Change is in the air in Havana

Observing President Obama and his beautiful family in Cuba this week, one could still be convinced, as many Americans are, that this voyage for "freedom" was a serious mistake.

The historic trip was at exactly the wrong time in the wrong place, critics have been saying. Oh yes, the visit marked progress, they argued, but the wrong kind - in fact, the visit was designed by the Castro brothers to keep their power forever by bringing in highly regulated American investments without giving away any political control.

It has hardly been a secret that "Los Hermanos Castros" - from Fidel's revolutionary march from the mountains into Havana in 1959, to Cuba's sympathetic collapse in 1991 when the Soviet Union officially died, and finally to El Presidente Raul Castro's clumsy attempts to bring American investments into Cuba on his terms - have driven the beautiful island into the ground.

Cubans today are paid the equivalent of $20 a month. Travel outside the island is still largely controlled by the state, in particular by the Cuban military, as are all of the major industries. Over recent years, Raul very publicly made it possible for Cubans to legally create some small businesses, although Cuba remains the most highly state-controlled economy in the world next to North Korea.

When international scholars looked into these businesses, they unanimously found they were only the smallest of enterprises - shining shoes and operating bed-and-breakfasts in Cuban homes.

So the critics of Obama's visit are right? In fact, they are wrong. Even while their facts about Cuba's deplorable conditions are right, a serious look at the "opening to Cuba," if indeed that is what it turns out to be, strongly shows that it will offer more to the U.S. than to the Castros.

It is quite impossible to believe that even the most hardened revolutionaries will not soon see a country influenced strongly by American culture, as beautiful Americanized hotels and other symbols of change, even those of questionable value, are suddenly unloaded among them.

Perhaps the key to this new U.S./Cuban relationship can be found in Obama's speech to Cubans on Monday. Displaying an invaluable understanding of the fraught history between the two unlike nations, the American president said: "I affirm that Cuba's destiny will not be decided by the United States or any other nation. Cuba is sovereign and rightly has great pride, and the future of Cuba will be decided by Cubans, not by anybody else."

Meanwhile, he also told ABC News: "I think it is very important not to view ourselves as the agents of change here, but rather to encourage and facilitate Cubans themselves to bring about changes. We want to make sure that whatever changes come about are empowering Cubans."

At some moments during the speech, he seemed to go out of his way to throw in some foolish praise of the "Cuban experiment." For instance, he praised the "system of education," which has been able to eliminate illiteracy (but also forbids those now literate Cubans to read great writings) and he deified the famous Cuban doctors Fidel's Cuba has produced (but primarily uses as barter for other nations' products).

If there was anything original in the speech, it was in the part where Obama noted that democracy was, in fact, what had allowed him to stand there, in Havana, striving toward a new relationship with a totally unlike and distrusted system on America's borders.

And, especially for Raul, the president noted, "Cuba has nothing to fear from the U.S. - and nothing to fear from its own people." With this clever play to history, assuring Raul that all his people are with him, when they certainly are not, Obama scored high points among discerning people who know how to read the tea leaves.

Fidel never appeared, of course. He was apparently too ill. Had he been in power still, after reigning like an emperor on a tiny island that he controlled by the force of his charismatic personality, there would have been no Obama trip. But Raul, who was for decades the head of the Cuban military, is a different cat - a cat who will eat chicken if salmon is not available.

Raul will never enchant the Cuban people as Fidel did simply because he doesn't have "it." Fidel was the charismatic king in his day. But now, the Cuban people face the boredom, bother and benediction of the classic "day after."

Email Georgie Anne Geyer at gigi_geyer@juno.com.

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