>Cuba and South Africa: The Fate of Revolution > >by Joel Kovel >The ties between Castro's Cuba and Mandela's South Africa run very deep. >Cuban slave society was less efficient in demolishing linkages to Africa >than its North American counterpart, allowing Cuba to retain a strong sense >of the mother culture. Accordingly, revolutionary Cuba has held, amidst its >many allegiances, to a special affiliation with the African homeland. It >was in this spirit that Castro intervened in the Angolan wars of the >1970s--against the wishes of the Soviets, who considered the action >adventuristic. The bold gamble pitted Cuba directly against the armies of >apartheid South Africa, who were intervening on the other side, and >indirectly against the United States in its strategy of counterrevolution >on tha African continent. >The result was a stunning triumph. Cuba's victory in the battle of Cuito >Cuanevale in 1987 profoundly demoralized the racist state and played a >decisive role in the decision to liquidate apartheid. Few in the US realize >this, and most of those few are black, hence Fidel's extraordinary >reception in Harlem in 1995 when he travelled to New York for the fiftieth >anniversary of the founding of the UN. The Abyssinian Baptist Church was >transformed that evening into an island of enthusiasm in a sea of ignorance >and antipathy. In South Africa, however, no one is oblivious to the meaning >of Cuba; and of all the delegates to Nelson Mandela's joyous inauguration >in 1994, Fidel received the greatest welcome, much to the discomfort of Al >Gore, who headed the US contingent and more or less stood in the corner >gnashing his teeth as the two great revolutionaries came together. >Today, three years after the birth of the new South Africa, the perennially >generous Cubans are sending doctors to the new democracy to work in >underserved rural regions. Yet even as this destitute nation clinging to a >dissolving socialism aids Africa's superpower, considerable numbers of >well-heeled Britons are migrating to Cape Town in search of la dolce vita. >Why this should be is a subject for some reflection and not a little >sadness. >In February the opportunity arose to visit both Cuba and South Africa once >again. I was in Havana for an international conference on the >environment--itself a remarkable occurrence--and immediately afterward made >my way to Cape Town where I was to help in the development of an exchange >program between my school, Bard College, and the University of the Western >Cape. I had been in both places before--most recently in Cuba in 1994, and >in South Africa in 1989, as the anti-apartheid struggle was gathering for >the final assault. No place could have been more thrilling, and awful, than >South Africa in that period: thrilling, because great masses of humanity >had been set irrevocably in motion to bring down one of the most detestable >regimes in modern history; and awful, because the regime still had teeth to >murder and torture even if it could no longer effectively rule. The mingled >elation, revulsion and dread was unforgettable. >Cuba in 1994 had, as it has since 1959, a similar spirit, compounded of >struggle, sacrifice and risk taken against a cruel adversary, and >manifested as legendary generosity, fierce pride and organic collectivity. >The sense of awfulness was there, too, distilled into an omnipresent >hunger, and even a kind of national emaciation, as if the society had been >in a concentration camp--which, in a way, it was, thanks to Uncle Sam's >murderous and implacable blockade. >Three years later, the blockade grinds on, reinforced by the Helms-Burton >bill. But Cubans are once more well-fed, though still quite poor and >wanting in many amenities. Two major successes--one dubious and the other >extraordinarily hopeful--account for their renewed well-being. The dubious >achievement is the growth of tourism. Glitzy hotels spring up along the >coast to suck pesatas, Deutschmarks, lira and Canadian dollars into the >country--along, necessarily, with bourgeois commodities and values. You can >now buy Yves St. Laurent ties and Swatch watches in the boutiques that have >cropped up here and there like so many cancer cells metastasizing into >socialist austerity. A billboard for toothpaste was spotted on the road >alongside the noble and stern images of Che; and the taxi radio blares >hypno-rock music, the voice chanting, "whatever turns you on . . . >whatever, whatever," and "I will, I will," to induce a proper frame of mind >for the consumerism knocking at the door. Some enterprises have gone >further yet: in the gleaming hotel next to the conference center, the gift >shop no longer carries revolutionary post cards and other tsatzkas of Cuban >socialism. The theme is now folklorico; thus revolutionary Cuba is rendered >into another instance of the exotic South for jaded travellers on the road >from Frankfurt or Seoul. >And so it goes. But not entirely so. There is an intact core to Cuba, built >up over two generations of what has arguably been, for all its flaws, the >most fully realized proletarian socialism the world has ever seen. This >does not yield so easily, nor does it stand still. The conference I >attended was testimony to this, and to the other major success that has >liberated Cuba from the bondage of hunger. >The collapse of the USSR sent Cuba's economy into free fall. No sector was >more disasterously affected than agriculture, already gravely compromised >by decades of single-crop industrial farming under Soviet aegis. The near >starvation could not be blamed simply on the blockade; it also stemmed from >a rigid agricultural system that even in good years had been unable to feed >the Cuban people. This system is no more. In a creative adaptation of >world-historical proportions, Cuba has been able to transform its food >production along organic lines. This has engaged not only the full >repertoire of organic techniques (including oxen in place of tractors), but >also a major research effort drawing upon traditional wisdom as well as >current science, and, necessarily, a social transformation in the >countryside, where in the last five years 2800 co-operatives employing >270,000 people have sprung up. Even the city of Havana blooms with scores >of urban gardens and small farms and is on the road to actually feeding >itself. Organic agriculture on this scale becomes more than a way of >providing superior food; more even than a way of restoring the soil and >avoiding pollution by pesticides. It provides as well the foundation for >autonomous as against dependent third world development, and it instills >cooperation and creativity in a necessarily democratic framework. Compare >this with the social relations of tourism, with its parasitic leisure, its >degradation of the local to a commodity, and its latent authoritarianism, >for where tourism grows, so must the police. >Cuba today is a country of wide-open struggle, its future still actively >contested. Three tendencies are now afoot. The traditional party >bureaucracy comprises one model, offering a recycled Stalinism, while >technocratic capitalist-roaders form the second, and the >socialist-ecological-communitarians the third. The danger is that the first >and second tendency may come together, as they have in China, with deadly >effect. Meanwhile, the success of the organic agriculture program is the >strongest card in the hands of this third force, just as the incipient >integration of Cuba into global commodity circuits constitutes its greatest >danger. The big question is, what happens as prosperity passes a certain >point? How many are harboring the expectation that once credit and oil flow >again, the island should return to less labor-intensive and more >immediately productive--though ultimately ecocidal--ways? Clearly the >outcome of this struggle will be affected by the response and solidarity of >the international community to the drama now unfolding. Just as clearly, >the stakes are not confined to the island of Cuba. >Seven thousand miles away, another kind of struggle unfolds, in a society >much wealthier than Cuba, and one no longer a pariah. Here, however, South >Africa's quest for integration looks very much like a curse. Why should >this richly-endowed and advanced country, with world-class universities, >great urban centers and immense mineral resources, need to import Cuban >doctors? Cape Town, after all, was the site of the first heart transplant. >Isn't that "developed" enough? Why can't they supply their own physicians >for their rural poor? >There are two parts to the answer, both harsh. First, the gap between rich >and poor South Africa is perhaps the worst such chasm in the world. And >second, South Africa is being subjected to a Structural Adjustment Program >(SAP) in which the government of the African National Congress, heroic >victors of the democratic revolution, is desperately trying to make the >country attractive to transnational capital. An incident from the evening >news in Cape Town may convey the flavor. There, in African garb, was the >national icon, Nelson Mandela resplendant and radiant as ever; and next to >him, his distinguished guest, the Prime Minister of Singapore, dour and >puritannical in his gray suit. Yes, said the sombre PM of the squeaky-clean >entrepot of authoritarian capitalism, Singapore genuinely likes South >Africa. Singapore will even trade with South Africa. And someday, sooner or >later, Singapore may even decide to invest in South Africa. Not a word >about the terms of this future, but no one doubts what they would be: curb >the working class and its powerful national union federation, COSATU. Bring >them under control, provide us with cheap and docile labor, and we will >consider investing in you. Until then, there's always Bangladesh. >Thus the terms of the SAP are applied here as in El Salvador and Haiti: >privatize (during my visit, plans were unveiled for selling off the >national telecomunications system), deregulate, and cut back the state >sector and its services. And so health-care is being ravaged, driving >doctors out of public service, indeed out of the country, and creating the >need for the eternal generosity of Cuba. >At the same time, major cuts have been announced in the education budget. >The result--does this begin to sound familiar?--has been to drive up >student fees and effectively exclude poorer students, a result only >disturbing to the soft-hearted, as there is no foreseeable employment of >the kind that requires education for maybe forty percent of the population. >Protests have been breaking out on a number of campuses, though not, >significantly, at the University of the Western Cape. This is surprising, >since UWC was by consensus the most militant campus of the late apartheid >period. When I lectured there in 1989, the authorities were given to the >permanent emplacement of tanks before the school gates, and a weekly >workshop on Marxism drew as many as 400-500 participants. Today the tanks >and the workshops are both gone, and the students walk about docilely and >as if in a daze, and wait for their next get-drunk party. >The explanation involves that most cursed disease of modern society, the >disease that the heroic rebellion was supposed to have cured: racism. UWC >was originally a "colored" campus, that is, assigned to those of mixed >descent and intermediate hue in the great racial fantasy game. During the >80s many blacks (who comprise about 3/4 of the total population of the >whole of South Africa, but not of the Western Cape), came aboard. Because >everyone was engaged in the common struggle, internal racism was >suppressed. Now there is no clear enemy to struggle against, the campus is >sixty percent black and forty percent colored, and for practical purposes >has become split in two, with predictable effects on militancy. Whites >meanwhile withdraw to the beautiful inner city, send their children to >elite schools, live in high security residences fret, not unrealistically, >about crime, and brood over the great mass of black people who live outside >the gates of their city. The colored population of Cape Town traditionally >has mistrusted the ANC, and, rather than vote for blacks, have made the >province of the Western Cape the sole bastion in South Africa of the justly >hated National Party which led the apartheid regime. >It is the ANC, however, which gives the most pain by retreating from its >own emancipatory promise. This is not to dispute that there are any number >of individuals in the government who put to shame the best public servants >in the United States, and toil to extract from the current situation the >best possible terms for the future of the country and its people. The >problem is that the direction chosen by the leadership, namely, submission >to transnational capital, has as much chance of alleviating the horrendous >poverty in which half the population lives as the sun does of setting in >the East. People feel this viscerally, but they cannot say it outright, >because the leadership still enjoys so much legitimacy, and because capital >has today its aura of godlike inevitability--and so South Africa lives >uneasily from its mythology, rudderless and unsure. A thought occurs, which >cannot be broadcast in South Africa: maybe the country has to wait until >Nelson Mandela steps down before it can begin a real debate about its >future. He is too great a man, and too beloved, for an honest appraisal to >occur today. >At dinner with some leftist friends (white, needless to add), I shared >these concerns and was met with the commonplaces one hears everywhere: >nothing else can be done, the capitalist system is the only one, South >Africa has no choice but to knuckle under in order to get investment, and >the best that can be hoped is to become a more benign African equivalent--a >"lion," perhaps--of one of the "Asian Tigers." South Africa can aspire then >to become like Malaysia, best of the bunch yet still a repressive country >that harshly suppresses unions and fills no sails with inspiration. >It is doubly painful to hear these plaintive hopes, because they are not >only unworthy but unrealistic as well. None of the Asian Tigers had to >contend with the cruel legacy of race and class foisted upon South Africa >by colonialism and apartheid, and the terrible, palpable gulf between >people that results. The sad fact is that South Africa, today, three years >after the revolution, is full of places one is warned against visiting. The >commuter train is declared off limits, as are whole townships on the vast >and sandy flats that spread away to the North and East, squatter camps >where the dispossessed still come drifting in from as far away as Nigeria. >The police advise those driving late at night to not stop at red lights >lest they get carjacked. Johannesburg is far worse, I was told, but Cape >Town is bad enough, reproducing a kind of apartheid through alienation and >fear in the midst of beauty and promise. >It's not like this in Cuba, I remind myself. Cuba: the last outpost of >socialism, and for all its distortions, the least racist society on earth. >Yes, I know one can't sustain a claim like that at all levels (the Cuban >leadership, for example, is very much skewed toward light-skin); but if you >spend time in Cuba and walk the streets, and observe the face to face >interaction of everyday life, and see black, brown, yellow and white people >all together, and sense their openness to outsiders, then you will >experience what I mean. >But then look again. Here, too, there have been sightings of the New World >Order. Reports leak in of street crime, while prostitution is an >unmistakable fact of Cuba's new/old life. And if the technocrats and the >international bourgeoisie get their way--and the rest of us remain >passive--Cuba will get its very own Structural Adjustment Program, too. >It is cowardly and wrong to insist that these things have to be. The Cuban >experiment in organic agriculture shows what can be done when human >ingenuity is applied, free of capitalist strictures, in a desperate >situation. Is this too much to ask of South Africa? Is it too much to ask >of us? Please, do not be too hasty with your answer. >