Hellow from Havana: Nuanced but unmistakable stirrings of change in Cuba.

• Author: Moon, Bart

HELLO FROM HAVANA: Nuanced but unmistakable stirrings of change in Cuba

By Madero Professor Jorge I. Dominguez, Harvard University

http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/07/hello-havana

In this essay, Jorge Dominguez, professor of Mexican and Latin American politics and economics, offers observations on his March visit to Cuba, giving special attention to ways in which Raul Castro has departed from brother Fidel in both style and substance.

Raul, for instance, emphasizes governmental efficiency, and brevity and self-discipline--even flashes of humor--characterize his speeches. A mocking sally at Hugo Chavez even suggests that Cuba's new leader may be willing to put some distance between himself and Venezuela's dictator.

More arresting is a series of unfolding reforms making available to Cubans upscale consumer goods and services previously available only to tourists. Because the median Cuban salary amounts to little more than a half-dollar a day, however, that change will benefit largely the country's small upper middle class. Dominguez nevertheless has no illusions about the continuing authoritarian nature of communist Cuba. It remains a single-party state, despite some cracks in Fidel's former paranoid hold on society.

Whether Raul is truly kinder and gentler or is simply desperately seeking to shore up popular support for a regime teetering on the brink of economic disaster remains open to question. Regime forecasts of economic growth for 2009 have been cut by...