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EDGING BACK FROM the podium during a joint press conference with Barack Obama, Cuban President Raul Castro began to fidget with his headphones and look around the room quizzically.
“What did you say about political prisoners? Can you repeat that question about political prisoners?” the 84-year-old Castro asked.
Obama and Castro talked up a new era in US-Cuba relations yesterday, but two cultures, two political systems and two generations collided spectacularly during a sometimes testy and frequently awkward joint appearance.
The scene inside the Palace of the Revolution – carried live on Cuban television – appeared nothing short of revolutionary for a former guerrilla commander who has spent a lifetime near the apex of power in a one-party state.
For weeks before that moment, Cuban and American officials had been locked in intense negotiations about whether reporters would be allowed to ask questions after a historic meeting between the two leaders in Havana.
After all, Chinese President Xi Jinping had faced reporters’ questions when Obama went to Beijing.
Differences
In the end, Castro had agreed to mark the first visit of a US president in 88 years with one question from journalists less reverential than Cuba’s state-controlled media.
It was just one of a series of differences to overcome between old Cold War enemies and two men who were born 30 years apart — one in the heart of global capitalism, the other in a tropical testing ground for Communist ideology.
Cuba and the United States lie just 90 miles apart, but appear to operate in different centuries.
While Americans fetishise the new and shiny, Cubans out of necessity tend to favour cars that were built before Obama was born.
As the questions rolled in, the negotiated common ground between those two worlds appeared to fall away.
“You are asking me too many questions,” Castro half-joked. “I think questions should be directed to President Obama.”
Asked by a US journalist about the fate of political prisoners, Castro responded angrily that there were no such prisoners.
“After this meeting is over, you can give me a list of political prisoners, and if we have those political prisoners, they will all be released before the night ends,” Castro said.
One and a half questions
The tension built as Obama appeared to fear he had gone too far in pushing for more questions, before pressing his point yet further.
“He did say he was only going to take one question, I was going to take two, but I leave it up to you if you will address that question,” Obama said, adding: “I’m sure she’d appreciate just a short brief answer.”
“There is a program here to be fulfilled,” said Castro. “I know that if I stay here, you’ll make 500 questions. I said that I was going to answer one. Well, I’ll answer one and a half.”
After sketching out another answer, Castro declared, “We have concluded.”
But the awkwardness was not yet over.
As the two leaders milled around the stage, feeling their way to the exit, an effort by Castro to raise Obama’s arm in victory fell flat.
Instead of the leftist symbolism of a clenched fist, Obama opted to let his wrist go limp.
- © AFP 2016.
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I like Obama, a great deal. Can we clone him
The incarceration rate is even higher for the part of Cuba that is under US administration (Guantanamo Bay). Tricky for Obama to talk about human rights on that island.
Obama having none of that leftist trash with the clenched fist – pathetic propaganda attempt by Castro. The old attitudes die hard.
In the 2015 UNESCO report on adult literacy rates 99.7% of Cubans are literate. The USA didn’t respond to the survey.
According to a study conducted in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can’t read. That’s 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t read.
Literacy is wonderful, but so is the right to travel without your government’s approval, to start a business, to make fundamental decisions about your life, and your government. If you’re happy to be a literate cog in someone else’s machine then off you go to Cuba and rescind your citizenship. Let us know how it goes. BTW, they pay water charges in Havana.
They are all worthy and outstanding achievements Anna. Their health system is in many ways superior too. One can admire those stats and still criticize the lack of basic political freedoms and the perks that Communist officials get before the ordinary citizen. Shame the Cuban regime have such an educated country but won’t trust its own citizens to dissent, to thrive in commerce or even to freely travel.
A free Cuba with its educational structure and health system would be a great country. Unfortunately at the moment its like a large prison with a good hospital wing and great evening classes.
Históricamente, Cuba había escapado siempre de la realidad gracias a la sátira y a la burla. Sin embargo, con Fidel Castro, el sentido del humor fue desapareciendo hasta quedar prohibido; con eso el pueblo cubano perdió una de sus pocas posibilidades de supervivencia; al quitarle la risa le quitaron al pueblo el más profundo sentido de las cosas.-Quote by Reinaldo Arenas.
Historically , Cuba had always escaped reality through satire and mockery. However, with Fidel Castro , sense of humor was disappearing to be prohibited ; with that the Cuban people lost one of their few chances of survival ; by removing laughter they took the people the deeper meaning of things
Frank’s Cat, aren’t all our graduates also just literate cogs in mostly someone else’s machine?
Democratic Party policies at work.
The US has the highest prison incarceration in the world. One in every 30 American adult males is in prison
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
Huge % of that down to overall harsh drug offence sentencing.
Thank Bill Clinton, for the high number of young black males incarcerations. His policies!
Wonderful place…..Only 3,000 per year now chance the 90 mile trip to US. What are they running from I wonder!
I am a democratic socialist and I can happily say I’m more aligned with Obama than Castro, with that said both sides need many reforms. Cuba needs more democracy and America needs a fairer society
Dose anyone remember what happened when certain republican US President in the 1980 made comments about all the political prisoners in Cuban jails.
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No Noirín, they get to choose where in the world they wish to travel, where to work, and make basic fundamental choices about their lives, including with whom they will trade their knowledge and labour for money.
Patrick J. How many left Ireland permanently over the last five years? Think you’ll find it was more per capita
have your say