The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

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While revolutions sweep the Middle East, one place that would seem ripe for revolution finds itself frozen in the tropics.  Last night I moderated a forum at the UCLA/Hammer with Annie Bardach and Max Lesnik.  She is a journalist and author who has covered Cuba and Miami for decades, and he is a former revolutionary who became disenchanted with his friend Castro and escaped into exile only to find himself the target of the Miami Cuban Mafia who bombed his newspaper eleven times because he opposes the American embargo.

I quickly learned that discussions about Cuba soon turn into arguments, and while the sparks flew, there was not much light shed on Cuba after the Castros, which was the title of the talk.  But both speakers did agree that there would not be a youthful revolution in Cuba, following the Egyptian and Libyan models, to get rid of a similar dynastic dictatorship.

Various reasons were given; the Stasi of the tropics, an omnipresent security apparatus with its embedded network of neighborhood snitches will nip anything in the bud.  The social network that does not exist; Cuba has the lowest Internet penetration in the hemisphere.  The Army will not side with the people; because of its loyalty to Commandante Raul, whose systematic purges have kept it obedient to the Castros.  And the hermetic information bubble Cubans are trapped in; with no outside media except for the official party line that does not print or televise the revolutions taking place now.

I was curious to get some insight on what young Cubans know and how they feel, and later I met with two audience members who spend about half of every year in Cuba.  One is involved in academic exchanges and the other with Cuba’s artistic community. 

First of all, as Max Lesnik made clear, there is “Radio Bemba” (radio lips) the Cuban gossip mill that started with the revolution but continues to spread information like wildfire, no matter how stifling the regime’s propaganda.  So whether it comes from tourists or through the cracks of a system that is crumbling like the buildings in Havana, young Cubans know exactly what is going on in the rest of the world. 

The Castros have kept the lid on for decades by exporting dissent to Miami where about a fifth of the island’s population has fled.  And while family exchanges keep the island up to date, Cubans don’t want to be rescued by their brothers in Miami who can’t wait to take over, as they feverishly plot and plan where to set up Dodge dealerships in post-Castro Havana. 

As depressed as the young Cubans are, and resigned to their fate that nothing will change until the patriarch dies, the picture that emerged was of a sad symbiosis between the Castros and the Miami Mafia.  Both profit from a stupid and counter-productive embargo that serves both of their interests. 

As long as the exile hard-liners in control America’s dysfunctional policy, based on the absurd notion that punishing the Cuban people hurts the dictator, nothing will change.  And of course the opposite is true.  If by some miracle we would wake up an end the embargo, the Castros would continue it.  They know better than anyone it’s what’s kept them in power all these years.

Yet every day there are more demonstrations across Cuba and as the Cuban economy grinds to a halt, it is possible that a critical mass of young people will take a cue from the unfolding youthful revolutions, whether they are televised or not.  If young Arabs can rebel against the vain/glorious patriarchs who stole their future, why not young Cubans?