Roger Burbach Articles
Winds of Change Blow Across Cuba
By Roger Burbach
New America Media
Editor's Note: Cuba celebrated its 50th anniversary of the revolution as a new administration moved into Washington with the promise of change, and as the transition in Cuba's own government faces inevitable change, much of it percolating up from the people. Roger Burbach is the director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.
HAVANA, Cuba--The Cuban revolution is in a process of transition and transformation as it marks its 50th anniversary. I have visited the country every decade since the revolution’s triumph, and excepting the 60s, I have never experienced the Cuban people more open and discursive about their future. As Rafael Hernandez, the director of the widely read social and cultural journal Temas tells me, “We are rethinking the very nature of society and what socialism means. A discussion is opening up on many fronts over where we are headed, how property is to be defined, what is the role of the market, and how we can achieve greater political participation, particularly among the youth. Within the upper levels of the state and the Communist party there is real resistance to this, but the debate has been joined.”
To be sure there are many differences expressed over what the future of the revolution holds under Raul Castro who replaced his brother Fidel as president two and a half years ago. I watched Raul’s speech on the 50th anniversary on TV at a café in Old Havana with a couple I first met 16 years ago, both of whom work in the field of education. Adriana, at the end of the speech comments, “While Raul did not say much about the current moment, he presented a good summation of what have been the revolution’s advances and challenges.” She and her husband, Julio, take particular note of Raul’s words that “this is a revolution of the humble and for the humble:” The leadership “will never rob or betray this trust.”
Obama in Latin America: Got Hope?
Adam Sgrenci
January 20, 2009
Since his election in early November, the support for Barack Obama has rallied much anticipation with regards to a new kind of politics. On his inauguration day, we demand he stand by his word. In Latin America, US foreign policy has failed miserably. Predatory free trade agreements, a militarized policy apparatus, and the restriction of outspoken leftist leaders to the fringes of our policy-making has stirred the ire of anti-Americanism like never before.