Cuba Libre & The July 11th Uprising
2021-07-25 · Guest: Ian Vasquez (Cato Institute VP for International Studies) · 52:18
July 11 2021 Cuba uprising and US policy
Bob Zadek and Ian Vasquez discuss the historic July 11, 2021, uprising in Cuba, exploring the underlying economic collapse and the regime’s loss of social control. They analyze the impact of the US embargo, the pivotal role of internet access in breaking the “fear barrier,” and the emergence of a new generation of artistic dissidents.
Topics: Cuba, July 11 Uprising, US-Cuba Policy, Embargo, Communism, Social Media, Dissidents, Economic Collapse, Cato Institute
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Ian Vasquez
Introduction to the July 11th Uprising [00:17]
Bob Zadek: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the longest-running live libertarian talk radio show in all of radio. The show this Sunday and always of ideas, never once the show of attitude. Thank you so much for listening this Sunday morning.
On July 11th, somewhat spontaneously, 90 miles from our southern border, there was the beginning of what is starting to be called an uprising. An uprising on the island nation of Cuba, 20—as I said, 90 miles to our south. It is headline-grabbing because it has never happened before in that highly repressed society, that communist nation, which is so close to our borders and where we have so many former Cubans living in the southern part of our country, in Miami and the like.
It is important because there are many—Cuba has been another petri dish for communism, an example of a communist top-down controlled economy, perhaps socialist, communist—it doesn’t matter. It’s top-down. It avoids private property. It has a repressive government, of course, the absence of self-determination by the citizens of Cuba. But it is important because the uprising—many observers felt, on the one hand, it was a long time in coming. On the other hand, it seemed impossible to come because Cuba, because of its size and its skill at repressing information, was happy to keep its population isolated from the rest of the world and under tight control using the usual tools, including fear.
So, we have—we being the United States—a very strange and, I hope you will agree with me after our show, irrational policy towards Cuba. And when I learn and study policy issues, when I hear people’s opinion on various issues, I find the policy itself—okay, that’s a policy. And then I drill down, at least I try to, and learn, well, why do we have that policy? What’s the reason behind it? And that approach applies whether we’re talking about stay-at-home under COVID. I and my guests have asked the why. And this morning with Cuba, we will ask the why. Why do we have the policy that we have vis-à-vis Cuba? Is it the right policy? Who does it harm? Who does it help? And what would be a better approach to Cuba? And what is actually going on?
Cuba—our policy towards Cuba is not much in the news itself. It seems to have always been there, but that, of course, is not the case. And most Americans are kind of unaware of what exactly our policy is. We know we’re not allowed to go there, kind of. We know what our policy is, more or less. We know about something about an embargo. But I felt it was time to revisit our relationship to Cuba and what’s going on because of the events of July 11th.
So, I’m happy to welcome back to the show Ian Vasquez. Ian is the Vice President for International Studies at Cato, my very, very favorite free-market think tank. Oh my goodness, without Cato, I would feel myself quite adrift in the world. So, thank you so much to Cato. Ian is the head of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, and he also is the co-author of the Human Freedom Index, a fact-based, statistics-based resource to learn what exactly is going on in the world. Is human freedom on the rise or on the decline? What about poverty? What is the quality of life really happening on our planet? It is a must resource. More about that later. But to help us understand what our policy is, how we got there, and what it should be vis-à-vis Cuba, Ian, welcome to the show this morning.
Ian Vasquez: Thanks very much, Bob. Thanks for inviting me again.
The History of US-Cuba Relations and the Embargo [05:58]
Bob Zadek: Now, Ian, we’re talking about Cuba because events happened in July 11th—on July 11th in Cuba that got everyone’s attention, at least those people who care about such issues. So, introduce us to the relationship between the United States and Cuba. So, give us first of all the headlines. What is our relationship to that nation? Are we at war with them? What exactly is that foreign policy relationship between us and Cuba today? And very briefly, how did we get there?
Ian Vasquez: Well, Cuba is a communist country, and it turned communist soon after Fidel Castro took over in 1959. And at the time, we were at the height of the Cold War, as you will recall. So, the policy that began almost immediately was to impose an embargo on that country. And it’s an embargo that has been sustained to this day, essentially, with some changes along the way. But basically, it’s a prohibition on exports and imports and investment and travel on that country.
Since then, and since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has gone through a lot of hardships because of simply the collapse of socialism and its very nature that’s unsustainable. And there have been thaws, slight—very slight reforms in Cuba that have been reversed. And it was during the Obama administration that there was some relaxation of the embargo, and people could start traveling—people, Americans, I should say—start traveling to the island and so on. When Trump came to power, he reversed that. And so, we’re back to where basically we’ve been for most of the past six decades, which is an embargo on Cuba.
Nevertheless, the United States does allow for the sale of some items to Cuba, so that over the past several years, trade with Cuba—between the US and Cuba—has not been minimal. It’s been in the area of $200 to $300 million, sometimes up to $700 million or more. And yet, that has not seemed to make a difference to the lives of the people in Cuba. It’s, in my view, not a wise policy. But the real problem, of course, is Cuba’s communism. And whether there’s an embargo or not, that’s what is inflicting the great pain that people were protesting against and in favor of freedom on July 11th.
Rationale and Effectiveness of the Embargo [08:24]
Bob Zadek: Now, Ian, putting the best spin you can on the answer to my question: Why should the United States as a country care what the economic structure is of a trading partner? Cuba has—is a communist country. It doesn’t represent, in and of itself, an existential threat to us, obviously. So, why in the world—and I know I’m not asking you to defend the policy because you couldn’t, I mean, intellectually you couldn’t. But why does the United States feel it’s in our best interest to impose that embargo, which of course harms profoundly the citizens of Cuba? What is the best case—and it’s a bad one—but what is the best case for the embargo? Why is it that successive administrations just somewhat mindlessly just embrace that policy without examination as to why we’re doing it?
Ian Vasquez: Well, first of all, the original rationale for imposing the embargo way back when was a national security rationale, that the Soviets were being very influential in Cuba and it could pose a national security threat. There was the Cuban Missile Crisis and so on. Well, if there ever was an actual security threat, that ended with the end of the Soviet Union and the massive support that it gave to Cuba.
So, I don’t think that a security threat is credible. But policies in Washington, as you know, and not just foreign policies but all kinds of policies, have a way of living on way past their usefulness because all around them there’s a lot of interests and so on, not the least some of the Cuban-American vote in Florida, which has a heavy influence on Washington’s policies.
Now, the argument that is made today in favor of maintaining the embargo—and we should note that the embargo has been totally ineffective. I mean, the point of an embargo is to try to change policies on the island, to try to dislodge a regime that is threatened and so on. None of that has helped Cuba. None of that has happened. And in fact, if you look at the record of sanctions all around the world, they have a very poor record, and Cuba is no exception, especially if they’re unilateral-type sanctions, just not the whole world participating, but just one or a few countries, as is the case with the United States and Cuba. Cuba trades with the rest of the world freely.
So, the current argument is that were we to loosen the embargo and start trading with them, that would bring in a rush of investment and trade and money to support the regime. It is a communist dictatorship, so you would essentially be doing a lot of business with the regime. The regime, and especially the army there, runs the tourism, it runs all the important businesses there. And that’s the fear that the pro-embargo people point to.
My view is that there are two things that would happen. The most important would be an increase in travel from Americans. And I think that that’s a fairly positive influence because there’s a pretty large informal economy—you can call it a shadow economy or black market economy—in Cuba where ordinary Cubans are trying to make a living there outside of the reach of the state by providing services and selling things to Americans and so on. And Americans tend to be more generous when they travel than, say, Europeans or other visitors. So, I think that that would help to expand the role of the informal economy, help ordinary Cubans create wealth on their own and become less dependent on the state—and they’re pretty dependent on the state now—which is a positive thing.
On the other hand, it is true that the Cuban state would get partly more resources. But I don’t think that it would be much more, frankly, because it’s a communist country, after all. And they have the worst economic policies in the world. So, it’s not the kind of economy that people look at and say, “Oh, I’m going to pour in a lot of money and invest there,” because you can’t. So, lifting the embargo would not make much of a difference in terms of the economy in Cuba. The economy in Cuba is damned as long as they don’t actually implement reforms, and the embargo has not been effective at promoting reforms.
So, in my view, what the main harm that the embargo has caused is that it is pointed to by the regime and regime supporters in Cuba and all around the world to say the reason that Cubans are suffering, the main reason, is because of the Cuban embargo. And I think that it causes some pain, but the main reason is communism itself. And lifting it would help clarify that situation because I don’t think that it would create a huge difference. It’s not what is going to usher in freedom in Cuba. I think that it would be helpful on the margin. And this is why I think that it would be very useful to lift the embargo. It could be helpful in creating greater spaces of freedom within Cuba, and it would be especially helpful to take away this argument that people and supporters of the Cuban regime use by saying that really it’s the United States’ fault. It’s always the United States’ fault. Get rid of that and you’ll see that it’s not the United States’ fault.
Tools of Repression and the Role of Fear [14:56]
Bob Zadek: And if the goal of our foreign policy is the well-being of the citizens of Cuba, if that’s the goal—because as you said, the threat to our national security today is de minimis, obviously. If the standard of measuring foreign policy is benefit to the Cuban people, on the one hand, opening up the embargo would for sure benefit their lives, give them more of an opportunity to earn money in the, if you will, part black market economy which is there. They would be better off. Now, perhaps, perhaps, giving the pro-embargo argument the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it would provide an economic benefit as well to the cruel leaders, the political leaders in Cuba. But that detriment of providing them perhaps with more cash, maybe with a population that is less angry—that benefit to the Cuban leadership, who cares if we are benefiting everybody else in Cuba along the way? That kind of is at least an approach to the decision on the embargo.
Okay, so here we are. We are at economic war with a nation that is no threat to us whatsoever. And Cuba is quite a repressive country. The leadership of Cuba is—has proven to be very skillful at suppressing dissent. So, pre-July 11th, how is it that—what are the tools, and they’re perhaps pretty obvious, but how was the Cuban dictatorship—although there are nominal elections, but it’s fair to call them a dictatorship—how was the Cuban dictatorship so able to keep the population repressed? What were the tools they used, I’ll say up until July 11th? Now, the tools are still there, of course, but why was there so little uprising before July 11th? What tools did they use to keep the population under control?
Ian Vasquez: Yeah, that’s an important question because up until July 11th, you really didn’t see this kind of protest. And that has allowed for all these decades the Cuban regime to say, “You see, we don’t have unrest in our country, and that just shows that people like the communist system.” And it gave a certain amount of legitimacy to the regime among people on the left and its advocates.
And yet, there was a vast and it continues to be a vast system of social control in which the Cuban state has spies and organizations that seek to prevent protests and problems from erupting and act on them before anything happens. And so, at the local level, there are community organizations, neighborhood committees that report to the state anything that they think is suspicious. There are secret police, there are police that are in plain clothes, there are the normal police, there are also security agents, there are other repressive layers. And of course, party spies in every organization that is allowed by the state—and only organizations that are allowed by the state, whether businesses or artist communities or whatever, are permitted. And in those organizations, there are always Cuban state apparatchiks and spies who report to people anything suspicious.
And the state acts brutally in a preventive way on this. So, they’ll take somebody away for just suggesting a criticism, or if they find out that somebody is planning to do something, you know, writing something or doing something publicly, they’ll throw them in jail. And this will be done in a way that isn’t public. They’ll take them away at night or, you know, one at a time. It isn’t done on any massive scale. You don’t typically see ever the military on the streets in Cuba like you do in a lot of other dictatorships.
So, that is the way until now that the Cuban regime has been able to maintain this facade of a peaceful community that supposedly likes communism. And of course, it’s been just that, a facade. People, they had instilled up until now fear in people and isolated them basically because they never know if the person they’re talking to is an agent of the state or what might happen to them. Even if they want to come out and make a public protest, they could be up until now pretty sure that they’re going to get whacked, just that it’s not going to succeed. But all of that changed July 11th, and the protests were able to break through that preventive system of social control, catching the dictatorship by complete surprise.
What Made the July 11th Protest Unique? [20:52]
Bob Zadek: Now, what happened on July 11th? And we have—those of us who occasionally watch what is called the evening news—it probably doesn’t exist anymore, but I’ll refer to it—those of us who watch the news from time to time are accustomed to seeing reports around the world of uprising, of protests. There was the famous spring events in the Middle East, the Middle East Spring, I think it was called something like that. There are occasional protests we learn about, and they get our attention for about 30 or 45 seconds on the news and off we go to the next event on the news. But this was, to your mind and to those who observe Cuba, special. This was not just another isolated outburst in a repressive society which happened on a given day or an evening and then it went away. This was special, and this is getting a lot more attention than other similar protests. What makes this special? What is there about Cuba and about this protest that is worthy of attention?
Ian Vasquez: Well, I think that’s right. I think it’s important to highlight just how truly unprecedented this was in communist Cuba, because it was the first time that protests of this happened in Cuba on a massive scale, nationwide. I mean, in at least 60 cities and towns all across the country, all across the country, and in a simultaneous way. This was a spontaneous protest. This had never happened before.
And the protesters, again, all across the country, were very clear about what they were protesting. They were chanting, “Down with the dictatorship,” and “Freedom,” “Libertad, libertad, libertad.” This had never happened before. And so, it reflected something new in Cuban society that I think had been happening over the past year or so, and it is exactly that social change that caught the dictatorship by surprise. And that is: the Cubans lost their fear. They lost their fear of going up against the regime. They stopped being afraid of openly and publicly defying the dictatorship.
And it’s because of that that Cuba today is a different country than it was before. Every Cuban could now see that they weren’t alone, they weren’t crazy in thinking that this is a very reprehensible regime, and that there is a widespread sentiment on the island. And that they don’t have to be afraid of the regime, and they came out and protested.
Of course, there had to be something that changed that allowed this to happen, that allowed this collective action problem—you know, the problem that everybody might feel the same way, but everybody’s afraid to be the first person to come out and protest because they’ll be killed or jailed or whatever. And what really made the difference is the spread of the internet in Cuba in the last several years, which created social media connectivity among the Cubans in a way that hadn’t been allowed in real life in Cuba. You don’t have freedom of association, you don’t have freedom of expression, you don’t have all that stuff. And that started to happen on the internet through Facebook and Twitter and other social networks and so on.
So, in the past year, that started to play a role in telling other Cubans, “This is what we think. Hey, this is what’s happening in this city today,” and so on. So, the protest that occurred on July 11th began in a small town not very far away from Havana, and they were spontaneous. But people all across the country started seeing that they were happening, and in town after town, they all started coming out. This would not have been possible without the spread of the internet, which the regime began to allow a few years ago and was really a key development in order to facilitate this and break through the preventive system of social control that up until now Cuba has had. And it’s been a tremendous blow to the regime because it showed all Cubans and all of the world that, in fact, this regime completely lacks legitimacy. People are not at all happy with what’s going on there. And it’s not just the fact that Cuba is going through an extremely terrible economic time. This is not just a protest in favor of better healthcare, in favor of improving services. This is a fight for freedom. And that is the message that has come out loud and clear for all of the world.
Information as a Tool for Freedom [26:22]
Bob Zadek: What I’m struck by, what I found myself thinking about as you were explaining the role of social media, specifically the internet more broadly, is I recall learning that when, of all things, the printing press was first created and started to spread, there was among those in power, specifically the church, but others in power, opposition to the printing press because the sharing of thoughts and the sharing of communication, the control of information was even in the Middle Ages felt by those in power to be crucial to retaining control. And so, we go back to the printing press, which was empowering in its day and age, and it’s the same dynamic.
And we in our news today in our country, there is enormous discussion of censorship. We are talking about Facebook censoring, whether this whole conversation about the constitutional impact of Facebook censoring, the government wanting to control what is available indirectly use social media as their tool, as the government’s tool. So, it is astonishing, Ian—and this is like—it shouldn’t be astonishing, that’s perhaps the wrong word—but what we are seeing is how information, merely having one human tell another human what somebody is thinking, information itself is something that will always operate to increase freedom and as a tool to bring down repressive societies. It is a constant from the early Middle Ages through and including 2021. What a lesson it teaches us about the power of something as benign, if you will, as information. So, it was just information being accessible from the brain of one human to another that is one of the factors behind the uprising. Is that an overstatement? Is that a fair statement?
Ian Vasquez: No, that’s a fair statement. There’s just no question that without the internet, this simply would not have happened. And remember that the Cuban regime has been successful at isolating Cubans from each other, keeping them from expressing themselves and basically repressing their expression and their thoughts so that people cannot truly know the extent of what other people think and so on. And that’s what the internet has done in Cuba in the past several years, it has vastly increased this.
And we’re talking about an island where this control and censorship and isolation has been in place now for six decades. It isn’t something that, you know, some regime just came in and started implementing and people got upset with. This is a taste of freedom that Cubans have not had on the island for decades. And so, that also makes it notable. And yes, you’re right that going all the way back to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, once the printing press was there, you could start all sorts of revolutions and, you know, there are turbulent times, but more information and greater freedom of expression is really a basis of progress and the free society.
The Collapse of the Cuban Economy [30:24]
Bob Zadek: July 11th was just a day, but the unhappiness, as you have explained, was fomenting for quite a long time. The Cuban economy was, to use a technical economic concept, quite a mess. So, tell us a bit about what had been happening to the Cuban economy that made this uprising succeed as much as it did and so fertile. What happened to—after all, Cuba has somehow survived for about six decades since Castro. So, how does it—how did it survive up to now? What’s—give us a bit of an insight, because you know it so well from the work you have done on the Human Freedom Index. Tell us what the Cuban economy—how did it operate and what was happening and why July 11th of 2021?
Ian Vasquez: Yeah. Well, I mean, Cuba—the Cuban economy has been one of the most repressive in the world. It is a communist nation, so the state owns everything and is in control of almost everything. It owns, as I say, it owns almost everything. And it has been that way since early on in the 1960s.
Now, during the Cold War, the Cuban regime received massive subsidies from the Soviet Union, and that’s how it was able to stay afloat. Because this is a poor island, and with terrible policies, it really wasn’t creating much wealth. It was receiving billions of dollars of subsidies from the Soviet Union, and that allowed it to stay afloat up until the early 1990s when, of course, the Soviet Union collapsed. And then Cuba went through a very severe economic crisis, which they called the Special Period, in which the economy collapsed by at least 35%. And it was during that period, actually, that the last episode of a protest occurred in 1994, called the Malecónazo. But it was much smaller. There was no internet and so on. People were living through extreme hardships, and they came out in Havana on the street and protested. But it was a smaller group, and it was put down and they moved on.
By the end of the 1990s, socialist Venezuela started to fill the role that the Soviet Union played, and it started providing massive subsidies because it was a petroleum state to Cuba. And that was—basically, Venezuela rescued Cuba from going down the tubes. And it played that role up until some years ago when socialist Venezuela collapsed through its own socialism, just like all socialist countries do. And therefore, the subsidies to Cuba ended. And that put Cuba into another tailspin and into another deepening crisis, which is what’s happening in Cuba right now.
Probably the Cuban economy, at least if you look at a lot of indicators, is worse than it has been at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It certainly is not better than it was in 1989. And that says a lot because that was three decades ago without any progress. But the crisis it’s going through, which has been aggravated by the pandemic, has meant that there are scarcities of basic goods, including food, including water. Blackouts are regular. People aren’t getting enough to eat.
So, this was, if you could look for an immediate spark to the protest, this is what it was. It’s not just, though, that people want more electricity. It’s that they want the freedom. They know that this is the fundamental problem there. And at the same time, over the past several years, as things have gotten worse, repression has increased—the kind of repression that Cubans have always seen. So, if they suspect somebody of causing trouble or having a meeting in their house that they shouldn’t have, they beat them up or they take them to jail and hold them there for a few months, that kind of thing. So, that’s increased in the past several years.
Basically, every indicator of human well-being in Cuba has decreased dramatically just because of the repressive nature of the regime in a bankrupt communist state. It’s very much—Cuba’s history is very much the case as Margaret Thatcher once said about socialism, that the problem with socialism is that they eventually run out of other people’s money. And that’s what’s happened in Cuba. Cuba has always lived off of the wealth of some outside force. And now there isn’t any prospect of anybody stepping into the role that Venezuela played or the role that the USSR used to play. And that’s the spark that led to the protests.
Artistic Dissidents and the San Isidro Movement [35:54]
Ian Vasquez: I should also mention that in terms of the internet, in the past year, there have been a couple of episodes that have involved Cuban artists that have been jailed, which have been discussed on the internet and gotten a lot of attention throughout Cuba because of social media networks. And in which there’s sort of a new generation of social media dissidents and artists and so on that are really building on the shoulders of the political dissidents that have always existed in Cuba and that have done admirable work but that have always been put down.
Now you have a new generation of dissidents that are more varied. They’re artists. The San Isidro movement in Cuba is one of them. And in November of last year, these guys were protesting the repression, and then the regime came in and arrested them. And they protested on Facebook and Twitter and so on. And the next day, 300 people showed up at the Ministry of Culture in Cuba to protest the government arresting them. That in itself was unprecedented. You would never have seen that before.
So, it was when that happened last year that I wrote an article in December of last year called “Losing Fear in Cuba,” in which I was indicating what some of us had been noticing, and that there was this social change that was happening in Cuba that looked to be significant. People are losing fear. And that the interaction of artists, the world of arts and culture, with the internet and social media influencers there was leading to this change in Cuba, which could be significant.
And in between then and July 11th, there was a viral music video that was created by Cuban musicians in Cuba and Cuban musicians outside of Cuba called “Patria y Vida” (Fatherland and Life), which became viral. And it was a protest against the regime. The regime has always used the line “Patria o Muerte” (Fatherland or Death) as a form of saying you better defend socialism, it’s like socialism or death. So, they played on those words, and they had an anti-regime song that they created, which was quite good, by well-known Cuban artists in Cuba, which became viral, called “Patria y Vida.” And so, once again, you had social media playing a role in undermining the legitimacy of the regime. And months later, we saw the July 11th protests.
Natural vs. Institutional Poverty [38:56]
Bob Zadek: Ian, I have a lump in my throat, my heart is beating a little faster because I’m about to gulp, disagree with a Cato scholar on something you said a second ago. So, bear with me, Ian. Gulp, here goes. You, in discussing Cuba, you said it is a poor country. It is that concept, it is a poor country, that I will gently take issue with. Here goes.
Hong Kong is a poor island. Japan is probably, by whatever measure you want, it is a poor place. That is, there is no natural resources. There is no source of export dollars other than the hard work of the people themselves. So, I don’t really agree that Cuba is, per se, as a matter of geography, a poor place. It is neither poor nor wealthy, it just is. And what makes it poor is the repressive society, the economic system itself. I once observed on a show of mine that freedom and free markets are the ultimate natural resource. If a country has a free market, it needs nothing else. Money—you build it and they will come. So, I don’t really think that one can describe any place as being per se poor so long as it has humans on it, and humans will find a way to prosper if they are given the freedom to do so. So, that’s as tough as I’m going to get on you, Ian, on this show, is disagree with that concept.
Ian Vasquez: Well, I don’t think we have a disagreement about the concept of whether a society can be rich or not depending on the institutions and policies they implement. I totally agree. But of course, if Hong Kong would have adopted communist policies, it wouldn’t be a rich place today. It would be a poor place today like Cuba is. And that was my point. The reason that Cubans have so little, that is, they are materially poor, is because they have been prevented from creating wealth and from exercising their freedoms. There’s nothing that would hold them back if they were to have a free society. Cuba could become a Hong Kong if they adopted the right policies and institutions. But they adopted exactly the opposite, and that has impoverished Cubans. And I think that was the point that I was trying to make.
Bob Zadek: I agree, of course. I wasn’t trying to publicly humiliate you, Ian. So, don’t take that as a shot across the bow.
Fear as a Governance Tool [42:08]
Bob Zadek: Another concept which is very important that I want to just comment on in passing, not as a diversion, but you mentioned in your piece that you wrote at the end of last year that the Cubans have lost their fear, and that was empowering to them. Well, the flip side of that is that fear is a very, very effective tool of a repressive or any government in keeping the population under control. And of course, churches use it and any organization that seeks to dominate will, if they can make the population they want to dominate, if they can make them fearful so that the institution which is promoting itself appears to be the savior and the protector, then fear is an effective tool.
And when I have done over the past 18—the last year—shows from time to time on COVID, I pointed out and my guests have pointed out that it was always the government putting us in fear of COVID, of transmission, of whatever. It was first make the population fearful, then you have them where you want them. So, it’s once again, in discussing Cuba, it has a chance to another way to prove and to explain these global truisms like the power of fear in repressing and in keeping control of those—if you’re in power, of keeping control of those you want to have under you. So, fear is so profoundly effective as a tool of a repressive society. And I’m not suggesting, of course, that our government is repressive, but after all, our government does seek to exercise control, and it would prefer that the population be obedient, and the way to make them obedient is to make them fearful. So, I always like to remind my listeners to always be alert for the use of fear because it is one of the most effective tools of government against the population. So, your piece about fear was very insightful, and it said a lot about Cuba and a lot about the relationship of governments and populations in general.
Ian Vasquez: I think that this fear factor is something that the regime in Cuba is still trying to play off. And I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression. The Cuban regime, because it has all the guns and the repressive apparatus, still has the upper hand in Cuba. But it’s lost something with these protests because, of course, a regime can try to instill fear and be the one that says, “Don’t worry, I’m the one that’s going to make it good.”
The Cuban regime has always done that, but now with these massive protests, it is still trying to do that and their story is falling flat. For example, when all these people across the country came out and protested, the regime’s response was, “This is a United States operation. They’re all CIA agents, and we have nothing to do with it. We just have to respond with force and revolutionary zeal and patriotism.” Of course, that’s not credible. And even if somebody were to believe that—and nobody does—it wouldn’t speak very well of the regime because it would mean that their defenses were completely broken by the United States and they always claim to be so intelligent and everything else. So that aspect of imposing fear on the population has fallen flat.
Now, all that they’re left with is sheer brutality and repression. And that’s the only fear that they’re instilling on the population right now. They can’t even suggest, unless they start going towards reforms and changes, they can’t even suggest that they have the solutions because they actually don’t have the solutions and they don’t have a way out short of actual reforms on the island. So, the only thing that they’re doing so far is brutal repression. And that is also effective, but it’s a different—it’s only one dimension of the fear that you were talking about.
Leadership and Policy Recommendations [47:11]
Bob Zadek: Often these uprisings have one charismatic—a Fidel Castro—one charismatic person at the top who’s effective at stirring things up and motivating others. What struck me is this was very populist and widespread. It wasn’t that dynamic, which gives it infinitely more credibility and power. This is not people who have been persuaded to rise up. This was smoldering inside of them like Chernobyl, and it had just exploded. It just needed a spark. So, that distinguishes this uprising from others which come from a leader who has been active. This is widespread and therefore harder to suppress. It’s not a question of cut the head off the hydra and no more heads will grow back. Is that a—I’m sorry, please.
Ian Vasquez: I’m sorry, I interrupted you. I was just going to add that the other difference, too, is that Fidel Castro’s not around. He died several years ago. His brother inherited the power, but then last year, Raul Castro resigned from the head of government and the head of the party. And the person in charge now is a guy by the name of Díaz-Canel, who is not at all charismatic. People don’t trust him, and he’s seen as a bureaucrat. So, that too has made a difference in the way that the government has been able to respond to this.
Bob Zadek: What should—we’re running out of time—what, if anything, should the United States do in terms of its policies towards Cuba right now today? And what do you think is the likely outcome of this uprising? Will the government in Cuba be successful in suppressing it as it has in the past? And what should—what would you recommend with your strongly pro-freedom, self-determination, free-market approach? What would be a better US foreign policy towards Cuba in light of this?
Ian Vasquez: Well, I’ve been a critic of the embargo for many years. I think that that should have been lifted a long time ago. It would have been better to have had it lifted before this uprising occurred. Politically, it’s going to be harder for Biden to lift it now because it’s going to be portrayed as some sort of a submission to the regime or something like that. But I think we should lift it in any event, if only to show that it’s not what is causing the widespread problems in Cuba. And for those who fear that somehow this is going to rescue a socialist economy from its own ills, we’ll see that it actually won’t and it might provide some benefit on the island. I would say that would be one thing.
The other thing is, you know, we’ve become extremely restrictive with Cubans fleeing communism. It used to be that the United States represented itself as a beacon of freedom, and during the Cold War at least, we used to welcome people who were fleeing communist countries. That was certainly the case with Cuba as well, and the United States has received hundreds of thousands of Cubans—more than a million here now. And over the years, beginning in the 1990s, the policy started to be more restrictive with Cubans. It used to be that when they were fleeing on little boats and rafts, the Coast Guard would get them and bring them to the United States. Then that changed in the 1990s.
Bob Zadek: I’m going to have to interrupt just because I want to close and remind the audience that I’ve been speaking to Ian Vasquez. Ian is the Vice President for International Studies at Cato. He is the Director of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. And please check out the Cato website that Ian co-authors, Human Freedom Index. It is a fact-filled—it will put a spring in your step at how good the world is doing, contrary to what you might read in what is known as mainstream media. This is Bob Zadek saying thank you so much to Ian and thank you to my friends out there for spending another Sunday morning with us. If you have enjoyed this show and podcast, please share your thoughts wherever your podcast is published. I welcome all comments and all feedback. Any number of stars is welcome. I like to know that you are out there. Thank you so much to all my friends out there, and thank you to Ian and of course to the Cato Institute.
Ian Vasquez: Thank you.