Cuba fieldcourse 2010
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POLITICSPolitics:
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ECONOMY Overview: Until relatively recently, the economy of Cuba was centrally planned whereby the State administered the economy according to policy guidelines laid down by the Communist Party of Cuba. All economic activities (except small scale farming) were controlled by the government and all employees worked for the state. The State guaranteed full employment and state enterprises were not required to make a profit (although this is beginning to change). Today, the state plays the primary role in the domestic economy and controls practically all foreign trade. 
In 1995, Havana announced that GDP had declined by 35% during 1989-93 as a result of lost Soviet aid (worth $4 billion to $6 billion annually), domestic inefficiencies and the US embargo in place since 1961. The drop in GDP apparently halted in 1994, when Cuba reported 0.7% growth, followed by increases of 2.5% in 1995 and 7.8% in 1996. Growth slowed again in 1997 and 1998 to 2.5% and 1.2% respectively before recovering in 1999 with a 6.2% increase in GDP and a 5.6% increase in 2000. Much of Cuba's recovery can be attributed to tourism revenues and foreign investment.
The government continues to balance the need for economic loosening against a desire for firm political control. It has rolled back limited reforms undertaken in the 1990s to increase enterprise efficiency and alleviate serious shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. The average Cuban's standard of living remains at a lower level than before the downturn of the 1990s, which was caused by the loss of Soviet aid and domestic inefficiencies. Since late 2000, Venezuela has been providing oil on preferential terms, and it currently supplies about 100,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. Cuba has been paying for the oil, in part, with the services of Cuban personnel in Venezuela, including some 20,000 medical professionals. In 2007, high metals prices continued to boost Cuban earnings from nickel and cobalt production. Havana continued to invest in the country's energy sector to mitigate electrical blackouts that had plagued the country since 2004. Wages and taxes: The people of Cuba are not taxed as such but the government set the wage levels. As the economy of Cuba faltered during the 1990s so too did the wages of the Cuban people. By the mid-1990s, many university educated professionals were earning less in real terms than they had at the time of the Revolution (1959). One of the most dramatic increases in salary came in the late 1990s when the police received substantial increases in salary bringing their monthly wage to approximately 700 pesos ($32), above the level of teachers and doctors. Foreign investment and the legalisation of the US dollar established a dual-economy with stark differences in wealth between those with access to hard currency and those who continue to be paid by the Cuban peso. Living standards for the average Cuban remain at a depressed level compared with 1990. The growth of dollar/CUC economy and dollar/CUC only stores allows the government to access remittances sent to Cubans from relatives abroad (estimated to be $800-$1billion). Similarly, dollars/CUCs allow Cubans to purchase food that is unavailable through the ration book as well as other products such as clothes, consumer durables and other household goods. Access to this hard currency economy has resulted in the emergence of a new social class many of whom ‘display’ their wealth in the public spaces of Mirimar while peso shops remain under utilised or closed in parts of Centro Habana.
Economic Reforms: The government has undertaken several reforms in recent years to stem excess liquidity, increase enterprise efficiency and labour incentives, and alleviate serious shortages of food, consumer goods, and services, prioritising of political control makes extensive reforms unlikely. For example:
Foreign Investment: In the early 1990s, direct foreign investment in joint ventures and other forms of economic associations with state enterprises became easier and, today, there are over 350 joint ventures operating in Cuba mainly with companies from Spain, Canada, Italy, France, UK and Mexico. These ventures are growing rapidly (from 20 in 1991) and are currently worth approximately $2.6billion to the Cuban economy. They are run on a for-profit basis and are independent of state control except the state has the first option to supply raw materials and to purchase the products. All local employees are hired by the Cuban partners in the venture while their salary is paid in Cuban pesos. The ‘foreign’ partners are required to pay staff wages to the Cuban government in US dollars and to pay tax on the profits and the payroll. In 1995, a number of alternatives to joint ventures were legalised providing new opportunities for foreign investment in Cuba including international economic associations and completely foreign capital firms. As a result, the number of foreign companies operating in Cuba has increased. 
Links to the world economy:
PEOPLE Population:
RELIGION Santería: Religion in Cuba is a mixture of Catholicism and other, mainly African, faiths that include a number of cult religions. Commonly, these African cult religions are collectively known as Santería, which is made up of fusion of Yoruba cults and Catholicism. In particular, two African cults dominate namely, orisha cults (Regla de Ocha) and divination cult (Regla de Ifá). The uniqueness of the Santería religion in Cuba comes from the way that the orishas became syncretized with Catholic saints. Origins: Afro-Cuban cults stem from the arrival of slaves from Yorubaland in West Africa. When slaves arrived in Cuba, they were allowed to retain certain elements of their identity, their music and dancing but were forcibly baptised into the Catholic faith. In order to accommodate their own religions, they twinned Catholic saints with their own Orishas. Unknown to the authorities, about twenty of these ‘twinned pairs’ took root in popular imagination during Cuba’s colonial period. Traditions: Each orisha has its own attributes, colours and areas of protection. People wear coloured beads to indicate the orisha who is protecting them. Everyone is born under the control and protection of a particular orisha and it is the job of the babalawo (priest) to identify an individual’s orisha. People who are dressed entirely in white (other than the coloured beads of the orishas) are those who have just been ‘made saints’, that is, they have had their orisha identified, in a ceremony performed by the babalawo. This is an expensive ceremony that lasts for several days and includes an animal sacrifice. Once the ceremony has been completed the santo is required to wear white for a year afterwards. The main orishas in Cuba are:
Religion in post-revolution Cuba: In many socialist countries, religions have officially been banned but this has never happened in Cuba following a 1971 Congress on Education and Culture that suggested that religion did not pose a threat to Cuban socialism and that any ban would be doomed to failure. Indeed, Castro was brought up under the strict guidance of the Catholic Christian Brothers and is said today to follow Santería. After the revolution, Castro and his government inherited what appeared, from the outside, to be a Spanish Catholic society. In reality, however, the Cuban people follow a heterogeneous range of religions. The influence of the Spanish is apparent in Catholicism, but slaves brought African religions and Americans brought Protestantism to the island where there was already a small Jewish community. Yet, it has been the Afro-Cuban cults that have benefited most from the revolution because they already had a strong association with the workers and those that were resisting the establishment. Some have since argued that the state has cynically supported the Afro-Cuban religions to suit its own purposes. In particular, a number of religious symbols have been removed to museums and some feel that these religions have been sanitised and commercialised for tourist consumption with orisha dances being performed in hotels as part of tourist entertainment. Certainly, for many tourists the exoticism of Afro-Cuban cult religions is part of their appeal but perhaps such views reflect ‘our’ desire to see traditional religions and symbols in countries we believe to be less developed than our own. Religion in Cuba is different to that in many other countries. On the one hand, orishas are not seen in the hierarchical way that Christians view saints or God. Similarly, Cubans quite often adhere to more than one cult. Santería is the most common religion in Cuba and many people adopt at least some elements of it. Nonetheless, Cubans may have shrines to both Orishas and Catholic saints within their homes and will visit both babalawo and priests. SPORT Sport is an important part of post-Revolution Cuba and Cubans themselves have a strong body culture. Like education and health, sport was one of the key elements of the revolution, which was perhaps unsurprising given that Castro was a competent athlete. As a young man, he tried out for a professional baseball team in the US, he played basketball and was voted as sportsman of the year in 1944. After the revolution, Castro declared his intention to concentrate on national sports and announced that ‘Sport is the right of the people’. He opened the National Institute of Sports and Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) in 1961 and since then Cuba has achieved remarkable international success in sports (given its population is just 11 million people) particularly in boxing and baseball. One of the most famous Cuban boxers was Eligio Sardinas (known as Kid Chocolate) who won two world titles during his ten-year career from 1928-38. His name is still seen around Havana and a sports hall opposite the Capitolio is named after him. Baseball and boxing have achieved the most success for Cuba and are regular topics of conversation for locals in Havana. Yet, while most sports are played in Cuba (including cricket!) the most popular is baseball (beisbol or pelota) which was introduced to Cuba in 1860. There are two main teams in Havana namely Los Industriales (the blues) and Los Metropolitanos (Los Metros) who both play in the 50,000 seater stadium called El Latino. Unlike their American colleagues, Cuban baseball players are amateur and although highly valued in Cuba and given somewhat better living conditions and food than most sportsmen, about thirty Cuban baseball players have defected to the United States since 1991. There are extensive sporting facilities in Havana particularly gyms (although many are quite old) which are frequented by many people. Indeed, in Cuba the body is viewed rather differently than in Britain. Vanity is seen as a virtue rather than a vice and bodies are there to be looked after, indulged and enjoyed. Despite the problems and restrictions of the Special Period, the medical profession offer ‘cosmetic surgery’ as readily as other surgery. Any woman in Cuba can have her breasts lifted, stomach flattened or liposuction on demand (there are no waiting lists). Given the quality of the Cuban health system, the country is rapidly developing a medi-turismo industry with people travelling to Cuba for many different kinds of surgery. CUBAN LANDMARKS 
THURSDAY: Habana Veija & Centro Habana Four plazas and a Capitolio! Today, we want you to explore the different geographies of Havana. In particular, we want you to reflect on the changes that you see as you walk through different parts of the city. You will be walking from Vedado down the Malecon through Centro Habana to Old Havana. Each area is quite different and we want you to think about the ways that these areas might be considered as Post Colonial Landscapes. You will spend most of the day in Old and Central Havana. You will need to organise your time to ensure you visit four plazas, two museums and a Capitolio! T  oday we will begin with a tour of Old Havana led by the Havana Historical Office. We will walk as a group to Old Havana from the hotel, leaving at 9am prompt. After the tour, walk around Old Havana (make sure you take time to visit: Plaza de Armas and Museo de la Ciudad; Plaza de la Catedral; Plaza Vieja; Plaza de San Francisco de Asis).
Then walk towards Centro Habana (visit Capitolio Nacional, Parque Central, Museum of the Revolution and Pavillón Granma and Chinatown (small area between Reina & Zanja – west of Capitolo). You need to walk back to Vedado in time for a 6pm meeting with Staff. As you walk around, think about the questions and try also think about the areas as a whole:
CAPITOLIO BUILDING 
History: The Capitolio Building was built on the site of Havana’s first railway station and was originally intended to be a presidential palace when work began in 1912. When US-backed dictator Gerardo Menocal became president, he changed the plans for the building but progress was delayed as the economy of Cuba struggled in the 1920s. Reportedly the fifth largest building in the world, the Capitolio was finally completed in just three years from 1926 to 1929 at a cost of nearly $20 million. The building was designed by Cuban architects and built by North American construction companies, French landscapers and Italian sculptors. The dome is 62m high and topped with a replica of a 16th century Italian statue of Mercury. Inside, the entryway opens into a large room at the centre of which is the third largest statue in the world at 11m tall. Cuban guidebooks suggest that the influences on the design of the building include St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and St. Peter’s in Rome (not the Capital Building in Washington DC). The Capitolio was the seat of the Cuban Congress until 1959 and now houses the Cuban Academy of Sciences and the National Library of Science and Technology. Highway distances between Havana and all sites are measured from this site. Consider:
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and boundaries: total: 29 km border countries: US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay 29km. Naval Base is leased to US and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease.
llicit migration is a continuing problem; Cubans attempt to depart the island and enter the US using homemade rafts, alien smugglers, direct flights, or falsified visas; Cubans also use non-maritime routes to enter the US including direct flights to Miami and over-land via the southwest border. Net Migration rate -1.57 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)