GOLF AND THE FUTURE OF CUBA

GOLF AND THE FUTURE OF CUBA
By Leonardo Padura

, SEPTEMBER 2010, 2010 (IPS) - If any of the world's major polling firms
dared conduct a macro survey of the 11 million Cubans, asking only where
they thought their country was headed, I think the overwhelming majority
would respond,"I have no idea, mate." But there is something that stands
out clearly in the fog: the fact that the leadership of the Cuban
Communist Party, government, and country is not considering a change
from single-party socialism, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban
writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen
languages.

In this article, Padura writes of a recent programme on Cuban television
that showed the situation of a clearinghouse for agricultural goods near
Havana where because of the lack of transportation, huge quantities of
plantains and yams that had just been harvested were lost. Could the
private sector help to prevent such situations? The answer should be
yes, but in this country in which the only vehicles that can be bought
or sold are those manufactured before 1960(!), it is hard to imagine
anyone succeeding in organising a cooperative or small business for
private transport.

The need to find work alternatives for the million-plus employees whose
jobs in state agencies will have to be eliminated is but one of many
reasons for the effort to revitalise freelance work and, it would seem,
microbusinesses. But no sooner does this conversation begin than
complications arise: Who in Cuba has the capital necessary to start a
small business? Can the funds come from relatives or partners living
abroad who want to give the Cuban economy a boost? How would it be
possible to restore the entire structure that was dynamited in the
"Revolutionary Offensive" of 1968 that converted Cuba into a socialist
country.

(*) Leonardo Padura Fuentes is a Cuban writer and journalist whose
novels have been translated into more than fifteen languages. His most
recent work is The Man Who Loved Dogs, featuring Leon Trotsky and his
assassin Ramon Mercader as central characters."

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