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| Monday, May 28
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Commentary: Rethinking Cuba - Taking off those Miami sunglasses may help clear up the picture |
he recent politicized dismissal of the indictment against Luis Posada Carriles by federal judge Kathleen Cardone has brought the historically thorny relationship between the US and Cuba once again to the forefront of the news. With both governments presenting wildly contradictory scenarios in a confrontation that defies easy resolution of this case against one of the most ill-reputed mass terrorists of the day, it is difficult to reach an informed and unbiased opinion on the matter. The same can be said for generating educated insights on almost all other aspects of US relations with Cuba. At the behest of White House ideologues and their Miami colleagues, information about life in Cuba has long been filtered and strained for public consumption, resulting in a general perception of Cuba that is massively distorted and divorced from reality.
The Debate Which Never Occurred
Washington’s standard take on Cuba is that long-time ruler Fidel Castro has always been an oppressive dictator and the country a veritable prison. As recently as April 29, President Bush yet again propagated this science fiction at a commencement address in Miami, calling Cuba’s political system a “cruel dictatorship that denies all freedom in the name of a dark and discredited ideology.” Yet there are a growing number of scholars and analysts who approach the subject of the Castro-era in much more measured terms, insisting that careful research would turn up any number of divergent findings from the White House’s conclusions. Approaching what will be fifty years of bitter hostility between Cuba and the US, it seems a highly appropriate moment to re-examine what has to be seen as Washington’s failed Cuba strategy – one that hasn’t produced meaningful rewards on either side.
Recent Anti-Cuba Initiatives in the White House
In 2006, the Bush administration allocated US$80 million in public funds to the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC), a controversial body of faithful bureaucrats and Miami political militants set up by the White House in 2003 to “explore ways the US can help hasten and ease a democratic transition in Cuba.” Those familiar with the work of the CAFC know that it would be hard-pressed to pass a review by the Government Accountability Office for being balanced in its perspective, pluralistic in its make-up or professional in its approach. In other words, it is doomed to be simply one more boon-doggle aimed at pouring taxpayer funds into exile institutions to satisfy the wishes of anti-Castro proponents. Its first report, which totalled almost 500 pages, would have left little room for Cubans to have a say in the make-up of their government in a post-Castro era and was seen as being offensively arrogant, even to Cubans wishing to see changes in their political system. The commission, which was reconvened in 2005 by Condoleezza Rice, was subsequently granted more funding to issue a second report.
According to official government websites, one of the pillars of CAFC’s mission is to help Cubans “meet their basic needs in the areas of health and education.” This new infusion of federal funds and proclamations about the betterment of Cuban society reinforces the negative and chronically inaccurate perceptions of daily life in Cuba that US authorities have disseminated for years. If one takes the time to look further into the actual living conditions for ordinary Cubans, the CAFC, though seemingly ebullient in its would-be crusade, reveals an initiative and policy hopelessly out of touch with modern day Cuban realities.
CAFC Funds Might Be Better Spent in the U.S. than Cuba
A good place to start in upholding the above thesis is to look at Cuba’s education system, one of the areas of “basic need” targeted by the CAFC. The fact is that 100% of Cuban children attend well-funded and adequately equipped elementary schools, where the student-teacher ratios are among the most favorable in the world (well below the average of even some of the most developed nations). In addition, university and professional training are accessible to all. Although this island nation is smaller than the state of Virginia, it contains 57 centers of higher education, with the government guaranteeing the right to free education at all levels in any of these institutions, provided that admission standards are met. This commitment has resulted in an exceedingly highly educated population. At 98%, the adult literacy rate in Cuba is on a par with the world’s most developed nations and averages 15 percentage points higher than the literacy rates found in other Latin American countries. This does not mean that the system is perfect; Cubans face a grievous shortage of resources, sometimes including food for mandated meals served during school hours. What it does demonstrate, however, is that the CAFC is seemingly divorced from reality in identifying Cuban education as a sector desperate for American succour.
In fact, with annual tuition at US colleges skyrocketing into the tens of thousands of dollars - meaning that routinely, higher education in the US is increasingly limited mainly to those who can pay for it - there are undoubtedly some beneficial pointers to be taken from Cuba’s educational methodology and its prioritization of formal learning within a societal matrix. The Latin American School of Medicine (LASM) in Havana, for example, epitomizes Cuba’s egalitarian educational approach, demonstrating that a population might be better served when education is viewed as a basic right and not as a purchasable commodity. LASM is the largest medical school in the world, with its current enrollment approaching 12,000 students.
The school is world-renowned for its high calibre of teaching, along with its provision of such services as free tuition, accommodation, board and a modest stipend for students from Cuba and 29 other nations. As of 2007, there were 91 students from underprivileged communities throughout the US who were studying there cost-free. These students, like many of the other foreign students at LASM, would have most likely been unable to pay for their education in their own countries. It is rather ironic that the Bush administration now funds a commission – CAFC – to allegedly help a post-Castro Cuba meet basic education needs, when it is readily apparent that Cubans on average already have far better access to quality education than many Americans are able to obtain or afford.
Where the Left has got it Right - Healthcare in Cuba
Another sector targeted by the CAFC is Cuba’s healthcare system. Contrary to what one would expect of a “cruel dictatorship,” the Cuban government has been committed to the provision of universal health services since it first came to power. Prior to the advent of the Castro administration, Cuba had 6,286 practicing physicians, which meant that only a small elite sector of society had access to physician care, while health services in the countryside were virtually non-existent. By 2002, the number of doctors had meteorically risen to 67,079, with the physician-civilian ratio improving from 1 doctor for every 1,076 citizens in 1958 (pre-Castro) to an extraordinary 1 for every 168 in 2002 in revolutionary Cuba. Cubans today have an average life expectancy that exceeds that of other Latin Americans by 8 years and its mortality rate for children under 5 is staggeringly low compared to other countries in the region (in 2005, Cuba’s child mortality rate was lower even than in the U.S.). While these are not the genera of statistics that normally make their way into the American media, Cuba is viewed throughout Latin America and other parts of the world as providing an exemplary model for the provision of universal healthcare to its people. In Washington, however, anti-Castro imperatives continues to cloud the picture with heavily politicized information, generating misguided and sterile initiatives as epitomized by the CAFC.
To put matters into perspective, the recent death of Deamonte Driver, the 12-year-old American who passed away in Maryland from a dental infection, has drawn attention to the considerable financial difficulties plaguing the American poor in its attempt to access healthcare services. The Institute of Medicine, a body that advises Congress on health issues, estimates that 18,000 Americans die every year because they lack basic health coverage. One cannot help but wonder if the US$80 million boon-doggle assigned to finance CAFC in “helping [Cubans] meet basic needs in the area of healthcare” would not be more constructively spent improving the availability of medical services within U.S. borders. On May 24th, Washington’s own Greater Southeast Hospital was described by the Washington Post as being in “critical condition” and in desperate need of US$16 million.
What Happened When Cuba was on the Brink of Collapse
What is particularly significant about Cuba’s healthcare and education systems is that the services and public institutions heretofore discussed have been maintained in the face of a severe economic crisis producing draconian conditions in all aspects of Cuban national life. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant that overnight, Cuba lost 85% of its trade and its national GDP was reduced by more than one-third. Spare parts disappeared and agricultural production, which depended largely on Soviet oil to fuel its machinery, came to a near halt as transportation was frozen. The country appeared to be deconstructing and on the brink of collapse. With Cuba no longer allied with a menacing superpower or posing any security threat whatsoever to the US, one might expect US-Cuban relations to have even slightly normalized during this period. This would be entirely plausible, given that Havana was introducing a number of political and economic reforms, usually in the direction of liberalization and amelioration. Yet the US government took a very different stance, viewing the end of the Cold War as the opportune moment to step up its economic sanctions against the island and go in for the kill.Labels: financial aid, free education, scholarship, student loans |
posted by ^%&^
@ 10:12 PM
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