Cubans see a new dawn approaching

I was last in Cuba two weeks ago, invited for the first time by Casa de las Américas, one of the country’s top cultural institutions, to exhibit my posters, book covers and paintings. For the first time I saw radical change afoot. Cubans are functioning as if the Communist Party doesn’t exist anymore — as if it’s a quaint relic of some bygone era. Sure, there is a military dictatorship, but Cuban citizens don’t appear as scared of it as they used to be. Private businesses, or cooperatives with the government, have been legalized, so Cubans are looking for business opportunities anywhere they can. Making a living is what’s on their mind, not Cold War ideology. When the government gets in the way, people seem to rely on bribes to solve the problem. A wink and a nod is how things move now, and everyone seems to be playing along.

My family and friends in Cuba welcome the news wholeheartedly. They constantly asked me about change: When was Obama going to do something for them? Why are they among the last people on Earth not to have relations with America? They are not concerned about politics, they simply want a better life, clean streets, transportation, opportunities for their kids and the ability to visit the United States to see family they have never met.

People in Cuba don’t want to talk about the regime anymore. They tune out conversations about the Communist Party. They do, however, tell jokes. The government is renovating the old Capitol building in Havana, which is currently a museum, and the Party wants to install the government there.  People ask sarcastically who is going to fill the other chamber of that building, since there is just one party.

“How many Cubans are still with the party?” I asked a friend on my visit. “Five percent?”

“Much less with Raúl” she said. 

“Why?” I asked.

“Because everything is going to his people, to the military.”  

There’s growing popular resentment towards Raúl Castro, even amongst those that had respect for Che Guevara and Fidel.  And there is a sense that nothing significantly will change until the revolutionary generation is gone.  

In many ways, Cubans still have the same hope they have when they blindly take a boat into the sea.  Waiting for the currents to take them somewhere, seeing which way the winds will blow.