Some Cuban Recollections

MON., OCT. 30, 2000, 2:19 PM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

In this mid-week you’ll have an opportunity to make some comments on Cuba, from the remembrances and notes that you have. You have some memories of the trip, but these are fading, and you have no real desires to repeat that adventure.

Still, it was a rather important “journey” in your life. Cuba was then officially “an enemy” – the Communist threat in this hemisphere. It seemed silly to you then, and it still does… mainly, as you put in your notes (or did I say this in a Teaching… oh, yes, it was a “good time” for Me, for you gave Me many opportunities to help you recall and interpret your day to day adventures.) that your country seeks good… even better… relations with both Russian and China. But to uphold your anti-Communist stance your culture brands little Cuba as the “Red threat”.

You recall it as a clean place, with people going about work and having fun in ways not much different from those in your land. Many seemed proud of their success in the Revolution, and of how they had sustained their “independence,” even if this meant getting help from the Soviets. They were still Cubans, seeing themselves as a happy people, “making it” with limited resources.

The schools you visited were simple, but with good feeling for the children as the next generation of those who had rebelled against “tyranny.” Life certainly didn’t seem to be affluent, but neither did it appear to be one of doleful poverty. There were some automobiles, but you didn’t see the traffic of a major American city, even early morning on the Malecon. There were many bicycles, more appropriate on an island nation than more cars (though you remember how you sweat, riding a bike here in the late Spring and Summer.)

Food seemed sufficient, both that raised locally and that purchased in exchange for sugar. You remember the people, from children through older adults, as looking healthy, with less obesity than in American cities. It was a pleasure just to watch the people, in the various places where it was convenient to observe. Now review your notes, and I’ll have more to say about some of your notations. ( 2:48 / 8:46 PM )

The original revolution was Communist, because it was a revolt against the power of capitalism. This meant your country had to be an enemy, for it was the most obvious and most blatant threat to this revolution. Communism is, purely, atheistic, but the Christian influence was sufficiently strong that a “compromise” was both possible and necessary. The Catholic Church continued as a force in people’s lives, and several Protestant groups also continued, with some strength. The Churches had to accept Communism as the governing force of the culture, and the government had to accept the Church as being essentially Cuban. So the Church, both reluctantly and happily, accepted the revolution, for, remember, Christianity was, originally, a revolutionary way to see earth life.

Your culture, with its love of freedom, decided, officially, that Cuba didn’t have the “right” to reject your “version” of freedom. Freedom didn’t extend to being different from you… and being more like one of your enemies, the Soviet Union. And so it has been now for well over 40 years.

They are, officially, a dictatorship, for Fidel is not regularly re-elected. Yet you learned of much participation by people in the life of that culture. Being proud of the success of their revolution they are not as inclined, as many in your culture are, to use “freedom” as a means of prevailing over others. The revolution was a “victory” over “greedy capitalists.” Unfortunately, the Church was linked with these, so the Church could not be included.

But I have a way of “arranging it” so that My way prevails. Did I influence the spirit of Fidel to grudgingly but finally accept the Church as part of the true Cuban revolution? Everyone did not have to be “forced” to be a Christian, but Christians could be active in a Communist government. It has been a good compromise, on of My best.