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Published: August 13th 2008
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Epilogue
There has to be some explanation as to why it took me a full year to get around to editing my journal notes of this trip. And, frankly, the only reason I can really give is that I was not that enamoured with the place, and could never work out even remotely what makes it and its people tick.
It’s quite a long way to travel for scenery that is - even at its best - not particularly inspiring (in the western half of the island, anyway). Or for a handful of concentrated areas of eighteenth and nineteenth century colonial architecture. And, other than the old city centres, the only places we were taken to see would not honestly pass muster as third-tier tourist attractions in any other country I can think of.
There is no visible ancient history or ruins, no achingly beautiful scenery, no great colourful temples (or even churches), no vast stretches of agricultural development such as tea plantations, rice paddy or corn fields, no modern accomplishments to marvel at, no signs of progress that start one thinking. In fact, with the exception of a limited number of small districts, what we saw struck
me as largely colourless, uninteresting, run-down and rather dreary.
The “revolutionaries” seem to have accomplished little other than stopping the clock some time in the 1960’s. Some people praise the “wonderful” free universal health care system but, from what I saw of it, it is physically falling apart at the seams, and the wonder is that there are any doctors still working in it given that they can make 30 to 50 times the income working as barmen or tour guides. And what good is one hundred percent literacy and free education for all if there is nowhere to apply the skills absorbed? There doesn’t appear to be any industry worth talking about - certainly the very few shops we saw were poorly stocked, and what was there was clearly imported, not made in Cuba.
“Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: it is a nation of slaves”
Simon Bolivar
Even agricultural output is stunningly inefficient. It is a largish island - bigger than South Korea or Hungary, twice the size of Sri Lanka, half the size of the UK - yet with under 12 million people it can’t even come close to feeding
itself. It is a tropical country where you throw anything into the soil and it grows, yet Cuba imports 80%!o(MISSING)f its basic food needs including things like rice, processed chickens, powdered milk and wheat.
And there is no incentive for people to try and better themselves. You cannot start a business; you cannot buy or sell a house, or a car (you need a permit - given for necessity only - to buy one, and then you can never sell it). Everyone is employed by the state - even a novelist or a street-busker is a state employee - except the latter gets hard currency tips so is considered well off in Cuban terms. Vacation travel is “awarded” by the State.
In fact other than incoming tourism and remittances (largely from family members in the USA) it is hard to see where any true
economic value is created.
I guess I have ranted on long enough, but I honestly feel that if Raúl Castro fails to significantly liberalise the economy there is a real risk of implosion.
On a lighter side, revisiting my journal of our trip it seems like all we did was drink mojitos!
Probably true, but my excuse would be that the food is really pretty dire, there’s not much else in the way of entertainment other than music, and what else would you drink when listening to that?
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