In “Cuba: New Partners and Old Limits” [September/October 2005, “Empire and Dissent”] Daniela Spenser calls for Cuba to devolve into a happy camp of autonomous NGOs connected to the Internet. She does not mention continuing U.S. actions to subvert, sabotage and overthrow the government, save for phrases like “realistic fear of U.S. intervention” and “possibility of U.S. aggression.” Even then, she sees only fear and possibility, not actual intervention.
Does she not know how the U.S. Interests Section funds, coordinates and even manufactures “dissidents” while calling for the Cuban people to overthrow the government? (I recommend she read Los disidentes.) Was she not around to see James Cason at work? Does she not know of the blockade, of the illegal radio and TV transmissions or of the “transition” plan to intervene upon Fidel Castro’s death to ensure that the revolution does not continue?
Nowhere do autonomous organizations take precedence over the state, and certainly not under such circumstances. In Latin America—as she recognizes—Cuba alone in past decades has survived outside of the U.S. orbit.
Ms. Spenser makes no note of how, for example, the U.S. government denied Cuba cable Internet connections, forcing it to use more-expensive satellite connections, or that when the Mexican telephone company contracted to build out Cuba’s inadequate phone system, it was forced to back down because of the Helms-Burton Act. In the end, Italians took over, butonly after much lost time, effort and money.
She notes, for the edification of the Cubans, that the Internet is one of history’s most significant innovations. She clearly never heard of Castro’s saying much the same thing, for she asserts—stunningly, unreasonably and without support—that “the Cuban government sees in technological modernization a danger to the state.” This, about the same blockaded island that has built a world-class biotech industry, that is producing its own software and that has an agreement with China to manufacture massive numbers of computers.
She concludes—stunningly, again, but this time more vaguely—with a complaint of “social engineer[ing] in a world of recognized human diversity.” What government or legislative body does not engage in social engineering with every budget it approves? That phrase, alone, should disqualify her from writing again for NACLA, but, if it does not, then the call for “globalization from below” should tilt the balance. She then asserts that because of this deficiency Cuba cannot “speak … to the totality of the population that opposes imperial designs.” She should read the surveys in Argentina showing what the people there think of Cuba, or contemplate the visits of Evo Morales and what he says about Cuba, or catch up on the recent Caricom-Cuba conference, and so on. Cuba is not just an example of old-time resistance; it now provides real and concrete things and services to people of other nations, including education, cutting-edge medicines, disaster recovery and free eye surgeries. Above all, it survives, despite the best efforts of the U.S. government 90 miles away.
Luis Rumbaut. Washington, D.C.
