Author Archives: Grenier Yvon

CUBA, SÍ, VENEZUELA, NO? A DOUBLE STANDARD IN FOREIGN POLICY

Posted on June 27, 2018 by Arch Ritter

BOTH LATIN AMERICAN STATES REPRESS THEIR CITIZENS AND HAVE LITTLE REGARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, SO WHY HAVE THEY RECEIVED SUCH DIFFERENT TREATMENT FROM CANADA AND OTHERS?

BY: YVON GRENIER, JUNE 21, 2018

Original Article: Cuba, Sí, Venezuela, No?

For years the Trudeau government has been exceptionally forceful in its condemnation of Nicolas Maduro’s budding dictatorship in Venezuela.

Canada imposed sanctions last September on key figures in the Maduro regime “to send a clear message that their anti-democratic behaviour has consequences.” In advance of April’s Summit of the Americas, Canada supported the announcement by host country Peru that Maduro would not be welcome to attend. In Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland’s words: “Maduro’s participation at a hemispheric leaders’ summit would have been farcical.”

Freeland then characterized Maduro’s re-election on May 20 as “illegitimate and anti-democratic,” with Canada announcing further sanctions on key figures in the Maduro regime on May 30. The Organization of American States also passed a June 5 resolution that calls for an extraordinary assembly to vote on suspending Venezuela from the 34-member organization. Furthermore, Canada will not seek to replace its ambassador in Caracas, which amounts to suspending normal diplomatic relations. And most recently, in a speech at a Foreign Policy event June 13 in Washington, Freeland made a point of mentioning the country, saying that “some democracies have gone in the other direction and slipped into authoritarianism, notably and tragically Venezuela.”

The three main parties in Ottawa are strangely in lockstep to denounce the “erosion of democracy” in that once prosperous and democratic nation. But the Trudeau government is particularly combative. This is a strong contrast to our policy toward the only country in the region that is arguably a worse offender of democratic rights: Cuba. For if “Canada will not stand by silently as the Government of Venezuela robs its people of their fundamental democratic rights,” its policy toward Cuba has studiously been to stand by silently as the Castro brothers and now President Miguel Díaz-Canel robs the Cuban people of their fundamental democratic rights.

Comparing the state of democracy and human rights

The kind of elections held on May 20 in Venezuela, while clearly unfree and unfair, would represent a positive step toward pluralism in the one-party system of communist Cuba. For one, Maduro banned his main opponents from running, but he did allow two marginal opponents to campaign and compete for the presidency. Neither the Castro brothers nor Díaz-Canel ever had to run against anybody. For decades they were appointed unanimously by a rubber-stamp legislature completely controlled by the only party allowed in the country. Arbitrary detentions, total control of all branches of government by the executive, and violation of democratic rights are systematic and written into law on the island.

While Maduro is accused of violating the constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, his Cubans counterparts do not need to disregard their 1976 constitution to trample democratic rights; its template is the USSR’s constitution of 1936 (imposed there under the leadership of Joseph Stalin). Cubans visiting Venezuela are pleasantly surprised at how relatively free the media and Internet access are compared to the reality at home. Monitoring organizations such as The Economist Intelligence Unit, Reporters without Borders and Freedom House rank Cuba lower than Venezuela in their indexes of democracy, press freedom, and civil and political rights.

True, violent repression in Cuba is not as overt as it has been recently in the patria of Bolivar, where up to 160 civilians were killed by government forces during the massive street protests of last summer. Arguably, this is because Cuba is a more stable dictatorship, one that has already exported most of its opposition overseas. Short-term arbitrary arrests of human rights activists, independent journalists and dissonant artists appear sufficient to curb public criticism. Incidentally, the number of such arrests “have increased dramatically in recent years” according to Human Rights Watch. The dissident Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reports 5,155 such detentions in 2017. As Venezuela becomes more totalitarian, and more of its aggrieved citizens rush to the exit, it will conceivably experience lower levels of violence and unrest. To recall: in the wake of the 1959 revolution, violent clashes with the “counter-revolutionary” opposition lingered on until mid-1965 in Cuba — Fidel Castro had become a master of counter-insurgency.

According to some observers, the humanitarian situation may be worse in Venezuela, primarily because of rapidly deteriorating access to food and medicine. But then again, it is hard to measure and compare. The Cuban government does not produce statistics on poverty on the island. We know most Cubans are very poor, especially if they don’t have access to remittances regularly sent by their family in exile, a source of income not (yet) available to most Venezuelans.

In other words, while the situation may be worse in some respects in Venezuela, the difference in criticism from outside those countries can be in no way because of Cuba’s superior “democratic behaviour.”

A Cuban fascination versus a newer crisis

And yet, under Trudeau, Canada’s relations with communist Cuba have returned to their former glory. Seasoned advocate of ever-closer Canada-Cuba relations, professor John Kirk, recently waxed eloquent at a conference in Barcelona about a newly found “warm embrace” between the two countries, with increased investments, cultural ties, and exchange of high-ranking government ministers in both directions. The Canadian government, according to its approach presented online, is about “unlocking opportunities” and trade, not about sanctions and denunciations of undemocratic practices.

Contrast Freeland’s comments on Maduro to Trudeau famously saying, in his statement on the death of Fidel, “on behalf of all Canadians,” that “Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people.”

When CBC News senior parliamentary reporter Catherine Cullen asked Trudeau whether he believes Castro was a dictator, Trudeau tepidly replied: “Yes.” Yet he sends very mixed messages and seems to prefer overlooking the darker side of the Cuban regime.

One can think of several plausible explanations for this discrepancy, starting with the Trudeau family and its strange fascination with Fidel. Comparisons with US President Donald Trump’s man crush for Vladimir Putin come to mind. One cannot help but wonder if Freeland’s silence on Cuba (it would be a shoe-in addition to her Putin-Maduro axis of evil) is a concession made to the boss.

Other explanations, inter alia: Venezuela is (still) an OAS member, unlike Cuba, though if memory serves, Canada and other principled guardians of the OAS Democratic Charter are invariably sanguine about welcoming Cuba back to the hemispheric fold. Perhaps hostility toward communist Cuba is now perceived as an outmoded residue of the Cold War. Venezuela is a post-Cold War failing state, driven to the ground by a clumsy heir of Hugo Chávez, with no Bay of Pigs or even embargo (the US purchases most of Venezuela’s oil) as convenient excuses.

The most credible justification for such double standards is that Venezuela is in the midst of a crisis, with lots of moving parts, rather than being fully constituted (or ossified) like Cuba, where it is too late for pressures to work. The island fully “slipped into authoritarianism” — just as Freeland described Venezuela recently — in 1952 and then into totalitarianism in the 1960s. Former US President Barack Obama’s rationale for opening up to Cuba was ostensibly that the US tried to topple the regime for longer than he lived, and repeatedly failed. Venezuela is still in flux, increasingly isolated in the region and the world, and consequently, amenable to change under international pressure. Maybe.

Cuba’s impact on Venezuela

Be that as it may, Canada would be well advised to consider the responsibility of Cuban leaders in the current crisis in Venezuela. Cuban infiltration of Venezuelan state institutions is complete, as Cuban “advisers” can be found in virtually every single office, ministry or barrack of the Venezuelan state. Meanwhile, millions of Venezuelan oil dollars (even foreign oil bought by Venezuela and gifted to Cuba) flow into Cuba’s coffers. Venezuela had been an obsession of Fidel’s since the early 1960s and turning the country into a Cuban ally was his greatest foreign policy accomplishment. His smaller and poorer country astonishingly managed to infiltrate what is after all a larger and richer country. When Chávez declared in 2007 that Cuba and Venezuela were a “single nation” with a “one single government,” he was not kidding.

So, in other words, Canada is excoriating Venezuela for trying to emulate a country Canada is proud to have sunny relations with. To be provocative: would the Canadian government like Maduro more if he, like Cuban leaders, banned competitive elections altogether and closed the borders?

Leaving aside the complementary but separate discussion on what policy is best for Canada, one can at least say this: if Canada continues to pick its human rights policies à la carte, raging against violations in one country and glossing over possibly worse ones next door, the world may notice and take neither Canada’s principled position nor its not-so-principled position seriously. And if global consistency is too much to ask (after all, Canada seems to get along fine with China, Saudi Arabia, etc.), at least some regional evenness or just an explanation would be most welcome.

New Book: CULTURE AND THE CUBAN STATE: PARTICIPATION, RECOGNITION, AND DISSONANCE UNDER COMMUNISM

Posted on January 2, 2018 by Arch Ritter

YVON GRENIER

Culture and the Cuban State examines the politics of culture in communist Cuba. It focuses on cultural policy, censorship, and the political participation of artists, writers and academics such as Tania Bruguera, Jesús Díaz, Rafael Hernández, Kcho, Reynier Leyva Novo, Leonardo Padura, and José Toirac. The cultural field is important for the reproduction of the regime in place, given its pretense and ambition to be eternally “revolutionary” and to lead a genuine “cultural revolution”. Cultural actors must be mobilized and handled with care, given their presumed disposition to speak their mind and to cherish their autonomy.

This book argues that cultural actors also seek recognition by the main (for a long time the only) sponsor and patron of the art in Cuba: the “curator state”. The “curator state” is also a “gatekeeper state,” arbitrarily and selectively opening and closing the space for public expression and for access to foreign currencies and the global market. The time when everything was either mandatory or forbidden is over in Cuba. The regime seems to have learned from egregious mistakes that led to a massive exodus of artists, writers and academics. In a country where things change so everything could stay the same, the controlled opening in the cultural field, playing on the actors’ ambition and fear, illuminates a broader phenomenon: the evolving rules of the political game in the longest standing dictatorship of the hemisphere.

Author

Yvon Grenier is professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University.

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Acronyms
Chapter 1: Revolution and Cultural Will
Chapter 2: Don’t Cross This Line
Chapter 3: Jesus Diaz, the Unintentional Deviationist
Chapter 4: The Curator State
Chapter 5: How to Write From Mantilla, Of the Small Heresies of Leonardo Padura
Chapter 6: Faking Criticism
Conclusion
Bibliography

Reviews

Yvon Grenier, a sharp-eyed observer of culture and politics in Latin America, provides an illuminating analysis of the complex relations between Cuba’s intellectuals and the Castro regime. Exceeding the revolutionary rhetoric which has impressed much of the research on Cuba in the past, Grenier looks seriously and rigorously into the state’s cultural policy over time, showing how changes in that policy from repression to liberalization and back have not altered the fundamental position of Cuba’s artists, writers and political scientists, a position marked by fear, censorship, self-censorship, and the need to perform intellectual acrobatics. A must-read for anyone concerned with the fate of creative imagination and critical thinking in authoritarian states.
Michael Keren, University of Calgary

Everywhere in the world intellectuals, writers, and academics are a different breed who seek participation and recognition from their public and peers as well as their state. In his analysis of Cuba’s cultural policy during the Cuban revolution, Yvon Grenier carefully shows that in a communist state that quest is particularly difficult and dangerous. In Cuba, a line was drawn early on between those who work within the revolutionary parameters and gain acceptance, though at times managing to be quite critical (dissonance) and those who work outside of it, meeting rejection and ostracism (dissidence). Yet, through his analysis of the hardships, vicissitudes, and circumstances of the lives of important Cuban intellectuals (such as Jesús Díaz, Tania Bruguera, and Leonardo Padura), Grenier further shows that where the line lies can be rather unclear, leading to some crossing it unwittingly while others place their stories in another century and another place to avoid it. Grenier shows that the political control of the cultural life in a one party state like Cuba results not only in censorship but also in self-censorship. For everyone who cares about the quality of intellectual life in Cuba and elsewhere, this is a book not to be missed.
Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan

This book is a path-breaking work that convincingly turns the conventional wisdom about the ‘cultural policy’ of the Cuban Revolution on its head. Most compelling and original is the author’s nimble analysis that distinguishes between a set of unwritten but untouchable “primary parameters” and another set of “secondary” and contextually permeable parameters that such cultural actors must constantly negotiate in order to avoid being dealt “out of the game” of Cuban culture as played on the island under the Revolution. The strongest contribution of the book is to change the focus on cultural freedom in Cuba from one that focuses exclusively on the state to one that focuses equally on the ways Cuban writers, artists, and intellectuals negotiate with the state, in search not only of greater creative freedom but also (and ironically) state recognition and promotion.
Ted A. Henken, Baruch College

Posted in Blog | Tagged Communist Party of Cuba, Culture, Dissidents, Fidel Castro, Freedom of Expression, Literature, Opposition, Political System, Politics, President Raul Castro | Leave a comment

CIENCIAS SOCIALES, DESPOLITIZACIÓN Y EL ELEFANTE AZUL

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Arch Ritter

Yvon Grenier, Profesor del Departamento de Ciencias Políticas, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canadá.

CONVIVENCIA, Abril, 2017

Original Article: http://www.convivenciacuba.es/index.php/sociedad-civil-mainmenu-53/1459-ciencias-sociales-despolitizacion-y-el-elefante-azul

Cuando una sociedad se corrompe, lo primero que se gangrena es el lenguaje. La crítica de la sociedad, en consecuencia, comienza con la gramática y con el restablecimiento de los significados”. Octavio Paz, Postdata (1970).

Desde el triunfo de la revolución, el gobierno cubano se ha esforzado para despolitizar la sociedad, “achicando” el lenguaje utilizado para hablar de política en el país. En la conocidísima novela “1984” de Orwell, desde hace poco desbloqueada en la isla, la “neolengua” se explica como un proyecto a largo plazo de reducción del lenguaje y de disminución del alcance del pensamiento. El triunfo de la revolución cubana (un triunfo de la voluntad política) condujo al fin en la isla de la disciplina académica que analiza el uso del poder en la sociedad: la ciencia política. Como el término “política” se hizo equivalente, tanto en la teoría como en la práctica, con la revolución, el socialismo y el marxismo-leninismo, la ciencia política desapareció durante la primer década del régimen, (como la sociología de 1980 a 1991), para ser reemplazada por un “diamat / hismat” tanto como ideología oficial que como un paradigma obligatorio en las universidades.

Los estudiosos cubanos parecen estar de acuerdo en que una “renovación” del discurso/paradigma comenzó a tener lugar durante la segunda mitad de los años ochenta, a raíz de la campaña oficial de “rectificación de errores”. Pero aún así, como sustituto a la ciencia política, lo que todavía encontramos en Cuba son las ciencias sociales y humanidades blandas que hablan de política, de diplomacia y de administración pública, pero nunca de poder y de quién lo tiene. Imagina esa situación: un montón de gente en una habitación con un elefante azul en el medio, y el reto es hablar de lo que está pasando en la habitación, sin hablar jamás del deslumbrante mamífero.

En un artículo reciente, el economista canadiense Arch Ritter destaca algunas de las implicaciones de esta situación. Para él, “una de las consecuencias de la ausencia de la disciplina de ciencia política en Cuba es que solo tenemos una vaga idea de cómo funciona realmente el gobierno cubano. ¿Quién en el Politbureau y el Comité Central del partido realmente toma decisiones? ¿Hasta qué punto y cómo las presiones de las organizaciones de masas afectan realmente a la toma de decisiones, o el flujo de influencia siempre es de arriba a abajo y no el inverso? ¿Qué papel desempeñan las grandes empresas conglomeradas que se encuentran en la economía del dólar internacionalizada y la economía del peso en el proceso de formulación de políticas? ¿La Asamblea Nacional es simplemente una concha vacía que, por unanimidad, aprueba cantidades prodigiosas de legislación en períodos de tiempo extremadamente cortos?” Enseguida pregunta retóricamente: “¿Por qué este análisis político está esencialmente prohibido en las universidades cubanas? Puedes adivinar la respuesta” -concluye Ritter. Bueno, sí, podemos: tiene que ver con los tabúes acerca del elefante azul. Pero la respuesta completa no es tan obvia. La ciencia política puede existir bajo un régimen no democrático. Y de nuevo, vale la pena explorar por qué un país desbordado de política, donde casi nada sucede sin la intervención del gobierno y la inapelable revolución, es a la vez extrañamente apolítico. Por apolítica quiero decir que a pesar de toda la inflación de los símbolos políticos y el llamado popularmente “teque”, no hay espacio para discusiones políticas genuinas, debates verdaderos y análisis del proceso político, y escasas fuentes confiables de información y datos sobre “quién obtiene qué, cuándo y cómo”, para utilizar la definición de la política del politólogo Robert Dahl. La política está en todas partes, pero como un tótem, no como un proceso deliberativo en el sentido de Aristóteles o Hannah Arendt.

En el ámbito de la expresión pública en Cuba, es generalmente posible: 1. Deplorar públicamente los errores cometidos en el pasado (especialmente durante el purgatorio llamado Quinquenio Gris) por malos funcionarios; 2. Lamentar la pobreza de crítica y debate en la isla como consecuencia de problemas internos tanto en el ámbito cultural y educativo como en los medios de comunicación; y 3. Examinar con algún aliento crítico los problemas sociales en Cuba, especialmente si ya han sido identificados públicamente como tales por la dirección política, pero sin discutir sus posibles causas políticas. Esos son los parámetros. En ciencias sociales, es aconsejable partir del marxismo-leninismo como fundamento metodológico e ideológico, o al menos no ponerlo en tela de juicio. Desde allí se pueden explorar teorías no-marxistas (el posmodernismo fue popular durante los años 90), pero con cuidado, sin cuestionar el paradigma único. También se acogen con beneplácito las blandas descripciones de las estructuras jurídicas y los debates técnicos sobre las políticas públicas en revistas de ciencias sociales como Temas. Por último, pero no por ello menos importante, los estudiosos de las ciencias sociales e intelectuales deben denunciar el dogmatismo y celebrar las críticas y el debate, como invariablemente lo hace el mismo liderazgo político, pero asegurándose de reafirmar los dogmas oficiales. En otras palabras, la tarea principal y el desafío para los académicos es doble: fingir el pensamiento crítico, y stay in the game (permanecer en el juego).

Previsiblemente, los “debates” en Cuba cuentan con oradores ultra-cautelosos que en su mayoría están de acuerdo unos con otros, siendo toda la energía redirigida hacia las polémicas contra los enemigos oficialmente sancionados y los flagelos intemporales del gobierno: dogmatismo, burocratismo, corrupción, descontento juvenil, residuos pre-revolucionarios del sexismo y el racismo, y por supuesto, el imperialismo norteamericano, el “bloqueo” y el orden mundial capitalista. Todos se animan para “mejorar el socialismo”, y de hecho los líderes políticos rutinariamente desafían a los “intelectuales públicos” a atreverse más, pero el espacio permitido es mucho menos tangible que la anticipación del castigo si se violan los parámetros. La mejor estrategia de supervivencia es la autocensura y la ambigüedad. En cualquiera de estos “debates” (como los de Último Jueves, por ejemplo) las soluciones a los problemas convergen hacia la posición oficialista: más participación, más compromiso con L’Etre Suprême revolución, y a mejorar un sistema político en movimiento (La Revolución sin fin) pero irrevocable (Artículo 62 de la Constitución vigente). No se puede hablar de cómo funciona el sistema político exactamente porque eso necesitaría, en Cuba, como en cualquier otro país, un examen crítico de quién obtiene qué, cuándo y cómo. Es significante que cuando unos se atreven a abordar el tema, como fue excepcionalmente el caso de un “debate” de Último Jueves en febrero de 2016, no hay ninguna discusión sobre “cómo funciona”, solamente comentarios generales sobre posibles mejoras, las cuales invariablemente pasan por una reafirmación de los objetivos oficiales.

Marxismo-Leninismo como pensée unique

El marxismo-leninismo es una ideología conveniente para el gobierno cubano por dos razones. En primer lugar, abrazar y estudiar sus textos canónicos adormece la curiosidad sobre los procesos de toma de decisiones reales bajo un tipo de régimen que fue solo un sueño durante la vida de Marx: el comunismo. Marx escribió ampliamente sobre las fallas estructurales de las sociedades capitalistas (y pre-capitalistas), pero casi nada sobre la transición al comunismo. Aparte de las nebulosas referencias a la Comuna de París y las glosas sobre las estrategias revolucionarias en su “Crítica del Programa de Gotha”, el análisis de Marx del comunismo es más teleológico que político. En Cuba de hoy, el marxismo es una ideología que permite criticar los enemigos del gobierno. En segundo lugar, el marxismo-leninismo puede usarse como una teoría o un paradigma en ciencias sociales, como ocurre en todas partes (hoy más en humanidades y estudios culturales que en ciencias sociales y no en economía). Pero en sociedades abiertas, el marxismo compite con otras teorías e interpretaciones, lo que le da una vitalidad inexistente en países donde es una pensée unique. No es sorprendente que el Marxismo no sea muy sofisticado en Cuba: la ausencia de crítica genuina, la cual pasa por la confrontación con otras perspectivas, es una sentencia de muerte para cualquier perspectiva científica o filosófica. Por consiguiente, se puede repetir infatigablemente que el marxismo cubano es crítico y humanista, al revés del marxismo soviético (i.e. del pasado) “rígido” y “mecánico” defendido (y definido) por nadie. Pero no se puede realmente explorar cual es la diferencia entre los dos. En otras palabras, se puede criticar el “estalinismo” (como desviación del modelo marxista-leninista) pero no la Constitución de Stalin de 1936.

Uno de los efectos de la parametración en ciencias sociales es la presencia de un cierto estilo de comunicación que es blando, resbaladizo y oblicuo, que finge la complejidad y termina siendo poco concreto. Rafael Hernández, director de la revista Temas, declaró en 2014, en un artículo sobre las “estructuras políticas” en Cuba, que en su país se puede encontrar:

“[…] un consenso político alterado, contradictorio y heterogéneo, en cuya reproducción convergen viejos y nuevos sujetos sociales, que son los ciudadanos cubanos reales. Estrictamente hablando, estos no están repartidos solo en fábricas y campos sembrados, cursos universitarios y maestrías de negocios, hospitales y hogares de ancianos, cooperativas, talleres de equipos electrónicos, parroquias, sino en ministerios, oficinas del PCC, batallones de artillería, escuelas superiores para la formación de cuadros de dirección, y publicaciones estatales y eclesiásticas. Estos diversos sujetos sociales ejercen su condición ciudadana desde una inusitada pluralidad, correspondiente a una gama de clases y grupos, ocupaciones, generaciones, géneros, colores de piel –además, naturalmente, de sus particulares ideas políticas”.

Conclusión

Un país no puede sobrevivir sin historiadores, matemáticos, economistas, biólogos, etc. Aparentemente sí se puede subsistir sin genuinas ciencias políticas… pero ¿a qué precio? Para funcionar bien y utilizar plenamente su capital humano, un sistema político necesita información, transparencia, examen crítico y comparativo de las políticas y de los dirigentes, con respeto pero sin miedo a la verdad. No hay sistema político perfecto, ni mucho menos. En Cuba se necesita mejores datos sobre cómo funciona realmente su sistema político, y análisis a fondo de los problemas y de sus posibles causas políticas, levantando el velo del secreto que cubre la mayoría de las transacciones políticas. Para que esa importante transición tenga lugar, mis estimados colegas tendrán que jugar un papel crucial. Historiadores de la diplomacia, filólogos marxistas y tímidos contadores de la administración pública no son sustitutos de politólogos de verdad. La iniciativa podría emerger dentro de las filas de las ciencias sociales o incluso, de institutos de investigación y centros de estudios, como Convivencia. De otra manera, el “debate” político en Cuba seguirá siendo, para parafrasear lo que Borges dijo sobre la metafísica, una rama del género fantástico.

Yvon Grenier, Profesor del Departamento de Ciencias Políticas. St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canadá.

Posted in Blog | Tagged Communist Party of Cuba, Democracy, Education, Human Rights, Politics, Universities | Leave a comment

TO BE A WRITER IN CUBA

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Arch Ritter

Yvon Grenier

Literal: Latin American Voices, April 2016

Original Article: To be a writer in Cuba

The methodology of Leonardo Padura

Soy un escritor, en lo fundamental, de la vida cubana, y la política no puede estar fuera de esa vida, pues es parte diaria, activa, penetrante de ella; pero yo la manejo de manera que sea el lector quien decida hacer las asociaciones políticas, sin que mis libros se refieran directamente a ella. De verdad, no la necesito ni me interesa, pero, en cambio, me interesa muchísimo que mis libros puedan ser leídos en Cuba y que la gente pueda dialogar con ellos.

Leonardo Padura Cubaencuentro, 19 December 2008

“People think that what I say is a measure of what can or can’t be said in Cuba,” Leonardo Padura once stated in an interview with Jon Lee Anderson. In fact, what he says is a measure of what he—along with some other Cuban writers or artists—is allowed to say in Cuba. It is a privilege, not a right. Lesser authors who don’t enjoy his international fame (and Spanish passport) probably couldn’t have published a book like El hombre que amaba los perros, as he did in 2010, a year after it was edited in Spain by Tusquets. In fact, the book probably wouldn’t have appeared at all in Cuba decades or even years ago, which makes him the beneficiary (and the confirmation) of a recent openness. The government grants Padura some recognition (he won the National Literature Prize in 2012), as well as some privileges commonly bestowed on successful writers and artists: he can travel and publish abroad, and he can accept monetary compensation in foreign currency. But he is kept in a box. His books are nearly impossible to find on the island. The prestigious awards and accolades he is receiving abroad are mostly glossed over by the Cuban media. Finally, his insightful but politically cautious journalism is read all over the world, but not in Cuba (save for a few exceptions).

Numerous times Padura has made clear his desire to live in the house his father built in Mantilla, a working class municipality on the outskirts of Havana. He sometimes signs his articles, “Leonardo Padura, Still in Mantilla.” He also wants to be a “Cuban writer,” and as such, he feels he has “a certain responsibility because our reality is so specific and so hard for many people.” A genuine writer cannot be a mouthpiece for the government. Padura’s success in conciliating these two potentially conflicting ambitions—to be a writer who lives and work in Cuba—is, as John Lee Anderson put it, “a tribute both to his literary achievement and his political agility.” Blogger Yoani Sánchez wrote, “His ‘rarity’ lies fundamentally in having been able to sustain a critical vision of his country, an unvarnished description of the national sphere, without sacrificing the ability to be recognized by the official sectors. The praise comes to him from every direction of the polarized ideological spectrum of the Island, which is a true miracle of letters and of words.” This is why Padura is often seen as a sort of experiment on how to express freedom in a land bereft of freedom of expression.

…

Conclusion

Rather than pushing for more room for expression, Padura’s method seems to be to occupy all the space available without crossing any red lines. This has allowed him to elude the fate that befell so many writers in Cuba. His criticism of many aspects of Cuban society is achieved without directly addressing the political system in Cuba. This method works, in the sense that it provides him with basic guidelines to practice his métier in Cuba. Padura is not an exponent of the “art for art’s sake” viewpoint. He wants to talk about the “reality” in Cuba, but without acting like an activist for change. He cultivates a “practice of social and human introspection that occasionally reaches politics, but that does not part from there..” But one wonders, what happens when it comes to politics, “cuando llega a la política”? The answer is: not much, because he can’t go there and continue living and working in Mantilla. Living and working in Cuba is most valuable not only for him, but also for his readers. In one of his essays entitled “I would like to be Paul Auster,” he complains that he would love not to be constantly asked about politics in his country and how and why he continues to live there. But this is very much his niche: he is widely seen as the best writer in Cuba. He offers us an off-the-beaten path view of a relatively closed society, one that is free of propaganda if not entirely free tout court. No writer could attain global respectability producing a prose laden with official propaganda. By occupying a small but significant critical space in Cuba, Padura becomes more interesting for Cuba observers and more intriguing for students of cultural and literary trends on the island. In this sense, he may be compared to authors and artists who produce somewhat critical material under dictatorial regimes, like Ismael Kadaré (Albania-France) or Murong Xuecon (China) —he is closer, in fact, to the former than the latter.

In sum, Leonardo Padura found a sweet spot that has allowed him to navigate the tumultuous waters of censorship while searching for (and finding) his own voice. He has managed to become, as one observer wrote, “perhaps the foremost chronicler of the island.” Does he (and do his readers) pay too high a price for his privilege to write “from Mantilla”? Would he be more valuable to us, and a better writer, in exile?

Continue Reading: Yvon Grenier, TO BE A WRITER IN CUBA

Yvon Grenier teaches and writes on Comparative politics, Latin American politics (esp. Cuba, Mexico and Central America), Art /literature and politics, as well as political violence.He is also a Contributing Editor for Literal as well as an occasional political commentator for Radio Canada/CBC. His Twitter is @ygrenier1

Posted in Blog | Tagged Book Review, Freedom of Expression, Literature, The Arts | Leave a comment

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, ASCE 2014

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Arch Ritter

The papers presented at the 2014 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy are now available.

Cuba in Transition: Volume 24: Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting.

The papers listed below are hypewr-linked to directly to their respective file on the ASCE web site.

Preface
Conference Program
Table of Contents
Cuba’s Perplexing Changes: Is the Society in Crisis? Joaquín P. Pujol
The Cuban Economy 15 Years Later—On Firmer Ground, But Much Still To Do Gary H. Maybarduk
“Reformas Raulistas”: Apuntes Para un Balance Miriam Celaya
Where Are We? The State of Negotiation of a New Treaty Between the European Union and Cuba Martin Palouš
Political Implications of Recent Economic Reform Trends in Cuba: The 2014 Status Vegard Bye
Cuba: Tres Fábulas Sobre las “Actualizaciones” Raulistas Rolando H. Castañeda
The Cuban Communist Party: Current Status and Future Reform Larry Catá Backer
Cuba 2014: A Different Perspective on Cuba’s “Structural” Reforms Roger R. Betancourt
Comments on “A Different Perspective on Cuba’s ‘Structural’ Reforms” by Roger R. Betancourt Jorge A. Sanguinetty
Reclamaciones por Propiedades Expropiadas en Cuba: Informe de Recomendaciones Legales Rolando Anillo, Esq.
U.S. Socialism in Cuba: Implications of Prohibiting the Private Sector at Guantanamo Bay Michael J. Strauss
New Opportunities for Business and Investment by Americans in Cuba under the Economic Opening Antonio R. Zamora
The Position of Cuba’s Independent Trade Unions on Foreign Investment — The Special Economic Development Zone Mariel (ZDEM) Victor Manuel Domínguez García
Self-Employment in Cuba: Results of a Survey Maybell Padilla Pérez
El Pequeño Sector Privado en Cuba: Una Incógnita por Descifrar Osmar Laffita Rojas
La Unificación del Tipo de Cambio: El Caso Cubano Augusto de la Torre y Alain Ize
Cuba’s Currency Unification: Step-by-Step and Tensions Domingo Amuchástegui
ZEDM: Una Estrategia Audaz pero Todavia Incierta al Futuro Emilio Morales
La ZEDM: Un Proyecto Dependiente de las Libertades Fundamentales Dimas Castellanos
Investment Incentives of the ZED Mariel: Will Foreign Investors Take the Bait? Jorge F. Pérez-López
The Institutional Structure of Production in the Cuban Economy Ernesto Hernández-Catá
Cuba’s Growth Strategy: Human Capital and Foreign Investment Luis R. Luis
A Simple Growth Model of the Cuban Economy Carlos Seiglie
Apuntes Breves sobre Algunos Desafíos Cubanos Lenier González Mederos
Oposición Cubana: Una Mirada al Futuro Roberto Veiga González
La Oposición y el Poder Autoritario: Apuntes a Propósito de la Situación Cubana Armando Chaguaceda
Cuba: Apuntes Para el Debate sobre Oposición Leal y Soberanía Desde el Derecho Internacional y el Modelo de la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos Arturo López-Levy
The Concept of a “Loyal Opposition” in the Cuban Context Archibald R. M. Ritter
Self-Employment in Today’s Cuba: Quantitative Expansion Amid Qualitative Limitation Ted A. Henken and Archibald R.M. Ritter
Self-Employment in Cuba since the VI Party Congress Mario A. González-Corzo and Orlando Justo
La Hoja de Rescate de un Sistema de Salud Defraudao Juan Tomás Sánchez
The Port of Mariel and Cuba-Brazil’s Unusual “Medical Cooperation” María C. Werlau
Comentario al Trabajo de María Werlau: “El Puerto de Mariel y la Cooperación Médica Cuba-Brasil” Jorge Hernández Fonseca
Cuba en Transicion y las Relaciones Cuba-Estados Unidos Miriam Leiva
Does Cuba Have a Future in Manufacturing? Archibald R. M. Ritter
Cuba’s Evolving Agricultural Import Patterns William A. Messina, Jr.
El Mercado Libre Campesino Hildebrando Chaviano Montes
Cuba, Un Nuevo Modelo Económico o ¿Capitalizar el Entusiasmo de la Integración Latinoamericana? Dariela Aquique
Los Cambios en Cuba Hacia un Verdadero Desarrollo Humano Integral Jorge Ignacio Guillén Martínez
Cuba y Su Comercio Internacional Orlando Freire Santana
Inversiones, ¿Para Qué? Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Cuba: Assessment of the New Tax Law of 2012 Lorenzo L. Pérez
Steps to Economic Normalization with Cuba: A Roadmap for US Policymakers Gary Hufbauer, Barbara Kotschwar, and Cathleen Cimino
La Ley Cubana de la Inversión Extranjera: ¿A Quién Debe Servir? José Manuel Pallí
Comentarios a “La Nueva Ley de Inversión Extranjera Cubana” de José Manuel Pallí Jorge A. Sanguinetty
Réplica a Sanguinetty José Manuel Pallí
La Evolución del Derecho Civil Cubano y la Ley De Inversión Extranjera en Cuba: Un Camino por Recorrer María Elena Cobas Cobiella
La Nueva Ley de Inversión Extranjera y la Vulneración de Derechos Humanos Yaremis Flores
Los Derechos Laborales en Cuba Frente a la Ley de Inversión Extranjera Jesús R. Mercader Uguina
Cultural Policy, Participation and the Gatekeeper State in Cuba Yvon Grenier
Internet, Cine Independiente y Actualización Económica Soren Triff
Personal Networks and Party Affiliation in Status Attainment Processes in Cuba: How Do Individuals End Up in Economically Profitable Positions in Emergent Sectors? Sara Romanò
El Reflejo del Presente Proceso de Reformas — “Actualización” — en la Prensa Cubana Vicente Morín Aguado
La Exportación del Control de Estado: Más Allá De la Batalla de Ideas Juan Reinaldo Sánchez
El Socialismo del Siglo XXI: Exportación Cubana Carlos Sánchez Berzain
Cuba’s Housing Situation: A Perspective from the 2002 and 2012 Censuses Sergio Díaz-Briquets
El Nuevo Programa de Desarrollo Local y Comunitario (PDLC) desde la Dimensión Sociocultural: Objetivos y Trascendencias Rosendo Romero Suárez
Appendix A: About the Authors

Posted in Blog | Tagged Economic Reforms, General Economic Analyses | Leave a comment

Not Free But Comfy: Cuban Art Between State and Market

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Arch Ritter

Yvon Grenier

Original Article from Literal: Reflections, Art and Culture: Pensamiento, Arte y Cultura here: Not Free But Comfy: Cuban Art Between State and Market

More Equal than Others

Successful artists (painters, sculptors, and performers) are part of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population in Cuba. For two decades, they have been able to sell their works abroad, even to Americans (art is not covered by the US embargo). Cuban art is mostly for export and it is a lucrative business. Artists who play by the rules have been able to leave and return to their country, on their own, for two decades. Ordinary Cubans were only granted this basic universal right (see Art.13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) last January, and “exiled” Cubans are still denied the right to return to the island.

In art, as in other forms of expression, everything is permitted in revolutionary Cuba. Except when it is not. As Fidel Castro proclaimed in 1961, in a famous speech to intellectuals, “Within the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing.” The Constitution stipulates: “Artistic creation is free, as long as its content is not contrary to the Revolution. The forms of expression in the arts are free.” Form and content are hard to dissociate in the visual arts. So, who is to make the call on “form” and “content,” and who figures out what is acceptably “within” La Revolución and what is not? Answer: La Revolución herself, that is to say, en dernière instance, Fidel and his brother Raúl.

Since 1959 the ambitious goal of the new regime in Cuba has been to create “a new man in a new society.” Official documents talk about La Revolución as “the most important cultural fact of our history.” By and large, in this “new society” the range of what can be expressed has been reduced, which has hurt creativity, but the array of cultural activities accessible to the population in general has expanded in many areas, namely in music, visual arts and performing arts. The Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA-1976), for instance, produced many very well trained artists, who went on to have successful national and international careers. It is the only graduate school solely for the arts in Latin America. Many, perhaps most of the ISA’s graduates now live in exile.

The visual arts are mostly for the happy few and they are typically less ideationally explicit in their “content” than other artistic or cultural forms. Consequently, in Cuba as in many other non-democratic countries, the government can cut visual artists a little slack. Visual artists have more “space” for expression than, say, writers or popular singers, who in turn enjoy a bit more leeway than academics. Nobody is less free than a journalist in Cuba. In other words, Cubans are all equal, in being denied their “right to freedom of opinion and expression” (Art.19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), but some are more equal than others.

New Cuban Art

Visual artists who have been working within institutional channels have tested the borders of the permissible more often than most other actors in the cultural field. The trend really started during the 1980s, when young painters such as Flavio Garciandia, Tomás Sánchez, José Manuel Fors, José Bedia, Gustavo Pérez, Ricardo Rodríguez, Leandro Soto, Israel León, Juan Francisco Elso, and Rubén Torres challenged the dominant revolutionary didacticism of the previous decade. They were not unlike the painters of the Generación de la ruptura in Mexico (Alberto Gironella, Vicente Rojo, José Luis Cuevas, Vlady, Pedro Coronel), who defied their own dominant ‘socialist realist’ tradition (Mexican muralism) during the 1950s.

The exposition Volumen Uno in January of 1981 in Havana officially inaugurated the so-called “New Cuban Art.” For painter Flavio Garciandia: “When we did Volumen Uno we were very, very conscious of the fact that the ‘state of the arts’ in Cuba was just awful, precisely because of those ideas of programmatic contentism [contenidismo programático]. We knew that Volumen Uno was a political exhibition… very polemical, precisely because we were positioning the problems in another part, not in the ‘content’–we had a completely distinct focus and in that moment this was practically a political challenge. . . Given the circumstances of the context, it was an exhibition that was proposing… art as a totally autonomous activity, not as a weapon of the Revolution as the Constitution says.” This (relative) “autonomy” opened up new artistic possibilities. Arguably, it made it easier for artists to eschew controversial issues or events, such as the tragedy that took place only eight months earlier: the 1980 Mariel boatlift, in which 125,000 people left the country (among them many artists and intellectuals). No reference to this exodus (and the shameful actos de repudio that accompanied it) is made in Volumen Uno.

The emergence of the New Cuban Art coincided with the twilight of the Cold War and the deepening of globalization in the field of art. The Soviet Union (and its annual four billion dollars-a-year subsidy to Cuba) came to an abrupt end and Cuba was forced to open up to market forces. Meanwhile, in the art world, the Post Cold War era saw the début of numerous new Biennials, far away from the traditional capitals of global art: i.e. Sharjah, UAE (1993), Shanghai (1996), Mercosur (Brazil, 1997), Dak’art (1998) and Busan (Korea 1998). The first Havana Biennial (1984) can be seen as an early manifestation of this trend, in addition to being the only one operated by a socialist country. In the new global market for art, the purported anti-imperialist and anti-consumerist mission of the Havana Biennial offered a refreshing choice for multicultural or postcolonial curators and critics, and a thrilling one for decadently rich consumers. For instance, in 1990 the German chocolate magnate and art collector Peter Ludwig acquired more than two thirds of the exhibition of contemporary Cuban art ‘Kuba OK,’ in addition to many other famous works of the artists of the 1990s generation.

Art and the new Gatekeeper State

The 1980s generation (especially during the second half of the decade) was arguably more audacious and politically driven than the subsequent ones. But most prominent members of this generation left the country at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. The artists who stayed in the country found a comfort zone, negotiating the terms of their subordination with what political scientist Javier Corrales calls the new “gatekeeper” state: e.g. a state that “decide[s] who can benefit from market activities and by how much.” Thus, the cultural field offered a testing ground for the kind of “segmented marketization” and limited liberalization of subsequent years, when brother Raúl inherited the presidency.

Artists quickly learned to deal with the international market, giving it what it wants: Cubanía products, with muted and aestheticized political overtones that make both the artist and the viewer feel astute, all of which transacted with the global language of art of the time (mainly conceptual art and arte povera). For all the talk about postmodern art in Cuba, the country is literally stuck in modernity, with primary concerns about national identity, sovereignty, material well-being, basic freedom and security. These modern concerns are omnipresent in New Cuban art, where they are at once localized and transcended by postmodern aesthetics. This confers New Cuban Art a trendy “glocal” cachet that simultaneously insinuates and defuses “content.”

Cuban artists are masters of double entendre and detachment (parody, irony, sarcasm, and pastiche). They know what the taboos are: play with the chain but not with the monkey; don’t challenge La Revolución and its metonymic association with the Castro brothers. (About Fidel: according to Andrés Oppenheimer, in the early 1990s the guidelines were revised: “it was forbidden to show him standing next to anybody taller or to show him eating, and it was forbidden to divulge any information on his personal life.”) Yet, the global market likes its Cuban art with a dash of political irreverence. The regime can afford to appear open-minded since it is largely inconsequential on the island.

Even though artists are pretty shrewd when guessing the “parameters,” it is still perilous to “play with the chain.” Expositions have been censored and cancelled; artists are reprimanded and sometimes jailed. The performance artist Angel Delgado got six months in jail for publicly defecating on a copy of the daily Granma, during the exhibition “El objeto esculturado” (1989). According to Luis Camnitzer, the exhibition at the Castillo de La Real Fuerza in February of 1989 was closed “when it was found to include a portrait of Fidel Castro in drag with large breasts and leading a political rally, and Marcia Leiseca, the vice minister of culture, was relocated to the Casa de las Américas.” Artists have been castigated for speaking their mind on the public issues (most recently, for instance, the painter and sculptor Pedro Pablo Oliva lost his studio and his seat in the provincial assembly). Admittedly, it is not simple for outsiders (such as this author) to fully appreciate the day-to-day courage of individuals who strive to work and live under very difficult circumstances in the country of their choice: their own.

Continue reading: Not Free But Comfy

Yvon Grenier

Posted in Blog | Tagged Art Markets, Literature, Politics | Leave a comment

Human rights should be an integral part of Canada’s Cuba policy

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Arch Ritter

Human rights should be an integral part of Canada’s Cuba policy

February 19, 2013 By YVON GRENIER /TheChronicleHerald.ca

The Harper government has been distinctly forceful in its recent statements on human rights violations in the world. One peculiar exception to this rule has been Cuba.

After a few impromptu comments years ago by the former junior minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, on the dictatorial nature of the Cuban regime, our government (in particular, Mr. Kent’s successor, Diane Ablonczy) has issued nothing but optimistic comments on the “process of economic reform and liberalization in Cuba” (Ablonczy, January 2012).

And yet, my colleague Peter McKenna is worried that Foreign Minister John Baird may “press the Cubans hard on the human rights front” during his visit to Havana (re: “Canada should engage Cuba,” Feb. 16 opinion piece).

Prof. McKenna does not elaborate on the issue of human rights violation in Cuba, so let me quote Human Rights Watch: “Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent.” As HRW documents in great detail, the Cuban government “enforces political conformity using harassment, invasive surveillance, threats of imprisonment, and travel restrictions.”

Human rights organizations in Cuba and abroad have reported an increase in the number of arbitrary detentions for political reasons over the past year (up to more than a thousand a month). Shouldn’t our government condemn that publicly, and depart from a long bipartisan policy of silence on Cuba? After all, we constantly issue statements about human rights violations abroad.

To mention a few examples, last fall, in addition to well-publicized statements on Iran and Syria, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade issued statements to the effect that the government of Canada “has repeatedly called on the Belarusian authorities to uphold democratic principles, respect for human rights and the rule of law” (Sept. 25). It also urged “swift resolution of all outstanding issues” in Sudan and South Sudan, and proclaimed to be “deeply troubled by the reported Sept. 25 travel ban of former President Nasheed in Malé, Maldives” — this prompting Minister Baird to “directly raise the persecution of 19 other Maldives Democratic Party politicians and party officials to President Waheed today” (Sept. 28). Canada also stood “strong as a supporter of the Ukrainian people as they seek to build a nation based on democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law” (Oct. 2).

Why are we not using the same language on Cuba?

We are right to oppose the U.S. embargo (not a “blockade”), like most other countries on Earth: There is nothing distinctly Canadian in that policy. But the U.S. embargo is not the main obstacle to democratization in Cuba: The current Cuban regime is.

Here we can take Europe as a model. It has both diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba, but it routinely speaks up against human rights violations on the island. The European parliament awarded the Sakharov human rights prize to two Cuban human rights activists (Oswaldo Paya in 2002 and Guillermo Farinas in 2010) and to the Ladies in White (2005), a group of women whose husbands are jailed in Cuba. The recent detention of another activist, dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, was condemned by the EU, the U.S. and several Latin American governments. But not by Canada.

Cuba is the last dictatorship in the Americas, a region that is supposedly a foreign policy priority of this government. Canadians expect their government to be a leader in the human rights field. No exception.

Yvon Grenier is a professor of political science, St. Francis Xavier University.