Friday, April 3, 2009

Cuba's Blacks Before and After the Revolution

The last sixty years of Cuban history have been divided into two periods. They are known simply as antes and después. The point of departure was Fidel Castro's Revolution. Since, there has been a grab to define the discourse by those who support the Revolution and by those who do not. Those involved will create arguments to prove that life in Cuba was better before the Revolution or that it has been better because of it. Taking one example, the respective leaders' actions towards Cuban blacks, will represent the way history can and has been manipulated to fit various agendas.

Fulgencio Batista, the leader of Cuba before Castro, was a mulatto- an acceptable term in Cuba. That he had black ancestry was a source of pride for the black population on the island, who had long been marginalized, despite their instrumental role in shaping the course of Cuban history. Batista, the overseer of Cuba, was not allowed in the numerous "whites only" social clubs. He was in the same boat as his black brethren. Batista participated in the rites of Santería, a religion that had its foundation in the beliefs of the Yoruba in Africa. He also supported Afro-Cuban ceremonies.

Fidel Castro, on the contrary, never made an appeal to blacks prior to taking power. He was essentially a white liberal in the same vein as John Kennedy. Castro opposed organizations that were based on color, including those that were principally concerned with improving the lot of black Cubans. Under the Castro regime, blacks were still significantly underrepresented in positions of power.

The opposite argument can be made however. While Batista was a symbol of a racial outsider rising to the level of the nation's leader, his autocratic rule did nothing to improve the condition of blacks on the island. His reign resulted in riches for a few, not least of all, Batista himself, while much of the island did not benefit from the country's overall prosperity.

Fidel Castro, on the contrary, banned the "whites only" clubs that Batista was prohibited from entering. His policies moved to eradicate discrimination on a state level. Blacks saw more power in the government than they had under Batista. Castro was greeted with a warm welcome on his multiple visits to Harlem in the United States. The literacy program of the early 1960s eradicated illiteracy that naturally affected dispossessed groups to a greater degree.

One argument claims that Fidel Castro's nickname "El Caballo" (The Horse) could have been borrowed from the leader of the 1912 black rebellion, Evaristo Estenoz, who was symbolized by the horse, as a subtle appeal to blacks. While it's a little far fetched to believe that Castro borrowed an obscure symbol from a failed rebellion that would have challenged his own rule, it's even more unlikely that the island's black population would have recognized the fifty-year old reference. But that shows the length that people will take to argue their side, and it should be noted that there are plenty of examples going the other way.

History is always in dialogue with the agendas of the present. The point is that the moment of the Revolution had very little impact on most of the nation's black population. Significant changes in people's livelihood often take place within a regime's rule, not simply during convenient moments of change chosen by historians.

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