This day in Cuba started like any other: we were greeted at dawn by the calls of roosters floating through our open windows; a family-style breakfast encouraged lively chat over plates of eggs and glasses of mango juice; and, in defiance to our New-England peers, we dressed in shorts and bathed in sunscreen to bask in the warmth of our tropical paradise. The events of the day, however, called for an introspective and grounded attitude as we explored instances of horrific violence on Cuban soil, the United States\u2019 less-than-favorable relations with Cuba, and an insight into the influence and icon of Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first excursion of the day took place in the Denouncement Memorial Museum, an exhibit dedicated to foreign powers\u2019 attempts at destabilizing Cuba\u2019s political establishment. While the museum does hold artifacts of these events, such as the oil barrels which contained the remains of two assassinated Cuban diplomats, its greatest marvel was the artistic ways in which it portrayed the Cuban narrative of this tumultuous period. From a wall filled by crosses representing every Cuban killed by foreign attacks, to glass floors revealing mountains of bullet casings underneath, to a staircase surrounded by barbed wire instead of a guardrail, the appearance of the exhibit was meant to evoke both astonishment at the scale of violence and despair about human nature and conflict. Mournful orchestral music rang through the entire building, evoking an emotional response beyond the bullet points and statistics lining the walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the entire tour, it was evident that the aim was to portray the United States (the CIA in particular) as Cuba\u2019s greatest enemy. With \u201c637 conspiracies to assassinate the command in chief\u201d (Castro is almost always referred to by title rather than by name) written on the walls, and numerous displays of declassified documents ranging from Operation Mongoose to the establishment of the American blockade on Cuba, much more attention was placed on the United States\u2019 actions than those of other Latin American countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point in the tour, we were brought into a small room with completely blank walls while a video about the explosion of the French ship La Coubre<\/em> at Havana\u2019s harbor. La Coubre <\/em>had departed Belgium with munitions meant to help the post-Revolution government and was subject to two explosions while cargo was being unloaded. Without hesitation nor warning, the video displayed graphic images of victims of the explosions, displaying people who experienced burns, disfigurement and even severed limbs. With nothing else to divert our attention inside the room, we were left to directly confront the horror of humanity at its most violent for seven minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After our tour ended, we attended a lecture at the Center of Psychological and Sociological Investigations, our host institution, about American-Cuban relations across history. Starting with the Monroe Doctrine and ending with the present day, the lecturer went in-depth on U.S. legislation that shaped the country\u2019s relations to the island. The last portion of the lecture was dedicated to piecing together the legal obstacles to lifting the blockade and an argument against the legitimacy of the blockade. Some of the points she raised seemed contradictory to each other; for example, she criticized the United States requiring Fidel and Raul Castro to be out of power in order to lift the blockade, claiming it to be \u201cundemocratic,\u201d while also criticizing the requirement of multi-party elections because, according to her, the Cuban people prefer having a one-party system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the apparent biases, the lecture itself was well-researched, frequently referencing language from U.S. legislative documents that clearly outline the country\u2019s historically negative sentiment towards Cuba\u2019s government. The lecturer raised some valid and logical points, such as the fact that the United States has no economic reliance on Cuba, which places it at the bottom of the list of America\u2019s Latin American interests. Any action that the American government does take towards Cuba typically occurs during the end of a U.S. president\u2019s second term, which sparks doubt today considering public uncertainty about whether Biden will win a second term. Additionally, the Electoral College has a hand to play in candidates\u2019 campaign promises, as the presence of anti-Castro Cubans in Florida makes the state a strategic battleground when trying to win a presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During a lively lunch, I was part of a conversation with one of our program guides in which we discussed Cuban popular sentiment towards the post-Revolution era and the blockade. As I worked my way through the hundreds of appetizers laid out on the table before us, she mentioned that the anti-U.S. sentiments held so strongly by the Revolution generation were not passed down as fervently to their children. Some Cuban young adults of today find no hope for growth or development in the island in the future, looking for a way out, but others are happy with their lives and their identities there. She claimed that the younger generations are keener to improve relations with the United States. I think that perspective is not too unlike our perception of Cuban authority here in the United States. As the political influence of the older generation starts dying off, I wonder if new leaders in the coming decades can turn a new leaf and create a change in thinking in how the two countries think of their connection to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After this insightful lunch discussion, our group made its way over to the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, a complex designed to preserve and display historical elements of Fidel Castro\u2019s life and legacy. In the opening of the tour, our museum guide raised an interesting fact: it is Cuban law that no street, building, statue, or bust ever be constructed in the name of Fidel Castro- except for this building complex. He explained that this was because the Commander in Chief (again, almost never mentioning Castro by name) did not want to feed into the \u201ccult of personality\u201d that marked the other communist revolutionary movements that took place throughout the 20th<\/sup> century. Ironically, the remainder of this tour would be a series of statements and displays that fed into the mystical and complex nature of the man who was Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tour began with a display of Castro\u2019s many awards and honors, which he humbly never wore on his iconic green uniform. There were also a number of gifts that were donated from other countries, such as a statue of Don Quixote, a character to whom Castro compared himself frequently, and a bust of himself from Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The first room was made to portray Castro as a widely revered political figure on the global state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The immersion into Castro\u2019s mystique began when a section of the museum drew parallels between Castro and Jose Mart\u00ed, the 19th<\/sup>-century Cuban writer and soldier who solidified Cuban nationalism as the island fought for independence from Spain. There were glass panels adorned with quotes from both Castro and Mart\u00ed, as well as a screen with a video morphing between images of the two figures. Our museum guide stated the implicit: Castro was the ultimate disciple of Mart\u00ed, the culmination of Mart\u00ed\u2019s teachings brought to action and to its largest extent of success. While Mart\u00ed is already held to a remarkably high level of regard internationally (there is even a statue of him in Central Park!), it was clear the intent was to paint Castro at an equal, if not higher, level than Mart\u00ed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we continued through an exhibit detailing Castro\u2019s life, it became nearly distracting how much the tour guide continued to refer to Castro as either the \u201chistoric leader of the Revolution\u201d or the \u201cCommander.\u201d Never would the name \u201cFidel Castro\u201d leave his lips throughout the course of the tour. The descriptive text of various displays in the museum also followed this same trope. In some sense, it felt almost as if Castro were being deified, his name too powerful to be uttered by the lips of commoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one of the final parts of this museum tour, we were brought into a claustrophobic room as images and sound played throughout. Various adjectives to describe Castro, words such as \u201cleader,\u201d \u201cteacher,\u201d and \u201cfather,\u201d were projected alongside clips of various world leaders describing Castro as such. In similar fashion to the Denouncement Memorial Museum, there was loud, stoic orchestral music playing that implored you to feel emotionally moved by the statements of these people. The guide concluded with a sentence that was tone-appropriate, but with a clearly nationalistic motivation: \u201cThere is a bit of Castro inside each of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This day in Cuba was a notably more serious one in relation to the other excursions we took part in during our time on the island. While a large majority of the trip was dedicated to exploring the beauty of the island, its people, its art, and its culture, this was a necessary part of the trip that reminded us of reality. Although we were exposed to some of the atrocities committed even by our own government, it was a valuable experience to see the perspective of the nation on the other side of a battle that isn\u2019t just economic, but also moral and philosophical. As we see the global order shift in the coming decades, it will be interesting to see how the U.S. and Cuba continue to operate as a new generation of leaders arises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This day in Cuba started like any other: we were greeted at dawn by the calls of roosters floating through our open windows; a family-style breakfast encouraged lively chat over plates of eggs and glasses of mango juice; and, in … Continue reading