The Cuban Samba Dance
A Touch Of Nokoko by Kofi Akumanyi
I could not help admiring Fidel Castro for this great achievement. Naturally, those of us in the other areas of the Third World, then began to look across the Atlantic Ocean for help to liberate the oppressed Africans still tottering under the colonial yoke.
Thus it was that the Cuban government under special arrangements with various African regimes exported its soldiers who efficiently imparted their skills in guerrilla warfare and other acts of sabotage to rout the enemies.
Some African countries would be forever thankful to Cuba for not only helping to liberate them but also following this singular act of comradeship and international socialist solidarity by offering doctors, engineers and other professionals to train their young cadres (for that's what the revolutionary youth of liberated areas are called) to shoulder the heavy responsibility of nation-building.
What hope didn't we envisage some years ago when Fidel, the leader whose words every Cuban hangs on, instructed that Christmas celebration must be postponed so that the ripe sugar-cane plantations could be harvested? Didn't we all throw up our sweaty caps into the air anytime we heard him on radio and TV lambasting and lampooning the enemies, both real and imagined?
How can any man with his head screwed on properly and heart fixed in the right place (the left side of the chest) ever refuse to offer due recognition to the great socialist achievements of the hirsute Fidel for his people?
Socialist achievement? Of course, that's what he has been fighting for all his life with a little help from his friends from the Soviet Union and don't you ever forget that. That is why the official literature from Cuba tells everybody who wants to know that the ordinary Cuban in the street adores the very ground that Fidel Castro walks on (not that he walks very often). More than that foreigners who have ever stepped on the soil of Cuba before and after the revolution when the capitalists used to rule the roost, swear by it that life is much, much better for the ordinary man in the street.
The question then is: why is Cuba, 25 odd years after the revolution, now trying to reverse the gains of the people? Take housing, for instance. Like all revolutions in developing countries the shylocks have been accused of fleecing their poor tenants which untenable situation had led to the state taking over housing of the people.
Now, the news from Havana (The Times, November 26) is that Cuba has decided that its chronic housing shortage can best be solved by almost total home ownership and a return to private letting.
A draft law just published and expected to be passed this month allows Cubans now paying state rent - about half the population - to buy their homes from next July. They will continue paying the same amount, but as mortgage payments.
"Oh, he does, doesn't he? What do you think he is up to with his new move on housing?"
The law also marks the surprising legislation of a concept long vilified by the government - landlordism. Any house owner will be allowed to let part of his home for up to six months to as many as two families "at a freely agreed price with no need for previous authorisation". "We have grave housing problems, many of them created by ourselves," Senor Flavio Bravo, the National Assembly President has said.
I cannot help but believe this piece of legislation to be one of the most unexpected to come out of Cuba in recent times. I desperately wanted to speak to someone on this so I arranged to discuss its socio-economic implications with Antonio Ballesteros, a member of the Cuban revolutionary cadre now studying in London.
"The Cuban government is poised to allow people to own houses and rent them out."
"I don't believe it; it can never happen in Cuba after all these years. Who told you this? Anyway," he said smiling, "you don't have to believe all that you read in the capitalist press which are determined..."
"It's been confirmed by the President of the Cuban National Assembly."
"He said that? Well, I knew that those parliamentarians would one of these days capitulate to the invidious capitalist 'carrot'," Antonio said, adjusting his beret at the rakish angle he prefers.
"Why would they do a thing like that?" I asked. "Remember that they've said that the country still faces serious housing problems and as we all know cheap housing is vital in the socialist scheme of things."
"It is, except that I have a feeling that this rather sudden thrust of the people into the arms of the shylocks isn't exactly my idea of the best way to solve the problem," he said.
"Sudden? Did you say sudden? Nobody does anything sudden in established socialist states. Every decision taken as we've been made to understand it is always in the interest of the people - deliberate and calculated," I offered.
"Who told you that?"
"I've read it from many socialist literature. The interest of the people is always supreme, not so?"
"You're right, but this privatisation of housing is quite unexpected, though not quite like the last surprise move by our great Fidel," Antonio said.
"What unexpected move was that?"
"Oh, you know, Castro likes to surprise and confuse his enemies, especially those across the Caribbean sea," he said with a confidential wink.
"Well, do you remember the last time he suddenly opened the gates for Cubans clamouring to leave the country to go to the United States?"
"What happened?"
"He was accused later of having singled out all the criminals for export to the United States."
"Do you suppose that the unexpected housing privatisation law has a sting in the tail?"
"Well, the way I look at it, from the point of view of foreigners not initiated in the samba dance...?"
"Samba dance?"
"That's right - to the uninitiated the steps may seem strange, but there is method in it. Privatisation may, similarly, appear to be a reversal of the socialist gains but I can tell you that there's more in Fidel Castro's bushy beard than meets the eyes!"
