Fernando Ravsberg

To summarize what happened in Cuba in 2010 is no easy task; there were so many occurrences that they cannot be covered in a single post. I will try to separate the wheat from the chaff, the truth from the talk, and the outcomes from the aspirations.

The economy shifted its direction radically. This began with the announcement of the layoff of 500,000 public employees (by the end of March 2011) and the opening of self-employed work. This is a process that over a five-year period will impact a total of 1.8 million public-sector workers.

“It looks like you want to get yourself into trouble, friend,” a Cuban official warned me when he learned about the article I’m working on for the beginning of next year. The truth is that he left me reflecting on that philosophy of life that is so widespread.

“Not getting into trouble” is a goal that’s much more difficult than it seems. For this to happen it’s not enough to sell your soul to the devil, you also have to sell it to God and end up becoming a kind of spiritual merchant.

What an honor it was for us when Jonathan Farrar (the highest US diplomatic representative in Cuba) supported the analysis of BBC Mundo concerning dissidents. This served to confirm our assessment, because he is extremely qualified on that issue.

One should always keep it in mind that the shoe repairer is not the criminal but the victim of an economic model that has made the trafficking of influence and stolen goods the main source of income for its own bureaucracy.

I believe a Cubaleaks would work marvels. I know journalists who would love to be able to write about those issues and many citizens willing to provide information about current-day cases that remain mysteriously in the shadows.

Curiously, over the last several months, the positions of the small dissident movement, émigrés and the government concurred in pointing out that no reforms are taking place in the country, only adjustments to the model that has functioned in Cuba for 40 years.

I sometimes have the sensation that a “communications blockade” has been established to hinder my work and contact with society. Officials told me that it was pure paranoia, so that’s why I decided to seek the opinions of our readers.

Some reader comments on a previous post gave me the idea of dealing with the issue of family remittances by trying to discern their true social impact and economic repercussion in Cuba, going beyond any politically motivated myth.

With the publication of the “Guidelines of Economic and Social Policy,” the government headed by President Raul Castro has finally shown its cards. The document explains to the public where the country is going and what model the leadership seeks to build.

“This is like getting married in paradise,” said a young Canadian couple fully dressed for the occasion. They had just gotten married amid the sand of Cayo Santa Maria, an astonishingly beautiful island of the Cuban archipelago. When people in Havana told me that last year more than 500 foreign couples had been married on its beaches, I found it difficult to believe.