Una Cuba Libre

Ástandið á Kúbu og heilsa Castro´s hefur verið nokkuð í umræðunni upp á síðkastið, sem vonlegt er.  Líklega telst Kúba í hugum flestra vera útvörður kommúnismans, eitt af þeim fáu ríkjum sem ennþá telst kommúnískt.  Fólk skiptist svo nokkuð í tvo hópa í afstöðu sinni, hvort það telur Castro vera af hinu góða eður ei.

En það var ágætis grein, þó að hún risti ekki mjög djúpt, í vefútgáfu Globe and Mail í dag, þar sem rætt er við íbúa á Kúbu.  Þar mátti m.a. lesa eftirfarandi:

"Luisa is conflicted. She despises Cuba's Communist government, yet admits that she became anxious when she heard that Fidel Castro temporarily ceded his presidential powers last week after surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding.

“He's like a grandfather to me,” the 23-year-old student says. “It's very strange. I hate the government, but when this happened I was scared. It's very complicated.”

Luisa and a half dozen of her friends were starting a brief beach vacation when news of Mr. Castro's illness hit. Dressed in T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops, they spent much of last week taking in the sun, playing music and drinking rum and cola, but their discussions were dominated by talk of the future.

They agreed to be interviewed, but to protect their identities in a country where dissent can have a high price, their names have been altered."

"They talk of a Cuba where they will be free to express their opinions, determine their own lives and have a say in who governs them.

Yet they also fear what the future holds, concerned that the economic and political situation can still get worse and worried that the United States is anxious to return the island nation to the kind of virtual colony it was before the 1959 revolution."

"Private Internet connections are illegal and the only public Web access is in hotels, where it can cost $12 (U.S.) an hour, the equivalent of a monthly wage for many. “They don't want us to have access to information,” complains Maria, a 29-year-old actress.

“I was born in 1974 and I have never been anywhere but Cuba,” says her boyfriend Pedro, an actor and puppeteer. “Everything I know comes from the Cuban national press. Occasionally, I'll get a foreign newspaper or I'll catch a foreign station on TV when the weather conditions are unusual.”

Asked what they most want to see changed, the friends quickly come up with a list. “Democratic elections, so we can choose directly who represents us,” says one. “Freedom of speech,” says another.

“We want to be able to choose the kinds of jobs we do,” says Anna, a 27-year-old freelance interpreter, who says she will never be constrained by a government job. “How can anyone agree to work for a month and earn just 300 pesos (about $12)?”

Luisa is more down to earth. “I want the possibility of buying a bottle of cooking oil when I want it,” she says, reflecting widespread frustration with Cuba's mind-numbing system of rationing and constant shortages."

"Pedro is convinced that political change is inevitable. “I think Fidel sustains the revolution in Cuba. It's a revolution he created. I think there is no other leader that would be able to sustain what he has been able to do for so many years.”

Pedro resents the omnipresence of “Fidel” and his transformation into a secular god. He thinks politicians should be fallible and replaceable.

“I don't want a saint in government. I think I was forced to believe in a saint as a kid. The way his image was portrayed, it was like Christ for Christians or Allah for Muslims.”

His buddy Waldo, a musician and filmmaker, chimes in. “I think there has already been a change. It began on July 31 [the day that Mr. Castro's illness was made public]. The people have just not yet processed it so far.”"

"Yet in their yearning for change, these young people do not look across the Florida Straits for inspiration. “I don't want Raul Castro as president, but I don't want the Americans, either,” Pedro adds. “What the Americans want is money. The Americans help themselves. They don't help Cubans. They don't help people. They bomb people. They're like Romans.”

Waldo also doesn't want U.S. help. “Cuba is an island surrounded by the sea. We don't need to be a colony of anybody. We don't need a sponsor"

Svo mörg voru þau orð, en greinina má finna hér.

En það er erfitt að spá um hvað gerist á Kúbu, ef Castro fellur frá.  Að mínu viti er líklegast að "byltingin" hverfi á fáum árum að Castro gegnum, en svo svo þarf þó ekki að fara.  Það gæti líka orðið upplausn, ólga og jafnvel borgarstyrjöld, en við verðum að vona að kúbumenn beri gæfu til að allt fari friðsamlega fram.

En það er ólíklegt annað en að kommúnisminn hopi frá Kúbu.