Dec 12, 2018 - Many Observations About Cuba by Damon Corrie

There is just too much to say about Cuba, but I will just go over a few things that impressed me the most about this often maligned (in the western media) country…..although like people everywhere…even some Cubans feel somethings are better elsewhere (the ”grass is always greener on the other side syndrome”)…and indeed that is true for SOME things…but just as some things about life in the USA are better than life in Cuba (such as individual liberties to buy and own almost any damn thing you want)…there are some things about life in Cuba that are better than life in the USA (such as never having to worry about paying for any aspect of primary, secondary or Tertiary Education and never having to worry about whether you will be able to pay your next medical bill – because education and health care from cradle to grave is all FREE in Cuba…unlike the USA – which puts the poor at great disadvantages for both of those basic human needs). The USA style free enterprise is really the one thing Cubans want to see implemented in Cuba more (it has been re-introduced in recent years, but slowly being expanded more and more..the government wants to see small citizen entrepreneurs – but not one or two individual greedy businessmen bastards pop up here and there to dominate everyone else like the USA style unbridled capitalism allows – with corporate monopolies etc.

So maybe the ability to cast a personal vote for the political liar of your preference means more to you than never having to worry about education or health care costs….but to me I would trade that fictitious liberty – of ‘being able to change the government’ any day for a life with those two main human concerns (Education & Health) taken care of for me – even though I cant choose which political liar will rule over me for the next 5 years….just seems the more important practical life consideration in my mind.

The Cuban people (in Cuba, ESPECIALLY outside of Havanna which was always beset by corruption) in general – are the most HONEST citizens of any political nation-state I have ever met…even though I have not visited every country on Earth – I have visited 35 of them (from the Americas to Europe, the middle East and the Pacific – so I believe I do have some credible reference basis to make such a statement.

I listen often to Cubans talking about how shocked they were to get robbed in Panama, Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Guyana etc (they assumed it was safe there like in Cuba)…walking the streets by day and night…because in truth and in fact, in Cuba crime is virtually non-existent, you can walk the street all hours of the day and night through the poorest areas and never get robbed I proved it myself in 3 different cities in Cuba)…yet the Police are not omnipresent like you see them in the USA (the Military even less so)…and Police killings of suspects are also rare to non-existent…yet Western Media has convinced us in the west that Cuba is a ‘prison nation keeping its citizens trapped inside”‘.

Anyone in Cuba of today can obtain a passport, its the cost of travel and the fact that few countries allow Cubans to visit without a difficult to obtain Visa – that is the problem…not saying it was always so (because it wasn’t)..but I AM telling you for a FACT it IS so now! My cousin has a passport just cant afford to buy a plane ticket to go anywhere.

Another thing that Cuba has which makes it SUPERIOR in moral terms to every other country in the Americas…is virtually NO RACISM (I assume it must exist somewhere there – I just have not seen any sign of it nor heard any Cuban I question about it – describe any incidents yet) ….I personally never met a Cuban who hates white or black or brown people, they will think an individual is an idiot, but never malign an entire race, I see most families are tri-racial with white, black and brown members, all in the same home or in the extended family, and no-one gives a shit, they happily tell you ‘Somos Cubanos!” (We are ALL Cubans)…and they are shocked when I tell them how it was for me growing up in Barbados (where racism runs deep and is usually pretensively hidden – until tempers flare – THEN the truth about how they REALLY feel about other races comes out of their mouths (same goes for Guyana, Trinidad and other countries in the Region).

Every honest Barbadian knows (at least up until the 1990’s when I was still in Secondary School) that there was a voluntary (because the white students just did it without being instructed to do so by school officials) Ápartheid style’ segregation at lunchtime in government (free) Secondary schools (not at the private/paying ones I attended but maybe that was partly because everyone in private school was on the same financial level more or less – either middle or upper class by socio-economic standards)…but it was normal for the white student who sat next to you in class all day all year – to suddenly give you the cold shoulder and sit to have lunch in a group of whites-only students from other classes during recess….with the token brown student who wanted to be considered white loitering around them like a mascot. I even had white girls who would fight each other in class over me as to whom was the girlfriend I liked best – but at recess time around other white students they would pretend not to know me and pass me straight…it was a very hard thing to try to comprehend….had the first white girlfriend invite me home to meet her parents when I was 16 (a sweet loving but socially naive girl at that period in time)…but she was left in tears…I could even hear her father ranting inside about “not wanting any darkies in his family” (and I am light brown with straight hair and more than half my family is white – and none of us are poor mind you…imagine if I was a poor black lad how he might have behaved even more ignorantly!)……but thankfully things are changing, as my brown sons have had MOSTLY white (and also black & brown) girlfriends in Barbados since the year 2010 when they got on the dating scene, and I don’t see any signs of the racism that I had to endure in my day….but that is SHOCKING and UNPRECEDENTED behaviour to every Cuban I retell it to…..and the cubans say (as Che Guevara often reminded them)… “A PEOPLE UNITED – CAN NEVER BE DIVIDED!”….I have no doubt that no matter what happens in Cuba, you will NEVER see Cubans engaged in race riots against each other like we HAVE ALREADY seen in the USA and in many Caribbean countries….the Cubans are more racially united than we may ever be.

But the LAST topic I wanted to touch on today, in my very brief sermon (lol), is the fact that Cubans are generally the LEAST RELIGIOUS people in the world…yet are also the LEAST JUDGEMENTAL and most sincere people in the world, (so much for ‘Religion making humans into better people’) they mind their own business (not gossipers about other peoples lives), and they always look for the GOOD in everyone they meet, not dwell on the persons shortcomings…as they have a saying: “its your life not mine – it’s not my place to judge you”….and I find this the most refreshing aspect of life in Cuba I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing…no one critically lectures you about what you should or should not be doing, you are free to be who you are and be accepted…if they have a concern it is lovingly relayed to you in private to try to politely persuade you to make better decisions for yourself…and they dont pretend to like or tolerate you for any reason, you would not see a Cuban rolling their eyes when someone is talking that they are part of the group listening to, unlike most people we know in our own countries who are professionals at smiling in your face – then bad talking you behind your back…..so I admire and appreciate this ‘true human being & superior thinking’ aspect of the average Cuban outside of Havana…..never had a cuban outside of Havana (as I spend 95% of my time in Cuba NOT in Havana) EVER ask me for one cent of my money either…they make in a whole month what I make in one hour (when I feel like working) – YET they have enough self-respect and pride to never act like beggars and ask you for anything…so if/when you do decide to gift them something they are so APPRECIATIVE it almost moves you to tears…especially when you have become accustomed to dealing with ungrateful users of your kindness….I gave the single mother neighbor’s 8 year old daughter a new jeans and the little girl had an expression on her face like Alice in wonderland, when her mum told her it was my present to her – the little girl hid her face in her mum’s shirt and just cried with happiness (yet she is no desperate homeless street child rummaging through garbage for a meal..I never saw anything like that kind of utter poverty anywhere in Cuba..no cuban is starving for food)…this girl lives with her mum & little brother in a two story house with her grandparents, one might at best describe them as lower middle class by Cuban standards….yet look at her reaction to a simple gift like that which cost me less than $5….I have given far more valuable presents to people far more poor and NEVER had anything close to that level of gratitude…in fact the attitude I often get is more akin to “That’s all you got me?”….imagine that! What an age of utterly spoiled and ungrateful humans with a sense of entitlement we live among.

And THAT is why I consider BARACOA in Cuba to be the greatest city ON EARTH to live in bar none, when all things are considered, I can see now why my Great Uncle went to live there in 1927 and never returned, a crime-free society with more genuine human beings in it is always going to be an infinitely better place to live and die than a society rotting from the core with racism, pretence, judgmentalism, gossip, emotional treachery, and ingratitude.

By Damon Corrie

Follow Damon Corrie at http://damongerardcorrie.blogspot.com