Opinion Archives - Page 326 of 498

The Dignity of Cubans is Pragmatic

Some say that having dignity means thinking of oneself as an end. When we have dignity, our value stems not from our usefulness in terms of certain aims (even noble ones), but by virtue of our humanity.

Cuba and the Coming Cultural Battle

One of the greatest challenges the Cuban nation will likely face in the future involves the sphere of culture. The normalization of relations with the United Sates – a cultural force to be reckoned with – involves great benefits but also enormous risks.

The Crime of Carpentry in Cuba

A government-run store called La casa del carpintero (“The Carpenter’s House”) has opened on Belascoain Street, in Havana. The store sells all kinds of carpentry tools, including very good brands. However, there is nowhere in all of Cuba to buy wood legally.

Cuban Retiree Suggests Re-Printing Fidel Castro’s “Predictions”

A respectable elderly gentleman is enjoying his retirement in Cuba’s city of Sancti Spiritus in a very peculiar manner. Aramis Arteaga Perez says that, since retiring, he has spent the better part of his free time (which, we can assume, is all the time) re-reading speeches, interviews, reflections and articles by and with Fidel Castro over time.

Cuba: Between Political Repression and the Complicity of the US Left

Many of us are fuming over the plethora of benefits the Castro regime is being offered without making any significant concessions. However, I wonder why we’re asking the United States and Obama to do the work for us…again.

Havana’s Ameijeiras: Hospital or Wholesale Yard?

Havana’s Ameijeiras Hospital looks like an enormous wholesale yard selling building materials. The employees of the company repairing the building offer to sell just about anything, from cement to wash basins – all new and top quality, claim the would-be vendors.

Taking Out the Trash in Havana

One day in 1980, my mother told me she hadn’t received any letters from my father in a long time and that she didn’t know where he was, that she thought he was already in the prison he was to be transferred to, but that she had no certainty of this.

Cuba: Giving Up Revolutionary Pleasures

Cuba has entered a new and encouraging stage in the building of a new kind of socialism, a system notably different from that “real socialism” it once tried to force into the relaxed and festive Caribbean spirit of Cubans. What will the Party’s Central Committee do to change the whole range of tastes that are deeply rooted in the revolutionary, austere and nearly ascetic spirit they claim took hold of Cubans’ collective desires after the revolution?

Who Says There Are No Strikes in Cuba?

Officially, no strikes have been staged in Cuba since the Central Trade Union established a commitment with the government in the 1960s. As of that date, the word “strike” became something of a taboo on the island, an exotic concept applicable to other countries, and invoking it here entailed serious consequences.

Cuba: Natural Born Leaders or Professional Cadres?

Watching the congresses held by different Cuban grassroots organizations made me recall an experience I had at Havana’s Lenin Vocational School. It had to do with leadership, natural born leaders and those leaders appointed on the basis of single lists that had been drawn up by “the powers that be.”