Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl attend a session of Parliament in July 2004.
Editor's Note:
Jorge G. Castañeda is a CNN contributor.
He was Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico from 2000 to 2003. He is currently a professor at New York University and his most recent book, “America Through Foreign Eyes,” was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. The opinions expressed in this comment are only from the author.
You can find more opinion pieces at CNNe.com/opinion.
(CNN Spanish) -
Many of the comments about the departure of Raúl Castro from the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba and his replacement by Miguel Díaz-Canel have focused on the possibility - or not - that this replacement will bring about changes background in the economic or political system of the country. But it should also be the occasion to carry out an examination of the balance of more than 70 years of Castroism on the island, since the beginning of 1959 to be more exact. The results are not encouraging.
A former Cuban diplomat has compared Raúl Castro's departure to that of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. For Carlos Alzugaray, in the same way that Deng retained his influence after having resigned from all his positions in the State, the party and the Army in the early 1990s and maintained an important ascendancy over his successor, Jiang Zemin, and over The country, for example through its historic "tour of the south" in 1992, Castro will continue to influence the so-called Cuban strategic decisions.
But the comparison is not only valid in relation to the persistent influence of both leaders after leaving their positions.
It is pertinent in terms of the legacy of both, especially if we include Fidel Castro as an inherent and congenital part of Castroism.
The comparison is not favorable for Cuba, far from it.
Deng delivered a country that had already lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty by then, and was on the eve of one of the most extraordinary economic booms in history.
Raúl Castro delivers a shipwreck.
More Cubans want to reach the US due to the economic crisis 2:04
The serious thing is not so much that the changes in Cuba probably will not bring with them any political or human rights opening. Nor does the economy go through the worst moment since the so-called “special period”, at the beginning of the 90s, when the end of the Soviet subsidy entailed a brutal contraction of the island economy and a shortage of all kinds in the country. It is not even so worrying for Cubans - or their neighbors in Latin America - that Cuba counts less and less on the international stage. The bottom line is whether 63 years of the Castro dictatorship were worth it.
The most realistic and honest supporters of Havana would reply that since 1971, and if you prefer, since 1978, Beijing did not have to face an embargo like the one Washington imposed on the island. In addition, there are at least three positive balances of the revolutionary regime: sovereignty or independence, education and health. The first is true, but it is also true that Mao, Zhou Enlai and Deng himself knew how to negotiate with the United States a
modus vivendi
that has already lasted half a century. Not Cuba. In the same way, the long-held Cuban sovereignty has suffered for almost the entire life of the Castro regime a total dependence, first on the USSR, now on Venezuela, and always on remittances from Miami. While the supposed achievements in education and health should be relativized.
Indeed, when in the 1960s and 1970s the Cuban Revolution transformed a country that - in any case - already had one of the highest literacy and health rates in Latin America, and provided the entire population with free medical care and universal education, also free, this was exceptional in the region. Today it is not anymore. The largest countries - Brazil and Mexico - have an average schooling very close to that of Cuba (more than nine years in Mexico). It is free for anyone who wants it. Public higher education is either (see the case of UNAM) or the fees are selective and modest. In the case of health, Brazil has maintained free universal social security since its 1988 Constitution. Until Andrés Manuel López Obrador eliminated it, the so-called Seguro Popular in Mexico, created in 2003,and Social Security — created in 1943 and still in force — guaranteed free medical care to almost all Mexicans. The same can be said for the vast majority of middle-income countries in Latin America. Some, like Costa Rica and Uruguay, boast better welfare states than Cubans.
What does better mean?
Again, the followers of the island's government would reply that the quality of Cuban education and health is superior to that of other Latin American countries.
Chile's educational averages hide strong inequalities, and Argentine health indicators, too.
The problem is that we do not know much about the quality of Cuban services, because we do not know much about the Cuban educational and health reality, except what the Castro governments tell us.
Raúl Castro photographed on January 1, 2019, during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution in Santiago de Cuba.
(Credit: Yamil Lage / AFP / Getty Images)
For example, in Cuba the PISA test or survey has never been carried out, in association with the OECD.
This is the best (or "least worst") standard in the world to compare the real, non-propaganda, educational levels of each country, with tests applied to 15-year-olds in three subjects, in all countries, with the same criteria .
All the UN institutions (UNESCO, ECLAC, etc.) that reproduce Cuban education statistics depend on the figures provided by the government.
There are no own and autonomous sources.
In view of Cuba's enormous lag in internet, connectivity and computing services, it is highly probable that when such investigations can be carried out, the results will be mediocre.
Despite the shipments of tens of thousands of Cuban doctors to numerous countries in Africa and Latin America over the years, the situation in this matter must be similar. Some Cuban indices - such as infant mortality - have been corroborated by international institutions with their own sources, but even so, doubts persist about the reasons for the exploits (the fortunate generalization of voluntary termination of pregnancies, emigration and the decision to have fewer children because of poverty, for example). Above all, with the extreme astringency of health resources of all kinds, and the immense Cuban technological lag, it is unlikely that the quality of medical care (except for VIP) is superior to that of other countries in the region. About,The fact that very few Cuban doctors who come to the United States can practice their profession there is suggestive. Among other reasons, some do not pass the demanding professional exams, others have problems with English and others simply come with knowledge far behind due to the lack of tools and books after the 1950s.
Were more than 70 years of repression, human rights violations, one-party, no election, perennial shortages and eternal deprivations, isolation and exile worth it?
It is impossible to know what the most interested people think, namely the Cubans.
Nobody asks them.
Raul castro