Returning from leading a cultural tour of Cuba, the second in four years, Clay offers a new approach to U.S./Cuban relations.
With my return from Cuba last week, I have completed two sustained tours of the island nation in the last four years. I have read and re-read a dozen books on Cuban history, America’s tortured relationship with Cuba dating back to the Jefferson administration, the coming of the Cuban revolution in 1953, the triumph of Fidel Castro and the insurrectionists in 1959, the transformation of American policy towards the Castro regime after he began to nationalize American companies in 1960, the Bay of Pigs debacle (1961), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and the “thaw” that President Barack Obama attempted to initiate during his second term.
You can never know enough about complicated issues. I do, however, know a good deal. I have discussed these things with colleagues, Cubans in Florida, and Cubans on the island. I have read histories of the Cold War. I have read memoirs. I have visited museums on both sides of the Florida Straits. I have stayed in modern and broken-down 19th-century hotels, private homes, and bed and breakfasts on the island. I have dined with Cuban intellectuals in their homes.
Here is what I think America must do.
First, lift the Embargo either immediately or in a controlled sequence. Why? The Embargo has never worked. It has not accomplished either of its goals: 1) to force the Cuban government to reject communism, end censorship, permit political parties, endorse free and fair elections, curtail human rights abuses, and cease to trade with America’s global enemies. Or 2) Put such intense economic and political pressure on the Cuban people themselves that their lives become intolerable, and they rise up and force the liberalization of the Cuban government and economy. Neither of these goals has been met — or even come within sight of being met — in 64 years of heavy oppression from the north.
We helped end apartheid in South Africa by what President Reagan called “constructive engagement.” That is precisely what President Obama attempted at the end of his second term (2014-2016). It’s time for a new approach to Cuba.
Second, permit free travel to and from Cuba, especially for the Cuban people on the island and on the American mainland. Permit cruise ships to bring 3,000 or more tourists per day to Havana. Tourism will flourish under the right conditions, and visitors will leave money on the island and carry observations and insights back to their home countries.
Third, permit essentially unlimited remittances — i.e., sending money from the U.S. to relatives in Cuba.
Fourth, encourage a wide range of cultural exchanges — between universities, think tanks, museums, schools, agricultural societies, and government agencies.
Fifth, provide $10-50 billion annually in targeted economic aid to Cuba for 10 or 20 years. You have no idea how much needs to be done to preserve and improve the Cuban infrastructure — roads, bridges, public transit, hospital equipment, schools, agricultural machinery, crop loans, etc. One in 20 buildings in the center of Havana has collapsed or is in imminent danger of doing so. That amount of money would, in a sense, be a drop in the bucket, but it would almost immediately make a dramatic difference in the lives of the Cuban people. We passed countless bus stops where people gathered all over the island, but no bus ever came.
Sixth, continue to press for a free press, free elections, the right of dissent, and the end to arbitrary arrests and imprisonment. In other words, the thaw should in no way be naïve, nor should it overlook the grave human rights abuses, inefficiency, and corruption of the Cuban government. The U.S. could provide aid contingent upon Cuban reforms. Cuba is partly responsible for its own troubles, of course, and its corruption and human rights abuses have given the U.S. an easy excuse for maintaining its stranglehold on the island economy.
Seventh, immediately and before all else, subsidize fuel deliveries to Cuba. Now, there are rolling blackouts, unscheduled losses of electric power, endless lines, and often no petrol at filling stations.
Eighth, the U.S. should sponsor reconciliation meetings and reunions between expat Cubans living in Florida and their friends and relatives on the island.
We Americans should look at Maslow’s hierarchy and ensure that all Cubans can obtain the most essential things in life. No people should live in deprivation and desperation because of conflict between their governments, which in neither case represent average citizens of Cuba and the United States. The Cold War (1946-1989) has been over for 35 years. The USSR is no longer a geopolitical threat to the United States. Fidel Castro (1926-2016) is dead. Raul Castro is elderly and enfeebled.
Time to turn the page. Cuba could be a reliable ally at the United States’ soft underbelly and an excellent arena for American commercial investment.
Critics may say the Cubans brought this on themselves, but you cannot sustain such a view if you look at America’s long, tragic relationship with Cuba. I’d suggest Ada Ferrer’s outstanding book, Cuba: An American History. If you want a closer look at the life and work of Fidel Castro, I suggest Cuba Libre!: Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution That Changed World History by Tony Perrottet.
I know some of you will disagree with this list of suggestions, but I ask you to visit Cuba to see the island and its people for yourself and not just stay in Havana. There is widespread poverty and wretchedness in Cuba. And yet, the people are hospitable, cheerful, and friendly to the American people. The island is long (777 miles) and fertile. At the moment, most of the food eaten by Cubans has to be imported into a land that could easily feed itself and the rest of the Caribbean. Like people everywhere, the Cuban people want the basic comforts of life: clean water, good food, electricity, public transportation, working banks, and hygiene products. The United States government and the post-Fidel Cuban government are the two great impediments to those basic comforts. Of these two, the greater responsibility falls on the United States.
We Americans must accept our complicity in the misery of the Cuban people. We have had our boot on the neck of Cuba for over 100 years. It might have been worth it if it had brought about any of its goals. But you know what Einstein said about doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.
It is time to bring about a whole (but careful) reconciliation between two neighbors who, by all logic, should be allies and friends. The expats in Miami will learn to live with it, and everyone in both nations will be happier and more satisfied (even them) in a decade or two.
