The Revolution Revolts Against Itself, and the US and Cuba Shake Hands

Strong winds are roiling the Caribbean, and they are truly powerful; it’s as if half a century of history were being swept away by the gusts blowing down from Washington.

Starting today, the 90 miles that separate the “imperialist” point of Key West, Florida in the United States from the “socialist” beach of Malecon, Cuba are shrinking, to the point where they almost touch. Obama has just announced a gradual dismantlement of the embargo that has bound the island of tropical communism to its own difficulties for 50 years.

The deal provides for the reopening of a United States embassy in Havana and comes a few hours after the Cuban government announced the release of an American citizen, held in prison for five years, in exchange for release of three Cuban spies detained in an American prison.

The revolution is still standing. Fidel Castro continues to promote himself as a protective deity and continues to close his long speeches with the same slogan: “Socialism or Death!” The revolution is alive, but it is empty.

In the meantime, younger brother Raul has managed to strip away, bit by bit, everything that was gained in the Cuban Revolution and has changed its nature and identity. The rigid and closed centralized economy has begun making ever more space for private enterprise. Restaurants, taxi drivers, barbers, agricultural workers, bike shops, tourist guides and inns are part of an expansion of the “self-employed,” who tend to their businesses, take dollars from tourists, construct houses, teach themselves new trades and freely compete with the state.

The model for this could be the one set by China: economic freedom and harsh political repression. It’s a real revolution that is changing the island of Cuba without appearing to do so. Now, the opening of relations with Washington will abruptly accelerate the change and could even plunge the stock exchange into crisis.

We will soon see. Meanwhile, however, there is the role played by the Cuban church. During this recent transformation, the church has reluctantly acted as interlocutor for the Castro regime and diplomatic mediator between Havana and Washington. Pope Francis must be happy about this, and the wealthy American investors, who waited impatiently at the Port of Miami, must be even happier. Great business opportunities are on the horizon; not “Socialism or Death!”