Visiting unhappy Cuba is especially thought-provoking for anyone familiar with its unhappy neighbours. Cubans live difficult lives and have much to complain about. So do Jamaicans, Dominicans, Haitians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and others in the Caribbean basin who live under capitalist governments. Who is worse off? Does an ordinary person live better in Cuba or in a nearby capitalist country?
Questions such as these require each of us to decide what we value in personal, social and national life. Comparing the two political and social systems also reminds us that for many people in the world, a truly fulfilling life is unattainable. In this vale of tears there must be compromises – but which are the right ones to make?
The social safety net that protects ordinary Cubans is considerably more reliable than the one protecting people in most of the rest of the region. According to United Nations statistics, five times more Guatemalan children die before their fifth birthday than Cuban children. Four times more Jamaicans than Cubans die before reaching the age of 40. A poor Cuban who becomes ill may be taken to a hospital where conditions are unsanitary, doctors are underpaid and medicine is scarce. A poor Dominican might not be taken to a hospital at all.
Cubans also have a decided advantage when it comes to security – or, to put it differently, the right to life. There are no death squads in Cuba. Rogue police units do not exist. Violent crime is rare. Cubans do not fear to walk alone at night; many in the rest of the region do.
These two sets of rights that Cubans enjoy – to a basic standard of living and to personal security – are vitally important to human happiness. Some would say the same about two kinds of rights that are denied to Cubans: the right to free speech and the right to prosper through private enterprise.
Cubans may not denounce their regime and demand a different one. Some who do so find themselves under 24-hour surveillance, are assaulted by gangs of neighbours organised by communist authorities, and run the risk of prison. In Central American countries, by contrast, laws guarantee every citizen the right to free speech. Dissidents in Guatemala, for example, are never arrested or prosecuted for their statements. The system works differently there: they are simply shot.
Perpetrators of the political killings that have drenched Central America and parts of the Caribbean in blood over the last half-century are often described in newspapers as "heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothes". Governments have proven unable to protect their citizens against these death squads, and sometimes even sponsor them. This system has allowed police forces and armies in Central America to dispose of critics more permanently than the Cuban government does, while escaping some of the opprobrium that is justly aimed at repressive regimes. Since the Castro government came to power in Cuba in 1959, political killings have totalled in the hundreds, most of them summary executions in the turbulent post-revolution period. The Central American toll is in the hundreds of thousands.
A Cuban has no right to establish an independent newspaper. Any Guatemalan does – but if the newspaper becomes too strident, its editor might be killed. A Cuban may not form a political party. Any Haitian can – but if he speaks too stridently, he will be in danger. A Haitian is also far more likely to die in an earthquake than a Cuban, not because nature is kinder to Cubans but because Cuban society is sufficiently organised to provide its citizens with the essential benefits of a coherent state.
Poor Cubans cannot dream of pulling their families up toward prosperity by starting a business and working hard. Poor Hondurans can – but social and economic realities make success unlikely. Cuba suffers from too much equality; in the rest of the region, the problem is too much inequality.
Who is more free: a person who is officially guaranteed free speech and the right to advance in society but is sick, hungry, and frightened of the police, or one who is guaranteed security, education, and basic levels of health and nutrition but must curb his conscience, knows that his life may never improve, and cannot depart to try his luck elsewhere? Which is it worse to deny people: the freedom to nourish their bodies, or the freedom to nourish their minds?
In the end, countries and political regimes should not be measured against each other, but against their potential. Few in the Caribbean basin fare well by this standard. The best hope for longtime communist Cuba and its longtime capitalist neighbours would be to learn from each other.
