Some reflections on Castro's Cuba

Fidel Castro died at 90 years old three days ago. His death has sparked predictable rows about his legacy and the state of human rights in Cuba. He has been described as a dictator and a Stalinist but in my view was more likely a pragmatist. When he lead the revolution which overthrew the dictator Batista, Cuba was a giant casino-cum-brothel run by the US mafia. The overthrow was popular. Initially Castro asked the USA for help and when that was not forthcoming he turned to the Soviets instead. The USA did its best to undermine the revolution, carrying out many assassination attempts against Castro, sponsoring the infamous 'Bay of Pigs' invasion and carrying out an economic blockade that has lasted for over 50 years.

On the positive side the revolution has lead to free universal healthcare and education for Cubans, and Cuban aid in healthcare has been extended to other parts of the world - notably Africa. Cuban literacy is the highest in Latin America (100%) and 48.9 % of national assembly members are women. The Cubans helped in the overthrow of the apartheid regime in South Africa and acted as beacon for liberation in South America and a bulwark against American imperialism. However, there have clearly been limits imposed on freedom of speech and association in Cuba, there has been persecution of LGBT people, though this has now come to an end, and there are differing views on the number of people who may have been executed and tortured by the regime.

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Photo: Alberto Korda

Much of the criticism of Castro has focused on the lack of 'democracy' in a one party state. The assumption appears to be that only liberal democracies are democratic and that any truly democratic society must follow the Western model of representative democracy. But democracies in the West have important flaws such as in the UK where there is an unelected second chamber, no written constitution, and a first-past-the-post voting system which denies people the representation they want. In the USA there has recently been much criticism of the electoral college in a Presidential election where the winner Donald Trump got 2.5 million votes less than his opponent Hillary Clinton. So is liberal democracy the only form of 'acceptable' democracy or are there better alternatives? I think there are and I've posted about this previously on this blog.

Cuba also has to be viewed in the context of human rights abuses in liberal democracies such as the USA which has been involved in rendition and torture of many individuals, some of whom are still being held at Guantanamo Bay. In addition US drone strikes have been responsible for the assassination of 'terrorists' and the deaths of many innocent civilians. The USA disproportionately imprisons and kills black people through its judicial and police systems. These atrocities are rarely if ever mentioned in any discussion about Cuba in which the Western media focuses on denouncing Castro and Cuban governance.That is not to excuse any human rights abuses in Cuba. They were and are wrong and should be condemned.

What should a democratic system in a socialist state look like and how can the gains for the people made by a revolution be protected? Is it possible to have a functioning democracy without the kind of pluralism we see in liberal democracies? What is the point in having a revolution if the gains can be swept away by political parties backed by big money and vested interests as in the USA? I don't pretend to know all the answers but I do know that if the revolution in Cuba fails and it once again becomes a capitalist state the gross inequalities, including lack of healthcare and poverty, present in other countries such as the USA, will soon return. In our liberal democracy in the UK we have freedom, the freedom to starve, and sleep on the streets.

What is democracy and how can we make it work for us?

Everybody knows what democracy is don't they? Citizens of a state, who are eligible, get to vote every 4 to 5 years for representatives to an elected chamber, which is the seat of government. Wikipedia defines democracy as:

"Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally—either directly or indirectly through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws."

Then there is a whole lot of other stuff about the mechanisms of democracy such as voting systems and the structure of elected chambers which turns out to be pretty important because if that doesn't work, democracy doesn't work either.

In the West we have a system which has come to be known as 'liberal democracy' which many of us like to think is the best available. We know that because our leaders, including David Cameron and Barack Obama, are always lecturing the rest of the world that they should be using our 'democratic' system. But its clear that something is very wrong with Western liberal democracy, both here, in Europe, and in the USA. Fewer and fewer people want to vote and there is widespread disillusionment with the system. In 1950 83.9% of registered voters voted in the UK and in 2001 the number was 59.4%. Since then there has been an increase in the turnout but less than two thirds of registered voters voted in 2010, and the overall trend is downward. I believe that the disillusionment stems from the fact that democracy seems to work much better for some i.e. bankers, than others i.e. the rest of us.

So maybe its time we should go back to thinking about what democracy really is and how it could work better for all of us. That is why I recently read David Graeber's book The Democracy Project. Graeber starts by talking about Occupy Wall Street but the meat of his book is about democracy and decision making. It provides plenty of food for thought and is well worth reading. It also contains a few eye-openers for people who haven't studied the origins and development of democracy. And I like Graeber's ideas about consensus, something which is commonly poo-poohed by people who like adversarial democracy and seem to prefer there to be 'winners' and 'losers'. Consensus, far from being the shoddy compromise that some would have us believe, can be very powerful because its positive and inclusive.

If we go back to the origins of democracy in ancient Greece it was a very different setup to the one we are used to, one that we now call direct democracy. There were no representatives, and all citizens participated in decision making. Of course not everyone was a citizen, and women and slaves did not get to vote. In contrast, representative democracy is a relatively modern concept, and one which was intended, when the American Republic was founded, to prevent direct democracy from happening. You see the founding fathers of the USA feared direct democracy, which they saw as mob rule, and were determined that decision making was going to remain in the hands of men they could trust - themselves, and people like them. According to Graeber they agreed with the 'Puritan preacher John Winthrop who wrote':

"a democracy is, among most civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government."

So it follows that nowhere does the American constitution mention that the USA is a democracy. In fact the word 'democracy' had negative connotations for a long time and only became a popular term in the 19th century when politicians in the USA began to identify themselves as 'democrats'.  

Direct democracy in action in Switzerland

Given the current state of democracy in the West, in which a political class, divorced from the rest of society, has allied with corporate power to dominate our democratic institutions and control law making, its not difficult to see our current democratic system as anything other than government for the 1%. 

If we want to take back that democracy for the 99%, perhaps electing representatives is not the answer. We definitely need to empower citizens and undertake root and branch reform of our democratic institutions, starting from the lowest level of local government. So maybe we can learn something from the ancient Greeks by cutting out the 'middle man' and establishing what the American founding fathers feared most -  a form of direct democracy that allows all citizens a voice in decision making. Think it can't be done? Well it happens in Switzerland which has a form of direct democracy, and if it can happen there it can happen in the UK and other parts of the West. Democracy is much too important to be left in it's current state, in the hands of the political class and corporate lobbyists and it's something we should be having a national debate about. We need bring about real democratic change to make democracy work for us.

Britain's democracy is broken, is it beyond repair?

David Cameron came into office in 2010 banging on about 'broken Britain', since then he and Chancellor George Osborne seem to have done their best to ensure that Britain's society is broken with massive cuts of over £80 billion affecting the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. Cameron also talked about the electorate's lack of trust in politicians, but he has done nothing to restore that trust, and if anything, trust in politicians continues to decline. Despite Cameron's best efforts its not our society that's broken, its our democracy.

Two recent news stories which reinforce this point caught my eye this week. The first was about a dramatic decline in Conservative Party membership. Depending on which figures you believe membership is down to about 100,000 and has halved since Cameron came to power. According to George Eaton in the New Statesman:

"Although Labour membership has risen by 31,000 to 187,000 since Ed Miliband became leader, this remains far below the peak of 405,000 seen under Tony Blair in 1997. The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, have seen membership fall by 5,000 since the general election to 60,000, down from a peak of 101,000 in 1994. But it is the Tories, who once boasted a membership in excess of three million (see graph), who have suffered the most rapid decline. Should the trend continue, membership will soon fall below the psychologically significant 100,000 mark."

A similar story appeared in the Independent which talked about not just decline in membership of the Tories but increasing disillusionment with Westminster politics. I don't find any of this surprising and I posted about the decline of the three main Parties recently. It's not really difficult to understand why any of this is happening. Firstly, there is nothing to choose between the three main Parties. For a bunch of Parties who talk about offering the electorate "choice", there is precious little choice on offer from them. All have the same identikit policies. Of course "choice" really means "privatisation", which is something millions of voters, who are sick of being ripped-off by the private sector 'fat cats', are totally disillusioned with.

But the disillusionment goes much deeper than this and its the second reason for this decline which is by far the most important; our democracy is broken, it isn't working, and the list of things that are wrong is a very long one indeed. For a start, our electoral system doesn't reflect voters views; first past the post is well past its sell by date, a rotten system which no longer meets voters needs and aspirations. Then there is the increasing centralisation of power, something which has been happening for more than forty years. Local Government has been hollowed-out and councillors are little more than mere managers paid to implement central diktat. Also, there is the ongoing scandal of the continuation of the House of Lords, which was recently reported to be the largest chamber in the world after the National People's Assembly in China! I could go on but that will suffice for now.

The Palace of Westminster: home of a rotten and discredited parliament

Reform of our democratic system has never been more urgent. Without reform power will continue to be in the hands of the few, propped up by a shrinking number of voters. In the longer run this is a recipe for disaster, as people are likely to become disillusioned with the idea of democracy itself. We really need to re-evaluate what 'democracy' is, and I'd recommend you read David Graeber's recent book 'The Democracy Project', which examines what democracy really is, how it has developed, and how it can be made more participatory and responsive to people's needs. One thing is for sure, for a start we need real power devolved to regions and localities, instead of Tory platitudes about "localism", a completely reformed Parliament, with a fully elected second chamber, preferably based in a new chamber away from Westminster, which should become a museum, and an electoral system based on proportional representation. Until this happens, our democracy will continue to decay, and the legitimacy of Parliament, which is unloved and discredited, will continue to decline.

The global kleptocracy: 'free trade' and corporate economic imperialism

Whilst arguments rage in the UK about the aftermath of the horrific and senseless murder of a soldier in Woolwich, around the world corporations are continuing to push ahead with globalisation by looting the natural resources of developing nations and destroying the livelihoods of indigenous peoples. This is capitalism actively creating poverty in action. A recent article in the Guardian reported that:

"Land conflicts between farmers and plantation owners, mining companies and developers have raged across Indonesia as local and multinational companies have been encouraged to seize and then deforest customary land – land owned by indigenous people and administered in accordance with their customs. More than 600 were recorded in 2011, with 22 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The true number is probably far greater, say watchdog groups."

When this happens, there is invariably collusion between local politicians,  and the police and army, and the corporations, resulting in deaths and injuries to people trying to defend their land and resources. These are the very same corporations we are told we should be supporting, because they provide jobs and create wealth. But this is simply theft. This is the 'free' market in action, showing its true face.

Not so long ago this is what the empires of Britain, France and other colonial powers were doing, but since then nothing has really changed apart from the fact that this naked exploitation is hidden behind a veil of corporate respectability and underpinned by a raft of secretive trade agreements, supported by global organisations like the WTO. The impact of this, long evident in developing nations, is now being felt in western countries, in Europe and the UK, as the same corporations loot our pensions and asset strip our public services, putting profit before people. One of the best explanations of this process I've read 'Globalisation and Democracy' by Michael Parenti which I can't recommend highly enough. Parenti nails the mechanisms by which the 1% and corporations, which I like to call the 'global kleptocracy' steal wealth from the rest of us:

"With international “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA, GATT, and FTAA, the giant transnationals have been elevated above the sovereign powers of nation states. These agreements endow anonymous international trade committees with the authority to prevent, over rule, or dilute any laws of any nation deemed to burden the investmentand market prerogatives of transnational corporations. These tradecommittees–of which the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a prime example—set up panels composed of “trade special ists” who act as judges over economic issues, placing themselves above the rule and popular control of any nation, thereby insuring the supremacy of international finance capital. This process, called globalization, is treated as an inevitable natural “growth” development beneficial to all. It is in fact a global coup d’état by the giant business interests of the world [my italics]."

The latest of these agreements is the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) , which is a further extension of corporate power, enabling corporations to bypass or overrule the democratic decision of our elected governments. Our leading politicians, including President Obama, are promoting this corporate destruction of our democratic rights. We need to raise awareness of what is happening not only because of the destructive power of globalisation, but because it is a theft, not only of land and resources but also our democratic sovereignty.