Comment by abreu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abreu | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Oh come on. 'America-centric visions'? What's on earth is that even?

Havana had all of those things you name. Havana was then a modern, stylish and clean city. A capital of the Americas. It was a city of culture and energy. It was a city of business, tourism, architecture, pleasure and work. Havana had more cars than any European city at the time. Havana had infrastructure, Havana was connected to the world. In 1849, newly developed communication devices were demonstrated in Havana. Today such actions are oppressed and could lead to imprisonment. In 1900 the first international phone call was made from Key West to Havana. Today Cuba ranks lowest in the Americas in telephone/internet penetration. Pre 59 Havana was a city rich in musical talent. Antonio Machin, Perez Prado, Beny More, Cuban contradanza, danzon, mambo, cha cha cha, were hugely popular and influential in the development of genres such as jazz and tango. Pre 59 Havana was a flow and ebb of musicians between Havana and New Orleans.

What you truly want is poverty and stagnation to prevail. Havana is not a zoo for you silly tourist to enjoy. Havana is a city inhabited by people VERY tired of bad roads, crumbling buildings, lack of essential products such as eggs, toilet paper, pencils, and what not.

Why do you hate hamburgers and bacon?

I dont consider Cuba as a Zoo, I want them to develop of course. The main problem is that "opening Cuba" without been carefull will create a really unstable society, few people getting rich really fast, some others becoming extremely poor. The goverment probably wont have regulations on that. You can see that right now in Cuba, people who work in tourism can have access to "international money" and therefore buy almost wathever they want which by the way you can find easily in Cuba, you just need to go to the appropiate place with the money, and legally. This is already creating a quite big divide in the cuban society.

Cubans lacks some products but they are not poor. Poor is the people who beg for money, cannot shower, dont have a shelter and cannot access any health system. When I moved to the US, I was freaking out of how much inequality and poverty I saw.

I dont hate hamburgers and bacon, but I find the world's cuisine so rich that its a pity that certain food take over local just because big chains push markets with $$$. Humburguers it is in fact the king of this, not just because of the big chains but as well because of meat industry which is quite agresive

> I want them to develop of course.

Here is the thing: Cuba used to be 'developed'. Pre 95 Cuban workers earned an average salary of $6, ranking number 8 in the world, just behind Norway ($6.10). Infant mortality was the lowest in the Americas. In fact, Cuba ranked third in the world. Public health was comparable to any considered developed country of the time (e.g one hospital bed per 190 inhabitants vs one per 200 inhabitants in the US).

Contrary to what many believe, Cuban industry was not controlled by US interests. Au contraire, only 14% of investments in Cuba came from the US. The vast majority of industry was owned by Cubans, that is the sugar, tobacco and rum industry.

These truths will become more evident with time as the romanticism surrounding Castro's revolution fades away and it's opponents get louder. When Fidel said 'History will absolve me', he was right. History will put him where he belongs: under the chapter 'Plague of Cuba'.

It is safe to believe that much of this can be attributed to what you refer to as 'US capitalism'. It was partly the idea of American-style economic development and democratic freedom that fueled Cuban independence from Spain. Spanish strict trade laws made life very difficult for Cubans, and this became specially evident under the short lived British rule of Havana, and later the evident advances in almost every aspect happening in North America.

> Cubans lacks some products but they are not poor

Yes, Cubans are poor. Why should they settle for merely enough to eat, when they should be eating hamburgers and bacon on a daily basis considering how fertile Cuban land is. Pre 59 Cuba had a meat consumption comparable to that of the US. Today cattle is so scarce it had to be imported to have any cattle population at all. In fact, you can get 10 years in prison for killing a caw in Cuba today.

> world's cuisine so rich that its a pity that certain food take over local

You can have any of the world's cuisine in the US. In fact, today, the best Cuban food is found in Florida. I was told by a NYC friend of mine that he had a Cuban-Chinese restaurant a few blocks away. In Cuba Cuban-Chinese food is nonexistent today. The scarcity created by socialism has changed Cuban cuisine significantly (in a bad direction). It is also safe to say that the best Italian and French food is made in the US (I can attest :-)).

This whole cuisine diversity argument is really insubstantial.

I understand and respect your points but I still think it is just a western/us-centric vision of the world. Things can be seen from many angles.

> western/us-centric vision of the world

Cuba is 'Western'. Unless you are thinking in terms of first/third/developing countries. In that case, as I've suggested, Cuba was richer than Spain and Italy pre 59. Today that's not the case. Nevertheless, it is a really vague classification. I can arguably say that the French see the world at least slightly different from Americans.

'Marxism' is Western. As the Cuban poet Jose Marti said (this is my own broken translation): 'The socialist solutions, born of European ills, have nothing to cure in the Amazon.' (That is, socialism has nothing to do in the Americas).

Cubans have no goals different to what you consider 'western/us': Eat well, proper housing, transport, culture, education, and so on. And in this the Fidel revolution has completely failed. There are many indicators that suggest Cuba would have fared better without the intervention of Fidel's revolution. That's the whole point. The ruling regime is responsible for the terrible state of Cuban society and after so many years certainly illegitimate to continue in power.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com