because they are structures that take control of the political process away from the dominant class, there are powerful persons in the world who have an interest in discrediting them, which they do through omissions and ideological distortions and manipulations. Inasmuch as popular democracy takes control of the political process from the dominant class, a case can be made that popular democracy protects the political and civil rights of the people more than does representative democracy (see “Cuba, United States, and human rights” 4/9/2015 as well as “Popular democracy in Cuba” in “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context.”
     
      Obama states that Cuba has the right to determine the future of its political-economic-cultural system, and that change will not be imposed by the United States.  But as long as the blockade remains in force, the government of the United States continues to try to use economic coercion to force Cuba to move in the direction of the US system of representative democracy, casting aside the popular democracy that has been forged by the Cuban people with wisdom, courage, and sacrifice.

Key words: Obama, Cuba, civil society, democracy, human rights

      On March 21, President Obama addressed a Business Forum, sponsored by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce.  The President made introductory comments and then proceeded to a dialogue with six participants, five Cuban and one (the founder of Airbnb) from the United States.  The five Cuban participants were: A self-employed barber; a graphic designer, who a year ago with two other young women started a business that today has 14 employees; the president of an agricultural cooperative; a medical doctor and university professor; and an entrepreneur who has developed a business that sells cell phone applications for guides to restaurants, cafeterias, beauty parlors, and auto mechanics in Havana.  Three of the five were women.  The interchange was televised live on Cuban television. 

     In response to questions from President Obama concerning what they would need to expand, three of the five spoke of access to international markets.  Although they did not say so directly, perhaps out of courtesy to the President, the most important market is that of the United States, access to which remains blocked by the blockade. The medical doctor spoke of scientific collaboration with the United States, which also has been restricted by the blockade.

     Obama interpreted the Cuban entrepreneurs as representing the potential for Cuba to develop businesses, relying on the energy and intelligence of its people.  That’s true.  But the initial steps to enable this were not taken by the Obama administration in 2015, as Obama implied in his remarks, but by the Cuban government in 2012.  And they are part of the new approach to socialism in Latin America, which its leaders have called “Socialism for the Twenty-First Century.”  The new form of socialism has many things in common with twentieth century socialism, including commitment to the principles of the self-determination and sovereignty of nations, the protection of social and economic rights, and the strong role of the state in directing social and economic development.  But the new form of socialism is characterized by multiple forms of property: state ownership of principle industries, joint ventures with foreign capital, cooperatives, self-employment and privately owned small businesses.  

     Consistent with this tendency in the new Latin American socialism, Cuba today has five forms of property: (1) state property, the largest sector; (2) self-employment, which has always existed in socialist Cuba, but has been significantly expanded as a result of the new social and economic model of 2012; (3) small-scale businesses, virtually non-existent from 1959 to 2012, is now emerging; (4) joint ventures with foreign capital, developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and expanded in the new model of 2012; and (5) cooperatives, developed in the 1960s in the agricultural sector, and expanded to other sectors of the economy following 2012.  In the Cuban economy, the state plays an important role in two ways.  First, the state is the author of the development plan, and it guides and directs the economy.  The state role as the author and guide of economic development is one of the fundamental principles of socialism (see “The twelve practices of socialism” 1/14/2016).  In socialism, economic and social development is not left to the rule of the market or to the capitalist class or its particular interests; rather, the economy is ruled by the state, which, through popularly elected delegates, represents the interests of the popular sectors (workers, farmers, cooperativists, professionals, self-employed, small business owners, students and women) that form the overwhelming majority of the population.  Secondly, the state owns and manages the principle and largest industries, in order to guarantee that they are managed in a form that is consistent with the needs of the people and the sovereignty of the nation.  The strong state role in these two forms ensures that social and economic development occurs in a form that protects the social and economic rights of all, distributes goods and service in a more equitable form, protects the environment, and seeks to maintain the sovereignty of the nation in front of the structures of the neocolonial world-system and the aggressions of the neocolonial powers (see “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013).

       Cuban journalist Cristina Escobar observes that Obama’s agenda is to support Cuban private property while continuing to impose restrictions on trade involving Cuban state property, as has been revealed in his commentaries as well as in the politically motivated and selective form in which the Obama administration is dismantling the blockade (see “What does Obama intend for Cuba?”).  She maintains that the lifting of the blockade ought to pertain equally to the Cuban private and state sectors.  She notes that the state sector is central to the Cuban economy, as a result of its sovereign commitment to socialism.  If Obama wants to support the Cuban people, she maintains, he should take steps to remove obstacles to the development of the state-owned economic enterprises.

     In promoting the expansion of the private sector and the middle class, Obama hopes that this class will become a larger sector of the economy and that some businesses will become larger, and that this expanding class will constitute itself a political force that will promote changes in Cuba, changes that promote its particular interests.  The Obama plan for Cuba is not designed to promote the interests of the popular sectors in the United States.  After the blockade is lifted, the people of the United States will be able to purchase Cuban goods and services and sell goods and services to Cuba.  But it will make no difference to US producers, providers, and purchasers if their Cuban trading partners are employed in the private sector or the state sector. The Obama plan, however, certainly is designed to promote the interests of US corporations and small-scale investors, because one of the changes that could occur, especially in a process of change that is promoted by a rising Cuban merchant class with growing ties to US capital, is that there will be less restrictions and regulations with respect to foreign investment in Cuba, large and small.  

       It is also the case that the Obama vision for the future of Cuba is based on a limited understanding of both the United States and Cuba. Obama believes that the United States has been “built on entrepreneurship and on market-based principles,” which “has produced wealth that's unmatched in the history of the world.”  In fact, however, the ascent of the United States was made possible by the capacity of US economic enterprises to advantageously position themselves with respect to global patterns of trade that were established by conquest, colonialism and slavery; as well as on the foundation of US territorial conquest and its own system of slavery. The US model could not possibly be used by a colonized and underdeveloped nation.  Even if an underdeveloped nation could somehow marshal the necessary military power for conquest, there are no more nations and peoples to conquer.  Global conquest has reached its geographical limits.  Therefore, underdeveloped nations must develop their own models for development, based on their own histories, cultures, needs, and neocolonial situation.  And they have been doing so for more than a century.  But when they do so, inasmuch as their models invariably reflect a plan to develop autonomously, they invoke the aggressions of the global powers, of which the US blockade of Cuba is merely one example.

     Having not grasped the situation of nations like Cuba, Obama cannot not see that the Cuban socialist model is a reasonable and informed response to the neocolonial situation.  Analyzing Cuban policies from the perspective of a neocolonial power, he does not see the intelligence of the Cuban model, and he assumes that the development of the Cuban economy will require internal changes in Cuba.  

    And so, after centuries of colonialism and neocolonialism, including sixty-two years of US military and political interventions and a fifty-three-year blockade, the president of the United States arrives in Cuba to say that its socialist model is itself partly to blame for the Cuban condition of underdevelopment.  Fortunately, the people of Cuba have sufficient cultural and political formation to analyze his comments from a Cuban perspective.  And fortunately as well, the Cuban people have sufficient maturity to treat President Obama with courtesy and respect, sensitive to the fact that his understanding has been shaped by the US political-economic-cultural system, and grateful for the limited changes that he has undertaken.

    The Obama plan for Cuba brings to mind John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, which Kennedy proclaimed as a “revolution of the middle class.”  The Alliance for Progress hoped to reform Latin America by promoting expansion of national industry and the middle class.  But the plan failed.  It required the subordination of the expanding national industrial bourgeoisie to US capital, undermining its claim to represent an independent nationalist development, and thus delegitimizing its spokespersons in the eyes of the people (see “The Alliance for Progress” 9/26/2013).  A lesson can be drawn from the failure of the Alliance for Progress:  a reform driven by US interests will be limited in its capacity to promote the social and economic development of underdeveloped countries, which require autonomous development, driven by national interests and needs.  When such reformist projects conceived by the core powers fail to promote economic and social development, political opposition emerges.  A social and economic development plan shaped by the particular interests of the core nations cannot promote the political stability of the world-system or greater equality among nations.  

     More viable plans for social and economic development are emerging in Latin America, formulated from the perspective of the neocolonial situation.  However, the leading governments in this process of change have been and continue to be under attack by the Obama administration.


Key words:  Obama, Cuba, private sector, middle class, entrepreneurship

    US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro offered a joint press conference following their meeting on March 21. Each made prepared comments, and both responded to questions from the national and international press. 

     Obama maintained that the blockade will end, but we do not know when.  Obama would like for it to end by an act of Congress before he finishes his term.  

     Obama affirmed that the destiny of the Cuban political, economic and cultural system is in the hands of Cubans.  However, he observed that the United States always is committed to disseminating its ideas with respect to democracy and human rights throughout the world.  He believes that it is best for the United States to defend its democratic ideas in all nations of the world without imposing democratic structures on other nations.  He believes that democratic structures must be created by the people of each nation.

      However, in response to questions from the press, Obama observed that the speed with which Congress acts will be effected by the extent to which Cuban-US differences with respect to democracy are resolved.   The President could be correct, for some members of the Congress are calling for concessions from the Cuban side in exchange for the normalization of relations.  However, delaying or withholding the ending of the blockade until Cuba changes its approach to human rights will not effect Cuban behavior, inasmuch as Cuba has held firm to its convictions in the face of the economic coercion of the blockade for the past fifty-three years; and Cuba remains firmly committed, now that the US has admitted that the blockade has failed, and Cuba has the overwhelming support of the nations of the world.  In any event, such a strategy by the Congress would be economic coercion, inconsistent with the approach of persuasion outlined by the President.

     In his prepared comments, Obama noted that Cuba stresses the rights of all to education and health care, which he supports, but he maintains that, however admirable, these achievements cannot compensate for shortcomings in the area of political and civil rights. But Obama has an erroneous interpretation of the Cuban perspective. When Cubans address the theme of human rights, they focus on education and health care, because they are enormously proud of their achievements in these fields, and they believe that these are the most important human rights, and that therefore these gains establish Cuba as the most advanced nation in the world with respect to human rights.  But they also speak of political and civil rights, and they defend their political process as democratic and as respecting the rights of its citizens. They have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to vote in a political process that is not distorted by money, and which has a quality of public discourse and debate higher than that of other nations, especially the United States.  It is not a question of Cuba denying political and civil rights; rather, it is a question of having developed an alternative political process with different structures. Cuba believes that it has developed a more advanced political system with a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of democracy; a system that is more oriented to protection of the rights of the popular sectors and poor nations, rather than the dominating class and the rich nations. Cuba maintains that the principle of sovereignty requires the United States to accept that it has a right to develop its own form of democracy, consistent with its history, culture, and needs; a history that is unique, but is consistent with the general pattern of the colonized and underdeveloped nations of the world (see “Cuba, United States, and human rights” 4/9/2015; “Cuba and the Civil Society Debate” 4/13/2015).

      Obama also indicated that the ending of the blockade is now in the hands of Congress, except for technical details in changes in the regulations of the blockade made by the Obama administration to date. Perhaps he intends to do no more than what he has done.  From a Cuban point of view, what he has done is appreciated, but it is not enough.  The Obama administration has made few changes in the blockade, and many anti-governmental y aggressive measures against Cuba remain intact, in violation of international law and the political will of nearly all the nations of the world.  And the changes that have been made are selective, designed to promote US efforts to change Cuba.   They are changes that Cuba describes as politically motivated.  And Cuba maintains that Obama has the presidential authority to do more, especially if the administration were to be oriented to benefitting all of Cuban society, and not merely the private sector and the miniscule sector of civil society that is anti-governmental.

      Cuba maintains that the United States should desist in its efforts to change Cuba.  As Josefina Vidal, chief of the US affairs section of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, expressed in an interview on CNN, “We should proceed on a basis in which we do not try to change you, and you do not try to change us.”  This expresses well the meaning of the sovereignty of nations.  It is legitimate for a nation to try to disseminate its ideas through reason and dialogue, but not to coerce other nations to change through the application of military force and economic pressure, justifying its coercive measures through ideological manipulation.


Key words:  Obama, Cuba, democracy, human rights, embargo, normalization

      The conflict between the Cuban popular movements, seeking independence and social justice, and the government of the United States, pursuing its imperialist objectives, dates more than 125 years. It was in the 1880s when José Martí began to formulate in theory and to develop in practice the vision of a free Cuba, that would be independent from Spain but also would be a just society “of all and for the good of all.”  In this early stage, Martí warned of the imperialist pretensions of the United States, for he discerned that the US impulse toward territorial expansionism and indirect control of Latin America and the Caribbean was placing it on a collision course with the vision of a truly free Cuba.

       The US military intervention of 1898 and the establishment of the Republic in Cuba eclipsed the vision of Martí.  The neocolonial republic was characterized by high levels of US ownership of Cuban plantations, industry and banks; and US ambassadors often dictated policies and influenced the selection of government officials.  But Marti’s vision of a free Cuba remained alive in the hopes of the people, giving rise to intense popular movements against the subservient political class and the puppet national bourgeoisie during the 1920s and early 1930s, and again in the 1950s.  

       A revolution composed of peasants, urban workers and professionals, led mostly by members of the radical petty bourgeoisie, triumphed on January 1, 1959, utilizing an armed guerrilla struggle that moved from the mountains to the country to the city, supported by an urban clandestine struggle.  Fidel Castro was the central figure inspiring and unifying the triumphant revolution.  With an understanding that was a synthesis of the vision of Martí and Marxist-Leninist theory and practice, and possessing exceptional capacities in the art of politics, he led the revolutionary government in taking decisive steps in defense of the sovereignty of the nation and of the needs of the popular sectors.  The most important and significant step was the agrarian reform law, which nationalized foreign owned plantations, constituting a decisive break with the neocolonial world-system (“Decisive revolutionary steps of 1959” 9/22/2014; “The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959” 9/23/2014; “The defining moment of the Cuban Revolution” 9/24/2014).

     The United States responded with a policy that sought to destroy the Cuban Revolution by economically and diplomatically isolating the island nation from the hemisphere.  Cuba incorporated itself into the socialist bloc of nations, developing particularly strong ties with the Soviet Union and other socialist nations of Eastern Europe.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist nations of Eastern Europe, Cuba entered into a profound economic crisis, but not a political crisis, as there was considerable popular support for a continuance of its socialist project.  Adjustments were made in light of the new national and international situation, and there has been a slow but sure economic recovery.  Moreover, Cuba was bit by bit ending its diplomatic isolation from America.  When the political reality of Latin America was transformed in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Cuba became one of the leading nations in the search for alternative structures that would liberate the nations and the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean from the neocolonial world-system.  The United States, with its own economic and financial power declining, was gradually losing control over its backyard.

     During the course of this long conflict between the neighboring nations, the Cuban revolutionary process always distinguished between the people of the United States and the imperialist policies of the government.  Accordingly, there has been repeated public recognition of the sons of the United States who gave their lives in defense of the cause of Cuban independence during the nineteenth century, and of current day organizations and activists in the United States who have worked in defense of just causes with respect to Cuba.   There is appreciation of the African-American movement for its courageous struggle to attain civil and political rights in the United States, and for the anti-war movement of the late 1960s, credited with being an important factor in bringing the Vietnam War to an end.  And there is appreciation for reformist efforts of US presidents: Lincoln, for the abolition of slavery; Franklin D. Roosevelt, for a reformist vision for the post-World War II world-system; and Jimmy Carter, for his defense of human rights, rooted in a religious ethic, and his effort to move toward the normalization of relations with Cuba, later eclipsed by reactionary presidents.

     Thus, looking at the world from an anti-imperialist perspective, the Cuban revolutionary project tends to see the United States as consistently, and perhaps unavoidably, imperialist.  But there is discernment that the United States is a nation that includes unsung heroes, courageous popular movements, and prominent political figures with reformist visions.  From this perspective, Cubans do not tend to see President Obama as a reformer; rather, there is a tendency to see his plan for the normalization of relations as a change in methods, but not objectives.  But there is appreciation for the steps that Obama has taken to move toward the ending of the blockade.  At the same time, Cubans tend to believe that Obama can, and should, do more.

      During the course of its nearly 150 years of revolutionary struggle, Cuba has developed a political culture that is rooted in universal human values, including respect for all nations and all peoples.   There is in this notion a view that a “people” is sacred, and its customs, beliefs and symbols should be treated with respect.  Accordingly, to treat disrespectfully a political representative of a nation, particularly a chief of state, would be disrespectful toward the peoples that form the nation that the chief of state arrives to represent.  

       President Barack Obama, accordingly, will be treated with the greatest respect by the Cuban government and the Cuban people. There will be no shouts of “Yankee go home” or signs proclaiming “Down with imperialism.”  No one will throw eggs at the presidential limousine.  Quite the contrary, people in the streets who can see him will greet him with friendship, waves and smiles.  And in moments of interchange of the President with organizations of Cuban civil society, earnest efforts will be made to explain to the US President the various ways in which Cuba is a dignified nation, with the hope that he will listen and will be inspired to work for a more rapid dismantling of the blockade.

      As Cubans prepare for the arrival of Obama, they are in a celebratory mood.  They believe that they are achieving what they always have wanted: a truly free nation, working in accordance with its own political culture and cultural values on the social and economic development of the nation, in friendship and solidarity with all of the nations and peoples of the world, including their powerful neighbor to the north, for which they have respect for its scientific and technological achievements, and with which they have historic, cultural and familial ties.   As they work for this goal of normalization with sovereignty, the Cuban revolutionary government, with the overwhelming support of the people, will continue to insist on the total elimination of the blockade and the return of the territory of the US Naval Base to Cuba.  Cuba desires that the United States cease with its efforts to politically change Cuba, and accept that Cuba has the right to be Cuba.

      Josefina Vidal, Director of the US affairs section of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, expresses the issue well:

​      This insistence on sovereignty is rooted in the defense of principles for which many Cubans have made sacrifices.  As expressed in an Editorial in Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, in a special supplementary addition on the first anniversary of the announcement of the intention to establish diplomatic relations:

     On March 9, 2016, Granma published an editorial on “The visit of President Barack Obama to Cuba,” which also expressed the continuing fidelity of Cuba to its historic revolutionary struggle.  

​The March 9 editorial also stated:

​And it further stated:

      On March 17, 2016, Bruno Rodríguez, Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations, held a press conference for national and international journalists.  He offered a detailed analysis of the new modifications in the blockade that had been announced two days earlier by the Obama Administration.  He considered the modifications to be steps in the right direction, but they were very limited in their impact.  He maintained that there continue to be absurd policies that infringe of the sovereignty of Cuba and that violate the rights of US citizens.  He too spoke of principles, affirming the commitment of Cuba to the principles of the sovereignty of nations and the self-determination of peoples.

       Since the announcements of December 17, 2014, Cuba has persistently stated that it seeks to normalize relations with the United States, but with sovereignty (See “Cuba is and will be sovereign” 7/3/2015).  And it has repeatedly stated that the normalization of relations cannot occur until the United States ceases several unjust and illegal measures taken against Cuba.  Specifically, Cuba asserts that the United States must: 

  •  End the economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba, which violates international law.  Cuba has estimated that the blockade caused 121 billion dollars in losses to the Cuban economy from 1963 to 2000.  Cuba maintains that it has had a significant impact on the economic development of Cuba. 

  •  Return the territory occupied by the US Naval Base in Guantanamo.   The United States has occupied the territory since 1903, against the will of the Cuban people (see “CELAC to USA: Return Guantanamo to Cuba” 9/7/2015).

  •   End programs designed to promote subversion.  The programs have been administered through US diplomatic missions in Cuba, and they seek to create and support an opposition in Cuba, in violation of the Geneva Conventions that serve as guides for the conduct of diplomatic mission.  They constituted an unacceptable violation of Cuban sovereignty.   

  •  End the politically motivated radio and television transmissions into Cuba, which violate international law.

  •  End the “dry feet-wet feet” immigration policy, according to which Cubans who arrive on US soil are admitted immediately and automatically to the United States, without concern for the method or route used to arrive.  This is a unique measure that applies to Cuban emigrants, completely different from the treatment of migrants from other nations.  Cuba maintains that this policy stimulates illegal emigration from Cuba, and it also stimulates the trafficking of persons.  
  •  End the “Program of Parole for Cuban Medical Professionals,” which encourages Cuban medical personnel to abandon Cuban missions in third countries and to emigrate to the United States, depriving the third country of necessary medical services, and depriving Cuba of necessary trained medical professionals.

  •  Compensate Cuba for damages caused by the blockade from 1963 to the present.  In 2000, Cuba issued a formal demand for compensation in the amount of 121 billion dollars.  On the other hand, US corporations and individuals have presented demands totaling 10 billion dollars for properties nationalize by the Cuban revolutionary government.  Cuba would consider acceptable an agreement that takes into account both.  From the outset, Cuba has offered compensation for the nationalized properties, and it has arrived at settlements with other countries whose corporations held nationalized properties in Cuba.  

     For Cuba, these measures are fully consistent with international laws and regulations, and they are supported by the majority of nations and peoples in the world, including the majority of the people of the United States.  Cuba believes that it is time for the US president and the US Congress to take the steps that the historic moment requires.

       Cuba will not compromise on its principles.  It insists that its sovereignty be respected, and that the sovereignty of all nations and the dignity of all persons be respected.  Accordingly, the Cuban government and the Cuban people will receive President Barack Obama with the respect that is due to the constitutionally-elected head of state of a neighboring nation.
        

​References
 
Gómez, Sergio Alejandro.  2015. “Cuba y EE.UU. han obtenido avances, asegura Josefina Vidal,” Granma (December 17, 2015).

​Twenty-eight years ago, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution proclaimed,

That 1988 prediction by Fidel, based on empirical observation of structures and tendencies of the world-system, is being fulfilled today, as the Obama administration seeks to normalize relations in order to move forward with a new strategy for obtaining its imperialist goal of bringing down the Cuban Revolution and imposing a limited form of democracy that is made in the USA. 

     The Obama administration is moving toward normalization gradually and cautiously, making some changes that are within the scope of the president’s authority, but not others (see “The normalization of Cuba-USA relations” 2/16/2016).  One suspects that Obama is being politically savvy, moving step-by-step and gradually building popular and political support, in order to minimize the political cost resulting from the opposition of the extreme Right.  But it may also be that there is considerable deliberation within the administration concerning each step, as it internally debates what changes would be most effective in promoting the political outcomes in Cuba that the administration desires.  

     The US approach to normalization appears to be designed to attain three outcomes in Cuba.  (1) The establishing of a merchant class that has economic interests different from the working and professional classes.  (2) The replacement of the socialist ethic that prevails among the Cuban people with a consumerist ethic.  (3)  The creation of a civil society that is anti-governmental. 

     (1)  One of the first steps that the Obama administration took in moving toward normalization was to remove the limits on the amount of money that Cuban-Americans could send to family members in Cuba.  This change occurred in the aftermath of the adoption by Cuba of a new social and economic model, which included significant increases in licenses for self-employment.  The new model was adopted by Cuba as an autonomous decision and not as a concession to the international capitalist class (which Cuba defies) or a national bourgeoisie (which does not exist in socialist Cuba); it is a comprehensive effort to improve production in order to better satisfy the needs and desires of the people.  Perhaps seeing the new Cuban model as providing an opening for the penetration of small-scale foreign capital, the Obama administration, in increasing the possibilities for Cuban-Americans to send money to relatives in Cuba, is facilitating the establishment and expansion of small-scale businesses such as restaurants, apartment rentals, and retail sales.  The creation of small businesses by Cubans with money sent by relatives abroad has been going on for years in Cuba, but the changes in policy on both sides are strengthening this tendency, leading toward the emergence a class of persons who earn more and earn in a different way than the majority of the people, and they could eventually organize themselves as an interest group.  

     (2) The announced changes in the blockade especially favor the telecommunications industry.  The Obama administration seeks to support Cuban expansion of its Internet and telephone infrastructure in order to facilitate greater access of the people to Internet.  This coincides with the current efforts by the Cuban state telecommunications company to expand Internet and cell phone services, in response to popular desires.  The Obama administration appears to be seeking to seduce the people with a more penetrating awareness of the consumer goods available in the core nations of the capitalist world-economy, undermining popular support for the Cuban socialist system.  As has been expressed by the Cuban journalist Graziella Pogolotti, there is a “cultural battle” between capitalism and socialism.  Capitalism, particularly in the current age of globalization, is “oriented to seeding models of conduct, life aspirations, and notions of happiness of an escapist nature before the problems of reality that concern us.”  This escapist mentality implies a new form of pragmatism that is totally incompatible with socialism.  “Pragmatism, simplified in its most recent expressions, contrasts with the humanism that prevails in our conception of the formation and the destiny of the human being.” And she maintains that losses in the terrain of the cultural battle can be subtle.  “Without realizing it, we incorporate in our vocabulary words that are contaminated by a vision that is fundamentally different from our social project.  This occurs with the indiscriminate use of the notion of competiveness, associated with a savage individualism and very different from the defense in solidarity of the person, seeking the full development of capacities for study, work and enjoyment of free time” (Pogolotti 2016).  Is the purpose of human life to attain individual status, power and wealth, and to possess material things; or is the purpose of life to study in order to learn, to contribute to the good of all through work, and to genuinely enjoy leisure time?  In these contrasting visions of the human person, capitalism, the Internet, and the consumer society support the former; whereas the Cuban socialist project seeks to educate the people into the latter.  Consumerism has an advantage in this struggle: it is easier to seduce and manipulate than to educate.  But on the other hand, socialism has on its side the fact that its ethic is grounded in the true and the right, and not in the pursuit of profit.

      (3) The modifications to the blockade announced by the Obama administration on March 15, 2016, expand the people-to-people program, such that individuals now have a general authorization to travel to Cuba, and it is not necessary to travel through the people-to-people program under the auspices of an organization that sponsors educational exchanges.  Under this program, individuals traveling to Cuba must have a full-time schedule of activities; and they must meet with the people, and not with government officials, or their program of activities must intend to strengthen Cuban civil society or to promote the independence of the people from the government.  Thus, the change is designed to facilitate a particular kind of travel to Cuba that has the political intention of undermining the Cuban Revolution.

     Although it may appear to some that the Cuban government, in cooperating with the United States in its selective dismantling of the blockade, is assisting US efforts to undermine the revolution.  But Cuba sees these issues from a different vantage point.  (1) Cuba believes that the emergence of a merchant class is not in itself inconsistent with socialism, because socialism is today understood as rule by the popular sectors, including industrial workers, agricultural workers, farmers, students, professionals, and small merchants.  (2) Cuba sees access to the Internet as a right in today’s world, and the government is responding to the desire of the people to have it, independent of anything the United States may be planning.  Cuba hopes that the socialization into socialist values in schools, the mass media and the family provide an interpretative frame of reference for the world of the Internet, although it recognizes that there is a danger of the erosion of socialist values.  (3)  Cuba welcomes all US tourists and visitors, as long as they do not violate Cuban laws.  Cuba is confident that US visitors to Cuba will see that the nation is far better than it has been portrayed in the US media of communication. Moreover, in cooperating with the United States in the step-by-step dismantling of the blockade, Cuba continues to insist on the total elimination of the block.  Cuba views the specific changes of the Obama administration as the initial steps in a transition to a new kind of relation, which would continual to be conflictual, but which would be more civilized. 

     The Obama administration, on the other hand, seeks to accomplish political change in Cuba.  It maintains that the Cuban people should be free to elect their leaders and express their ideas and that Cuban civil society should flourish.  The President and high officials in the administration appear to be unaware that the Cuban people do elect their leaders in a structure of “popular power” that does not require the candidates, who are nominated by the people in neighborhood assemblies, to raise enormous sums to finance political campaigns. And they ignore the fact that Cuba has a highly active civil society, composed of mass organizations (of neighborhoods, workers, farmers, students and women) and other organizations of professionals and persons in support of particular causes, in which people freely express their views.  These non-governmental organizations are not anti-governmental, because the Cuban government, ruled by the National Assembly of Popular Power, does the best that it can in a context of limited resources to respond to the needs and political will of the people as expressed by the people’s organizations.  What the Obama administration is proposing is not greater democracy in Cuba, but the substitution of representative democracy for popular democracy, with the assumption that only political structures developed on the model of the United States or Western Europe qualify as democratic, dismissing the development of an alternative political culture and democratic political system by Cuban popular social movements since 1868.  (See “Cuba, United States, and human rights” 4/9/2015; “The arrogance of power” 8/15/2015).

     The profound differences between the United States and Cuba with respect to democracy and human rights are a result of the fact that for the United States, democracy and human rights has become an ideology that is used to justify its military and political interventions in the world, necessary for the maintenance of its consumer society; whereas in Cuba, there has emerged since 1868 a political culture that seeks to defend democracy and to deepen its meaning, in response to the systemic negation of democracy in the Spanish colony of Cuba and in the US-controlled neocolonial republic of Cuba.

     The new policy of Obama toward Cuba is imperialist.  As we have seen in previous posts, US imperialism has been characterized by policies that seek to ensure markets for surplus goods as well as cheap sources of labor and raw materials.  Imperialist policies involve political interference in the internal affairs of other nations, in order to guarantee that these nations do not adopt economic policies that promote an autonomous economic development that is not subordinated to the interests of an imperialist power.  As we have seen, imperialism has been integral to the development of the neocolonial world-system (see “Imperialism as basic to foreign policy” 10/10/2013; “Obama and the imperialist web” 3/11/2016; and “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013.  

      The Cuban Revolution has sought to break free from imperialism and neocolonialism and to develop a truly independent nation.  In response, the United States has tried to destroy the Cuban Revolution, at first through backing an invasion by Cuban exiles and supporting terrorist activities in Cuba, and then through the imposition of the blockade, although there also was a modest revival of US-supported terrorist activities in the 1990s.  The United States has been motivated in part by the desire to restore access to the markets and raw materials of Cuba, but principally because the Cuban Revolution is a dangerous example to the world.  With the blockade condemned by the world, the United States now seeks to take a different approach to destroying the Cuban Revolution.  For its part, Cuba at the present time, seizing the opportunity provided by overwhelming international support and the US admission of failure, diplomatically and respectfully maintains that a mutually beneficial commerce and interchange can be developed on a basis of respect for sovereignty, a proposal that is fundamentally incompatible with imperialism and the neocolonial world-system.  Thus, the United States and Cuba remain in conflict, but they have a common interest in developing different rules of engagement.

     The imperialist intentions of the Obama administration are well understood in Cuba.  Nonetheless, Cuba welcomes the end of the blockade, whatever be the motivations behind the change, because the blockade is a denial of the rights of Cuba to be a sovereign nation, and because the ending of it would enable progress in improving the material standard of living for the people.  Cuba understands that an ideological and political battle, in the context of a new post-blockade situation with different rules of engagement, is on the horizon.  They are accustomed to such battles.  They do not take it lightly, but they are confident (see ““Cuban students prepare for battle” 9/17/2015).

      I recall a conversation many years ago with a Cuban economics professor.  I suggested the possibility that the continuation of the blockade would be better for Cuba, because the elimination of the blockade would make possible greater US ideological penetration.  He did not think so.  “A cultural invasion is not a nuclear attack.  We have the capacity to defend ourselves,” he declared.

​References
 
Perera Robio, Alina.  2016. “¡Viva Cuba libre!” in Juventud Rebelde (March 15, 2016).
 
Pogolotti, Graziella.  2016. “Cuba y Estados Unidos” in Juventud Rebelde (March 13, 2016).
 
 
The quotations of Fidel and Graziella Pogolotti were translated from the Spanish by Charles McKelvey.

 
Key words: Obama, Cuba, blockade, embargo, normalization