By Mark Currie, University of Ottawa

There’s something about wanting to reach the top of a high point that I don’t understand but nonetheless drives me to keep climbing. Maybe it’s just my curiosity to know what’s up there. Maybe I’m hoping for a different angle from which to see the world. Maybe I just want to feel taller. Whatever the reason, on May 14, 2018, while taking in all that Holguin, Cuba, has to offer until we traveled to the CASCA Conference in Santiago de Cuba, my friend and I decided to ascend the staircase of La Loma de la Cruz (The Hill of the Cross). We were told that at the top was the point where a cross had been erected in 1790 to seek help from Above in ending a drought. Neither my friend nor I are particularly religious, so the cross itself (which has been replaced several times since 1790) was of minor interest to us, but we were told that it was a site that tourists and locals alike visited every day and where special ceremonies sometimes took place, and we wanted as much as we could to do as the locals do. I think it was this attitude that made our approach to this trek different from that of many other non-Cubans we saw paying a visit.

We walked up the 465 steps that rise to the top of La Loma de la Cruz, which is approximately 275m high. As we pushed ourselves up the last few steps, we encountered two Cuban men who offered words of encouragement, telling us that we’d almost made it. While not exactly Kilimanjaro, we were happy to find a small place to purchase water to rehydrate and beer to enjoy as our legs and lungs recuperated from the trek. Not long after we’d sat down on the steps of the cross to take in the view and sip our cold Cristal beer, the two men we’d encountered earlier came to sit with us. Francisco was the taller of the two and was more boisterous and confident as he approached me. Armando was quiet and initially seemed shy as he stood within talking distance but didn’t sit on the steps with us. My friend and I both greeted them kindly and exchanged introductions, but mentally braced ourselves for what we thought would be yet another sales pitch for rum and cigars. As it turned out, Francisco and Armando did sell cigars, and in the end we did purchase some, but that exchange didn’t occur until a number of hours of simply sitting and talking with them as if meeting new friends. We were in no hurry and felt we would be remiss to simply take a photo and leave (as several tourists did) when we had an opportunity to learn. It was in our discussion with our new Cuban acquaintances that we felt like we were “doing as the locals do” by talking about everyday life in Cuba. The conversation provided me an opportunity to speak using the little bit Spanish I know and to make better connections between the language and context. Francisco and Armando were patient and happy to help me when I couldn’t find the Spanish words I needed, and luckily they both spoke some English (better than my Spanish), otherwise I think it would’ve been a much shorter chat.

Beyond meeting and engaging with other academics at the CASCA conference, what I wanted to find out on this trip was how Cuban people feel about the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s and the various ways it is portrayed now, both in Cuba and internationally. In terms of views I’d encountered prior to this trip to Cuba, the one end of the spectrum seemed to be that Fidel Castro was a murderous dictator who plunged Cuba into poverty. The other end saw the Revolution in a positive light that allowed Castro and crew to introduce free healthcare and education to the people of Cuba. The idea of the latter is that Cubans are only poor by capitalist standards of materialism, but actually have access to the necessities for a healthy and happy life without unnecessary consumption. My views were always closer to the end that placed Castro and Cuba in a positive light, disrupting the binary of what it means to be rich and poor. I still lean that way mostly, but not having really experienced life in Cuba, I wanted to know whether or not this position defending the Cuban system was properly conceived. After talking with Francisco and Armando, it was clear that I was previously caught in another binary of left vs right politics and the reality is more complex than that.

When Armando finally spoke up, he offered a perspective that caused me and is still causing me to think about capitalism, communism, and how the people living in these systems show that ideologies are and must be in flux. When I asked about the equality of people’s lives, Armando told me that yes, everything is equal, but that this equality is what hurts the people. By this he didn’t mean that he wished he lived in a society where there is a divide between financially rich and poor. Rather, he was talking about growth as a person. In this equal society, theoretically, everyone has access to what they need to live, but no more and no less. What this means, according to Armando, is that there is nothing to strive for but also no reason to strive. The result is merely existence. Indeed, this portrayal of mundaneness is oversimplified for the realities of life in Cuba, but it is still an opinion held by a man who lives in Cuba and so should not be discounted. Armando’s perspective lends to pondering what equality really looks like and whether or not our critiques of capitalism, communism, equality, and inequality are simply recycling the same old terms and positions rather than looking for new angles from which to see the world.