Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel. | Photo: Reuters
The recently inaugurated Cuban president praised art as a way of building bridges.
May 24 (teleSUR) Cuban President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, does not believe that the current hostile attitude of the United States toward Cuba can last forever, and believes that they can find the “will” and “points of contact” to move forward from a position of respect.
The president was meeting with some of the Cuban artists who participated in the Festival of Cuban Arts that was held in Washington D.C. this month, and said that art can build bridged between the two countries.
“I don’t believe that the current position will be eternal, and things like what you have accomplished in Washington… can open the way,” he said, praising the artists’ talent and commitment.
“You showed that we can live together in peace despite our differences.”
Lamenting that the administration of Donald Trump has attempted to “roll back the process of recovery with which we wanted to normalize relations,” the recently inaugurated president said that there still remain “points of contact.”
“If there is the will, respect, and equality, we can continue back on that construction.
From May 8-20, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. hosted the largest-ever Cuban arts festival in the United States. The occasion featured around 400 artists ranging from musicians, dancers, actors, filmmakers, fashion, design and cooking.
Soon after a passenger plane crashed near Havana's airport last week, killing 112 people, Cuba's new president Miguel Díaz-Canel arrived at the scene as the wreck of the Boeing 737 still smouldered.
Then he addressed the nation on state television, visited the morgue, the hospital where survivors were taken, and the hotel where family members of the crash victims were being put up until the bodies of their loved ones were identified. He hugged, gripped shoulders and listened.
He met with the aviation authorities heading up the investigation of the crash and last Sunday visited emergency workers drilling on disaster responses to the coming hurricane season.
The week before, he chatted with students at a high school computer lab, donned a hair net to tour a dairy processing plant that makes soy yogurt, visited a clinic in Havana's Lawton neighborhood, and stopped by an old technical school complex that had been converted into 145 apartments. He even visited a waste management site where he learned that 40 of the 90 trucks needed to collect Havana's trash were out of service.
And those were just a few of the stops Díaz-Canel has made in the little more than a month since he assumed the reins of Cuba's Council of State and Council of Ministers from Raúl Castro, who still heads the powerful Communist Party. He's also met with visiting world leaders, hosted a gathering of the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Havana, and headed up a meeting to plan for the 500th anniversary of the city of Havana next year.
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel dances with children from a theater group during the opening session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean meeting in Havana.
Desmond Boylan AP
When Díaz-Canel, 58, was selected for the post, there were broad questions about how he — decades younger than the historic generation of Cuban leaders and not even born at the time of the 1959 Revolution — might govern.
Would he spend all his time huddled with his Council of Ministers working on continuity or would he prove to be more a man of the people?
"What is interesting is what a public figure he's been. He's been on the front page of Granma almost every day," said William LeoGrande, an American University professor who focuses on Cuba. "There's a very public effort to communicate to Cubans that Díaz-Canel is the legitimate leader. He has recognized the importance of the symbolic role of the Cuban president."
Cuba's new leader Miguel Diaz-Canel, left, and Raul Castro at Cuba's National Assembly on April 19, 2018.
Alexandre Meneghini AP
Critics of Díaz-Canel, including the Cuban-American delegation in Congress, have called him Castro's "puppet" and say the transition of power in Cuba was a "sham." On the island, his appointment to the presidency also was met with little enthusiasm by the Cuban population.
Even as he assumed the presidency, it was clear Castro would still be in charge.
In his speech at Díaz-Canel's inauguration, Castro said he will continue to head the Communist Party until the next party congress in 2021, and that the plan is to have the same person, presumably Díaz-Canel, at the helm of the party as well as the Council of Ministers and Council of State at that time.
Until then, Castro "will spearhead the most important decisions for the present and future of the nation," Díaz-Canel said in his first speech as president.
So at least until until 2021, Díaz-Canel faces a difficult political road.
"He leads by consensus, not by force of personality," said Pedro Freyre, who heads the international practice at Akerman law firm and has clients who do business with Cuba. "I expect him to be very cautious until he gets his footing. He has a very delicate balancing act to perform between the competing interests of the FAR [the Revolutionary Armed Forces], the party, the ministries and the other Cuban stakeholders."
Miguel Diaz-Canel, center right, and Raúl Castro observe the May Day parade in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución in 2018.
Desmond Boylan AP
In order to succeed as president, Díaz-Canel must be perceived as an independent leader, said Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence analyst who now lives in Miami: "He doesn't want to be viewed as Raúl's protege or Raúl's baby. He needs to do his best and Raúl will back him up as strongly as possible."
During his speech before Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power in April, Díaz-Canel signaled that he might be a more hands-on president who was interested in mingling and getting Cubans' opinions: “We will have to exercise an increasingly collective leadership, strengthening the participation of the people,” he said.
As he waited in line with everyday Cubans to vote for National Assembly deputies in March, Díaz-Canel told reporters: "There has to be a focus on ties to, links with the people to listen to the people, deeply investigate the problems that exist and inspire debates about those problems."
The topics he's focused on most recently — food and agricultural production, healthcare, education, the internet, housing and getting the garbage picked up — are all issues that resonate with the Cuban population. But politically, he hasn't deviated from the party's paramount goal: survival of the revolution and the Cuban state.
"I think that by his style and the topics he's focusing on, he's showing that he's interested in continuity in politics but also understands the need for new blood in the Cuban state," said Arturo López-Levy, a lecturer at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and a former Cuban intelligence analyst.
"Does having more contacts with the Cuban people solve the problems of the country? No," said López-Levy, but "it could make it less difficult to address those problems."
Díaz-Canel — the first non-Castro president since 1976 — faces a difficult but necessary reform agenda set in motion but not fully implemented by Raúl Castro and mounting economic problems.
Among the most difficult challenges that Díaz-Canel faces are unifying Cuba's unwieldy dual currency system and multiple exchange rates, attracting foreign investment, kick-starting Cuba's moribund economy and implementing reforms that will take Cuba toward more of a market socialism. Also left on his plate is constitutional reform and dealing with a tenser relationship with the United States.
Analysts say he'll need every bit of political credibility he can muster to push through reforms that are needed to make the Cuban economy more sustainable but that could be unpopular because there will be winners and losers.
"His most difficult task will be dealing with the consequences of necessary market reforms and the probable greater inequity that will result," said López Levy.
"The delay in currency unification is probably the No. 1 thing preventing Cuba from having sustainable growth," said LeoGrande. "No. 2 is the inefficiency of state enterprises. Twenty percent of the state budget still goes to subsidizing state enterprises."
The next big clues on how Díaz-Canel plans to govern will come in July when the National Assembly meets to approve his Council of Ministers. Castro has said the National Assembly also will set up a commission at that meeting to present a draft text of the new constitution, which will be debated by deputies as well as the Cuban population in coming months.
"Raúl Castro will continue to be extraordinarily influential in decisions made at the party's Political Bureau level, but Díaz-Canel also is a member of the Politburo and has a seat at that table," said LeoGrande. "Raúl Castro has made it clear that he sees Díaz-Canel as his protege and wants him to succeed. This transition is very much like Raúl Castro himself — structured and calibrated."
Follow Mimi Whitefield on Twitter: mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
The primary factor in President Diaz-Canel's success will be his ability to engage directly with his people and to open the door for their creativity and energy. He must see the Party as only one vehicle for communication, no less self-interested than every other human institution.
He has to overcome the near religious antipathy from some sectors to independent individual initiative and success, sometimes coincident with relative wealth but always linked to greater autonomy from overconcentrated power.
Greater practical receptivity to foreign direct investment is vital but also to the infrastructure assistance provided by international financial institutions that have played an important role in Vietnam's dramatic development. The Trump Administration will doubtless oppose Cuba's entry into the World Bank and IMF, but it does not have veto power nor moral standing.
If Secretary Pompeo restores normal functioning of the US embassy and consular section, he will frustrate those responsible for the inexplicable medical problems affecting US intelligence operatives and diplomats. A more positive US presence provides more space for innovation in Cuba.
II INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON SOCIORELIGIOUS STUDIES
23rd -26th October, 2018
UNIVERSITY OF CIENFUEGOS, CUBA.
The Center of Sociocultural
Anthropology “Samuel Feijóo” calls for the II International Workshop on Socioreligious Studies, as part
of the II International Conference of the University of Cienfuegos which will
take place on October
23rd -26th. Socioreligious studies began to be developed in
the University of Cienfuegos fifteen years ago with the creation of the
Sociocultural Studies Degree. Since then, investigations on the religious
legacy of the region of Cienfuegos have been fostered.
These researches have been complemented by post graduate programs and the
Master´s Degrees on Historic Studies and Cuban Sociocultural Anthropology, as
well as on Sociocultural Studies. As a result, today there is a significant
number of researches on important topics such as families, institutions and
religious manifestations.
On the other hand, one of the goals the Center
of Sociocultural Anthropology “Samuel
Feijóo” is to promote investigations on the work of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the
Priest who was closely related to the process of conquest and colonization of
Cuba. The links of Las Casas with region of Cienfuegos as well as his
transcendental thinking are significant topics to be investigated and
socialized.
Based on the reach of the full papers accepted, the
organizing committee will conveniently organize workshops, symposiums, round
tables, panels or seminars about the following topic areas:
Topic areas:
1.Theories
and methods of study on religion.
2.Philosophic,
anthropological, historic and sociocultural dimensions of religion.
3.Changes
of the religious phenomenon: the catholic pluralism and the intricacies of the
evangelic world.The Cuban religions of
African origins. Heritage, culture and identity.
4.Religion, Heritage, and Cultural
Tourism. The religious heritage and its potential for the development of
Cultural Tourism
5.The
religious and humanist legacy of Bartolomé de Las Casas.
Panels:
Propuesta
de paneles:
Panel
1. Theories and methods of study.
Dimensions of religion.
Panel 2. Changes of the religious phenomenon: the
catholic pluralism and the intricacies of the evangelic world.
Panel
3. The Cuban religions of
African origins. Heritage, culture and identity.
Panel
4. Bartolomé de Las Casas in the conquest and colonization. Significance of his
work and his humanist legacy.
Abstracts,
papers and inscriptions may be sent to:
The Casa de Iberoamerica is sponsoring its thirteenth Congress of Ideas October 25 and 27, 2018 in the Cuban city of Holguin. It attracts about 300 academics and writers from universities all over Cuba, with a preponderance from Holguin, Santiago, Havana, Villa Clara and Ciego de Avila. The Congress offers a strong intellectual anchor for a faculty led trip and an opportunity to develop collaboration with new schools and academic disciplines.
Paper presentations are grouped in six Forums: Sociodemographic studies; Hispanic Migratory Processes and National Identity; Culture, Tourism and Sustainable Development; Social Thought and National Identity; Gender Studies; Cultural Groups and Artistic Processes Registration information and suggested paper topics are here http://www.casadeiberoamerica.cu/convocatorias/52-xiii-ibero-american-congress-of-thought (Registration for the conference and associated costs other than housing totals approximately $150.)
For further information about the Congress, write to Arismaray Reyes Gonzalez <yaram5727@gmail.com> or John McAuliff <jmcauliff@ffrd.org>.
Daily flights to Holguin are available on Jet Blue from Ft. Lauderdale and American Airlines from Miami.
After the Congress, the Fund for Reconciliation and Development will lead a two or three day visit to Baracoa, focusing on coconut production and history
Only 90 miles from Florida, Cuba has long been a source of fascination for Americans. The country’s proximity combined with nearly six decades of travel restrictions created a romantic myth around the Pearl of Antilles for many living in the United States.
Ciara Johnson.
Cuba travel in 2018 for Americans is legal...and fun. Photo credit: Ciara Johnson.
And by many counts, tourism was up. In 2017, 600,000 American travelers (without Cuban family ties) visited the nation, which is more than six-times the pre-Obama level.
However, according to experts, not much has changed for Americans interested in Cuba travel. Individual travelers are still able to visit the country for the purpose of supporting the Cuban people. Here’s how.
(It bears mentioning that pure tourism was not, and is still not, allowed. Travelers must fall under one of these 12 categories of authorized travel.)
Friendly Planet Travel.
The neoclassical Capitolio Nacional is an iconic sight in Havana for American travelers in 2018. Photo credit: Friendly Planet Travel.
How much has changed since President Trump
"If you speak Spanish, you don't need a tour guide,” says John McAuliff, executive director of Fund for Reconciliation and Development Coordinator. “You can do it completely on your own with one of the good guidebooks.”
McAuliff, 75, who has been working to create more ties between Cuba and the U.S. through travel for over twenty years says that although individual “people-to-people” trips were eliminated in June, Americans can visit the country without a tour operator under “support of the Cuban people.”
Classic Journeys.
Visiting Cuban tobacco farmers would fall under "support for the Cuban people," which is one of the 12 categories of authorized travel for Americans traveling to Cuba in 2018. Photo credit: Classic Journeys.
In practical terms, this means creating an extensive itinerary that complies with regulations and documenting your trip while you are visiting the country, in case you are asked by the American government for receipts. A key component of “support for the Cuban people” is interacting with locals, so include activities that provide genuine interactions. Think salsa classes, instead of beach days.
Following the Trump administration’s tightening of economic embargo against Cuba, many travelers report that the most difficult aspect of their trip is making sure that they do not spend money at a business with ties to the military. Although they run many hotels in the country, as well as transportation services, it is possible to only spend money at establishments run by Cubans citizens, if you do your homework beforehand.
Ciara Johnson.
Touring Havana in an old car is a classic Cuban experience for American travelers. Photo credit: Ciara Johnson.
Ciara Johnson, the 25-year-old American travel blogger behind Hey Ciara, visited the country in December 2017 and then again in February 2018. Between her two visits, the American regulations had changed.
Many backpackers in Cuba point to their casas particulares, or home stays, as the best aspect of their visits. This also complies with the new financial regulations for American travelers, as the money goes directly to Cuban citizens rather than the military.
Although you are still a visitor, staying with a local offers a glimpse of life on the island beyond what you would see in a hotel. “If they have a blackout, you’re going to live the blackout. Those don’t happen in hotels,” said Juan, a 24-year-old Cuban who works in the hospitality industry.
Ciara Johnson.
Travel blogger Ciara Johnson's favorite part of her recent Cuba travel was staying at a casa particular. Photo credit: Ciara Johnson.
“Because of the historical and cultural differences, staying in a family home you are able to see the culture in a way you wouldn’t otherwise,” says Johnson. From watching telenovelas with her host to learning about fruits that she didn’t know existed, Johnson says that staying at casas particulares was not only the highlight of her trip, but the experience counted as a form of support for the Cuban people.
The system was set up in 1997, when the Cuban government allowed citizens to rent rooms in their homes to visitors. When Obama relaxed restrictions against Cuba, Airbnb capitalized on the existing system, quickly adding 1,000 Cuban listings to their website. But you can still find lodging the old fashioned way: walking around. Hosts paint anchors on their houses. A red anchor means that foreigners are welcome, while blue denotes that there are rooms for Cubans.
Casas particulares “do give a good insight into what life is like on a local level. The key is to be sensitive that people are doing this for a living,” says Rebecca Ogden, 31, a Latin America lecturer at Kent University. “They are not doing it out of the goodness of their heart, out of a stereotype of generosity.”
Be careful about asking too much about politics or putting them on the spot, unless you feel that a real relationship has developed.
S Talty.
On a recent trip to Cuba, visitors were served hamburgers for breakfast as the islanders thought that was a traditional American breakfast. Photo credit: S Talty.
Backpacking in Cuba if you don’t speak Spanish
Since a key component of traveling under "support for the Cuban people" is that you need to be interacting with the people, experts recommend hiring a tour guide if you don’t speak Spanish.
“You can’t say I interacted with the Cuban who sold me a sandwich,” says McAuliff. But with a private guide, “you do all the same things the tour groups are doing.”
McAuliff says that a private guide costs around $100 and can be found through TripAdvisor message boards.
S Talty.
American visitors can see Che Guevara graffiti in Cuba. Photo credit: S Talty.
The advantage of a private guide is that “they’ll be able to pop into places and talk to people in a very different way than if they were with 15 or 20 people.”
However, be advised that the Cuban government looks at individual guides as a "legal grey area" says McAuliff, as “they have not figured out a licensing system for individual guides. It is tolerated.”
Educational Experiences Abroad.
Booking a trip with a tour operator can be a great way for Americans to legally visit Cuba in 2018. Photo credit: Educational Experiences Abroad.
Traveling with a tour
If the idea of backpacking around Cuba doesn’t appeal to you, traveling around the country with a tour operator is still a good option. Many of the more distinguished tours have been operating since before Obama loosened regulations, so they are accustomed to tailoring itineraries for the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and documenting aspects of the trip. It is their job to keep track of new and changing policies, so you don't have to worry about compliance.
“We are continually searching for new programming so you are getting authentic exchanges and not just checking off a box for OFAC,” says Claire Kelly, founder and director of Educational Experiences Abroad.
There are many types of Cuban tours available, from traditional ones focused on exploring Havana and Santiago, to marathon tours, cooking class or ones for birdwatchers. In addition to Educational Experiences Abroad, other well-regarded tour operators include Friendly Planet Travel or Cuba Educational Travel. If you don’t like traveling with strangers, many operators are able to make a customized tour for you and a group of friends that would function in a similar way.
Alexandra Talty is a writer and columnist, exploring the world on a journalist's paycheck. Follow heradventures onTwitterandInstagram.
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