Next morning I observed that in Manzanillo dawn comes twenty minutes earlier than in Havana. At 6.35 the first pale orange tint appeared above the horizon as I strolled through a run-down district of small, variously designed dwellings, many with dormer windows, lining laneways shaded by misshapen trees. Already polling stations were being unlocked and when I peered into one I was invited to come back later. In contrast to the exclusion of unlabelled solo travellers from public institutions, foreigners are positively encouraged to take a close look at Cuba’s election processes – for obvious reasons.
In Havana I had first seen the only harbingers of this Election Day – A4 pages displayed in office and shop windows showing passport-type photographs of the candidates and listing their academic and/or practical achievements and the mass organisations to which they belong. These are drab little notices, impersonal, nobody claiming that they will do this or that if elected; nor are there any canvassing visits, posters, leaflets, loud-hailers, rallies, telephone calls or TV appearances. At no stage is money involved; the state provides the A4 notices. Winning or losing does not evoke the same emotions as in our world. Losing may be a personal disappointment – but no cash has been wasted. Winning is taken calmly, and not as Step One to prosperity; Cuba has no greasy pole on the political field. (I wouldn’t know about the joint-venture field.) Those elected (who may be anything from lawyers and street-sweepers to factory hands and professors) continue in their jobs while working as unpaid public representatives. In local government only the president, vice-president and secretary of each municipal assembly – officials elected by the delegates – receive salaries. Twice a year, at accountability sessions, delegates must listen to planteamientos (suggestions and complaints of local importance) and representatives found unsatisfactory by their constituents may be ‘recalled’ (sacked) and replaced in what we would call a by-election. Municipal delegates are responsible for the day-to-day running of their neighbourhoods. They organise mini-brigades to build houses for the community, maintain organoponicos to feed the community, oversee local schools, polyclinics and factories – and participate, if trade unionists, in the planning and management of their enterprises. They are on duty twenty-four hours a day seven days a week and may be approached at any time by any constituent with any sort of problem from a family row to a burst water main.
At 7.00 a.m. precisely, all over Manzanillo (and all over Cuba) the national anthem, being quietly relayed by Radio Rebelde, signalled the opening of the polling stations, each catering for the residents of its immediate neighbourhood. A forty-minute walk took me past nine stations. This means an absence of queues or crowds; a tourist could have spent 21 October drifting around any Cuban city or town without realising it was Election Day. On arrival voters exchange their registration cards for ballot papers, then enter a tent-like enclosure set up in a corner where they are invisible while making their marks. Thus citizens may anonymously express disapproval of or hatred for the government by spoiling their paper. A few steps take the voter from tent to ballot box, guarded by two uniformed junior schoolchildren. I watched one opening ritual. Out on the pavement, an elderly CDR member held high an empty cardboard carton while inviting any passer-by to enter the station to witness its being sealed with glue and placed on a little table between its juvenile guardians.
After breakfast I met Alejandro who suggested our touring the hilltops ‘before it gets too hot’. (In my estimation it was already very much too hot.) On steep slopes, Manzanillo’s streets of stuccoed houses (1920s) become grass-verged tracks with open drains running down the centre. Narrow green valleys separate the hills and Alejandro pointed to once-fine villas set amidst still handsome trees. Other barrios have a quasi-rural character with livestock wandering around charmless utilitarian cottages (1960s) and closely fenced organoponico beds.
We were invited into polling stations improvised in a kindergarten, a tienda, a polyclinic, a cultural centre, two offices. The children’s role fascinated me. As the folded ballot papers were pushed through the slits these Pioneers saluted smartly and together chanted – ‘Voto!’ It was important, said Alejandro, to educate young citizens about how Cuban-style democracy really works, to make them feel responsible for the boxes’ integrity and proud of contributing to the election of the best representatives to run their community. To prove that this involvement was genuine, not any sort of stunt or cosmetic gesture, Alejandro led me at 7.00 p.m. from a polling station to the nineteenth-century Asamblea Municipal del Poder Popular. As the polling station’s box was being transported, opened and emptied on to a counters’ table, two pairs of sharp little eyes watched every movement. According to Alejandro, this ‘catch ’em young’ policy explains why even today’s teenagers vote eagerly in municipal elections. At which point I recalled Professor Raby’s assessment:
Revolutionary popular power can survive for decades even in a small country like Cuba … so long as the leadership remains committed to Socialist goals and closely linked to the mass popular movement … The problem for Cuba is that above the municipal level it has restricted political debate and participation and this, combined with the hardships imposed by the US blockade, has produced a dangerous sense of alienation among large sections of Cuban youth.
When Alejandro asked how Western democracies select candidates I explained the Irish system, then told him of the unease often voiced by Tony Benn (among many others) about decisions once made by governments having been transferred to the EU, NATO, the unholy Trinity and the multinational corporations ‘whom we do not elect and cannot remove’. I added, borrowing a metaphor from the liberation theologian Franz Hinkelammert, that Western parties now treat voters as consumers whose political choices can be swayed by market techniques. And Socialism, as one choice, is now excluded. According to my guide, ‘All delegates must live in their own constituencies. If they don’t help enough with local problems they won’t get selected next time.’
I wondered why anybody should want to be re-selected for such a demanding unpaid job, then realised that this remark exposed my imperfect understanding of Revolutionary thinking (and feeling). As David Beetham has put it:
Participation enhances people’s own knowledge and competence as they address practical problems in their communities … Being able to see tangible outcomes from one’s participation produces a sense of empowerment, and an incentive to continue one’s involvement.
By this stage we had retreated with a few Buccaneros to the shady Andalusian courtyard of the Colonia Española club where wall tiles show Columbus landing in Cuba and pensioners play dominoes all day and a three-man band was rehearsing on a balcony. ‘They play for their own joy,’ commented Alejandro. ‘I like best this way of music.’
Some of the domino players were Rebel Army veterans in their eighties and Alejandro introduced me to a nonagenarian in a bath-chair who had twice descended to Manzanillo to fetch Ché’s asthma medicine – easily provided by Celia Sanchez the doctor’s daughter.
By mid-afternoon we were touring again, stopping quite often for Alejandro to talk at some length to friends and acquaintances. He seemed not to notice that standing around in the sun exhausted the Irish abuela. I remarked on the numbers of disabled voters we saw driving their buggies into polling stations, the majority black men in their fifties. ‘African vets,’ said Alejandro. ‘For long years Cuba gave big sacrifices for Africa.’ Those veterans are members of an association for the handicapped. Proudly Alejandro told me what I already knew: all Cubans belong to an appropriate group. ‘We have Committees to Defend the Revolution, the Cuban Federation of Women, Federation of University Students, National Association of Small Farmers, Confederation of Cuban Workers, groups of lawyers, economists, athletes, artists, writers, musicians.’ Representatives from all those organisations make up the Electoral Commissions whose Presidents are chosen by the Trade Unions, from the Confederation of Cuban Workers. Anyone other than a Party member can serve on a Commission. Pericles would have approved: ‘No one, s
o long as he has it in him to be of service to the city, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.’
All day there was not a soldier or a policeman to be seen; this ‘People’s Election’ needed no state supervision or regimentation and the uniformed forces change into civvies before voting. According to Alejandro, everybody knowing, personally, each individual on the candidates’ list gave the whole process a reassuring reality. Unmistakably these were keen voters, participating in something that mattered to them, not merely tolerating a meaningless routine.
Later we watched the count for half an hour, all done with pencil and paper. Much double and treble checking, by the constituency electoral commission, is mandatory. After supper with Alejandro’s family we were back at the Asamblea Municipal in time to see the list of those elected being posted outside – an astonishingly fast count because of each ‘college’ being so small.
Back at Casa Juana I retired feeling queasy and generally unwell, in an unfamiliar way.
Not long after my return to Ireland the following letter appeared in the Irish Times:
Recently, in quite a remote Cuban town, my host found me semi-delirious at midnight on a Sunday, suffering from severe heat stroke. Hyperpyrexia, which can be fatal, needs immediate treatment.
Fifteen minutes later the family doctor arrived, on his bicycle, to provide the appropriate isotonic saline and administer other treatments. Eight hours later he telephoned to check on my progress, which was satisfactory.
Were I to fall ill (or have a serious accident) in my home town of Lismore, Co Waterford, between 6.00 p.m. on a Friday and 9.00 a.m. on a Monday, someone would have to telephone Caredoc’s nurse in Carlow, eighty miles away, describing my symptoms or injuries and leaving it to the nurse to decide whether or not a doctor was needed.
This grotesque arrangement assumes that the person contacting the nurse is knowledgeable enough to accurately interpret the symptoms. Should the nurse guess (it can only be a guess) that a doctor is needed, the Lismore patient must then be transported, by whatever vehicle his/ her helper can provide, to the nearest doctor – fifteen miles away in Dungarvan.
If the nurse in Carlow has somehow been persuaded that the patient in Lismore cannot or should not be moved, a doctor will be driven to Lismore by a chauffeur who knows the territory so that no time is lost. But so much time has already been lost that were I, in Lismore, afflicted by a condition comparable to hyperpyrexia (say a stroke or a heart attack) I might well be dead before the doctor arrived. Viva Fidel!
Hyperpyrexia is so scary that I heeded the amiably authoritarian doctor, not long home from a two-year posting in a high Andean village. He prescribed forty-eight hours rest, then back to ‘cool (!) Havana’. Playa Las Colorades was even hotter than Manzanillo – transport was uncertain – the Granma trail was long and exposed, through mangrove forest. He managed politely to imply that anyway abuelas should use Viazul coaches and stay in tourist hotels.
On the spacious flat roof, approached by a stairway from the patio, Juana had created a wondrous bower of white-blossomed vines. Here I obediently rested, drinking the prescribed gallons of water and dolefully abstaining from Buccaneros. This was a good vantage point from which to observe the rhythms of local life and I noted the prevalence of parasols and fans, used by both sexes. We associate fans with delicate Victorian ladies reclining on chaise longue, not with males whose biceps bulge and whose hairy chests are sweat-matted. And parasols go with fair maidens mincing through the Capability Brown groves of stately demesnes – not with men trying to give both their small bicycle passengers a safe share of the shade. Motor vehicles were rare, bicitaxis numerous – including some ingenious homemade models, with beach umbrellas wobbling over wooden sidecars and metal footrests welded to the solid bicycle frame.
The recent DIY conversion of Casa Juana to a casa particular had demanded much bold experimentation on the plumbing and electrical fronts – the latter a serious health-hazard, given permanently sweat-wet hands. One morning I found my bathroom waterless and so it remained until Manuel returned from work. Sitting in my bower, I admired his gymnastics as he hung by his heels from a parapet doing something daring with the hose piping and electric wiring that supplied my room.
By then I had recovered from the Playa Las Colorades disappointment and was contemplating my good fortune: adequate medical care provided within fifteen minutes at midnight! One can see how neo-liberalism’s corrosion of the welfare state is insidiously weakening Western democracy. Voter turn-outs have remained highest where the welfare state has suffered least damage – e.g., Holland, Germany, Scandinavia. There is no one to protect it in countries like Britain and Ireland, stricken by the cancer of privatisation – q.v. Ireland’s ‘Caredoc’ system. As Gunter Grass wrote in the Guardian in 2005:
Democracy has become a pawn to the dictates of globally volatile capital … Questions asked as to the reasons for the growing gap between rich and poor are dismissed as ‘the politics of envy’. The desire for justice is ridiculed as utopian. The concept of solidarity is relegated to the dictionary’s list of ‘foreign words’.
The failure of central planning in the Soviet Union and its satellites left those regimes, unsustained by popular support, with no choice but to submit to Capitalism Rampant. When Fidel opposed the Gorbachev reforms, leaving himself open to charges of ‘Stalinism’, he knew that Cuba’s Revolution still had the loyalty of most Cubans and could therefore survive the Special Period. But now …?
In 2004 Aurelio Alonso, one of Cuba’s shrewdest political thinkers, considered Castroism’s future and wrote, ‘It is not possible to speak of an alternative without also talking about power’. He advocated giving much more power to local community action because ‘history has shown that capitalism can reproduce itself without democracy but socialism cannot’. Like other experienced observers, he believes that new socialist regimes will emerge from Latin America, regimes intent on independent development, founded on participatory democracy, explicitly challenging the morality of putting profit first. They would of course have to work with capitalist enterprises, as Cuba is now doing. However, by defending state power against the Unholy Trinity they could continue to promote social justice and economic sovereignty, with key industries nationalised and political leaderships supported and monitored by mass popular organisations. Capitalism Rampant shudders to think of such regimes evolving as the ‘socialism of the twenty-first century’, to which several Cuban leaders have referred in recent years. Transitologists are deaf to the likes of Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly, who emphasises, ‘We do not want to be seen as a model. We respect the right of others to develop their own system just as strongly as we demand that ours be respected’.
Did Professor Raby coin the word ‘transitology’? He notes that with the preaching of ‘free trade and monetarist fundamentalism as the only economically acceptable policy … a vast academic literature has sprung up on “democratic transition” … Virtually all countries outside the North Atlantic core are assumed to be “in transition”. The notion that the democratic will of the people might prefer to place restrictions on the unfettered rule of the market is scarcely even considered. The “transitology” literature is very revealing as to the true significance of neo-liberal orthodoxy on the issue of democracy … Particularly striking is the emphasis on markets and property rights and the absence of any mention of social justice or popular participation’.
Despite hyperpyrexia, I was glad to have had the opportunity to observe ‘popular participation’ in Manzanillo with Alejandro as my guide.
Chapter 22
Manzanillo’s railway station is hardly a mile from Casa Juana but I had learned my lesson and at 1.00 p.m. Viktor’s horse-bus picked me up. The Havana train would depart some time between 3.00 and 8.00 but tickets must be bought not later than 1.30. Even by Cuban standards this timing seemed inordinately vague and there was a sad explanation. A few days previously one of Cuba’s worst train crashes had
occurred at Yara, between Manzanillo and Bayamo, when a Santiago-Manzanillo train collided with a bus at a level crossing. ‘Thirty people died at once,’ said Manuel, ‘and more may go – seventy injured, fifteen very much smashed up. Now timetables are all confused.’
Viktor refused to believe that I was no longer convalescent; he insisted on carrying my rucksack into the waiting-room and telling the ticket clerk I was too old and ill to queue. Having stared me up and down she grunted unsympathetically, then said she wasn’t authorised to deal in convertible pesos and handed me a NP5 ticket to Bayamo. There the tourists’ ticket office would accept my CP25.50. Noting my alarm – the train might leave me behind – kind Viktor hurried away to seek the train’s ‘captain’ who at once volunteered to buy the ticket if given my passport and cash.
When this railway was first constructed Manzanillo lacked road connections – hence the enormous waiting-room. For the next five hours three TV sets, hung high on a long wall, showed children’s cartoons interspersed with documentaries about soil erosion and dengue fever. There were no fans. There was no bar. My companions were few and various; as no one had the least idea when the service might depart people wandered in, sat around hopefully for a time, then strolled away.
Island that Dared Page 51