Latin American perspectives II; Episode 7 of 38

Latin America perspectives a series of information and comment about Latin America with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. These programs are recorded by station w s r u FM. Here now is Dr. Gardner. Today in America certain four letter words Anglo-Saxon and vulgar keep cropping up however persistent the effort to cast them into oblivion. And yet another four letter word neither Anglo-Saxon nor vulgar has also been pushed unsuccessfully toward the Never Never Land. This word is spelled c u be a and pronounced something that U.S. politicians would like to have disappear. However in a world in which voices in Washington proclaim the desirability of building bridges of understanding one bridge would be five thousand miles long between us and Moscow and

another double that distance between us and Hanoi. One might hazard a hope that a bridge might be contemplated for the 90 miles between Key West and Havana. I speak of understanding Cuba at this time because a book has come along which offers interesting insights into the social side of the Castro revolution. That book is in the fist of the revolution life in a Cuban country town authored by Jose Yglesias published by Pantheon Books. First a word about Jose Yglesias. He is a Tampa Florida born Cuban American who now counts almost 50 years. I mention this particularly because Yglesias brings to this task of his a capacity that exceeds that of many who

attempt to interpret the society of a foreign land. He brings thanks to background temperament and command of language a capacity for communicating orally even indeed spiritually culturally with those the people in Cuba who are the objects of his attention. A word about those two who are the objects of his attention. This is not an effort to portray all of Cuban society. And I would hasten to add that any portrayal of Cuban society is itself a bit unusual since most of the focus is on the Castro regime in Cuba have been either basically political or economic to such a degree that they have entered fundamentally into the ideological area. This however is dealing with the way of life the everyday happenings the appetites the aspirations of people in terms of their

social lives. And that part of Cuba which is singled out for the microscopic study brought about in the fist of the revolution is a small town of some 8000 people. The town is my God he spelled m a y a r i. It's to be found on the northeast coast of Cuba due north from Santiago. A slightly north west from Guantanamo. It's out in an area in which there formerly were U.S. held sugar interests. Indeed a large sugar Centrale is nearby. The refinery. It is an area in which there previously had been U.S. mining interests. And so there is as it were an implicit comparison of the way of life under the socialist economic regime of the Castro order and

that which had been the case when United States capital and enterprise was dominant in that area of Cuba. The title is admittedly an intriguing one. In the fist of the revolution and it of course calls to mind several possible interpretations. Does it mean that the people of Cuba are now in the clutches of this the fist of the revolution. Or does it mean that these people who are mentioned in Yglesias writing represent a dynamic thrust of revolution in the fist at the very deter petitions are possible and I leave it for you and your reading of the work to decide which you think the more or even most logical of the many that could be hit upon this volume introducing people as people find you meeting the chambermaids in motels. The waitresses

in hotels you spend a day at the side of a doctor in a hospital. There is great concern about clothing and food a great deal that is the physical side of one's fulfillment of the appetites that in turn become the the social aspect of living. We are introduced to men of the party of the regime and those who are frankly waiting for the earliest opportunity to get out of the country. And between those extremes are many other Cubans young and old male and female. I would like for you in the words of Yglesias to report the comments of one of the officials that he met. I like my work very much. The Cuban official said but a man must not fall in love with his job. I do not know if you see what I mean. A man who falls in love with his job thinks only he can do it well.

When we and the party are not making substitutes for everyone and everything. A man in love with his job begins to do it badly because he begins to think that whatever he did was the best that could be done. Do you know what I mean. And of course the reader is left to wonder to exactly what he meant. It is in this hesitant it is in this tentative this in this searching manner of inquiry that you are presented with real life human beings and of course there may be some hidden hope on the part of this official that the Cuban government will be more democratic than it ever had been before. This would of course lead to other questions being asked about the tenure of those who fail to have elections. There is at the other end of the spectrum from the one who was so loyal the one who is eager to leave. And this is the statement of one of those men who

is not about to leave but is one who has many friends who are so inclined and who has been trying to interpret their desire to leave as he puts it. The ones who leave and who are lining up to leave Cuba. Those old friends of mine they just don't know why. Yes I speak to them. You're not being thrown out of your job I say. No they say I ask them Do you dislike the system of education. No. They say do you think the new houses for the poor are a bad thing. No they say. Do you think your round employment bad. No they say. Then what do you object to. I do not like it. That is all. A light skinned Nigro woman standing nearby said what they really do not like is social equality. And of course this

raises the interesting point that the overwhelming majority of all who have left Cuba have been those who would be termed White Cubans. One may say there is an economic factor here that perhaps black Cubans have not had the means to get out. On the other hand there is the suggestion that there is now a social inequality that has so dignified the place of the black in the overall spectrum of Cuban society that they are not interested in leaving and that some who do leave having very little economic wealth economic well-being there or distress have no basic economic reason for going. But a strong social one social motivation is of course more difficult to analyze than is economic motivation. And yet it should be borne in mind that such motivation can be equally powerful. We have as yet another demonstration of the capacity

for subtle writing for getting inside the problems of Cuba. A statement in the book entitled in Fareham a dot which means the sickness. The first stage of the sickness is non political. The young man is mainly seized with longing for stylish things most of which are unobtainable and he spends much of his time trying to get them or talking about them. The vision is somewhat behind the times Incidentally the ideal style is that of the Italian designers of three or four years ago. Our early card. They do not know maad and it might even shock them. They are restless and unhappy that they cannot get such close and angry about the revolutionaries who frown on them in the last stage of the illness. They are counter revolutionaries they despise everything about the revolution and are only waiting to reach that magical age of twenty seven when they can apply to leave the

country. Girls cannot catch and phantom a dot whatever a girl does to make herself noticeable and attractive is cause for approbation. Sometimes expressed aloud or silently. And so you have. The social appetite for consumer goods so unsatisfied that many many yearnings have mounted particularly among the young and this has led to a great deal of disenchantment which is very frankly candidly stated by this observer of Cuban society. The prospect of another revolution is always borne in mind. And of course as we have removed more and more of the Cubans from the scene it is less likely that there can be a strong revolution from within. But in addition to the removal of anti-Castro Cubans there is this thought Cubans

allow themselves to be held back by small material considerations things that never influence real revolutionaries are counter revolutionaries. They if they act or if they speak out the scholarship that a child holds may be drawn they may lose the House they are in they me to lose the job. And this is the material side is so much on their minds that they accept the political order that is the Castro revolution. A great deal of freedom has come to women in this period of time. A remarkable number of marriages are breaking up in Cuba before. Husband and Wife of reach the age of 21 many children are consequently put into the hands of the state. One wonders if this is not going to bring about a more rapid communism action of the next generation in Cuba by virtue of the measure of dominance the educational process. The state will have over these children many Cuban males lament

the lament goes like this I like to dominate my wife and that is not so easy any more. If in our pursuit of that elusive world commodity called peace we recognize that peace presumes understanding and that knowledge is a prime in gradient of understanding. It is thought that any endeavor that gives one people a full appreciation of another is a positive contribution toward that laudable and such a contribution is the book. Jose Yglesias is volume in the fist of the revolution published by Pantheon a division of Random House. This was another programme in the series Latin America perspectives with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Join us for our next program when Dr. Gardner will comment on another interesting aspect of Latin American affairs. These

programs are recorded by station WFIU FM and are made available to this station by the national educational radio network.