For an island located a mere 93 miles from The United States of America, Cuba is the topic of much romanticism, exaggerated by contrasting narratives of the Cuban history and legacy.

For most Americans, very little is known of the Caribbean island. In a 2006 US Gallup poll, 82 percent of those surveyed had a negative opinion of Fidel Castro – he is either a communist revolutionary who took power in 1959, forcing out corporations and silencing the opposition or an ambitious revolutionary who led the overthrow of a corrupt dictatorship, removing a colonial stronghold to bring literacy, education, health care and equality to the people.

What is incredible about Cuba is that both of these perceptions hold true simultaneously, which only adds to the paradoxical nature of the country.

For six days, I spent roughly ten hours a day on an “academic tour” of Havana with a group of colleagues from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). In various forms, the successes and triumphs of the socialist ideology were continuously put on display with the same sentiment expressed time and time again: “the Cuban system is the greatest in the world.”

To be fair, Castro’s Cuba truly had its utopic benefits, with an education system and health care policy often considered a model for the rest of the world. In addition, since the revolution in the 1950s, Cubans have embraced near-complete gender equality and consider women’s participation in both politics and the labor force to be integral to the country’s survival.

But before long on our journey many of my colleagues sensed something was not right. Everyday our bus drove down the same roads; Avenida 23 and Calle 12, where the buildings were well kept and the streets were bare. I thought aloud, where are the Cubans?

Many Cubans hesitate to speak to you once they know you are an American tourist. A young Cuban named Enrique tells me that for years tourist laws prevented Cubans from looking at foreigners, or yuma, leaving a lasting impression on their psyche. While today most anyone on the island will talk to you, some still fear the possible implications of being caught implying “Viva Cuba libre.”

Fortunately my whole life I have been mistaken for Colombian, even though I only speak enough Spanish to successfully navigate wait staff in a restaurant. (In fact, I too am from another sanctioned and pariah country, Iran.) Accompanied by my friend Jon, who is fluent in both Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, each night we would venture into downtown Havana in search of the “real” Cuba. In the wee hours of the night we discovered the dark side to Castro’s Cuba, where the yuma enjoy capitalism and the Cubans enjoy socialism.

In order to truly grasp the state of today’s economy in present day Cuba, you must first understand their currencies – that is right, plural. Until the fall of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s, the Cuban national peso was pegged to the US Dollar. When the bloc came down, Cuba entered a recession, known as “the special period,” and was forced to consider the US Dollar legal tender in order to encourage the entry of “hard” currency into the economy. In 1994, the convertible Cuban peso (CUC) became the 2nd official currency of Cuba and was valued at $1 USD. By 2004, circulation of the US Dollar was halted completely for the national peso and CUC, with the CUC for goods and services of anything “foreign” – hotels, international transactions, souvenirs, etc.

While the CUC is pegged to the dollar, 1 CUC is equivalent to roughly 26 national Cuban pesos. According to Dr. Jorge Mario Sanchez Egozcue, Professor of Economics from the Universidad de La Habana, the average national salary in 2012 was between 250-900 national pesos per month. Ernesto, a cab driver who picks us up one evening from downtown, has his PhD in labor law and spent decades as a practicing lawyer. When his mother fell ill, he was forced to switch professions. “I drive because I need the money,” he says, rather matter-of-factly.

From my observations and conversations over the dual currency system, I see a divided young generation in Havana. For Eduardo, a 34-year old construction worker and underground surfer, the CUC is a blessing. He is one of the lucky young Cubans with family in Miami and access to the millions in remittances sent back. These remittances help him survive on his meager salary and Libreta (the Cuban rations system), with a little extra to enjoy Havana’s nightlife. For him, access to the CUC equates social freedoms that were once only available to the government and military. “We want to see the benefits reach everyone,” he says, “even if it means we have to give one of the pesos up.” New reforms, however, seem to point toward the diminishment of this hard currency, and not all Cubans will be happy to lose their strong purchasing power.

Gender equality in Cuba was born from the socialist ideologies and visions of the 1959 Revolution. In 1960, Vilma Espín established the Federation of Cuban Women (Federación de Mujeres Cubanas) and was the president until her death in 2007. Vilma, a chemical engineer, fought alongside Fidel and was married to his brother and current President of Cuba, Raul. Considered a beloved figure throughout Cuba, Vilma worked to bring women into the economy by providing equal opportunities and advocating for women’s participation in both politics and governmental administration. Her efforts paid off. In Cuba, women are truly viewed as equals, with statistics to prove it. According to the Global Gender Gap Report of 2013 from the World Economic Forum, women are 49.5 percent of higher education graduates, 62 percent of university students, approximately 45 percent of the parliament, 49 percent of judges and 47 percent of Supreme Court justices. Today, while there still exists machismo, Cuban women rarely tolerate sexism and aggressive men are culturally considered as outliers.

As a feminist, I was almost ashamed at how astounded I was at the equality within society among men and women. However, as is often the case, there is more than what meets the eye. Rampant alcoholism is one of the biggest health issues in Cuba – second to tobacco-related illnesses. Many believe this indirectly creates an epidemic of domestic violence, mostly in the rural areas of the country. Throughout downtown Havana, one sees large billboards advocating a stop to violence against women, reminding all of the role women played in the revolution.

Cuba is also a top sex tourist destination, especially for Canadians, Spaniards, and Italians. Thousands pour into the country each year to exploit the high supply of young prostitutes. Outside of a small nightclub down a narrow alley in downtown Havana, Talia, a young prostitute in a mini copper spandex dress, lights a cigarette as she waits for her date – an Italian businessman – to pull around his car. “I like pretty things, como su vestido,” says Talia, pulling on the tail of my skirt. Talia, like many other young girls in Cuba, is college educated but chooses a life of prostitution because it allows her luxuries she otherwise cannot access.

From my time in Cuba, one message of Havana and Cuba’s cultural identity is clear: Cuba has cultivated an identity that allows them to remain resilient in the most difficult of times as a nation and they will only continue to do so.

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Since Che Guevara became part of the Cuban Revolution, he cannot be separated from the island country and if you study Che, you must study Cuba as well.
I have just found an interesting article about the Revolution, Fidel Castro and the Cuban situation and I hope you will find it useful and interesting too.

``Patria o muerte, Venceremos!````Fatherland or death, we will win!`` (2008)

Cuba's achievements in social development are impressive given the size of its gross domestic product per capita. As the human development index of the United Nations makes clear year after year, Cuba should be the envy of many other nations, ostensibly far richer. Cuba demonstrates how much nations can do with the resources they have if they focus on the right priorities – health, education, and literacy. Kofi Annan, Former Secretary General of the United Nations

Imagine January of 1959. Deep in the hills of the Sierra Maestra, the air is awash with revolution and freedom. In mainland Havana, Batista's forces wage a half-hearted battle in an attempt to repel the rampaging forces of the revolutionaries.

At its head is a dashing young lawyer well known in Cuba for his nationalist views and opposition to Batista culminating in his assault on the Moncada Barracks for which he is earlier tried, imprisoned and later released. He is Fidel Castro or as Cubans will often simply say, Fidel and beside him the iconic Argentine doctor and revolutionary Che Guevara.

Those were some romantic times with politics, change and hope in a curious exciting mix led by the charismatic young Fidel. With their straggly beards, wiry moustaches and stylishly rumpled military fatigues while chomping fat Cuban cigars sticking out of the corners of their mouths, the young revolutionaries were a heady intoxicating sight to behold.

Almost half a century down the line, opinions certainly differ on the successes chalked by the Cuban Revolution and yet in the fields of health and education as amply specified by the former UN boss; even Castro's staunchest critics cannot fail to concede that given the magnitude of the obstacles faced by the Revolution, they have done a marvelous job.

And the obstacles have been many. In fact declassified US Intelligence archives show that as early as October 1959, plans were afoot to overthrow the Castro government culminating in the now famous Bay of Pigs event in 1961 when 1400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched an attack on the 2 year old government.

In its aftermath, Cuban armed forces reportedly repelled the invaders, killing many and capturing a thousand. A month later Fidel announced to hundreds of thousands in an audience that “The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government…If Mr. Kennedy does not like Socialism, we do not like imperialism. We do not like capitalism.”

These events were to mark the beginnings of what has turned out to be 46 years of an American embargo against Havana outlined in response to growing Soviet influence in Havana and over Fidel's decision to expropriate many US corporations. In addition, Cuba is said to have announced plans to base the compensation of these expropriated property on the artificially low property valuations that the companies themselves had kept to a fraction of their true value in order to play negligible taxes. And still other obstacles persisted. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 went 85% of Cuba's market. In between Fidel Castro was personally to suffer over 638 assassination attempts leading to the famous quotation that “If surviving an assassination attempt were an Olympic event, I would win gold medal.”

Amidst all these, the spirit of Cuba has soared and in no other area perhaps more than the health sector.

HEALTH

In the pre-Castro era, Cuba reportedly had a little over 6000 doctors over sixty four percent of whom were based in the capital Havana. When Castro moved to have them redistributed, more than half of them fled the island. In response the revolutionary government built three medical schools. By the 25th anniversary of the revolution, Cuba had trained nearly 20 000 doctors with Fidel predicting a further 50 000 to graduate within the next 16 years from that time.

In a speech delivered to thunderous applause in Santiago de Cuba in 1984, Castro declared, “The selection, the training, the work of these doctors, the concept of their utilization, and our health care system will place Cuba in first place in the world in this field in just 15 or 20 more years.”

By this time too, infant mortality had dropped to 15 per 1000 live births, a significant drop from 60 in 1959. This figure was described as the best in the developing world and better than many areas in the US. With a total of 58 hospitals in Cuba in 1959 with 60% of hospital beds being found in Havana, Cuba recorded 256 hospitals by 1984 with hospital beds almost doubling within the same period.

Also, infectious and parasitic diseases dropped from 60 per 100 000 in 1962 to less than 5 per 100 000 in 1984 while acute diarrhoeal diseases dropped from over 90 per 100 000 population to less than 20 per by 1984. Similar significant declines had been recorded in the areas of mortality from newborn tetanus, morbidity and mortality from tuberculosis, poliomyelitis and diphtheria.

TODAY

In grudging acknowledgment of the significant gains of the revolution and as if in confirmation of Castro's predictions 24 years ago, the immediate past President of the World Bank, American James Wolfensohn would say, “Cuba has done a great job on education and health and it does not embarrass me to admit it.”

Also in a letter from Cuba written by one Hans Veerken and published in the British Medical Journal, the following observations on the Cuban Health system will surface, “The health system in Cuba guarantees accessibility to the entire population, is free of charge, and covers the spectrum from vaccinations to sophisticated interventions.

The results are impressive: Cuba's health figures are on a par with developed countries that have 20 times the budget. The country is experiencing a difficult period because of the collapse and loss of support from the Soviet Union; over 30 years' trade embargo by the United States; and the gradual change from a centrally planned economy towards more of a free market system. Shortages are experienced in every sector, and maintaining health care services at the current level is too expensive.

Doctors and nurses continue to work towards the goal of health for all Cubans, even though their salaries are minimal. Signs of negligence or corruption, often seen in other socialist countries where incentives for output are lacking, are unknown. Topics such as family planning and AIDS deserve immediate attention.”

HIV/AIDS

Talking of HIV/AIDS raises Cuba's astonishing record in managing this scourge that has proved daunting to many developing countries. Specifically although the rate of HIV infection in the Caribbean is second only to rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, Cuba is an outstanding exception with an infection rate of 0.07 %.

Cuba is on record as having launched an initiative to assist the other 15 nation Carribean Community (Caricom) to fight HIV/AIDS by providing them with antiretroviral drugs at below market prices, as well as doctors and instruction in public health methods for combating the AIDS pandemic.

It must be recalled that as far back as 1993, 10 years after Fidel Castro had described the “mysterious illness” as the “disease of the century” Cuban Scientists were reported to have placed heavy emphasis on developing anti-retrovirals to combat HIV/AIDS leading to the situation where by 2001, according to the Monthly Review, “Cuban medical research had on its own devised five different varieties of antiretroviral drugs.

Every Cuban who is HIV positive has been put on therapeutic regimes utilizing these drugs. Cuba is now offering these antiretroviral drugs to all other Caribbean nations at affordable prices.”

HEALTH SYSTEM

Cuba's health system is under-pinned by a community-oriented primary health care with doctors following morning polyclinic care with afternoon field visits. The aim reportedly is to have a family doctor per 120 families, vaccination is also universal, and everybody above 45 has his Blood Pressure checked every two years. In addition there is a comprehensive program of care for pregnant women and children under one while women are encouraged to have cervical smears every two years. More specialized care is offered in secondary and tertiary facilities.

Also in what has been referred to in certain quarters as Castro's Doctor Diplomacy, Cuba has been known to send out thousands of doctors to support the health systems of many developing countries including Ghana in addition to numerous scholarships offered to many foreign students.

In fact as a follow up to the Vice President's recent visit to Cuba, Cuba is reported to have offered 20 scholarships to Ghana for medical training in Cuba. Interestingly, at a time when economic conditions were harshest following from the US Trade Sanctions inter alia, Cuba is again reported to have sent 9000 doctors to Venezuela in exchange for oil.

CONCLUSION

I conclude by drawing attention to Cuba's role in bolstering the fight for independence in colonial Africa. Indeed as World leader Nelson Mandela would point out, “Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice.”

Today, according to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index (2007), Cuba at number 51 in the World and 9 in the Americas and with a score above 0.8 is a high human development country.

On February 19, 2008 five days before President Fidel Castro's 49 year tenure came to an end, Fidel announced that “he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief”. His younger brother Raul, has since been sworn in as President.

Cuba is a lesson in many respects but perhaps in no area more than in having a leadership whose heart beat is the people's welfare and who are both willing and able through inspired leadership to explore alternate means of addressing pressing threats and challenges.

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Havana, Apr 16 (Prensa Latina) Cuba is updating its economic and social model, but it maintains the socialist nature of its Revolution, proclaimed on April 16, 1961.In order to achieve that goal, measures have been taken, including new forms of production such as self-employment and cooperatives, among other actions aimed at building a prosperous and sustainable socialism.

The historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, noted that "this is the socialist and democratic Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble".

"And for this Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble, we are willing to give life," he stressed on April 16, 1961, before a crowd of passionate Cubans who accompanied the victims of mercenary bombings perpetrated the day before.

On Saturday, April 15, enemy planes camouflaged with the insignias of the Revolutionary Armed Forces bombed the airport at Ciudad Libertad (in the capital), the air base in San Antonio de los Baños (southeast of Havana) and the airport in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba.

According to history, the people gathered at the corner of 23rd Avenue and 12th Street, near Colon Cemetery. Cuban flags were hanging from the balconies and flowers were falling.

The funeral procession and the march of thousands of people stopped at the since then historic corner of 23rd and 12th, where Fidel Castro gave a speech.

In allusion to Washington, the Cuban leader said, "This is what they cannot forgive us, that we are here, under their noses, and that we have made a socialist Revolution under the own noses of the United States."

That way, the Cuban Revolution was announcing to the world, and Washington, its socialist nature.

Fidel Castro then accused the U.S. administration of hindering the peaceful march of the Cuban nation, destroying its people's economic resources and their citizens' lives, and demanded that the United States took responsibility for the aggression.

These events will teach us, these painful events will illustrate us and will show us, perhaps more clearly than any others that have occurred until today, what imperialism is like, he stressed.

The image of rifles raised by men and women immortalized the total support for the turn that the revolutionary process would take from then on and that it still continues in Cuba.

In that speech, Fidel Castro also foresaw the aggression that was being organized and that was perpetrated two days later in Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs).

In less than 72 hours, the recently-created National Revolutionary Militias, along with forces from the Rebel Army and the Police, defeated the invaders and that victory is considered the first defeat of the United States in Latin America.

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It has never been more pressing to visit the Caribbean island of Cuba. Travellers need to experience the country in its current unique state, before its doors open to capitalism and the bulldozers and coca-cola advertisements.

Stepping into Havana was like stepping back into the 1950s. Cuba’s capital city is suffering, or celebrating, an on-going time warp. The crumbling building facades and uneven road surfaces are just some of the very evident pointers that Cuba is a country falling into an undeniable need of repair.

Yet the city is wonderful. 1950s Cadillacs cruise the roads, acting as taxis for tourists and locals alike. The city is full of life and colour, with every bar playing live Cuban music to the casual drinkers who sit and watch the heat rise from the tarmac. The people are wonderfully laid back and offer you Romeo Y Julieta or Cohiba cigars from one of the local factories. There’s also salsa dancing in the streets and the backstreet bars. I had a lesson when I was there, and I was, quite frankly, appalling.

Aside from the vibrancy of Havana, there is a variety of sights and things to do across Cuba. The country conforms to the necessary checklist for all Caribbean islands; the beaches are perfect. I’m not talking April mornings off the coast of Wales with icy waters and seagulls, I’m talking white sands and shimmering sea that runs into the sky, which stays bright until ruined by glorious sunsets.

Cuba’s variety continues when you look at the country’s history. The island still reveres the revolutionary Che Guevara. His picture is plastered everywhere, shops sell postcards of him and there’s a museum dedicated to his life. The visitor attraction explains how he helped Castro liberate Cuba from Batista’s dictatorial rule; the leader who allowed the Americans to use Cuba as its ‘playground’ back in the 50s. It’s not just Guevara’s face that is drawn all over Havana, the streets are also covered in beautiful street art.

The country’s crumbling nostalgia continues largely due to the ongoing embargo imposed by the USA, whose frosty relationship resulted from the Cold War’s Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Raul Castro, Cuba’s leader, has begun to allow change. His country is beginning to allow privatisation and trade, although socialism is still prevalent. The ration cards, for example, ensure all people have basic access to food at reduced prices, a Cuban arrangement that celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year.

However, the poverty in the country is clear. I can’t help but feel that now is the time to visit, before Cuba becomes westernised any further.

Experience the country in its current unique state, before its doors open to America. The time has never been more pressing to visit.

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Találtam egy érdekes videót, (remélem, még nem töltöttem fel korábban), amin Fidel Castro Che Guevara-ról beszél:
 

I have found an interesting video (I hope I haven't uploaded it before), where Fidel Castro was talking about Che Guevara: