US-Cuban relations

We’ve already witnessed a thawing of US-Cuban relations in the last few years, culminating in President’s Obama’s historic visit to Cuba and the easing of the 50-year embargo which left the country crippled in every way. Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and the man in charge as of 2008, has shown to be more than willing to defrost relations and open his country to international trade and even more tourism.

The passing of Fidel, who one would imagine was still unwavering in his anti-US stance to his dying breath (‘hasta la Victoria siempre!’ may well have been his last words) may have led to an ever-increased easing of relations. Yet there now seems to be an obstacle in the way.

US President-elect Trump has only recently threatened to undo all that Obama and Raul Castro have managed to achieve in recent years. For Cubans, at the very least, this would be disastrous. But as with everything which has been recently uttered by the US President-elect, guess we’ll just have to wait and see just how much of that is hot air and how much of it concrete plans.

Tourists currently visiting Cuba have the invaluable opportunity of living through a chapter of world history, on what would have otherwise been simply a ‘splendid vacation’. A few are melancholic, no doubt, as a quiet and subdued Havana was likely not what they had in mind when they planned their Cuba vacation.

The island has been plunged into 9 days of national mourning, which will culminate in a state funeral of unprecedented proportions. For the meantime, museums have shut their doors, live music and alcohol have been banned and the entire island is infinitely less fiesta-like than it would normally be. Cubans don’t feel like partying right now and are adamant that showing respect for their leader take precedence over everything else.

As the first commercial flights from the US are due to arrive next week, Cuba is seeing an even bigger spike in tourist numbers.

The high season is very much here. Some will have no-doubt purposely booked last-minute trips to Cuba in order to witness the masses of people and tributes to Castro, who is due to be buried on December 9th.

Curiously enough, there will also be plane-loads more who will come to tour Cuba before the second Castro, Raul, also passes. Western tourists have always had this fascination with Cuba, the forbidden land, and the urgency to experience it before it changes – and trust that it will – will no doubt be a catalyst for a surge in visiting numbers.

We suspect that tourism will continue to drive Cuba’s economy forward. Despite the current downturn of the festive feel, which we assume will be merely temporary, life in Cuba will go on. Far too many people depend on the tourist dollar to let even the death of Fidel Castro get in the way. So far, there has been a 15% increase in tourist numbers in 2016, compared to 2015, and we suspect Cubans would be more than eager to ride the tourist wave forward.

They say history is a lucid and efficient judge of character, but when it comes to Fidel Castro I say that the only ones with any right to judge are Cubans. We may speculate how they might really feel right now, but fact is no-one but Cubans will know, or even truly understand, what this event means.

Yet one thing we can safely assume is that optimism will be the prevailing feeling in Cuba by Christmas, because optimism and opportunism are two characteristics which have defined Cubans the most, over the last half a century. Optimism that their country will go on, and eventually flourish and that it will, finally, come out of the isolating bubble it has lived in for far too long. The people of Cuba certainly deserve nothing short of an extraordinary future, with Fidel Castro an ever present but eventually distant memory.