What Obama’s Cuba visit must accomplish

Beyond the powerful symbolism of an American president visiting Cuba after more than 55 years of hostile relations between the two countries, perhaps the most significant outcome of President Obama’s historic visit this month could be an end to the distorted view each country holds of the other. That more than any other development might smooth the way for more realistic, rational, and improved relations between our nations.

Recently we visited Cuba on a study tour organized by the United States Association of Former Members of Congress, and while our trip confirmed some of our preconceived notions about the Cuba’s socialist government, it also was humbling to admit that much of what we imagined beforehand was more caricature than truth. The people of our two countries have far more in common than what has divided us over the years.

{mosads}No question that in Cuba the government controls the press, limits Internet access, and detains protesters who would undermine the Communist Party’s authority and rule. The Party and its bureaucrats in government exert significant control over political and economic activity and have every stake in preserving the status quo.

So to some extent, yes, Cuba is much the way its critics portray, a command-and-control society that issues decrees and breeds sclerosis, not innovation and ideas. 

Yet as rigid as their system may be, beneath the surface is a culture yearning for voice and expression — and finding far more experimental space than ever before. The Cuban state certainly places limits on dissent, but they are limits with surprising elasticity.

One artist we visited boldly and graphically mocks Fidel Castro, but rather than face retribution, he is a celebrated artist who mentors proteges and exhibits worldwide — though not in Cuba. Comedians, too, mock the state, its leaders, and the bureaucracy.

There are no troops on street corners, and everyday Cubans seem comfortable criticizing the system in conversations with strangers. The private sector now employs a quarter of the workforce, and an emerging class of entrepreneurs — most visible in restaurants cropping up throughout Havana — sound like classic American capitalists.

Church attendance has grown as well — contrary to the image of a harsh communist regime that snuffs out religious expression. Catholic churches are full on Sundays and Protestant faiths are expanding as well, and this surge of spirituality provides a cultural counterpoint to the government’s curtailment of free speech.

Cubans also have widespread access to American media, often seeing pirated first-run films even before they reach American theaters. This access to media means that Cubans are exposed to what they are missing in the developed world next door; it also shows them how Americans are unafraid to criticize their own system and government.

Perhaps most striking is what one doesn’t see in Cuba: any widespread deification of its leaders that one typically associates with an authoritarian system. There are no public sculptures or outsize images of Fidel or Raul Castro in Havana, and when we asked a young Cuban what would happen after Fidel passes, he said, simply, “a funeral.” With Raul leaving office in 2018, Cuba is preparing for a new generation of leaders with their own future vision.

But as much as our own two-dimensional image of Cuba hinders progress, Cuba has a similarly funhouse mirror view of the U.S.

While the Cuban people can’t seem to get enough of American culture, music and baseball, their government views almost every American statement, action, and motivation through a prism of suspicion and distrust.

Because the official American policy of regime change hasn’t changed since the Cold War, Cuban government officials argue that the U.S. remains intent upon overthrowing their system and returning to the bad old days when American political and corporate interests controlled the country.

Cuban officials even insist that if America weren’t funding and stirring up dissent, they would willingly welcome more political freedoms, which to us sounded like a rationalization for their human rights abuses but to them held the force of conviction and history.

To Cuban leaders, the exile community in Miami is a policy juggernaut in the United States, one scheming to undermine their government. But these same government officials overlook the fact that the Cuban community in the United States is no longer of the same mind on Cuba. A shrinking number of hard-liners remains in Miami, but increasingly younger generations are providing an economic lifeline to the island by sending money and financing many of the small businesses that are newly thriving. Allowing such currency flow doesn’t sound like a U.S. determined to forcibly remove the Cuban government.

Perhaps if both the American critics of Cuba and the Cuban critics of America backed down from their uncompromising view of one another, we might build on the recent diplomatic opening and begin to take the substantial and necessary steps toward a normalized relationship.

For the U.S., that means showing the type of good faith represented by fully funding our embassy, confirming our ambassador, lifting travel restrictions, ending the TV and Radio Marti programs that most Cubans ignore, and eventually ending our crippling embargo of Cuba; for Cuba, it means trusting that U.S. efforts to open lines of communication and build economic opportunities with the Cuban people are neither a subterfuge nor a threat to Cuba’s sovereignty.

If Obama’s visit humanizes Cuba’s image of the United States, and if it likewise creates a climate that expedites Cuba’s own economic and political reforms, then the ninety miles between our two nations may seem far less distant than it has been these past 55 years.

Fazio served in the House from 1979 to1999. Sarasin served in the House from 1973 to1979.