Translating Cuba

They stretch out their hands to touch the creature that seems to emerge from the screen. They scream when the dragon opens its mouth and even cringe when the trees of the ancient magic forest surround them. They are the first viewers of 3D movies in Cuba, the first travelers on an optical adventure. Teenagers, for the most part, who want to appreciate the sensation of three dimensions in the movies. They put on their special glasses and when the film ends, they always want to see it again, to re-experience those visual effects.

In my neighborhood they’ve opened a 3D theater. A tiny place run by a family where you can watch the latest movies with this technology that have been released to the world movie market. At first, no one knew precisely what it was all about, but little by little the enthusiasm has been spreading among younger people and now there is a line outside the place to get a seat in front of that fantastic screen. This week they are showing “The Hobbit,” a lavish production based on the work of the novelist and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien.

The State hasn’t wanted to be left behind and during the Young Filmmakers Festival in Havana they programmed, for the first time, a series of film showings in 3D. The projections took place in a room accommodating only 45 viewers and the tickets sold out in advance. The glasses and TVs that allow you to enjoy this technology have never been sold in Cuban stores, but the wide variety of these gadgets that show up in the underground market is surprising. On the illegal networks you can find everything you need to enjoy this new entertainment. No one wants to miss the experience, even though it only lasts a few minutes.

9 April 2013

All professional associations in Cuba – those that claim to represent attorneys, architects, economists, artists, journalists and craftspeople, among others, as well as those made up of women, students, farm workers, laborers and others – which purport to the world to be NGOs, are in reality governmental organizations. They are organized, directed, financed and controlled by the state. Rather than defending the interests of their members, they really serve as straightjackets, forcing them to behave within established political and ideological boundaries. Anyone who dares to go beyond or to ignore them in the belief that he has some degree of independence is immediately called to account. If this does not achieve the desired result, the person can be dishonorably expelled from the association, which then makes him into a social pariah and, if he is a professional, leaves him without the right to legally practice his profession.

There is a group of people, a majority, who belong to these associations. As one might expect, they strictly comply with all the “commandments” in order to be able to work, study, travel, enjoy some advantages and receive official recognition. Another, less numerous group attempts to operate on the inside with some degree of independence by adopting contrary positions – the official one sometimes; more liberal ones less often – trying “to be on good terms with both God and the devil.” There is also a group of rebels who do not belong to either of these two. These individuals lack legal support and must act independently and at their own risk, without the possibility of access to the governmental platforms.

These organizations do not engage in controversial actions. They are really peaceful backwaters with the normal rivalries and hindrances characteristic of each sector. However, when someone – be it either an individual or a group – dares to act independently and with a certain degree of bravery by calling something into question, these organizations – headed by its most orthodox members – become courts of inquisition, drafting and publishing accords, communiques, declarations and letters with many “voluntary” signatures. The violator of the sacrosanct commandments is then incinerated in a bonfire of the most extreme intolerance. Examples of this practice abound and are quite well-known in every organization.

In these cases the outrage, which is political, ideological and directed from above, has nothing to do with the actual feelings of his or her colleagues. Unfortunately, these attitudes are widespread and the institutions as such are incapable of defending the interests of their members. Instead, they serve as prosecutors responding to “the boss’s orders.” The consequences are disqualifications, personal insults, acts of repudiation and other unpleasantries directed from on high at the allegedly guilty parties, chosen as the propitious victims of the moment based on the interests of the authorities, who are the ones really in control.

6 April 2013

Site manager’s note: This document/proposal, published by the Catholic Archdiocese of Havana, is generating discussion among the bloggers and is posted here for the convenience of our readers.

The following translation is taken from the Havana Times. The document, in English, can be downloaded here.

A Dreamed of, Possible and Future Cuba

The sovereignty of the country is only the unrestricted exercise of all the rights of human dignity throughout the territory of our country for all Cubans.

Cuba is experiencing a new era. This imposes on us the urgency of ensuring the sovereignty of our country. Concerned about the present and the future, we wish to make proposals to be studied and debated publicly, about how a process of economic renovation might develop alongside a renewal of the Cuban social order.

We in the Laboratorio Casa Cuba*, of dissimilar ideological provenance, start from a consensus on five pillars that we deem crucial and indispensable for the present and future of Cuba: Advocate the realization of human dignity, which is specified by non-violent exercise of freedom, equality and brotherhood, for the socialization of spiritual and material wealth to be able to create, for the achievement of full democracy, for the pursuit of greater stability in this process of change and solved by the rejection of foreign powers meddling in the affairs of Cuba.

In proposing (never imposing) a minimal definition of Republic and some possible tools to achieve it, we don’t want to promote private agendas, but Cubans’, with different opinions and beliefs, among all of us to realize, broaden and deepen these criteria, we aspire to be the basis of our coexistence in the near future.

Republic:

A public order with a universe of attitudes, commitments and rules guaranteed to every human being to enjoy all the capabilities needed to perform their share of sovereignty. The exercise of citizen sovereignty, which requires a democratic order must be based on human virtues, as the principal means mutual support, and the goal of building justice.

Instruments to strengthen the Republic of Cuba today and tomorrow:

I. Ensure the enjoyment of civil, family, political, cultural, social, labor and economic rights.

II. Implement effective mechanisms through which every citizen can equally enjoy these rights, and to empower the disadvantaged.

III. To ensure the right to universal information that is free and diverse, broad and deep, interactive and critical, without censorship or monopolization. This is especially essential to ensure transparency in governance and participatory mass access to the Internet.

IV. Ensure the social and political multiplicity of the nation the right to choose different ways to self-organize in order to promote their goals, influence opinion and act in society and participate in governance.

V. Allow believers and practitioners of different religions, spiritualities and worldviews that exist in Cuba to publicly promote their identities, feel respected,  and self-organize into communities with legal status.

VI. Establish diverse ways to enable citizens to actively monitor compliance with the Constitution, and the performance of all official institutions.

VII. To seek the greatest possible autonomy for local institutions, understood as community spaces, resources and decision-making capabilities on these, to exercise the role of solidarity and citizen sovereignty.

VIII. When a problem can be solved at the grassroots level, locally, community wise or in the workplace, the higher courts should not intervene in the solution; communities, associations, companies and groups of workers must be able to freely cooperate with each other to solve their problems together.

IX. Repeal all rules that establish discrimination between citizens according to their places of origin or residence, including those that favor foreigners’ over Cubans. Likewise, repeal laws providing the possibility of criminal sanctions for those who didn’t commit criminal acts (charged with pre-criminal dangerousness: the “dangerousness” and “pre-criminal security measures”).

X. Establish mechanisms of mutual control between the various public functions. Separate legislative, executive, judicial and electoral functions and outline the cooperation that should exist between them.

XI. Each taxpayer should be involved in the development and approval of the use of funds coming into the treasury, and accountability for use in well-defined social purposes.

XII. Choose any public office representative, through direct elections, free, secret and periodic and competitive among candidates nominated directly by citizens.

XIII. Likewise, the above rules should apply to the election of the highest executive positions of the Republic and of each locality.

XIV. Limit to two periods remaining in the popularly elected executive positions, and set age limits for such functions as well as determine the incompatibility of positions to be held by the same person.

XV. Enforce the periodic interactive public accountability of all public officials.

XVI. Ensure the right of the people to revoke all mandates.

XVII. Make full use of the referendum and the plebiscite, in all areas and dimensions.

XVIII. Effectively ensure the right to work and employment guarantees, as well as the needed economic freedoms, and make the management of the economy subject to enforceable social and environmental commitments.

XIX. Keep as law, universal and free access to health care, through various forms of social organization as well as fair remuneration according to professional performance.

XX. Ensuring universal and personalized access to a democratic, humanistic and diverse education, with fair pay for educators and the active involvement of teachers, students, families and communities in the management of the school facilities and the definition of curricula as well as a free and responsible cultural development.

XXI. Academic and university autonomy, with academic freedom and of research, and an active participation of all stakeholders.

XXII. Ensure effective ways to ensure a balanced participation of the Cuban diaspora in the country’s life.

XXIII. All social activity must comply with the principles of legality, justice and constitutional supremacy. Constitutional provisions should be developed and adopted with the participation of the general population.

With this we add our modest effort to the unforgettable efforts of those who have fought and worked for the triumph of love in our land, a choir of plural and diverse voices, which we join in a common redemptive password.

Comments, analysis and proposals can be sent to the following email address: labcasacuba@gmail.com
—–

(*) The Laboratory Casa Cuba is a newly created team for social and legal research, recently created by Espacio Laical, a publication of the Roman Catholic archbishopric of Havana. It includes professors and researchers of diverse ideologies (Catholics, critical Marxists, republican-socialists and anarchists), whose critical contribution will attempt to provide tools that can help to continue the dialogue and consensus building for a Cuba with dignity, solidarity and citizen participation.

It is extremely worrying that our island is one of the countries with the oldest populations on the planet. The particular Cuban phenomenon is due to reasons too well-known, emigration increased while the birth rate and population growth decreased.

As what is critical rarely leaves time for what is important, it is not difficult to understand that irresponsible policies or at least misguided ones, increased pension costs and led to the unstoppable increase in the Cuban fiscal deficit.

Many will say that it is desirable to change the social system, but in my opinion it depends on the popular decision. The fact is that the population is aging, and with regards to labor issues, in Cuba the concept of the “third age” disappeared.

For the elderly, retiring is a goal; and it is a fiction that a young man of 20 — which describes so many of those who are now unemployed — can find work for the time needed to meet the requirements to retire. The young would have to work more than their entire lives to collect a pension. Of course, the orphans and disabled are — full stop — even worse off.

The aging of the population exhausted the limited financial sustainability of the pension system; its base is completely insufficient to cover the age span of a retiree.

Therefore, it is more than necessary, it is imperative to reform this system, increase revenue, expand coverage and ensure sustainability in the very near future.

We need to forget the past for a while and look towards a common horizon, abandoning this ridiculous antagonism brought by the struggle for power, and help the youth of today, so they don’t become the homeless of tomorrow.

In 2005 the Revolutionary government ordered an increase in payments, even passing new laws in this regard, but the continued devaluation of the Cuban peso has proportionally reduced the real value of the amount of money received by a pensioner. So today, they are receiving more, but it buys far less.

In the present circumstances, to offer certain status to the working population, the government would have to increase the contribution paid by workers and, in turn, increase the retirement age to 200 years. Egregious nonsense. The measures are still notoriously inadequate and misleading.

We know well that the country’s leadership began its so-called “update of the socialist model” to rid itself of a hindrance; eliminating state jobs and laying off staff without vocations, they had no choice to take refuge in the nascent private section which lacks any pension system. Office workers were turned into peasants; and bureaucrats into french fry sellers. But these workers, like every other Cuban, lack confidence in banks and continue in a limbo of abandonment.

I do not want to talk about the problem without offering my assessment; I think that, for the State workers, it would be effective to readjust the subsidy according to personal efficiency, not according to age; a kind of sustainable work that contributes, taking advantage of the individual and reassessing the self-worth of those likely to feel valued.

On the other hand, it’s urgent to modify the law governing foreign investment in a way that can provide attractive incentives such as tax exemptions for a determined period to foreign businesses that organize reliable retirement plans for those many workers who receive monthly income and which, for reasons of semantics, instead of being called entrepreneurs are called “self-employed.”

4 April 2013

2003 was an incredible year. Harassment, arbitrary detentions, acts of repudiation and verbal assaults against the opposition by the government were rising.

There was an escalation by the government against peaceful dissidents and independent journalists. Castro called a referendum to shore up his olive-green socialism. It was a response to the Varela Project petition, which had been submitted to the National Assembly by the opposition figure Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas. The petition was backed up by more than ten thousand signatures and, following procedures enshrined in the constitution, called on the legislature to undertake constitutional reforms.

In 1999 Castro had promulgated Article 88, a legal hodgepodge that mandated sentences of more than twenty years for dissidents and independent journalists under the pretext they were undermining the status quo.

Fidel Castro himself appeared on television and read a list with names of opposition figures who allegedly had contact with diplomats from the United States and the Czech Republic.

One could see that something was brewing in the sewers of power. The regime’s attacks in the media were missiles specifically directed at opposition leaders Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Martha Beatriz Roque, Oscar Elías Biscet, and the poet and journalist Raúl Rivero.

Months before the raid on dissidents, a furious Fidel Castro threatened the opposition in a speech at the Karl Marx Theater. “Don’t say later that you were not warned,” he told them. “We will not allow mercenaries to carry out their work with impunity, though we won’t kill butterflies with cannon fire.”

On March 18, 19 and 20, 2003 violent lightning raids were launched on the homes of more than eighty dissidents across the island, marking the beginning of surgical detentions intended to destroy the opposition.

It was a well-designed move. The international press corps was lining up to go to Iraq, where all signs indicated that war was imminent. According to Castro’s calculations, the administration of George W. Bush would soon be bogged down in a costly and exhausting war with the dictator Saddam Hussein.

It did not happen that way. In a devastating offensive lasting little more than a month, troops from the United States and its allies pulled down a statue of the tyrant in Baghdad. In spite of the clamor of war, the imprisonment of dozens of the island’s opposition figures did not go unnoticed by the world’s press.

International criticism was considerable. The government in Havana had not anticipated such a reaction. Some of Castro’s friends such as Portuguese writer José Saramago and Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano criticized the detentions. Saramago’s reaction was extreme. “This is as far as I go,” he said, abandoning ship and the fellow travellers who supported the bearded Cuban.

Initially up to a hundred dissidents were detained. Later the number was reduced to seventy-five. Settling accounts like an old wine merchant, Castro’s calculations were based on the assumption that the Bush administration would negotiate the release of ’his mercenaries’ by exchanging them for the five Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States.

To Castro this seemed like a reasonable exchange — fifteen “wretched worms” for each spy. Perhaps he was thinking back to 1961 when Kennedy exchanged baby food and cereal for more than two-thousand anti-Castro fighters imprisoned on the island after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

The move came back to bite him. It was a crude political error. World leaders demanded the dissidents’ freedom, and the United States and the European Union further tightened the screws on the economic sanctions against Cuba.

Castro upped the ante. Taking advantage of the case of three Cubans who had commandeered a transport vessel, he decided to send a message to frighten the population. At the time, in their eagerness to reach the Florida coast, people were escaping any way they could. At a summary trial three black youths, who were living in poor neighborhoods of Havana, were sentenced to death.

It was bad. Dissidents and ordinary Cubans alike thought Castro had lost his mind. Meanwhile, dissidents and independent journalists like us lived in a constant state of anxiety. I walked around with a spoon and toothbrush in my back pocket.

I felt that at any moment I could be arrested. Luckily, this did not happen, though the phone was cut off for several days. We were all afraid. I still remember a distressed Blanca Reyes, wife of Raúl Rivero, describing his arrest and subsequent detention.

The evidence against him consisted of his articles and poems, an Olivetti typewriter, books by universally acclaimed authors and photos of his children, friends and family members. He was arrested in his apartment in La Victoria, where he had lived since his wedding. It is a rough neighborhood, a breeding ground for hookers, pimps and hustlers. People with no future who do not enthusiastically applaud Castro’s rants. It was in one of these poor central Havana neighborhoods where the disturbances of August 1994, known as the Maleconazo, the Malecon uprising, broke out.

On the afternoon of March 20, when Raúl Rivero was arrested, the street was filled with neighbors and onlookers. When he was put into a Russian car, his hands shackled as though he were a terrorist, some outraged neighbors began to shot “abusadores” and “libertad.”

Ten years after the Black Spring, efforts to destroy opposition groups, independent journalists and alternative bloggers have increased. Those of us who have worked for democracy and freedom of expression press on. Here we are.

Iván García

Photo: Neighbors from the block where Raúl Rivero lived — on Peñalver between Franco and Oquendo streets in Central Havana — witnessing the arrest of the director of Cuba Press, an agency for independent journalism established on September 23, 1995. Among its founders are Iván García and Tania Quintero.

6 April 2013

By Julio Cesar Alvarez | Havana | From Diario de Cuba.

Demands by doctors to receive remuneration for hospital shifts were not accepted by the Government when it was developing the draft Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party.

The response the doctors received from the authorities was in the nature of an order and command that the healthcare union has not dared to question: “Assessing these criteria, it is determined that hospital shifts are an activity inseparable from the exercise of medical practice and an essential principle in the training of all health professionals, for which there should not be  an additional payment. ”

According to the Government leadership, “The conditions for applying a general increase in wages still do not exist.”

However, after the refusal, the Government decided to authorize a controversial payment for night work for doctors and dentists, and to extend it to nurses and other workers in the system.

Let them eat cake. Thus, the government has applied to some doctors a new provision authorizing the payment of two Cuban pesos (8 cents U.S.) per hour for night shifts.

In many cases the response is resignation before the fear of reprisals for publicly questioning a government decision, or the impossibility of Cuban workers going on strike to force the government to give way before their just demands.

In others, and although no one is willing to come out publicly, the decision is considered a mockery and a hypocrisy on the part of the government, especially considering the high salaries and pensions paid to military personnel. Many of those wages far exceed what any healthcare professional receives, even without considering the “gratuities” — the other tangible benefits — given to everyone in uniform, and especially to those of higher rank.

“‘There’s no money to augment the salaries,’ is a hypocritical statement. How can there not be the conditions to increase the salaries of doctors for hospital shift duty, if every member of the armed forces (FAR) and the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) earns more than we do?” complained one of the doctors who was asked for an opinion and who requested anonymity.

“You can see any of those nobodies of the Armed Forces riding around all day in the new Chinese cars they give them. It seems that the air conditioning and the tinted windows make them forget that what Cuban has is an excess of heat and a lack of public transport.  I know colleagues of mine — surgeons — who don’t even have their own apartment. They have to live with their in-laws. To get to work, they use the old tactic of putting their white coats over their arms and standing at the stoplights so someone will give them a ride to the hospital. Nevertheless, any child of the Government leaders, without earning it in any way or having any kind of training, travels in a modern car paid for with the people’s money.”

Two kinds of doctors

“In Cuba doctors are highly appreciated by the people. It’s paradoxical, but it is precisely the people, the great majority of whom have nothing, who sometimes take the little they have to give it to the doctors at the hospitals or the clinics where family doctors practice. One patient brings a banana, another some sweet, or a soft drink or a packet of coffee. My clinic sometimes looks like a farmers market,” says Carlos, a doctor who claims to be a revolutionary but is one hundred percent in agreement with his colleagues’ complaints about the amount of money paid for hospital shifts, which is barely a pittance.

On the other hand, Paulino, an ophthalmologist who served on a foreign mission with his wife, in a country where they doctors are allowed to receive donations for patients, isn’t very interested in the issue of payment for hospital shifts, at least for now.

After serving more than five years on the foreign mission, his wife was given the opportunity to buy an apartment, and the government gave him permission to buy a car. He bought a Hyundai. That mission opened two doors that remain closed even for many doctors: a roof and transportation. In that sense healthcare personnel believe there are two castes of doctors in Cuba: those serving on foreign missions (that is, traveling to get money), and those who do not travel.

And following simple logic, many wonder how it is possible that you can not compensate physicians for working the hospital shifts, when it is precisely the services of Cuban doctors to other countries, along with other exports of human capital trained on the island, that bring into the country the Government’s primary source of foreign exchange*.

*Translator’s note: Cuban doctors and other personnel working on “missions” earn considerably more than doctors working in the country, but are only paid a tiny portion of what foreign governments, such as that of Venezuela, pay the Cuban government for their services; the national treasury pockets the remainder.

Translated from DiariodeCuba.com

5 April 2013

I am not going to talk about the flavor most in demand by everyone, but rather about the local ingenuity, which manufactures, in the midst of difficulties and shortages, the gastronomic inventions that make it possible to find tons of things, water “in paper money,” to satisfy one’s thirst and survive. In my Havana, where in the ’90s they invented “floor rag steak*,” pizza with melted condoms instead of cheese, and plastic ham, it’s been easy for today’s self-employed to create a generic ice cream flavor, that consists of coloring the fake stuff with a sweet and universal taste.

I refuse to buy ice cream in the private sector any more. It doesn’t matter what color it is, if it’s in a cone, ice cream bar, salad or bowl: it all tastes the same. I feel like a little girl who’s been ripped off with a box of culinary colors. In a country that calls itself democratic where there is no democracy, that says there is freedom but we’re not free, it’s natural that everyone — literally — “swallows the bitter pill” of the scam.

This new and authorized disrespect for the consumer, is one more in a long and historic list of State irregularities — like almost everything in Cuba — in the restaurant industry. It is the universal flavor of a government that has educated three generations to make them believe in what doesn’t exist, in what is actually a big lie.

We promote and encourage foreign investment in our country in this area as well, but morally we must begin with Cubans — immigrants and here at home. Unlike the former socialist republics, we have the advantage of capital that can break the economic inertia. It would be a stretch, but it would be possible with political will, to acknowledge that part of our people who “got their feet wet” in search of greener pastures, of places to live that are less suffocating and more just. It’s time for them to open the doors of citizen rights — doors that never should have been closed — to our compatriots abroad.

It would then be possible that we could all enjoy the enormous ice cream of human brotherhood and the delicious flavor of reconciliation between a captive people and its diaspora.

*Translator’s note: “Floor rag steak” is exactly that.  This video, easy to follow even if you don’t understand Spanish, shows how it is made.

6 April 2013

Fundamentalism and oppression. Both are ingredients essential to dictatorships and cause fear and immobility and societies. Fundamentalism, whether religious or ideological, is the banner of totalitarian regimes and the quintessential seasoning of the armies and police of oppressive governments. They are the two drugs that produce the group’s eternal dream of remaining in power, to the detriment of the sociopolitical, cultural and economic development of the whole country.

Worth comparing, for example, to what Japan was before and after 1945 and how it exchanged futons for beds, har-kari for mea culpas, and how it evolved from feudalism to be one of the major economic powers of the world. The Korean case is even more illustrative. A people divided by two different government systems: the north, abusive and a violator of people’s fundamental rights, evidence of a manipulated egalitarianism and fictionalized uniformity, while in the south, citizens go on strike, demand their rights, elect governments, produce …

I think of Cuba and what we have and what we will become — if God lets me live — and I feel more optimistic. And so, some time ago I started moving and exercising my right to think, speak and act with freedom of conscience, despite the fifty-year dictatorship that oppresses us, nor do I rest in planting the seeds. Now we are beginning to see the positions…

4 April 2013

Arts Cuba announced this Wednesday the results of the “Home Through the Window” contest in the genre of Poetry, held in 2012 for authors living in Cuba. First place went to “The Fire of the Meek,” by Daykel Angula Aguilera from Holguin, a poet, storyteller, and audiovisual artist.

Second place went to “There is a Place Called Solitude” from the writer
Isbel González González, living in Sancti Spiritus. Third place went to “Levels of Euphoria” by Ricardo Lopez Lorente, resident in Havana.

The “Home Through the Window” Poetry contest was organized by Arts Cuba “for the purpose of opening a window to the national, international and online distribution of literature and art created by individuals on the Island.” About 70 authors submitted around 300 works, a considerable participation considering the existing difficulties of Internet connection in Cuba.

The criteria for choosing the winners were: originality, relevant theme, creativity, style, and quality of writing.

Arts Cuba released an eBook (a book in digital format) with poems of the winners and several finalists (15 authors in total), which, with a foreword by poet Joaquín Gálvez, may be read free of charge, and/or downloaded, by clicking on this link: ArteCuba.org

29 March 2013

The statistics are troubling. For more than thirty years the average Cuban woman has given birth to less than one daughter during her entire reproductive life. A population that does not regenerate gets old. And decreases. This means that in absolute terms Cuba has begun to lose inhabitants.

There was a report issued by the National Office of Statistics in 2011 which notes that the cumulative age of the country’s three strongmen – Fidel Castro, his brother Raúl and José Machado Ventura – is 250 years.

More dramatically, more than twenty thousand people between the ages of 10 and 45 emigrate each year. One of the government’s solutions to counteract the aging and decline of the population has been to raise the retirement age to 60 for women and 65 for men.

A pension in Cuba – between 150 and 300 pesos (6 to 12 dollars) — barely covers even 25% of a retiree’s basic needs. If a citizen hopes to have breakfast and two decent meals a day, he will need at least 2,600 pesos (100 dollars) a month.

Added to this is the serious housing problem. Some 62% of homes in Cuba are in a fair to poor state of repair. Three or four generations must live together under the same roof. When more space is needed, it is often the aged person who is displaced. The best option is for grandparents to live with their grandchildren. The worst is for families to send them to some decrepit state institution.

With its lack of sanitation, poor treatment and even worse food, death’s worst waiting room is a state-run hospice.

By 2012 more people were dying than were being born in the country. The weak economy does not guarantee a comfortable life for the two million people over the age of sixty. Today the median age is 38 years. By 2025 it will rise to 44 and almost 26% of the population will be over the age of 60. By 2030 more than 3.3 million people will 60 or older.

Currently, the percentage of Cubans over the age of 60 is 17.8%. The segment of the population 14 years or younger is 17.3%. The ideal solution would be to adopt policies that encourage women to have two or more children.

European countries with a welfare state pay a stipend to mothers who have more than one child, but public funds for this in Cuba are minimal.

Since Raúl Castro inherited power from his brother, the number of construction projects  that do not turn a profit, such as social service and leisure facilities, has declined to almost zero. Investments are made only in buildings that generate hard currency, like those in the tourism industry, or which are strategically important, such as petrochemical plants and waterworks projects in the eastern region.

We should not have to wait for a session of the one-note national legislature to announce financial incentives to encourage women to have more than one child. Otherwise, Cuba’s accelerated aging problem will be an issue that a future government will have to address.

Life dictates that by 2025 the Castros will be either resting in some mausoleum or will be two very sickly old men nearing the century mark. In addition to encouraging spectacular economic growth, the next president will also have to renegotiate the country’s external debt and try to create a coherent, inclusive and democratic society

All such efforts will have to be taken up with an aging human capital. A growing segment of women, both professional and non-professionals, are postponing starting families due to material shortages. Convincing them that Cuba needs to rejuvenate itself by increasing the number of girls will be a vital task.

It is yet to be seen if within ten years leaving for Florida will still be the chief priority for many Cubans. We hope not. Otherwise, if you are the last one to leave, please turn out the light in El Morro.*

Iván García

Photo from 100 Photos of the Older Generation

*Translator’s note: The iconic lighthouse at the Morro fortress overlooks the Havana harbor.

2 April 2013