Sports in Cuba in the Twenty-First Century: The Challenges of the New Millennium
Download 126.81 Kb.
|
|
Sports in Cuba in the Twenty-First Century: The Challenges of the New Millennium Julie Marie Bunck Professor University of Louisville May 8, 2015 Sports in Cuba in the 21st Century: The Challenges of the New Millennium Abstract Although political leaders find transforming culture to be inherently difficult, revolutionary regimes have sometimes succeeded in changing aspects of culture to suit the goals of their new government. In this regard the Cuban regime has long tried to highlight the successes of its athletic programs and sports policies. Here, the leadership has argued, revolutionary values have triumphed over the island’s traditional culture. However, in trying to contend with the problems of the post-Cold War era, Cuban leaders have had to institute budget cuts, re-order their priorities, and re-introduce capitalist approaches. These changes, in turn, have deeply affected Cuban sports. Cubans today do not always have the access to top-notch facilities that they once enjoyed. Those athletes who are potentially world-class do not always face top competition. In the face of manifold problems in Cuba’s ‘revolutionary sports,’ many Cuban athletes have defected, and the regime has had to sell the skills of Cuban coaches and trainers on the international market. This takes them out of Cuba and away from the process of molding Cuban teams. This paper explores how these developments have threatened Cuba’s revolutionary sports culture and what the consequences may be. For instance, the ‘new man’ – molded so carefully by the regime – may question his government for failing to act in accordance with its own revolutionary cultural norms. The future of sports in revolutionary Cuba is full of questions, but that it will differ markedly from the past now seems all but certain.
Cuba, culture, sports Introduction Transforming Cuban sports has been an important part of the regime’s efforts to revolutionize society. Athletics have been used to invigorate Marxism-Leninism at home and abroad. The image of Cuba being victorious in one international competition after another has been a key part of the national identity that Cuban leaders have tried to foster. And, a new, dynamic, and revolutionary sports consciousness has been integral to the image that the Cuban government has sought to export. In fact, the Castro regime has long used sports diplomacy1 to try to show the world how socialism can succeed and to bolster the island’s international prestige. The Cuban regime relied on its public diplomacy2 to tout the successes of socialism and to link sports triumphs to the moral and practical superiority of Marxism over capitalism. Most critically, the Cuban government placed sports accomplishments in the vanguard of its effort to project Cuba as a formidable and prestigious actor in international affairs. Sporting successes were to demonstrate how modern, progressive, and well organized the country had become. They were to further the cause of the Cuban revolution and win international admiration and respect.3 And yet, although scholars have painstakingly analyzed many aspects of Cuba’s revolutionary society, including its efforts to change the island’s pre-revolutionary culture, 4 relatively little attention has been devoted to Cuban sports diplomacy, particularly as it relates to the challenges of the post-Cold War era. This is a fruitful area for further study of the broader issue of cultural change in revolutionary Cuba. While many governments try to change their society’s culture, assessing the degree to which a government has succeeded in such a task is more readily accomplished by studying revolutionary, than non-revolutionary, societies. First, revolutionary governments regularly undertake projects aimed at cultural change. Part of the very essence of being a revolutionary involves envisioning a new society. But, many important dimensions of the traditional culture may be quite inappropriate for the state that is being planned. Thus, revolutionary leaders have often set out not only to revamp a state’s institutions but to change the pre-existing culture to suit their ideology. Furthermore, for scholars, a revolution – with its abrupt break with the past and the appearance of a brand-new set of institutions and policies -- creates a fascinating opportunity to study how citizens have responded to state efforts to alter traditional culture. Since at least 1964 scholars have examined the relationship between changes in structure and institutions and changes in culture in revolutionary Cuba.5 During the early 1970s and, then, during the late 1980s ‘rectification’ period, the regime’s attempts to establish a revolutionary culture -- to create a Guevarian “new man”6 -- was a process that occupied considerable time, attention, and resources. What scholars found was that the regime’s efforts to transform much of pre-revolutionary Cuban culture and to create a culture in tune with Marxist values was often resisted. The revolutionary government tried different strategies aimed at instigating cultural change. Some relied on moral persuasion, others on material rewards. Some included elements of public humiliation and various other forms of coercion. Despite all of this, though, many aspects of traditional Cuban culture remained stubbornly resilient. For example, traditional attitudes toward women, labor, and youth proved to be especially difficult to alter.7 However, while Cuban leaders were often disappointed by the results of policies that aimed to promote cultural change, their efforts by no means completely failed. One particular success involved the regime’s creation of a new sports conciencia. In particular, Cuban culture came to reflect the perspective of the island’s new leaders. Sports should be non-elitist, non-professional, and freely available to the masses. Sports should provide the average person with regular opportunities to exercise and compete. The best of Cuba’s athletes should be given the chance to shine internationally: the state would chose them and train them, first for national competitions and then for international ones. Elite athletes would thus gain opportunities to shine on international stages where they would serve as models of and even, perhaps, spokespersons for the Cuban revolution. With pre-revolutionary attitudes toward sports eradicated, the new approach seemed to deliver great successes. Cuba’s triumphant sports teams became the centerpiece of much public diplomacy, as revolutionary Cuba tried to showcase its new revolutionary culture. Much has been made of American exceptionalism, Cuban exceptionalism was often tied to sports on the island. Here, the regime attempted to stand as a model that other developing countries might emulate. After one international sports victory in 1966, an article in Granma, Cuba’s official newspaper, read: “We will not look upon this as a triumph of our nation, but rather as a triumph of an idea, a social system, a concept of life.”8 This was the dominant narrative emerging from Cuba with respect to its athletes through much of the first three decades of the revolution. But then, the Soviet Union fell, and with it a post-Cold War era dawned. This greatly challenged all Marxist societies, but particularly those, like Cuba and Vietnam, that had long been loyal Soviet allies. In academics the onset of the post-Cold War era also presented to scholars new intellectual puzzles. How would cultures respond to the new era? Would pre-revolutionary attitudes and values make a comeback? With governments scrambling to stay afloat, could something like Cuba’s revolutionary sports concencia be salvaged? Would Cuban sports continue to thrive in this new era? Or, as the government sought new sources of hard currency and tried to stave off the changes that had swept across the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies, would Cuban sports be grievously affected? During the first quarter-century of the post-Cold War era, the Castro leadership has continued many of its public diplomacy efforts, touting the triumph of revolutionary values and ideas over the country’s traditional culture. And, the regime has continued to point with pride to the performance of its athletes abroad, arguing that they testify to the ongoing success of its domestic sports policies. Among the key question for scholars, however, are the following. ** Have the difficult economic circumstances of the post-Cold War period affected the government’s sports policies and the island’s athletes? Have theymarred the record of Cuban athletic success? ** To what extent have Cuban sports supported the regime’s post-Cold War objectives? ** Has the Cuban regime maintained or abandoned its efforts to preserve a revolutionary sports culture? ** How resilient has the revolutionary conciencia proven to be, has a reversion to traditional sports culture threatened to occur, and has the regime found it necessary to constantly nurture its revolutionary sports culture? ** How has this played out internationally? Have contradictions developed within the international message proclaimed by the Cuban regime? ** Finally, in terms of political philosophy, what do developments in Cuba show about the manner in which cultural attitudes persist and evolve or go dormant and later re-emerge? Sports in Revolutionary Cuba Developing a Cuban Sports Conciencia Immediately upon gaining power, the revolutionary government began to try to fashion a new communist citizen, eradicating unhelpful pre-revolutionary attitudes and beliefs and inculcating new ones, starting in 1961. Before long, the leftist Cuban regime had developed a flourishing national revolutionary sports consciousness. Since pre-revolutionary sports had been elitist and capitalist, seen as a commodity and a product of American imperialism,9 the Cuban government tried to create a new sports culture in which athletes would take on a social role that would contribute to and strengthen fundamental objectives of Marxism-Leninism.10 Once a highly regarded pitcher himself, Fidel Castro repeatedly lamented the fact that relatively few Cubans were participants in, rather than simply spectators of, sports. A 1969 Granma Weekly Review article reminded Cubans that pre-revolutionary sporting events had “gravitated around institutions, around private clubs which were only for the powerful classes, the national bourgeoisie, those who could belong to clubs because they had money and opportunities.”11 Soon, the Cuban government was encouraging all the Cuban people, every single age group, to participate in sports. This was seen as a way to unify and mobilize the Cuban people. Athletics would preoccupy and invigorate, discipline and rally, the population. Cuban officials, intent on developing Cubans as strong workers and soldiers, looked to promote hardier, healthier, more skilled citizens through sports competitions. Through athletics, the regime would build stronger and more productive people by enabling them to take advantage of the athletic opportunities the Revolution now offered up. Top Cuban officials saw sports as a way to stimulate revolutionary values, instil discipline and focus, and control leisure time for children, students, and workers alike. At the same time, international politics brought Cuba’s leaders to support their new sports policies. Athletic triumphs and superior performances by their athletes abroad would bring status, prestige, and recognition. The state would be heavily involved in finding and training Cuba’s top athletes, just as Soviet officials developed their sports stars and teams of world-class athletes. The island’s international competitors would be put on display as examples of Cuba’s perfectly balanced “new man.” Cuba’s victories in sporting competitions thus became a regular theme in Fidel Castro’s speeches over many years. How Cuban athletes were faring seems to have been a subject that was never far from his mind. In trying to establish and inculcate this new revolutionary sports conciencia, the regime had certain important advantages. Even during the first years of the Revolution it could take advantage of Cuba’s many sports fans. An avid pre-revolutionary interest involved watching – and sometimes participating in – sports, particularly baseball. But, to hasten the transformation of what it saw as less useful sports attitudes on the island, the government abolished professional sports altogether. Across the island, playing fields, playgrounds, and athletic schools were constructed. The government founded the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education, and Recreation (INDER) to stand as the guiding institution to develop Cuban athletics. INDER would supervise sports education in every one of the island’s schools. By the mid-1960s the regime had launched enterprising “participation campaigns,” aimed at getting citizens out to pools, tracks, courts, and playing fields. And, in 1967 the government stimulated the Cuban fan base by announcing that admission to all Cuban sports events would be free. “Sports today,” a Granma article read, “are the right of the people, an important factor in the integral training of our youth.... Sports are no longer sponsored by those financial interests which formerly controlled professional sports, now abolished in Cuba.”12 In addition, the regime established Voluntary Sports Councils. These were charged with an array of tasks. They promoted national sports campaigns, organized programs and competitions, introduced games into schools, community centers, and the work place, encouraged children to participate at local sports centers and athletic camps, and kept track of athletic activities. Perhaps most important, the Cuban state established a complex system for screening and selecting the most athletically promising children for advanced training.13 Every year nearly all Cuban schoolchildren participated in some form of sports competition. Local games, called spartakiades, provided experts opportunities to identify promising young athletes. The government’s experts then chose the most talented to attend the specialized sports schools called Escuelas de la Iniciación de Deportivas Escolates (EIDEs). Those who excelled competed in the National School Games, which for most Cuban athletes stood as their first national competition. The most impressive performers were then recruited to receive even more refined and intensive training at the Escuelas Superior de Perfeccionamiento Atletico (ESPAs). The top few moved on to train at the two Centros de Alto Rendimiento (CEARs) for international competitors.14 In addition, the government established the impressive Ciudad Deportiva (Sports City) on the outskirts of Havana, an imposing set of facilities including an arena, an outdoor track, and a 15,000-seat soccer stadium. It also included a national Training Center, the Institute of National Medicine, and the National Physical Education Institute, and it featured a modern aquatics complex, including a natatorium and outdoor swimming pools.15
In fact, the international performance of Cuban athletes usually outpaced not just competitors from other developing countries, but athletes from far more wealthy and industrialized states. Cuba won 173 gold medals at the 1982 Central American and Caribbean Games (CACG), 174 at the 1986 CACG, and 227 at the 1993 CACG. It brought home 174 golds from the 1987 Pan American Games (PAG). After ranking 31st in the 1968 Olympics, it placed 14th at the 1972 Munich Olympics, 8th at the 1976 Olympics, and 4th at the 1980 Olympics. After boycotting the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, Cuban athletes took 5th place in the 1992 Olympics. These victories marked the high-water point in Cuba’s Olympic performances to date. Naturally, Cuban athletes winning competitions against teams from the United States was a special cause for celebration. That a small island could defeat a superpower in sports stood not only as evidence of the value of socialism but presented opportunities to embarrass the regime’s leading enemy. These victories then provided fodder for Cuba’s public diplomacy. Thus, in 1988 Castro reminded his citizens and international observers that Cuban athletes had set eight world records at the 1987 Pan American Games and beat the United States in boxing, fencing, baseball, rhythmic gymnastics, wrestling, weightlifting, and volleyball.18 Similarly, after the 1991 Pan American Games Castro emphasized how the Cubans had defeated the Americans: the Cubans had won 140 gold medals while the Americans had taken only 130. Cuba’s revolutionary identity was reinforced by these victories.19 For Cuban leaders one of their countries most potent forms of soft power involved athletic successes and sports diplomacy.20 At the same time, the Cuban masses were participating in sports in unprecedented numbers. Cuban leaders emphasized this fact, too, in their public diplomacy efforts and cited it as one of the Revolution’s real priorities. In 1966 Castro declared that Cuba was en route to attaining the goal of a “widespread mass movement” in sports.21 Cuba, the Cuban leader explained, is the “first country in the world where all primary and secondary schools, as well as technological schools and universities, include sports as an integral part of their curricula.... Sports consciousness has grown and developed extraordinarily among our people.”22 Even so, the leadership exhorted citizens toward further efforts. As the Director of INDER explained in 1972, “The ... fundamental objective ... is a greater participation by the people, which should reach massive levels.”23 In short, by its third decade in power the Cuban regime had transformed popular attitudes toward sports on the island to a truly remarkable extent. Athletics had been made accessible to Cubans, and the people – young and old – were active in sports at unprecedented levels. Further, Cuban fans were closely following their athletes’ domestic and international performances and attending sporting events at home at record levels. Many Cuban athletes had become phenomenally successful international performers. Cuban teams could compete against any country, and the best Cuban athletes in a number of sports ranked among the top ten in the world. Here was the best evidence that the socialist government had wiped out pre-revolutionary culture and created a ‘new man’ ready to succeed in Marxist society. By the beginning of the Revolution’s third decade this exuberant message of victories by Cuban athletes had become a real centerpiece of the regime’s diplomacy.
The leadership’s success at instigating cultural change in the field of sports illustrates that culture can be altered more readily when the government finds important elements of preexisting culture that can be preserved and built upon, a foundation upon which to promote new ways of thinking. To change the metaphor, governments may find it easier to graft and then nurture along a hybrid culture, rather than to eliminate entirely preexisting culture and plant something wholly new. A certain continuity with the past makes cultural transformation more palatable and less threatening. In the case of sports, while the government attacked many aspects of Cuba’s pre-revolutionary sports culture, including popular views toward professionalism and elite participation, it preserved and promoted some useful aspects of traditional Cuban sports culture. For instance, Cuban baseball had enjoyed a long history of world championships reaching back well past the Revolution.24 The regime encouraged and publicized that legacy. The Cuban people had also taken great pride in the relatively few Cuban athletes who had gone abroad to pursue professional careers. As part of their campaign to foster a new sports conciencia, Cuban officials wove into their public narrative points about the Cuban sports legacy. That the government could adopt and draw upon certain aspects of pre-revolutionary culture helps to explain why this effort to change sports culture succeeded.25 Citizens in most societies are inherently self-interested. People usually make choices based on what they perceive might improve their well-being. Thus, in the first instance the success in developing a revolutionary sports consciousness might be attributed to the fact that both Cuban citizens and the Castro regime clearly benefited from the new sports conciencia. The government could take advantage of substantial international prestige and recognition. Citizens could gain opportunities for release from the stress of daily life as well as chances to improve their fitness and health through participation. Finally, not only were Cuban athletes heroes to their fellow citizens, something the government explicitly encouraged, but Cuban officials offered its best athletes a significantly improved quality of life and the ability to travel abroad to non-communist countries. Cuba’s top performers even gained salaries lucrative for the island, though of course much below those earned by professional athletes in capitalist societies. Thus, aspiring to join this class of elite performers helped to motivate the mass participation of youth in sports. The record thus suggests that cultural change in most societies may be more readily accomplished when the interests of citizens and leaders converge and complement one another. This “something-for-everyone” balance, which ensures that all interests are being served, may exponentially improve the chances that government policies can transform culture. Sports in Post-Cold War Cuba The Effects of the Economic Crisis The end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union triggered a crippling economic crisis in Cuba. Soviet subsidies having disappeared, the Cuban leadership found itself compelled to close hundreds of factories, cut bus routes and train services, reduce food rations and medicine supplies, curtail newspaper production, curb television and radio broadcasting, close theaters and restaurants, and encourage citizens to ride bicycles and farmers to use beasts of burden. In the early post-Cold War years imports and exports plummeted by 85 percent, and Cubans endured frequent and enduring power outages.26 The crisis compelled the leadership to reorder its priorities. Cubans soon discovered that sports and recreation, like so many other areas of Cuban life, were not immune from the effects of financial crisis. During these especially difficult years Cuba’s sports programs suffered markedly, on both the domestic and international levels. Neverthless, the regime did not hurry to carry out significant cuts immediately after the Soviet collapse. Castro had already committed Cuba to hosting the 1991 Pan American Games. He remained determined to carry through, hoping, no doubt, that Cuban athletes would shine in that competition as they had in so many others. INDER thus continued to receive a larger slice of a rapidly diminishing pie for a longer period of time than might otherwise have been the case. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 126.81 Kb. Share with your friends:
|