Opinion Archives - Page 371 of 501

My Experience Being Robbed in Cuba

Emma Scopes has asked to share her experience of being robbed in Cuba with HT readers. The potentially dangerous event and loss of personal belongings had a happy ending.

Old Age in Cuba

Nearly 20 percent of Cubans are over 60 years old and, in the very near future, a third of the island’s inhabitants will be senior citizens. The last population census has laid one of Cuba’s most complex problems on the table.

Consumerism and Frivolity in Cuba

I don’t know whether the transition many are waiting for in Cuba is coming or whether it’s already going on right under our noses, without us noticing. What’s clear to me is that people’s socialist mentality, if it ever actually existed, is disappearing.

Life of a Cuban Editor

I won’t mention his name (he doesn’t want me to). I don’t need to, anyway. It could be replaced with any other name. I’ll say only that he is an editor, one of the best in Cuba, perhaps. He is sixty-five years old and has spent more than half his life publishing books of every kind.

The Needed Reformulation of Cuba’s One-Party (1)

The contradiction between formal popular sovereignty, inherent to a duly institutionalized political system, and a single Party and its core of leaders, a select minority standing over and above the State, persists to this day.

An Underdeveloped New Year’s in Havana

A year ends and another one begins – such is the circle of life. I often wonder why people congratulate one another on the street. Is it to celebrate the fact we are still alive? If that’s the reason, I can understand that.

Cuba in the Worst Business Sense

When looking at Raul Castro’s “reform process”, you get the sense that it is slow and limited. At times, however, one cannot help but feel it is advancing in the direction that Cuba’s political elite wants it to, be it because this elite seeks to preserve stability in the short term (the only term most people can lay their bets on) or because they want to guarantee the prosperity of their families in the long run.

The Socialist Revolution is not the Cuban Gov., State, Party or Leadership

January 1, 1959 marked the glorious triumph of the Cuban people over a dictatorship. What came afterwards was steered away from the democratization and socialization of political and economic power demanded by a socialist revolution, which has been spoken about but never materialized, not to this day.

Young Men for Hire in Havana

The afternoon settles in Havana and young people who sell their bodies begin to throng on the sidewalk in front of the Payret cinema. The young men and women sell themselves for nearly nothing. An hour or an entire night of pleasure, or all the time needed to satisfy the lustful cravings of those who pay.

The Talks, the Talkers and Gross

In my view, the issue of migration, one that affects thousands of Cubans, deserves seriousness and transparency. Maintaining secure borders and protecting lives is not an afterthought.