Resisting with Creativity in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES – At home, we haven’t had sugar for two days. After a long search, I discovered that a pound of sugar costs 500 pesos (a third of many monthly pensions). My grandfather cannot comprehend this—nor can I. He and his father witnessed the heyday of Cuba’s sugar industry. The current situation undeniably feels like an outrageous mockery.
Improvising with creativity has led many to use honey as a sweetener, others to question what they’ll have to give up to afford that essential pound of sugar, and still others, like me, to forgo the refreshing guarapo (sugarcane juice).
No one forgets the years when the sugar harvest engaged professionals and students alike in the fieleds with its legendary slogan, “The 10 million tons are coming,” though those millions ultimately amounted to only 8 million tons. Nor is the use of harmful techniques, like slash and burn that damaged the soil forgotten, or the hardships endured by sugarcane cutters, who were subjected to low wages for years.
Like a mirage, our elders—the guardians of our collective memory—recall the dismantling of various sugar mills during the Special Period of the 1990s. They also remember the fateful year of 2002, when 71 of the 156 active mills were shut down. By then, Cuba was already importing sugar for domestic consumption. Three years ago, only 36 mills were operational, and today, only 15 are set to participate in the next sugar harvest.
It’s absurd to suggest that the sugar shortage is solely due to the current economic crisis. This so-called crisis does not justify years of poor management and lack of investment. Hearing the same old rhetoric about broken boilers, lack of fertilizers, pesticides, inputs, machinery, transport, and labor is a blatant insult to the population. It’s a joke to assume collective amnesia.
Under the current economic conditions in Cuba, there is no correlation between wages and prices. So, how could anyone expect a different outcome for sugar supplies? To argue that the fuel shortage is the main cause of this scarcity is an affront to the intelligence of citizens, especially when, in the early days, our sugarcane was hauled by oxen.