“We live turned away from the sea because it does not connect us, it encloses us. There is no movement on it. People are not allowed to buy boats because if they had boats, they would go to Florida. We are left, as one of our poets put it, with the unhappy circumstance of water at every turn,” Yaoni Sanchez, Cuban dissident writer.
This is one of the most potent and symbolic quotes on what life has been like for Cubans under the embargo. When President Obama decided, on December 17, 2014, to end the decades-long trade embargo on Cuba, he became the first sitting president to acknowledge the failure of this policy. The US’s sanctions have clearly done nothing to improve human rights, promote democracy, encourage economic reform or depose the Castro dictatorship. A new approach can only be helpful in increasing the freedom of Cubans.
However, this foreign policy decision has seen its share of criticism, as can very well be expected. Critics claim that President Obama has, in the process, legitimised an uncompromising regime and thrown it a lifeline. If this is the case, then this is true also of the US’s policy towards a number of countries such as China, Russia, Vietnam, Egypt, etc, countries whose undemocratic regimes violate human rights but with whom the US nevertheless maintains diplomatic and trade relations. Some critics of this policy have pointed out that, unlike in China, the Communist government in Cuba has taken no significant steps in establishing economic reforms and therefore does not merit that the US open up trade relations with it, and that such a step will only strengthen the Castros.
On the one hand, it is true that an increased economic involvement with the US will increase Cuba’s revenues. However, without meaningful and significant economic reforms within Cuba, those revenues risk being limited. Restoring US citizens’ rights to travel to the island holds great potential to open up the path to freedom for Cubans. Lifting travel restrictions would mean hundreds of thousands and probably up to a million US nationals per year would be in direct contact with Cubans in an economy where there is an increasing number of self-employed people.
A rise in tourism would give Cubans increased business opportunities and independence from the state. A Cuban-US tie will also strengthen civil society. It is important to note that President Obama has only been able to partially lift the embargo. It is now up to Congress to fully lift the embargo, which Cuban leader Raul Castro continues to blame for Cuba’s sufferings. Raul Castro’s willingness to genuinely re-engage with the US represents a significant and welcome change.
Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez writes, “Under Fidel Castro we would never have reached an outline of an agreement of this nature. Because the Cuban system is supported by — as one of its main pillars — the existence of a permanent rival. David cannot live without Goliath and the ideological apparatus has depended too long on this dispute.”
Although Sanchez is correct in some respects in believing that the warming of US-Cuban relations may be considered a defeat politically for the Castro regime, there should be no illusions about Raul Castro’s fundamental beliefs and goals. He has openly declared that he expects the US to respect its Communist regime as Cuba respects the US form of governance and that there is no intention of Cuba to shift its policies on this point. Therefore, fully ending the embargo is a strategy that can increase freedom and discourage the delusion that the US has any veritable control over Cuba’s fate. This is a reality that both the US and Cuba need to accept.
The writer is an English and French professor and columnist residing in the US and France. She can be reached at [email protected]