Notes on the Cuban Revolution

I recall standing high on the tribune in the Plaza of the Revolution on January 2, 1961 just as I did twenty-eight years later and straining my neck unsuccessfully to see the end of the crowd. And Fidel. with five microphones, the number he still uses to ensure that his words will reach even the far end of the rally, denouncing the imperialists with the same fervour and some of the same language as he used on December 5, 1988. So much in Cuba has changed in thirty revolutionary years. Fidel at 62 and gray in hair and beard no longer shows that spontaneous grin of wonder. The casinos, beggars, sex shows and aura of free and dirty third world capitalism remain only in the film archives, captured on celluloid. So much remains the same, not just the same as before the revolution, but the same as the 19th Century, and even before. Cuba is Spain and Africa, the old world and the new. It is U.S. gangsters and gamblers, baseball players and novelists. A little of Cuba is the Soviet Union, much of it is Caribbean and Latin American. It is culturally diverse and provincial. It is also, in Fidel's mind, the last bastion of socialism left in the world. The visitor sees the superficial, members of the Cuban militia - more than a million strong throughout the nation - fastidiously dressed, occupying the front position of the crowd. the crack troops, including the Special Forces marching by with precision movements, as they do every five years. Under thousands of the neatly pressed military blouses militia members wear santerioz beads