On a couple of occasions, I spoke with a fellow OpEdNews contributor -- "Guillermo Tell," a Russian ex-pat who has lived in Havana for 27 years. He reminded me of Cuba's on-going problems with bureaucracy and of the dangers of "reforms" that could end up selling-out the hard won gains of the Revolution. (More on that later.)
Then there were those casual conversations with Cubans on the street, in night clubs and along the Malecon where Habaneros crowd each evening and especially on weekends for music, dance, love, conversation and arguments about baseball and politics.
We even found our way to a ringside table at the Tropicana nightclub, to a performance of the Buena Vista Social Club, and a children's theater presentation on the Cuban Five that rivaled anything we've seen on Broadway.
Usually however our focus was the Revolution, socialism, and Cuba's prospects for the future.
And what did we find out? Simply this: Cuba is the most important country in the world. Ernesto Cardenal said that of Nicaragua in the 1980s. And he was right. Nicaragua was then the most prominent center of resistance to U.S. imperialism. Today (and for the past 55 years) Cuba fills that role like none other. Alone in the world, it demonstrates that Third World Countries can accomplish so much with so little even in the face of pitiless opposition from the most powerful country in the world. Cuba is showing the world a way into a future that accommodates itself to the new globalization -- but on its own terms. In doing so, it has already surpassed Latin American darlings of development such as Costa Rica. It has already surpassed the United States in quality of life.
Are you surprised by that? Let me tell you what I mean -- and here I address Cuban patriotism and the revolutionary gains evoked by our sidewalk encounter. Those elements are what make Cuba so important even in the face of the seduction by "the greatest country in the world."
First think about Costa Rica. Peggy and I have lived there on and off for the last 25 years. To begin with, Havana is much more beautiful than Costa Rica's capital, San Jose. Havana's seafront, colonial structures, its comparative cleanliness and hospitality far exceed what we've found in San Jose which is dirty and bleak by comparison. The latter has nothing like Havana Vieja -- the old city whose restorations, museums and newly proliferated restaurants have created a tourist center that rivals anything we have seen in Europe.
Cuba's Varadero seacoast is cleaner, more orderly, more extensive and luxurious than Costa Rica's famed Manuel Antonio or Guanacaste's Flamingo Beach resorts. Cuba's highways are better than Costa Rica's pot-holed thruways.
Yet, on the basis of independent surveys and assessments, Costa Rica bills itself as the "happiest country in the world." I suspect Cubans are happier still.
And that brings me to the reasons why and to my claim about the U.S. and comparative qualities of life. Am I really saying that Cuba has surpassed not only Costa Rica but the U.S. in those terms? Yes -- despite the impressions of that young man accosting us on the street.
Or let me put it this way: what do we value most in life? Few, I think, would respond: money, competition, meaningless work with increasing hours with fast-diminishing rewards. Few would list fast food, shopping malls, movies, luxury cars and vast homes at the head of our must-have lists.
Even abstractions like U.S. "freedom" (in our system that imprisons and executes more than any other country in the industrialized world), "democracy" (where voter-suppression is the order of the day), "free speech" (where the mainstream media ignores issues important to the poor and middle class), and "rule of law" (where universal surveillance, torture, police-impunity and extrajudicial killings are common) have become increasingly meaningless.
Instead most of us would say: "What I care most about are my children and grandchildren. I care about my health and that of my family. I care about the well-being of the planet we'll leave to our descendants. Education is important. And I want safety in the streets. I'd even like to have some years of retirement toward the end of my life."
In all of those terms -- addressing what most humans truly care about -- Cuba far outstrips the United States. Consider the following:
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