Brother Hamjatta:
Nice piece as usual! :)  I was going to respond on Tuesday but my workload
was quite overwhelming.

You are right on the money when you say that Cuba's public sector successes
cannot be used to prove that communism is a viable and not an almost outdated
system. However, I strongly believe that many developing countries,
particularly those in Africa, should study Cuba's public sector policies in
the hopes of emulating this very successful system.

To digress a bit, few years ago, I met an American lady who had somehow
managed to get into the country from Jamaica.  And though the Cubans are
quite strict about electronic devices, this lady also managed to smuggle a
little palm sized camcorder into the country.  I was therefore lucky enough
to watch her recordings and at the same time get her unique play by play
perspective of events as the images from the camera rolled on.  One thing
that struck me about the place was its simplicity.  Havana looked like a city
stuck in a time warp.  It had the look and feel of the 50s just by the type
of cars and buildings in the film.  Somehow these remarkable people had
managed to do a fantastic job of preserving this place since these 50s
antique cars were still running and the buildings had not become completely
dilapidated though the wear and tear on them was beginning to show.

This brings me to a point: Though the capitalist system has taught us that
sometimes bigger is better and that newer also better, there is something to
be said about this Cuban policy of keeping things simple and effective.  This
as opposed to spending millions of Dollars in white elephant projects at the
expense of the tax payers money instead of thinking about effective ways to
maximize the effectiveness of spending this amount of money to achieve a
particular goal, be it education, healthcare, etc., etc.  I am sure you get
my drift for we could expand largely expand on this topic of being frugal and
spending wisely.

I however, like you, disagree with their policy of not allowing the best to
prosper finically.  There are extremely talented athletes, musicians, and
artists who pretty much get handouts from the state. They are not allowed to
get rich of the money they make by touring the esteemed concert halls of
Europe and N. America nor are their fabulous baseball players allowed to
leave the country to play big time baseball in America.  In other words,
every Cuban is expected to contribute and be patriotic to his or her country.
 There is something particularly honorable about this but where does it start
to impinge on the possibility of self improvement for these talented folks in
the financial sense?

On a related note, another thing which African countries could emulate from
Cuba is the effectiveness by which her culture has been insulated from the
dirty ways of the West.  This has been achieved successfully perhaps because
of fierce anti-Western rhetoric by Castro.  In fact, the man has been known
to plan a speech for 30 minutes or less only to rumble on for several hours.
He is perhaps the last of a dying breed:  a table thumping, heavily bearded,
fierce orator who, despite his penchant for excessive brutality on his
enemies, is still respected by the common citizen of his country.  Quite a
remarkable achievement IMO.  Castro's policies have managed to ward of the
wayward cultural influences of the West by not encouraging the establishment
of multinationals and by instilling a deep sense of nationalism in Cubans.

However, cracks are beginning to show in Cuba's remarkable success story.
For one, Castro is beginning to get old and the question that begs is whether
all these noble principles that his government has so painstakingly instilled
in Cubans will last?  I think probably not and this will probably spell doom
for much of the progress the country has made from these engrained principles
in its citizens.  Nevertheless, the potential for economic gain could be
huge.  All these years of discipline and self reliance will mean the World
market will have an insatiable appetite for everything Cuban from its
wonderful African sounds to primo Cuban cigars.  Also, like some of the more
beautiful counties on the Caribbean tourists form America and the rest of the
World will flock to her beaches.  Cuba's economic potential has never been
fully exploited and it will be interesting to see what the future holds for
this amazing story called Cuba.  We shall see but for now it would be wise
for our continent to use it as an ideal model.

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