A Cuban view of Barack Obama

[Moorbey]

From Newsday:
A Cuban view of Barack Obama -- Newsday.com
A Cuban view of Barack Obama
by Les Payne
June 23, 2008

HAVANA

The Cuban at the bar of the old Hotel Nacional didn't know golf, but
like all Havana he was rooting for Tiger Woods. Woods' winning putt
at the U.S. Open moved the young comrade to high-five his newfound
American friends sipping "Hemingways" at the landmark Mafia club.

Back when the PGA was barring nonwhites from the tour, the stately
Nacional wouldn't book a room to the likes of Josephine Baker and Nat
King Cole. A bust of the black Cole adorns the lobby, and the museum
walls are alive with portraits of white celebrity guests such as
Frank Sinatra, mobster Meyer Lansky and even Barbara Walters, whose
father owned the Latin Quarter nightclubs.

Cubans here boast their '59 revolution swept away the Mafia and
reversed the pernicious race policies of the era of American
dominance. In toppling the regime of President Fulgencio Batista,
Fidel Castro noisily ushered in the Marxist new Cuba under the
vengeful, Cold War eye of the United States. Gone is the heavy
American influence, save for the quaint pre-1960s Chevrolets,
Studebakers, Buicks and Cadillacs. These gas guzzlers plying the
bustling streets attest to the resilient Cuban ingenuity. And,
ironically, they symbolize nearly 50 years of the U.S. embargo
against this island nation of 11.2 million residents.

Just as the bilingual CNN stations kept Cubans abreast of the U.S.
Open, the media have fueled a frenzied tracking of the 2008 U.S.
presidential campaign.

"To us it's a matter of life and death," said Arnaldo Coro Antich,
commentator for Radio Havana. "We follow the elections every four
years; the midterms also. The people here have formed their opinions
about the candidates. I think it is very, very easy to have an
opinion about John McCain," the journalist said, suggesting a dry
hole of support. "I do think Obama is a challenge. He's sort of a
question mark."

Opinions varied among the dozen local journalists at the Havana Press
Association. Running back decades, Juan Jacomino, of ESTI Prensa,
said the high hopes Cubans held out for John F. Kennedy were dashed
dramatically when the president staged the Bay of Pigs invasion.
President Bill Clinton also raised expectations, he said, but,
yielding to pressure from anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, did nothing to
relieve sanctions. The newspaperman expressed no hope U.S.-Cuban
relations would be eased by Obama, or any other U.S. president.

The youth on the streets on this shabby yet splendid capital city
voice a more gleeful optimism. "If Obama is elected," said Humberto
Balon, 29, "things will change for Cuba. Trade [with the U.S.] will
open up; relations will improve." Other than intuition about Obama's
"historic" run, however, the young, black Cuban offered no reason for
his "high expectation," which he said all of his friends share.

Government movers and the intelligentsia take a more measured view of
the U.S. campaign. Josephina Vidal of the Cuban Foreign Ministry
bristles at current U.S. policy that sets as condition for the
normalization of relations, that Cuba "fundamentally change its
political and economic systems. ... That's a non-starter."

Obama, of course, has wiggled on the hook baited by his alleged
willingness to talk with U.S.-declared pariah states without
preconditions. Ambassador Vidal speaks kindly of Obama's "historic
run," but puts none of her "normalization" eggs in his basket.
"We have to watch and see." Meanwhile, she cites a double standard
in the strong U.S. relations with nondemocratic states with poor human
rights records such as Saudi Arabia, "where women have no rights."

Retired President Castro recently offered a guarded assessment of
Obama so as not to damage his chances. Accordingly, government
officials here shy away from voicing overt optimism about the
African-American candidate other than to say his campaign is
"historic." Black Cubans, however, openly embrace the first
African-American nominee but are concerned that racism will lead
white Americans to reject Obama in November - or worse.

Obama's candidacy suggests that the "U.S. paradigm of racism has
started to weaken," said Digna Castaneda, the first black professor
appointed, in 1965, to the University of Havana. "We have concerns
about the possibility of assassination," said the historian, "because
we have seen examples of this in America. The [campaign] will be very
tough; some people will spare no effort in seeking to assassinate
Obama. That is a problem to be solved by the American people."

Copyright � 2008, Newsday Inc.

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WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
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