Obama brings hope to Cuba too

THE Cuban government and the upper ranks of this Caribbean island just 150km off the coast of Florida were more cautious that usual in their remarks about the US presidential election and even the overwhelming victory of Democrat Barack Obama, whom Fidel Castro — and only on the day before the vote — called "more intelligent, cultivated, and level-headed than his Republican adversary". But the people in the street, whose daily living conditions are dire, greeted the news of the election of the first black president of the United States with relief and raised hopes.

After more than a century-and-a-half of traumatic relations, almost 50 years of a trade and financial embargo, and two terms of President George W Bush, whose hostility to Cuba reached an almost paranoid intensity, Cuban-American relations should undergo at least a slight shift with Obama as president, and this is cheering to a country that is still mired in its own economic inefficiency, a society that has demanded "structural and conceptual change", and a land that was recently devastated by two hurricanes that emptied out the already near-bare cupboards of many citizens.

Though the fate of many pre-election promises is all too well known, the new US president, despite the fact that he has said he supports the embargo against Cuba — no US presidential candidate can say otherwise — did dare inflame Florida's Cuban-American community with the suggestion that he might initiate a dialogue with Havana, and, in any case, ease restrictions on Cubans living in the US regarding visits to the island and remittances to family there — at present they are allowed to visit only once every three years and to send no more than US$100 dollars ($150) per month to immediate family. Despite this Obama won the bellicose state and placed the "Cuban problem" on the long list of pressing issues — from the financial crisis to the various wars — that will await him when he enters the Oval Office in two months.

What priority Obama will give US-Cuban relations is a mystery. There are many other more weighty problems on his plate. But the old subject of the embargo and its failure to destabilise the regime in Cuba will reach his desk at any moment. And if it is evaluated in an intelligent manner, he will respond in the only intelligent way possible: with a radical change in Washington's approach to the island.

Were this historic shift to occur, the next question would be how the Cuban government would react, after having long used the blockade to its own benefit, for audiences both on and off the island, presenting itself as a David battling Goliath. At least President Raul Castro has indicated his openness to a dialogue, in the only possible, dignified form — between equals.

And the Cuban people? And those who dream that the 150km Strait of Florida is but a short passage and not an unbreachable wall dividing families, cultural, academic, and economic relations, and competition in sports? Those who have suffered appalling hardships, often directly caused by the embargo, and are able to just get by with the help of the few dollars sent from the North? These are the Cubans who are most hopeful about a change — the "necessary change" proposed by the Obama campaign — which may in turn spur the "necessary changes" announced in Cuba a few months ago but which seem to have been lost in a filing cabinet locked away somewhere in Havana. IPS