The struggle against corruption in Cuba has proven to be a long-distance race where every lap presents new and more difficult challenges. It’s like opening a Russian nesting doll and finding that the one inside is larger than the first. The Comptroller’s Office is making a huge effort, but it is pitted against a silent army of corrupt and/or inept officials united by common financial interests. They protect and rescue one another as they are “canned.”
Read MoreIn “Normality and Progress in Cuba” (Havana Times, October 30, 2014) Fernando Ravsberg reports on the Cuban television program Circulo de la Confianza (“Circle of Trust”) that he and others discussed the idea of progress and how it applies to Cuba. Although I have used Ravsberg’s argument in my classes, academic conferences and political gathering dealing with the Cuban revolution for the past 25 years I think it is high time to reconsider the idea of progress itself.
Read MoreIt is no secret to anyone that, in the past year, the number of Cubans leaving the country has increased considerably. These migrants try to reach the USA through all imaginable routes, including the most dangerous.
Read MoreNow that Cuba has decided to definitively (though surreptitiously) change its social model and the structure and foundations of its economy, and the novel figure of the national entrepreneur, stemming from current hierarchies and the corporate parameters to be established by these, will soon begin to flourish on the island.
Read MoreOn Sunday, I was invited to be part of the panel for the Cuban television program Circulo de la Confianza (“Circle of Trust”), organized at Havana’s Fabrica de Arte cultural center. The topic discussed was progress: what the concept meant, whether Cuba was making any progress with its current reforms and what we ought to do to have progress in the future.
Read MoreBored, I again tuned in to Telesur last night. The first bit of news I saw were about Ayotzinapa, the courageous father Solalinde, worthy representative of the moral integrity of Latin American Catholic priests (Cuba excluded).
Read MoreI invite you to take trip with me to the Kingdom of the No. An attentive gaze, some notes and several photos are enough to confirm the persistent obstacles that people run into when dealing with service providers supposedly created to make their lives easier.
Read MoreIn keeping with Cuba’s institutional logic, workers have had to adjust the new “Collective Work Agreements” in conjunction with management, as per the new provisions. The CTC, Cuba’s all-encompassing trade union, is supposed to represent all workers in this.
Read MoreOver the past few decades, the nearly unanimous support for the US trade embargo / blockade among Cubans residing in the United States has given way to increasing calls to make these measures more flexible or to eliminate them altogether.
Read MoreOn Saturday, October 18, I waved down a collective taxi to head home from the upscale Vedado neighborhood. I got in next to the driver, since three other people already occupied the back seat. In the neighborhood known as Sports City, a woman got in next to me.
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