US rulers repeatedly condemned Cuba for being a tool of Soviet aggression. Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, Cuba is still subjected to a US embargo. Because of the embargo, Cuba has the highest import-export tonnage costs of any country in the world, having to buy its school buses and medical supplies from far-off countries rather than from nearby United States, a would-be natural trading partner. Better relations with Washington would bring the Cubans more commerce, technology, and tourism, and a chance to reduce their burdensome defense expenditures. Yet Havana’s overtures for friendlier relations have been repeatedly rebuffed by successive administrations in Washington. Refusing to be treated as a satellite of the US empire, Cuba is to be treated as an enemy.
If Washington justified its own hostility on the grounds that Cuba was hostile toward the United States, what became the justification when the Cuban government repeatedly tried to be friendly? The US response has been to characterize the diplomatic overtures as deceptive ploys.
Years ago in the 1980s, when Havana requested normalized relations with the United States, the New York Times ran a “news analysis” headlined “What’s Behind Castro’s Softer Tone.” The headline itself suggested that Castro was up to something. The opening sentence read, “Once again Fidel Castro is talking as if he wants to improve relations with the United States” (“as if,” not actually). According to the Times, Castro was interested in “taking advantage” of US trade, technology, and tourism and would “prefer not to be spending so much time and energy on national defense.” Here seemed to be a promising basis for improved relations. Fidel Castro was saying that Cuba’s own self-interest rested on friendlier diplomatic and economic ties with Washington and not, as the United States claimed, on aggression and aggrandizement. Nevertheless, the Times analysis made nothing of Castro’s stated desire to ease tensions and instead presented the rest of the story from the US government’s perspective. It noted that most Washington officials “seem skeptical. . .. The Administration continues to believe that the best way to deal with the Cuban leader is with unyielding firmness. . .. Administration officials see little advantage in wavering.”11
The article did not explain what justified Washington’s “skeptical” stance, or why a blanket negative response to Castro should be described as “unyielding firmness” rather than, say, “hostile rigidity.” Nor did it say why a willingness to make a positive response to his diplomatic overture must be labeled “wavering.” It left readers with the impressions that the sneaky power-hungry Castro was out to get something from us but that our vigilant leaders were not about to be taken in. There was no explanation of what the United States had to lose if it entered closer relations with Cuba.
In short, the imperial stance is immune to evidence. If the Cubans angrily condemn Yankee aggression, this is proof of their hostility and diabolic design. If they act in a friendly manner and ask for negotiated settlements, showing a willingness to make concessions and cooperate in measures against terrorism, then it is assumed they are up to something and are resorting to trickery and manipulation. The US position is nonfalsifiable: both A and not-A serve as justification for the same hostile policy toward Cuba.
With the loss of Soviet aid and the continued US blockade, Cuba faced exceptionally hard times, what party leaders termed “the Special Period.” Acknowledging the high unemployment and other hardships, Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, was quoted as saying that Cuba would move “toward a better form of socialism and . .. a more democratic society.”12 (After Fidel Castro’s protracted illness and retirement in 2008, Raul took over as president.) Raul’s view of democracy did not include the multi-party, money-driven, electoral ballyhoo found in the United States. He seemed to envision a central role for the Communist Party but with greater room for debate and popular inputs.
Due to the US embargo and the cessation of Soviet aid, Cuba was unable to continue with a high-tech, high-fuel farming system. Searching for a way to feed its population, the island nation embarked upon an organic agricultural system that included oxen instead of tractors, organic planting instead of chemical fertilizers, organic pest control instead of pesticide spraying, and extensive use of urban gardens. Cuba developed a successful organic food system of interest to organic farmers from other countries. Here was the largest conversion from chemicalized agriculture to organic or semi-organic farming in human history.13
To US rulers, things like organic farming were of secondary consideration, if that. What Washington continued to demand was that Cuban leaders “liberalized” their economy, that is, privatized it, replacing the public sector with a corporate-dominated profit-driven sector that would be integrated into the global investment system. Then and only then would Cuba no longer be demonized.