The International Journal of Cuban Studies最新文献

{"title":"Bandits, Patriots or Delinquents? Social Protest in Rural Cuba (1878–1902)","authors":"Imilcy Balboa Navarro","doi":"10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0079","url":null,"abstract":"In 1890, despite the price on his head, Manuel Garcia, the most charismatic and infamous bandit in Cuba quietly sipped beer with twelve men in a saloon in Santiago de las Vegas, just outside Havana. The press coverage of his appearance contributed to the legend of this King of the Countryside, who became the quintessential image of late-nineteenth-century banditry.1 The visibility of this type of bandit, who filled the pages of the newspapers and graced the accounts of colonial authorities, eventually dwarfed other forms of social protest, becoming the only manifestation of rural resistance in most historical accounts of the period.This line of investigation began with the publication of Eric Hobsbawm's Primitive Rebels (1958), which marked a milestone in the study of rural protest, by placing 'social bandits' at the centre of the narrative. His thesis attracted numerous specialists internationally who examined the phenomenon in various contexts and time periods.2 Despite the growing literature on social banditry, our understanding of rural protest in general and specifically the place of banditry within other forms of resistance remains undeveloped. The model of social banditry, in which Hobsbawm envisioned banditry as a form of peasant protest, does not explain the rest of the forms of rebellion present.3Using a case study of the Cuban countryside in the second half of the nineteenth century, this study explores other dimensions of rural protest, focusing on the role of the family, the relationship between bandits and their communities and the ways state repression influenced the actions of those involved in these crimes.4 The focus of this article is thus the everyday forms of resistance - arson, robbery, sabotage, for example - which may be less glorified than the King of the Countryside but are no less important. These were the primary - not primitive - forms of struggle that rather than openly challenging the existing structures of oppression, chipped away slowly at them.5The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a time of profound transformations in Cuba. Various important socioeconomic processes began with the abolition of slavery in 1886 and the subsequent expansion of capitalist agriculture. Moreover, the political arena was defined by three armed conflicts: the end of Spanish colonial rule, the North American intervention and finally the establishment of the republic in 1902.All these changes had powerful repercussions for the masses of workers and farmers. Rather than accepting these transformations passively, the popular classes sought to carve out their own political space within their given situation. They actively protested the increasingly unfavourable conditions in the countryside. As such, the popular protest was not a homogeneous and harmonious process that came about through predetermined or coordinated efforts. The multitude of causes for social protest begot a myriad of responses. This article explains the way evolving","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132809504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Us Foreign Policy towards Cuba: Historical Roots, Traditional Explanations and Alternative Perspectives","authors":"R. Rodríguez, Harry R. Targ","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.7.1.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.7.1.0016","url":null,"abstract":"Immediately after taking power in 1959, the new Cuban government took steps to implement the Moncada Programme.1 Such actions amounted to a strong and swiftstructural transformation that began incorporating new property and class relations. These actions included limiting the possibilities for private capital accumulation. The Cuban government saw these actions as a means to achieve economic sovereignty and social justice. The initial reaction of the US government - with the additional support of the Cuban propertied class - was to gradually apply economic pressure in the form of economic sanctions, political and diplomatic isolation, military threats and covert actions aimed at overthrowing the government.Consequently, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution marked the beginning of a process of profound socio-economic and political transformations representing a clean break with the prevailing social, economic and political patterns in the rest of the Western Hemisphere - a geopolitical space that had been a Monroe Doctrine-inspired US hegemonic domain.The idea of 'revolution' refers, in the case of Cuba, not only to a fundamental transformation of economic and political structures, people's consciousness of their place in society and the values that should determine human behaviour, but also to a projection of Cuba's experience onto the entire Western Hemisphere. In that sense, there had been no precedents in the Latin American context. As Samuel Farber has recently reminded us, authentic revolutions 'have reverberated in other lands as the idea spread that there are alternatives to oppressive systems that another world is possible'.2 In that sense, the Cuban revolution was also a symbolic challenge to global US hegemony.Moreover, revolution is not a fixed 'thing' but a process. This means changes in structures, patterns of behaviour, and consciousness are changing over time and, in the case of revolution, are moving towards, rather than away from, more complete human fulfilment. Some nations, such as the US, might see revolutionary ferment in various places as a threat to their commitment to the maintenance of a status quo. This hypothesis underpins the arguments presented below about the root causes of US foreign policy towards Cuba since the founding of the US itself. This view contradicts many other interpretations of the causes of US/ Cuban conflicts. The materials below refer to a variety of prevailing causal explanations of US foreign policy towards Cuba. But in the end, it is argued that none are as powerful an explanatory tool as that which hypothesises the fundamental contradictions between Cuban revolutionary ferment in search of national realisation and the US hegemonic quest for the maintenance of a status quo throughout the Western Hemisphere.Competing Explanations for the Reasons behind the Historical Relationship between the US and CubaUS policymakers and academics have postulated various explanations or rationales for US foreign po","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"31 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134153008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rapprochement Cuba/usa: Opportunities and Obstacles","authors":"Salim Lamrani, L. Oberg","doi":"10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.7.1.0008","url":null,"abstract":"On 16 January 2015, certain easements to the US embargo of Cuba were announced and have become effective. They fall within the framework of the process of normalisation of bilateral relations initiated by Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro. While they fail to put an end to US economic sanctions, they are nonetheless a positive step, confirming Washington's willingness to end an anachronistic policy that is both cruel and ineffective. This policy is in fact the main obstacle to the development of the island, negatively affecting the most vulnerable sectors of the Cuban population. It has aroused the unanimous condemnation of the international community.1The first measure concerns opportunities for travel to Cuba. While US citizens are still not allowed to visit the island as ordinary tourists - although they are allowed to travel freely to China, Vietnam and North Korea - Washington has decided to facilitate travel for those who fit within twelve specific categories authorised by law. The twelve categories are (1) family visits; (2) official business of the US government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organisations; (3) journalistic activity; (4) professional research and professional meetings; (5) educational activities; (6) religious activities; (7) public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions; (8) support for the Cuban people; (9) humanitarian projects; (10) activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes; (11) exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials; and (12) certain export transactions that may be considered for authorization under existing regulations and guidelines. Thus, within the new framework, US travel and airline offices can now offer their services without being required to first obtain a specific licence from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC, Treasury Department). Furthermore, citizens allowed to travel to Cuba can now use their credit cards on the island without a limit on the amount that can be charged. They are also allowed to carry up to $10,000 and can purchase up to $400 in merchandise, including 100 in tobacco and alcohol.2At the level of remittances to Cuba, it is now possible to send $2000 per quarter, against 500 before. However, according to US law, senior government officials and members of the Communist Party may still not receive family assistance from the US. Max Lesnik, director of the Miami-based magazine La Nueva Replica, has criticised this restriction:For a long time we have accused the Havana government of having divided the Cuban family for political and ideological reasons. However, it now appears that it is U.S. policy that arbitrarily separates families, for example, preventing a Miami Cuban from supporting her mother in Havana on the grounds that she is a Communist Party militant or a member of the government.3In addition, US citizens may also now provide unlimit","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122112884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Powerful Subjects: The Duplicity of Slave Owners in Nineteenth-Century Cuba","authors":"M. Barcia","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.7.1.0099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.7.1.0099","url":null,"abstract":"In 1820, Cuban priest Juan Bernardo O'Gavan arrived in Madrid with the testing mission of sabotaging the bilateral treaty signed in 1817 between Great Britain and Spain that obliged the latter to bring its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade to an end. For O'Gavan and his employers, the end of this human trafficking was a downright annoyance that threatened the sugar cane-based prosperity enjoyed by the island since the Haitian revolution had given them the opportunity to become leading suppliers of sugar for the international markets. That sugar, however, could only be harvested and sold at astronomical profits thanks to the slave labour imported from Africa. For O'Gavan and his colleagues, begging for the reestablishment of the trade came hand-in-hand with a series of excuses and justifications that concealed the real conditions of existence of their slaves in Cuba's urban and rural environments.This article explores the ways in which Cuban-based merchants and planters attempted to keep a robust control upon their increasingly large slave population, while endeavouring to show to the rest of the world an idyllic picture of Cuban slavery. O'Gavan's pamphleteering in Madrid in the early 1820s was hardly an exception. As a matter of fact, from the late 1790s, Cuban authorities, merchants and planters joined forces in a vain effort to portray Cuban slavery as a harmless and paternalistic institution, exempt from the brutalities that they shrewdly attributed to other slave systems in the Americas.On the one hand, Cuban authorities, merchants and planters offered a public transcript full of praise for the slave society they were building and continuously drummed it up as a humane and well-balanced social system. On the other hand, they relied on a day-to-day hidden transcript that they used and abused to blame their slaves, especially those African-born, for all the flaws they could find in the system.1 This article will also explore the ways in which they built up these public and hidden transcripts and the manner in which their public and private discourses overlapped when necessary, and establish to what degree they were successful in doing so. It will argue that in order to prevail, while hiding the daily acts of inhumanity inherent to the slave system, they used their most gifted intellectuals and their religious and political leverage in order to maintain slavery in Cuba and to increase the transatlantic slave trade.To gain a better understanding of the daily practices of these men, this article relies on the concepts of 'Public' and 'Hidden Transcript', as defined by James C. Scott in his groundbreaking book Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1990). By 'Public Transcript', it refers to all practices and discourses elaborated by the Cuban-based elites in order to portray to the rest of the world, an idyllic picture of slavery in Cuba. By opposition, this article considers as a 'Hidden Transcript', those other pr","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134294063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cuban Education between Revolution and Reform","authors":"Danay Quintana Nedelcu","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0205","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionA reflection on the challenges facing public universities leads us to a theme (among many) of the centrality of the social sciences: how far should the state be, desired to be or actually be responsible for education in a country? Can direct government involvement produce favourable results in solving the educational problem? The analysis of the role of education cannot be done without a reflection about the State, the development models that are driven by this structure, the power groups that give it meaning, the kind of society that results and a holistic view of public policies (Del Castillo 2014) that serves as a tool (in a double sense) of governments to solve public problems that they themselves have defined in a (desired) dialogue with society. Just as it is essential to understand the State to analyse education, education also 'talks' about the kind of state and society in which it occurs.Education as a public issue is an idea as old as ancient Greece. Since then the state has been defined as the entity that is ultimately responsible for the formation of the citizens in the polis: the meaning of the State is, in its superior essence, the Paideia1 (Werner 1971). From this statement we return to the political status of (public) education.The debates on education as a public issue have transcended the field of research. They also exceed domestic politics, standing on the top of the global agenda. Today we find tensions between the models proposed by governments (pressured by international organisations) and those desired by society which have led to a climate of direct confrontation. We see examples of this everywhere: in the US and its most recent reform of the public school system, the education reforms passed in Mexico, the protests in the university student movement of Chile, the strike of teachers in Brazil, controversial university reform in Ecuador in recent years and the university student movement unleashed in Colombia in 2011 are a few of the flashpoints that demonstrate the social dynamics around the problems facing the education sector in general and universities in particular.The consequences of the neoliberal educational model (Gentili 1996; Puiggros 1996) have challenged the assumed direct link between education and development, although the World Bank insists on it (Banco Mundial 2012) and unresolved social problems in the Latin American region such as poverty, inequality and inequity (Blanco, 2012; Gajardo 2012) only serve to trigger deep crises in the current paradigms of the social function of education and what it implies: the confrontation between reality and utopia.Immersed in this scenario, the Cuban case is symptomatic of a different situation, though not without its own tensions. In recent years, the government and Cuban society have been involved in a major process of change: according to many, the most important in the last 50 years. The changes are projected in the Guidelines of the Economic and Social","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123376641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Conversations with Eusebio Leal Spengler, City Historian of Havana: 'We Are an Island and We Need to Have an Ongoing Dialogue with the World That Surrounds Us. Any Attempt to Isolate Us Is a Mistake.'","authors":"Salim Lamrani","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0127","url":null,"abstract":"Eusebio Leal Spengler is City Historian of Havana, the 'City of Columns', as Alejo Carpentier liked to call it. A Doctor of Historical Sciences (University of Havana), he is a specialist in archaeological science and internationally recognised for his work in preserving the historic character of the Cuban capital.Born in 1942 and self-educated in his youth, Eusebio Leal was a disciple of Emilio Roig de Leushenring, founder of the Office of the Historian of Havana, the leadership of which Leal assumed in 1967.The mission of the Historian's Office is to contribute to the dissemination of Cuban history and culture through 'the preservation of material and spiritual symbols and expressions of nationality [... and] the collective historical and cultural memory of the city, especially its Historic Centre', the largest such colonial centre in Latin America.He is also President of the National Monuments Commission, a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and a member of the unicameral Cuban Parliament. Since 1981, Leal has been responsible for the restoration and preservation of the Historic Centre of Havana, a national monument since 1976 and a Heritage for Humanity site since 1982.Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the advent of the Special Period in Time of Peace, Cuba was plunged into a deep economic crisis. Leal was nonetheless charged with continuing the work of restoring the Historic Centre of the capital, but with severely limited resources. As head of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, a new institution created for this purpose, he managed to obtain a certain degree of autonomy from the authorities in the management of the Office of the Historian but only a limited US$1 million budget.Nonetheless, Leal has transformed that institution into a veritable economic and cultural network that includes hotels, restaurants, shops, museums and construction and restoration workshops that are capable of generating the funds necessary to preserve the Historic Centre. The results have been spectacular and have earned him worldwide fame. In total, nearly 100 old buildings, for the most part complex structures of great historical importance, have been restored.Eusebio Leal has also expanded the scope of responsibility of the Office of the Historian. He has brought new energy to the cultural and social life of Old Havana with a multitude of activities, which are held monthly in museums, cultural centres, libraries, research laboratories and elsewhere.Leal was able to demonstrate that saving the cultural patrimony of the city was possible, even under conditions of extreme economic adversity. The original US$1 million invested generates more than 100 million in resources today. His excellent management abilities and his love for Havana have made his work an undeniable economic and cultural success.A man of exceptional culture, a winner of the world's highest honours, he is considered to be one of the three greatest living Cuban speakers","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126100626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards a New Phase in Relations with the European Union","authors":"Carlos Alzugaray Treto, S. Wilkinson","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0120","url":null,"abstract":"Some analysts are sceptical about the success of the resumed negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Cuba, as neither of the parties has waived their starting positions. Indeed, Europe has reiterated that 'this is not a change in the previous policy. As we support reform and modernization in Cuba, we have consistently raised our concerns about human rights, which will remain at the centre of this relationship'.2 As stated, 'Cuba will consider the invitation from the European side, in a respectful, constructive manner and remain bound to its sovereignty and national interests'.3However, the mere fact that these negotiations had commenced shows that both Brussels and Havana are prioritising pragmatism and a willingness to create meaningful economic and trade relations facilitated and channelled through a legal instrument.Of these diplomatic steps several questions arise: What are the interests of Cuba in its relations with the EU and which policy has been followed to bring them about? What are the interests of the EU and how it has sought to achieve them? How important is it for Cuba to advance negotiations at this time when the Common Position adopted by the EU in 1996 remains in force? What are the prospects?Interests and Politics between Cuba and the EUWhen Washington imposed the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, American leaders had hoped that their allies would add to these measures. However, one after another, from Canada to Japan and Western Europe, they refused and cooperated with revolutionary Cuba in different ways and forms.4Given its composition, uniqueness and constant widening and deepening, negotiations with the EU have always been complex. The EU is not a state but a group that initially comprised 6 Western European nations that today is a motley collection of 28 members including the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe. If it is a commonplace in international relations to not consider states as rational actors, it is much less the case with the EU, which has been described by one of its most respected historical leaders, Frenchman Jacques Delors, as an 'unidentified political object'. To this should be added the confusing institutional framework in which competing intergovernmental bodies (such as the European Council and its subsidiary bodies) and the supranational (such as the Commission, Parliament or the Supreme Court) do not always operate in perfect harmony.Goran Therborn has speculated that in the contemporary EU three, not necessarily antagonistic, trends are emerging: a global trading power, unconditional ally of the US5 and 'global Scandinavia'. According to him, the EU is these three things at once and behaves interchangeably depending on the topic in question.6It is no wonder the path of the process of finding an agreement between Cuba and the EU has been long and thorny. It is a simplification (which some Cuban colleagues incur) to attribute the difficulties and obstacles to a ","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127037474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"COOPERATIVAS NO AGROPECUARIAS: tHe eMerGenCe of a neW forM of SoCIal ProPertY In Cuba","authors":"Steve Ludlam","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0137","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionThis journal has recently published a series of important articles on the process of economic reform in Cuba, especially since the public consultation and Communist Party Congress that resulted in the adoption in 2011 of the Lineamientos de la Politica Economica y Social del Partido y la Revolucion (Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution; Kassman 2012; Lamrani 2012; Ludlam 2012; O'Sullivan 2012; PCC 2011; Peters 2012; Rodriguez 2013; Triana Cordovi 2013; Wilkinson 2012; Wylie and Glidden 2013). Very little of that analysis, though, made much comment on the announcement of a new form of social property in the proposals to form non- agri- cultural cooperatives of manual and professional workers in both the service and the production sectors. In his article, nevertheless, one leading Cuban economist at the heart of the change process identified the operation of non-agricultural cooperatives as one of the four policies 'decisive for the transformation process' during 2013/14 (Triana Cordovi 2013: 126). And in the major new academic collection on cooperativism and socialism in Cuba, the claim is made that the island's changed socio-economic reality has opened a new era of cooperativism in the history of the Revolution (Fernandez Peiso 2012b: 392-3).The Cuban Constitution refers only, in article 20, to agricultural cooperatives of small producers and makes no reference to them constituting a socialist form of property (Republica de Cuba 1992: 13). The Lineamientos, though, opened this new departure in the following sections (PCC 2011, official English translation):COOPERATIVES25. Grade 1 cooperatives shall be established as a socialist form of joint ownership in various sectors. A cooperative is a business organization that owns its estate and represents a distinct legal person. Its members are individuals who contribute assets or labor and its purpose is to supply useful goods and services to society and its costs are covered with its own income.26. The legal instrument that regulates the cooperatives must make sure that this organization, as form of social property, is not sold or otherwise assigned in ownership to any other cooperative or any non-State organization or any natural person.27. A cooperative maintains contractual relations with other cooperatives, companies, State-funded entities and other non-State organizations. After satisfying its commitment with the State, the cooperative may pursue sales operations free from intermediaries and in accordance with the business activity it is authorized to perform.28. Subject to compliance with the appropriate laws and after observance of its tax and contribution obligations, each cooperative determines the income payable to its employees and the distribution of its profits.29. Grade 2 cooperatives shall be formed and the partners of which shall be Grade 1 cooperatives. A Grade 2 Cooperative shall represent a separate legal person that owns assets. Th","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115528639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"El Futuro Es Hoy (2009): A Poetic Look at Generation Y or 90","authors":"Enrique Ávila López","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0189","url":null,"abstract":"El futuro es hoy (2009) is a short 35-minute documentary based on an idea, photography and direction of Sandra Gomez (1976-) shot in Havana between 2006 and 2008. It is the second documentary by this young director graduated from the International School of Film and Television in Havana (2004), who moved to Zurich (Switzerland), where she has been living since 2005. It is in Switzerland where, thanks to the producer Peacock Film, Sandra receives funding for her films. Therefore, this is a film that has not been financed by the Cuban government, but which has won awards in Cuba as well as receiving international awards.1 Significantly, Sandra's cinema seems to be born with a vocation to highlight what Cuban and cubanidad mean in Cuba today.2In her first documentary Las camas solas (14 minutes, 2006), her commitment is already evident, with its obvious sensitivity to the current reality of Havana, which is portrayed through a dismal episode in the recent history of the capital - the devastation of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The catastrophe caused the Cuban government to shelter many families as a result of the damage, leaving dilapidated buildings and 'single beds', as the title poetically suggests. However, Mother Nature does not seem to be the only culprit in the state of deterioration that is Havana and Cuba in general. Starting, perhaps ironically, using a natural accident, the beauty of this film lies in the ability of Gomez to introduce a sad and dilapidated city. The urban area of Havana is portrayed in a way that evokes tears not only because of the hurricane but unfortunately mostly, and here comes the political message, because of the evident need for an urban renewal that was claimed in the 1960s as one of the specific projects of the Cuban revolution, but is yet to come. Within this historical context, the attempt to enact a ruined city goes beyond the purely aesthetic: the poetics of Las camas solas contains a political message, albeit initially, ambiguous.Using as a pretext the destructive effects of Hurricane Ivan, Las camas solas shows a social attitude committed to portraying the lack of new homes in Havana. However, Sandra's commitment is in principle ambivalent. On one hand, it could be argued that Hurricane Ivan is read as not just an accident of nature but rather it symbolises a Cuban government that comes to act as a permanent cyclone, generating sorrow and distress. This position would be an example of the group of Cuban intellectuals, already mentioned by the scholar Linda Howe, who are not afraid to examine the ways in which government restrictions have distorted 'our understanding of post-revolutionary Cuban cultural history' (Howe 2004: 14).However, the work of Sandra Gomez could also be interpreted through a Marxist prism: this is a documentary that represents another case of artistic freedom, coinciding with utopian values promoted by the Revolution and, in this particular case, by the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Ar","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129180388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"American Hýbris: 1 Us Democracy Promotion in Cuba after the Cold War - Part 2","authors":"Alessandro Badella","doi":"10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13169/INTEJCUBASTUD.6.2.0157","url":null,"abstract":"Promoting Democracy and the 'Two Level Game'Another answer to our main question - Why is the US promoting democracy abroad? - is based on the bi-univocal relationship between US foreign policy and internal and electoral dynamics. After the Cold War, the collapse of a powerful external enemy (the Soviet Union) brought a redefinition of the policy-making process at an internal level: the mutated international scenario, public opinion, Congress and the groups of pressure could now influence US policy in the global arena (Maynes 1990). After 1989, the 'costs' promoting democracy ebbed: during the Cold War, it was hazardous to abandon US-friendly authoritarian and military regimes in the name of human rights (with the risk of paying a high prime in geopolitical terms). However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those 'costs' could now be perceived as minimal. As Holsti (2000: 152) pointed out,not only were the potential costs associated with expanding democracy significantly reduced, but this goal also seemed to offer a unifying focus for American foreign policy ... In short, this has appeared to be a foreign policy goal that not only promised a very favourable risk-reward ratio abroad, but that also offered the promise of rich domestic political dividends.Actually, American public opinion never looked at democracy promotion with interest and enthusiasm (Holsti 2000). In particular, after the invasion of Iraq, the American people started to associate democracy promotion with the high costs of the global war on terrorism and the 'Bush doctrine' in terms of economic resources and lives lost (Tures 2007).In the post-Cold War world, ethnic lobbying has become a distinguishing feature in the construction of US foreign policy: ethnic or national groups could now influence the foreign policy-making process (Shain 1995). The existing literature about the condition of successful influence of ethnic groups presents several factors: the organisational strength of the group, and the political unification, and power of mobilisation (Ahrari 1987; Haney and Vanderbush 1999; Said 1981; Watanabe 1984); the numerical and electoral significance of the ethnic group (Ambrosio 2002; Haney and Vanderbush 1999); the cultural affinity with the broader US population (Said 1981; Uslaner 2004; Watanabe 1984) and the ideological and strategic compatibility and affinity with US geopolitical views (Arnson and Brenner 1993: 214; Dent 1995; Trice 1976; Watanabe 1984). The Cuban community in the US had the possibility and the capability to develop all the above-mentioned elements (Haney and Vanderbush 1999).The results were a strong political influence over the process of foreign policy making. Since the 1980s, Cuban-American constituencies in Florida, and partly in New Jersey, became Cuban political citadels and 'no aspirant for local, state or national office could ignore the ethnic vote' (Morley and McGillion 2002: 11). In that decade, Cuban-Americans won important mayoral an","PeriodicalId":254309,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of Cuban Studies","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126824805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}