La Federacion de las Mujeres Cubanas--a decisive force for the Revolution

FMC

fuerza decisiva para la Revolucion

aniversario 50 de la federacion de mujeres cubanas

This billboard celebrates the “decisive” role that the women’s official mass organization has played over the half-century of the Cuban Revolution. It is complimented by an arabesque print of fluid fertile flowers that provides a feminine aspect to the design.

Women’s allegiance to the revolution has always been crucial. Early on in revolutions in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America such as Chile, the reluctance of more conservative women has presented challenges to leftist programs. Women are often the linchpin of homes; so as goes the woman in political support, so goes the rest of the family. Finally, the gains of the Cuban revolution gave women the opportunity to work--which created the “double shift” of labor at the workplace and at home. This resulted in some conflicting opinions about the new revolutionary situation.

The FMC plays a role at the neighborhood level in social communication and carrying out some house-to-house campaigns. Politically, the FMC takes part in the selection process of members of the national assembly.

For these reasons it may be important to underscore publicly the FMC’s value to the revolution.

Retail Shake-Up

The end of the summer saw stores that deal in the more pricey convertible peso undergoing big changes. Many had been relieved of all their merchandise, as they were being put under new management. The miliary and some of its joint-stock subsidaries are taking over some chains that had been hemmoraging losses due to merchandise diverted into the black market (i.e. stolen goods).

This occured at the same time that the National Assembley passed legislation creating a high constitutional office of Comptroller that is supposed to perform widespread audits and combat corruption.

Coincidental with these changes came a modest reduction in price for some common items at the covertible peso outlets.

Get Out of Work Free Day

Fidel Castro

The mastermind of the insurrectionary overthrow of the Batista regime and the consolidation of the revolutionary forces, Fidel Castro led Cuba for over forty years as the head of government, the head of state, and the first secretary of the communist party. He governed with charismatic authority, tremendous powers of persuasion, longwinded oratory, expansive interest in all aspects of the country’s affairs, photographic attention to detail, and a keen understanding and utilization of history.

Castro was instrumental in declaring Cuba’s nationalist revolution to be anti-imperialist and socialist in nature. Domestically, Castro was a unifier, a micromanager, an interpreter of consensus, and a moral arbiter. On the geopolitical stage, Castro’s strategic alliances and leadership of the third world allowed Cuba to obviate the US blockade and project disproportionate power across hemispheres.

Upon falling ill in 2006, Castro provisionally ceded his leadership duties, before deciding not to accept another term as president in 2008. Starting in 2007, Castro began to write political editorials, serving as an emeritus advisor to Cuban officials and visiting heads of state. Most Cubans respect Castro as having been a brilliant statesman and wise steward of the nation—even if they disagree with some of his economic policies and less democratic tendencies.

Youthful & Athletic

Reminds me of the episode of The Office when Creed tries to act young and hip so he wouldnt get canned.

First Daughter Spits Game

An interview with Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and deceased President of the Federation of Cuban Women Vilma Espin. She is an activist for gender and sexual orientation rights.

"Yes, he is supportive of my work thanks to the positive influence of my mother on his sexual education."



Tip of the hat to Latin American News Review.

Grassroots call for single currency

An apolitical criollo group has gone to the trouble of collecting and presenting 20,000 signatures to the National Assembley in favor of adopting one unified currency--something everybody & their mothers & all the most elite communist officials had already said would be a nice occurrence.

Trouble is its not that easy.

The peso is worth little and not traded outside the island. It is the backbone of the socialist aspects of the Cuban economy. The convertible is backed by foreign currency reserves and worth 24 times more than the peso. It is the money of the tourism, remittance, and certain industrial sectors.

The dual currency system was established during the special period to both partially engage with the global market and to retain the socialist morals and incentives achieved up to that point. It has always been known to be irritating--but deemed the least worse option available.

This interview in English with a Spanish economist explains very well the current duality, how it came to be, and the prospects of going to a single currency.

Here are simple critiques of the wild calls for economic reform that do not take basic economic consequences into account.

Deflated Exultation

Were it not for the flurry of forceful hurricanes that wiped out $10 billion (around a quarter of GDP) in housing, infrastructure, agriculture and other economic activity, Cuba might have been sitting rather pretty (at no less than 6% growth in GDP) during this moment in world history that sees capitalism catch a critical case of cyclical comeuppance.

Alas--due to natural forces wholly unrelated to socialist political economy--Cuba is not in a position to feel schadenfreude; it cannot freely shout that it told you so, let alone offer up its model as an alternative to the creatively destructive capitalists.

So the Cuban political leadership wryly watches the market states run around with their heads cut off (capital punishment?)--yet cannot speak, on the world stage, from a position of objective solvency.

Undaunted defenders of capitalism should be thankful that violent weather muted what otherwise might have stood as a formidable alternative for a world searching for a path forward.

Constituent outreach

Raul Castro speaks to people evacuated and effected by Hurricane Paloma. During his visit he recalled that a hurricane killed three thousand people around the same town of Santa Cruz del Sure, circa 1932.

For this third major tropical cyclone this season, the Cuban authorities evacuated 1.2 million people and not one person died.

Fired!

This ministerial replacement demonstrates the general civics point that the Council of State executes proposals advanced by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. That is, a small cohort drawn from the top echelon of the broad-based party makes recommendations, which are carried out by the select executive group elected from the hundreds of national legislators. This, my friends, is an institutionalized revolution.

The narrower point of this case, is that somebody just got fired. The habanero elite are probably all gossiping incessantly about this.

[[UPDATE--Apparently the Foreign Investment Minister was let go because of premature praise for Obama's victory. Of course, all of Cuba had been rooting for Obama for months. And its not like she gaffed by rhetorically intruding on the sovereignty of another country's internal affairs--the election results had been determined, which in fact was the subject of her comment...When I said the Havana chattering classes would be all aflutter, it may have been more accurate to mention Miami's nattering chismosos.]]

Fidel Castro Advocates Democracy

Semi-retired Cuban statesman Fidel Castro--who has served in executive leadership positions both dictatorially (charismatic authority) and semi-democratically (rational/legal/institutional authority)--has expounded, in a recent op-ed, on the virtues of the democratic processes occurring throughout the hemisphere.

This statement seems like conspicuous condoning of democracy. Of course, nobody should think that the Cuban democratic system will conform to anyone's idealized expectations (let alone demands) but those of the Cubans. Still, the piece seems quite an overt normative approval of a democratic path.

Establishment Insiders Propose End of Statism

A former diplomat and regarded scholar, in collaboration with colleagues, has posted online a lengthy manifesto that calls for doing away with stifling state bureaucracy and unpopular antiquated restrictions as well as reforming the current political system to move towards more participatory democratic socialism.

While I normally shy away from posting on the explicitly political, this document makes mention of many obstacles that Cubans face in their day-to-day doings, many of which are the most voiced grievances of the day.

Cubans generally do not launch complaints against the entire socioeconomic and political system, but rather they focus on specific prohibitions and bureaucratic exigencies, deemed cumbersome and unnecessary, that inhibit the progress of socialism and dampen public enthusiasm.