Island that Dared (19 page)

Nicanor proudly claimed Taino blood. ‘Just a few drops, five
generations
ago, but I value those drops. They make me feel more Cuban than most Cubans. That’s a silly way to talk for someone in my job – too sentimental … I don’t care!’

In Sofiel’s view, the Cuban identity ‘would have been much harder to grow’ (his disagreeable phrase) ‘if the Indians survived as a group. I mean, seeing themselves as the rightful owners, thinking the rest of us should feel guilty. The way it is, we’re all from somewhere else – whites by choice, blacks by force. So Cuba’s what we’ve made together even if we didn’t want to be together.’

Dryly I pointed out that the growth of US and Canadian identities has not been stunted by the survival of numerous Indian tribes as actual or potential guilt-promoters.

‘It’s different there,’ said Sofiel. ‘Northern European settlers were more efficient than the Spaniards and had mixed motives, not all about mining. They never depended on Indian labour like the Spaniards did. I’m thinking Latin America – Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, those sorts of places. The English started their colonies a century after Columbus. In Cuba Europeans were only learning how to be imperialists. They killed the Indians before seeing how much they needed their labour. Where Indians survived, will those countries ever get to grow our sort of unity? Since the Revolution we’re happy about Cuba being ours – black, white, mulatto just feeling
Cuban
! No Indians in corners making tensions!’

‘You forget something,’ Nicanor said to his son. ‘There would be tensions if most of a certain class hadn’t left soon after the Revolution. And there’s been background tension because some of those want to come back, to make a coup.’

‘
They
don’t want to come back,’ scoffed Sofiel. ‘They’re doing OK where they are. It’s the
Yanquis
want to come back and that doesn’t give me tension. We’re ready for them!’

As we talked on, I opined that the rest of the world urgently needs to learn from Cuba how best to cope with climate change. Then I began to suspect that Nicanor was taking a professional interest in me. He remarked that foreigners’ impressions of Cuba must be conditioned by the baggage they bring with them, not only in the narrow pro- or anti-socialism sense but as regards personal preferences and standards. I agreed. Given my aversion to how the world has changed within my lifetime, naturally Cuba charmed me – increasingly, day by day. Its genial air of shabbiness and the level of physical comfort (lowish) matched what I’m used to in my own home. And where ‘People Before Profit’ is no mere slogan but a way of governing, the level of psychic comfort is very high.

‘Do you feel depressed’ – probed Nicanor – ‘by the monotony of the shops and the media and ideological hoardings all over the place?’

‘Quite the reverse!’ I retorted – and explained how liberating it is to have ingeniously exploitative advertising replaced by exhortations to be loyal to the Revolutionary ideals, work together for the common good and so on.

‘I wish,’ said Nicanor, ‘our hoardings were as successful as yours! But yours encourage human weaknesses while ours try to overcome them.’

Sofiel indicated a long line of black and white photographs, much enlarged, hanging above the café tables. These showed people thronging Havana’s streets in late January 1959 when guns were numerous and obvious. ‘Study the faces,’ urged Sofiel. ‘See the difference?’

The difference was startling. Those expressions ranged from bewildered to scared, tired, sad, hungry, timid, defiant. The Cubans were awaiting the fruits of their Revolution. Sofiel said, ‘When you compare then and now, you know our hoardings
have
worked!’

In 1859 Richard Henry Dana described the latest addition to Cuba’s racial mix. On Havana’s streets he noticed ‘men of an Indian complexion, with coarse black hair. I asked if they were Indians, or mixed blood. No, they are coolies! Their hair, full grown, and the usual dress of the country which they wore, had not suggested to me the Chinese; but the shape and expression of the eye make it plain. These are the victims of the trade of which we hear so much. I have met them everywhere, the newly arrived in Chinese costume, with shaved heads … I must inform myself on the
subject of this strange development of the domination of capital over labour. I am told there is a mart for coolies in Havana. This I must see, if it is to be seen.’

That same year Lord Elgin, recently appointed Britain’s ‘special plenipotentiary’ to China, excoriated Britain’s two main opium-trading
companies,
Dent and Jardine. Both also traded in slaves, labelled ‘indentured labourers’. His Lordship did not approve of ‘Kidnapping wretched coolies, putting them on board ships where all the horrors of the slave trade are reproduced and sending them on specious promises to such places as Cuba’.

Many died at sea but between 1853 and 1874 a hundred and thirty thousand or so were delivered to the cane plantations. At Havana’s mart they fetched US$400 apiece and during their eight years of indentured labour they were poorly fed, given two suits of clothes annually and paid a monthly wage of US$4.

In 1902 General Wood, Cuba’s US administrator, prohibited this trade; it hampered his ambition to entice thousands of Spanish settlers, to make Cuba an island safe for whites. However, when the price of sugar soared, during and after the First World War, many more Chinese arrived illegally.

Meanwhile, in the early 1870s, a separate contingent of voluntary Chinese settlers had arrived from California. These were merchants, keen to invest their savings in Havana where they grew the island’s first mangoes (a sensational and lasting success) and added the cornet to the African drums and rattles, and to the trumpets, trombones, clarinets and guitars that make up a typical Cuban band. Barrio Chino soon developed, a compact, self-sustaining district with its own shops, newspapers, theatre and restaurants. In general whites scorned the Chinese and blacks hated them; the outlawing of marriages between blacks and Chinese was scarcely necessary. Yet the latter, like the Taino, have made their subtle genetic mark. Peter Marshall notes: ‘It is not uncommon to see a person with green oriental eyes, straight black Indian hair, African features and a light brown skin. The Cuban population is a living testimony to the beauty of racial mixing.’

To celebrate the new millennium Barrio Chino (close to San Rafael) was gaudily restored at China’s expense. Again restaurants line its narrow streets (pedestrians only, the décor theme-parkish) but by now few of the residents look Chinese. In an enormous courtyard the Cuba-China Friendship Society sponsors a daily
ti’ chi
session, regularly attended by Pedro. My being uninitiated astonished him –
ti’ chi
is popular throughout Cuba – and one dark morning we set off together, taking care to avoid the pavement’s
deep holes. When Pedro pushed open a wicket gate in a high wall we exchanged Centro’s dinginess for scarlet and gold – streamers and
wall-hangings
and an outsize Chinese flag all glowing by the light of two tall lamps. Sessions begin with the raising of Cuba’s flag on a ten-foot staff – a ceremony prolonged that morning, with some loss of dignity, by tangled cords.

Our teachers were a burly middle-aged Chinese woman and a slim young mulatto with Chinese eyes. Both wore nylon track-suits and the female of the species was much stricter than the male. She took the advanced class, including Pedro, and barked her criticisms. The young man made allowances for tyros’ clumsy wobblings and advised us kindly. Those scores of enthusiasts represented a complete Cuban cross-section: all skin shades, all bodily shapes from muscular wiriness to flaccid fatness, all age-groups – the senior an eighty-three-year-old black woman, a new recruit seeking relief for her rheumatism. The junior was a possible for the Beijing Olympics, a white teenager apparently made of rubber. Here was another example of that most agreeable feature of Cuban social life, the mingling of generations. This has a two-way civilising effect, helping older people to remain sympathetically interested in youthful concerns while the young benefit from what their elders have learned the hard way. Our exclusive ‘Youth Cult’ – a notoriously lucrative segment of the consumer society – has the opposite effect, dividing communities into apprehensive oldies hurrying to get home from Bingo before the swearing young come stumbling out of their pubs and clubs.

I found
ti’ chi
mentally quite exhausting, despite all the movements being so simple, slow and gentle. Yet at the end of two non-stop hours I was simultaneously feeling extra-energetic and ready to fall into a deep sleep – very odd. When I sought a tape of the hauntingly beautiful accompanying music none was available; this is not a commercial enterprise.

A political spiel followed, translated for me by Martin, a retired physics professor who uncannily resembled José Martí. We were reminded that the CIA/US Interests Section continue to use agents disguised as tourists in their new ‘Transition to Democracy’ campaign – why some Cubans clam up when vigilante-types notice them making friends with (as distinct from being polite to) foreigners. As we left, Martin spoke with Pedro, then invited me to drink coffee in his Vedado home – to which he cycled while I followed on foot.

This top-floor flat, mainly furnished by books, overlooked a large garden where a black man, bare to the waist, was digging in a leisurely way.
‘I moved when my wife died,’ said Martin. ‘Two rooms are OK for me, I exchanged with a big family, making a little arrangement about meat – the grandfather is a farmer. It’s illegal to profit on housing but now everyone does illegal things, they were going crazy here with growing kids!’

I asked who was responsible for garden-care.

‘Elba, whose family once owned the house. She lives in the ground-floor flat – chose to stay when most of her kind left. She’s adaptable, many could have stayed if they’d accepted change. Fidel never wanted to drive out the bourgeoisie en masse. No one was evicted from their home. Some were even allowed to keep a second home in the country or by the sea –
if
they shared it. This house is typical, made into four flats, one for the original owners. As that generation dies out – Elba was born in this very room in the 1920s – all becomes state property. That’s the big change, no one can inherit wealth, we’re all expected to earn our living. People could keep their interest from Cuban investments but the US embargo blocked interest from foreign investments. When houses and farms were confiscated the state pension system started, with compensation paid in regular fixed monthly instalments. Elba’s family estate was big so she’s always been able to afford one servant and a gardener – which surprises a lot of visitors to communist Cuba!’

At noon we graduated from coffee to rum and discussed Guantanamo Bay where Martin’s father, a Cuban naval officer, spent thirty-two years. In 1958 he retired and before long had become a
fidelista
. He lived another thirty years and latterly admitted to a troubled conscience: he hadn’t actively participated in the routine torturing of anti-Batista prisoners but he knew what was happening … His son and I then discussed the use of the word ‘crime’ to describe the misdeeds of ‘authorised forces’ – a long discussion.

Martin was amused by my reaction to the ‘Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba’ and its appointment of Caleb McCarry as ‘Coordinator’ – his first task to tour European capitals enlisting support for the Commission.

‘How dare they?’ I furiously demanded. ‘And to admit publicly they’re investing millions in “regime change”! Why does the US still feel such a rabid compulsion to subjugate Cuba?’

‘Partly wounded pride, no one else has successfully defied them for so long. Most commentators miss the point, calling it
Fidel’s
defiance. He’s no superman, able to stand alone against “the colossus of the north” – Martí’s phrase, now become a boring cliché. Don’t get too overheated about this Commission, nobody associated with it understands our Revolution so it’s not as dangerous as it sounds. Fidel succeeded because most Cubans
wanted to go where he was leading them. What’s condemned as his ‘dictatorship’ seemed benevolent to the average citizen. Yes, it was flawed by accepting the Soviet model, and handicapped by the
Yanqui
blockade – but still better than anything we had before.’

Martin’s attitude didn’t reassure me, especially when the Commission’s Second Report (July 2006) recommended ‘eighty million dollars over two years to continue developing assistance initiatives to help Cuban civil society realize a democratic transition. The Commission also recommends consistent yearly funding of Cuban democracy programs at no less than $20 million on an annual basis thereafter until the dictatorship ceases to exist.’ Among a population of eleven million, eighty million dollars could be destabilising. On almost every page of this Report the phrase ‘free and fair election’ recurs, often three or four times.

Cuba has of course been here before. In 1900 Elihu Root, a Republican lawyer, was chosen by Washington to organise the island’s future. He agreed with General Wood, the military governor, that ‘the mass of ignorant and incompetent people’ should be excluded from voting in Cuba’s first
post-colonial
elections. A restricted suffrage of literate males over the age of twenty, possessing at least two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of property, or who had fought against Spain, kept the electorate down to five per cent of the population. This would ensure ‘democratic’ backing for annexation – or so thought Root and Wood. However, the formerly rich class, supposedly in favour of union with the US, didn’t bother to vote. Its members were indifferent to Cuba’s future, only concerned to salvage what they could from the imperial wreckage and get out. The pro-independence parties won, enraging Root and Wood. Drastic action was needed. In Root’s view, the US was morally obliged to set up ‘a stable and adequate government’ before withdrawing the troops. (Just as it is a century later, in Afghanistan and Iraq.) He wondered how to ‘get rid of the adventurers who are now on top’ – i.e., the Cubans’ elected representatives. Thus was born the Platt Amendment of unsavoury memory.