The Truly Revolutionary Country

January 8, 2011


From Yale Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria's opinion editorial in The New York Times, "Exiled by Ike, Saved by America":

Fifty years after the break in relations, while Cuba is still ruled by a male, white, militaristic, totalitarian gerontocracy, Barack Obama is the president of the United States and Hillary Clinton the secretary of state. Which of my two countries is the revolutionary one?

In that half-century, Fidel and Raúl Castro have managed to run into the ground what was a prosperous country, to drive a million and a half of its citizens into exile and to fill the jails with political and common prisoners. Recent changes in the Cuban economy, conciliatory gestures toward the church and the release and deportation of some political prisoners show that the Castros are aware of the instability of their system — which Fidel Castro not long ago blurted out does not even work in Cuba.

The one change that they have not dared to make, however, is to remove fear from Cuban life, because it is the glue that holds together their government. Fear of being accused by a neighbor who belongs to one of the vigilante Committees for the Defense of the Revolution; fear that the secret police will find something to incriminate you; fear that you will be jailed without charges for months or even years; fear that the government-sponsored mobs called Rapid Response Brigades will stage a violent rejection rally in front of your house (as has happened to the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the dissident who died during his prison hunger strike last February); fear that you will be denied your request to travel abroad; fear that you will lose your job; fear, in short, that the long arm of power will reach down to you and smite you.