Cuba, Cultural: Buena Vista Social Club

Me and maybe 99% of Cubans have something in common. We've never seen the Buena Vista Social Club perform live. The reason we have all missed out is probably the same. They are just too darn popular. For me that meant tickets sold out.  For Cubans, that means the tickets cost way too much.

First, the pesky little details. There is no actual Buena Vista Social Club. The name refers to an institution from Havana's Glory (?) Days (the late 1940s) when a group of musicians got together and did play at that venue. Then came the Revolution and things changed. Revival came in the 1990s when Ry Cooder sponsored an album and a film featuring the alumni of the Social Club. It took off like wild fire and sparked a renaissance for the musicians and the music.

Do you want to see (what's left of) the originals? (Do the math - 1950 was 61 years ago) There is a Taberna in old Havana. Make reservations early.  Even at 30 CUC cover it was sold out an hour before the show started. Tipping the doorman would get us nowhere this night. We were shut out.

It’s not like we would have to live without Cuban music, however. That is ubiquitous.  Finding an alternative was just a matter of walking down the street. Every restaurant and bar we passed had a band playing. We picked one and popped in for a beer. Beer was cheap (2 CUC) and the music was good. After about an hour a member of the band would circulate with the basket.  If you like it, you toss in a tip. It being a tourist (CUC) bar, pretty much everyone kicks in.  The band splits 40 to 50 CUC for an hour set. After a break they will be back and do it again. With six in the band and 100 CUC in tips, they could make a weeks wages in one evening. At 10 PM. They knocked off and went home. But my buddies (two software engineers from Vancouver) and I weren’t done. So we followed some locals’ recommendations to go see ‘the best show in town’ at La Casa de la Musica.

It was kind of a surreal experience that sort of encapsulates much of Cuba in a nutshell. As we approach the club, we were met by a guy who pointed out the long line to get in. We might not get a ticket or if we did, we probably would not get a good seat. But he could help us. For 10 CUC apiece plus the 15 CUC cover he could get us straight in. We thought about it - but elected to take our chances with the line. Slowly, it moved. One group at a time, we were allowed through the door. Next stop was the ticket window, no line there. It seemed like the only purpose of the metering was to maintain a line out front because once we got our tickets and went in we found the club only one third full. Lots of open tables, but they were all ‘reserved’. You could get one if you bought a bottle of rum for 40 CUC (eight times the store price) None of us wanted Rum and cola (not CokeTM) so we were given a table at the back. We ordered beer and waited for the show to start. An hour later a crooner came out and did two songs, followed by recorded disco music. Was that it? We wondered, but waited. In the meantime, we did our best to discourage the numerous prostitutes who kept approaching our table of three unaccompanied men. They became more and more assertive - at one point kicking the back of my chair repeatedly so she could ‘apologize’.

Waiting for the next bus load

Finally two and a half hours after we sat down the real show started. More than a dozen musicians and two vocalists, it was good. Maybe even worth the wait.  But on the whole, the experience was pretty sad and tawdry. I was there to experience Cuba and this seemed completely alien to the average Cuban's life.

The music was their music, but it's packaged for tourists only. The cover charge is a couple week’s salary. Getting to the music, you have to wade through layer after layer of Cubans struggling to earn a few CUCs, anyway they can.   The music may be joyous and carefree but the setting is anything but.

Havana, 1st Site: Plaza de la Revolucion

Red Square in Moscow. Alexanderplatz in the GDR. It should come as no surprise that I would find one in Cuba. Every Soviet style regime had one. They were a vital part of the propaganda playbook. On May 1, international Worker’s Day, there was going to be a big parade to celebrate the revolution and the worker’s regime it had produced. The masses would turn out, not just as spectators but also as participants. The size of the throng was testimony to the support of the people. The ability of the regime to defend itself against both imperialist aggressors abroad and their lackeys at home would be displayed. It was all about messaging. “Don't mess with us. We are powerful.”

Staging that message effectively requires an appropriate space. The Plaza de la Revolucion fills the bill, perfectly. The centerpiece of the Plaza is the memorial to José Marti. Visible for miles, it is easily Havana's tallest structure, which I presume makes it Cuba's tallest. Like the Washington Monument, there is no particular purpose for the height of the structure, except as a metaphor for the stature of the man. Marti towers over Cuba's history and his monument towers over Cuba itself.

At the top of the monument is an observation deck. You can, of course, pay to go up and have a look. I didn't. The base of the monument is already elevated and Havana is pretty flat. It was a pretty cloudy day and I did not think there would be much to see.  So, I just paid to visit the museum and skipped the lookout.

Ticket in hand, I entered the memorial. The guard took a quick look at my receipt and pointed me towards the elevator. I got in and next thing I knew I was at the top. I asked the guard up there about the museum  - its downstairs. So, back down I go (I did sneak a peek while waiting for the next elevator. I was right. Nothing to see on a cloudy day). Why the mix-up?  Auto pilot. Tourists don't visit the museum.  Actually it seems almost no one does. In the hour I was there, I was alone. Dozens of people rode up to have a look but none stopped to see the Marti exhibits. That's not what tourists come to Havana for.

Fidel's Chair

The Plaza de la Revolucion lays at the foot of the Marti Memorial, the base of which doubles as a speakers rostrum and reviewing stand. It was not hard to imagine May Day. Fidel in his place, presiding over the spectacle. Looking out he would see the visages of his ‘sainted’ revolutionary comrades, the world famous Ché and the lesser-known Camilo Cienfuegos, both martyrs to the revolution and role

John Paul's Visit

models for the Cuban people. A massive and impressive stage. The day I visited, like most days I expect, it was largely empty. I found it somewhat ironic that I only saw two pictures of the plaza in use. One was in the Museum of the Revolution, a May Day a military parade. The other showed the square viewed from the lookout above, filled to capacity. The speaker that day? Pope John Paul II.

WiT? Clue:  Speaking of JP II, he'd have guessed this one straight away.  As a matter of fact, he might have been able to see it from his house.

Museum, History: Museum of the Revolution

The museum’s location is nothing short of spectacular. Located just a short distance from the ocean at the foot of Havana's most scenic boulevard (Paseo Del Prado) in what was, for most of its history, the presidential palace. Before the revolution, Cuba was not a poor country. As one would expect, its president would live in a structure that reflects the status of his society, or better. The building does not disappoint.  From the outside. Inside, most of the rooms are pretty nondescript. Emptied of whatever might have been in them when the dictator Batista's government fell, today they are just the shell in which the artifacts and narrative of Cuba's revolution are displayed.

The revolution is arguably the biggest moment in Cuban history. Whether you like its results or not, it is certainly a watershed. The current powers that be are entirely vested in its significance. So you would expect that this would be a pretty impressive museum. That expectation is reinforced by the fee they charge for admission (6 CUC) and the extra charge if you want to take pictures (2 CUC). About $10 to visit a political museum in a communist country? Must be pretty good.

It's not. As I said,  for the Cubans currently running the country, the revolution was a big deal. In the grand scheme of things (global) it wasn't really. A bunch of young revolutionaries confronted and overtook a widely unpopular dictator. Batista did not collapse like Mubarak, in days, but it did not take Fidel's small band (20 in 1957?) long to grow into a force large enough to break the will of Batista's defenders. They went from disaster (the landing of the Granma) to victory, in about two years.

The museum chronicles this struggle, displaying the fatigues they wore, the guitar they played to amuse themselves, the guns they used to seize power. It kind of had the feel of a revolutionary secondhand store. The display cases were worn and dated, much like the building itself. It was not terribly impressive. Kind of like, we have this exhibit because it's expected.  We charge what we charge, because you'll pay it.  But it did not seem like their heart was in it. Nothing seemed like it had been updated for decades.

They were not even keeping up appearances. The elevator was in long-standing disrepair. The bathroom downstairs, though clean, did not even have a place to supply toilet paper. It would seem the museum should be the pride of Cuba - or of it's government. It seems more like a place to suck a few CUCs away from tourists. A big disappointment.

An interesting side note: At its inception there was an affinity between American ideals and the ideals of Fidel.  In the Museum you can find traces of that link.  Sharing the foyer with José Marti is the bust of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.  The rallying cry of the revolutionaries?  Libertad o Muerte, Patrick Henry’s Liberty or Death.  Sadly, today that has morphed into ‘Patria o Muerte’. I guess Liberty is not so important anymore.

Who is That? #16

No new pictures from Cuba.  Most of the statues there are way too easy.  So, reaching back into the files, here is this week's.  Send your guesses here.

Salvadore Allende

Last week's answer: Salvadore Allende.  First correct answer - again, SP.



Scoring:  First Day - 10 pts.  First Correct - Bonus 5.  After Clues: 5 pts.  No Guess: 0 pts...
The standings after 9 rounds:


SP: 70
AM:65
MZ: 35
CM: 35
NH:10
KM:10
You: 0

Cuba, Police

Having been in Russia, Belgium, France, Germany, Turkey, Italy and Canada, I've had an opportunity to observe and compare the use and presence of police in a wide range of societies and environments. If I were to draw a conclusion, it would be that the more placid a society, the less noticeable the police presence. Think about it. At home in California, I go several days without seeing them and that includes even seeing their vehicles of the street.

A lot of that may have to do with the places I frequent. In France, I did not see a lot of police until I ventured near the Arc de Triomphe, then they were there in numbers, armed to the teeth. Antiterrorism, no doubt. Still, an absence of police, particularly well armed police is an indicator of confidence, I think. They aren't there because they aren't needed.

If that is the case, then Cuba's government is pretty confident in the quiescence of their public. In my five days in Havana, I covered a lot of ground, walking through almost all of its neighborhoods. I saw the parks, the hospitals, the transit hubs, the residential streets and tourist meccas. I did not see a lot of police. Even in the places where you might expect to see them, the tourist zones, where relatively large crowds congregate.

There were some places where there was a significant well armed military presence.  For some reason the area around the Plaza de la Revolucion is designated a military zone and there you find the army with their automatic weapons maintaining a perimeter around the buildings and streets they want to keep you away from. In these places you feel the coercive presence - but it is a presence I did not feel anywhere else.

Elsewhere, from time to time you might cross paths with the police and when you did, the overwhelming impression I got was that they were just hanging out. There did not seem to be a whole lot of them and there did not seem to be a whole lot for them to do. Crime does not seem to be a common occurrence in Cuba. The guidebooks and Cubans I met all told me that Havana was extremely safe. I felt safe, even walking alone down dark streets (almost all of Havana’s streets are unlit) through poor neighborhoods (all the neighborhoods I saw were poor).

How do you account for this? Community policing. Every neighborhood has its a CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution) - the eyes and ears of the revolution (government)  They know what is going on and anti-social behavior (crime) is not likely to go unnoticed or unpunished.  There is no upside to crime. It doesn't happen.

So the police act mostly as facilitators (traffic circulation) and problem solvers. I observed one incident that was remarkable. A woman was having a dispute with the man, following him and shouting. He ducked into a bar and the bouncer stepped up to bar her path. More shouting and now shoving.  A policeman arrived - now she was shouting and shoving him. Imagine what happens next…

I was expecting her face in the sidewalk and cuffs. Nope, the policeman guided her to the corner, calmed her down and ended up consoling the now crying woman. The conclusion I reached is that the police are not feared and are not really seen as an instrument of oppression (they are unarmed, btw)  It made me wonder: what if there was a demonstration? Would this regime arm them? Whose side would they take? It leaves me pondering one of the big questions I had in Cuba; Why don't Cubans protest?

Daily Periodical Review: Hurriyet. January 12-24, 2011

The thing about reading a newspaper every day is that if you read the same one, you have to wonder if what you are reading is in fact the news or just the news they want to report.

In Turkey I did not have much choice in selecting the paper I would read. It wasn't that there were not a bunch of different papers.  No, there were plenty of those.  It may not be an exaggeration to say that if I spoke Turkish I would have had dozens of choices. But then, I don't speak Turkish.  So on the newsstand every morning, among the many choices, I would look for that one English language daily - Hurriyet Daily News (HDN).

One of the things I noticed while sorting through the papers looking for the HDN was that they did not all have the same visual content. I do speak pictures and though I could not understand anything else on the front page, the sense I got from the pictures was that there was no consensus on what was ‘front page’ news.

The Suleiman Soap Opera

That's not a surprise. One of the reasons that there is such a diversity in the Turkish press is because many of the papers are mouthpieces for political parties. They have an official relationship, like Pravda or Fox News. And then, of course, they report with that slant.

So does the paper I read have a bias? I expect it does. To me it seemed to take the opposition (CHP) party’s view and reported on events that would resonate with people who shared those views. People with an anti-Islamist, secular, modernist perspective.

There were plenty of stories relating to issues of liberty. A minor controversy sprung up over a TV soap opera that fictionalizes the life of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. It portrayed him drinking and kicking back in the harem and apparently insulted Turkey’s ancestors in so doing. At least that is what the Deputy Prime Minister thought when he issued a cryptic warning about ‘retribution’ for those who humiliate important people from ‘our’ history. (I didn't know you could humiliate people dead for hundreds of years.) There were lots of similar stories; students being sued by the Prime Minister for a satire that ‘insulted’ him; A ‘freakish’ statue the government wants torn down; More seriously, 50 journalists in jail waiting trial for various offenses.

Together they are evidence of the serious concern secular Turks have about the AKP government and it's agenda to Islamicize the country - to impose their views and ways. Is that their goal? Time will tell. The AKP says it is not. They say that is exactly what the other side (Kemalists) has been doing for decades. They are just trying to give devout Muslims the freedom they have been long denied. They have a point. Atatürk did constrain liberty and impose a culture. The fear is that Islamists elsewhere (read Iran) have such a poor record of embracing liberty. Could these Islamists (AKP) actually be tolerant? If so that would be dramatic progress.  Secular Turks seem unwilling to take the chance. They see the AKP’s tolerance (so far) as a mask that will be worn just until power is consolidated.

It is an interesting drama to watch from the luxurious safety of a free country.

Museum, History: the Atatürk and War of Independence Museum

Atatürk's car

In the  Anitkabir complex, filling the massive structure built to frame the ceremonial square, is Turkeys museum of its critical moment in history, the War of Independence. Most countries (sometimes governments) have a museum like this, a place that expresses who they are and how they see themselves and the glorious things that they are capable of. It makes sense that in Turkey that museum would focus on Atatürk and the War for Independence.

Atatürk, Turkey and the War for Independence have a symbiotic relationship with each other. It is quite possible that if any one of those three did not exist, the other two might not exist either.

Atatürk leading the people

At the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire found itself on the wrong side of victory with the British, French, Greeks and Armenians all looking to grab a piece of an empire that was disappearing fast. And in fact, they all did. In its weakened state, the Sultan was unable to offer affective resistance. Who was looking out for the interests of the Turks? That is where Atatürk stepped up. The Sultan’s government in Istanbul was the prisoner of occupation forces. He could not fight back, so Atatürk would.

Atatürk created government in Ankara and from there conducted the War for Independence. It is part of the legend, the slaying of foreign giants. You can debate how hard it was to expel countries who did not really want to stay (UK and France) but the fact is that Atatürk won that war. He liberated Turkey and when he was done he dismissed the Sultan and created the Turkish Republic. Modern turkey was born.

Involving women in the revolution

The Museum memorializes and animates the crucial moments in making Atatürk who he was (the battle of Gallipoli for example) and chronicles how Atatürk made Turkey what it is (but does not allow pictures, sorry - snuck a few but it is much better than they show). After the creation of the Republic, Atatürk lead a cultural revolution. He sized up the competition (Europe) and concluded that for Turkey to be secure and prosperous, it needed to become more like the West, modern and secular. The museum highlights the principles Atatürk sought to realize - the importance of education, the equality of women, among others.

Some of Atatürk's reforms (there were many - from dress to language to religion) are still controversial to this day. The unabashed devotion on display in the museum and almost everywhere else in Turkey made me wonder why he is not more often used as a stick to beat political opponents. Kind of like the Tea Party uses our Founding Fathers to pillory Obama. That doesn't seem to happen yet with Atatürk. It seems he still belongs to everyone.