Cuba USA

¨Symbols¨ in the opening of the United States Embassy in Havana.

by Rosa Miriam Elizalde

source Cubadebate

translation Cuba-Network in Defense of Humanity

There were three impeccable Chevrolets of the 50s parked in front of the Malecon like props for the speech by the US Secretary of State. In Havana, the old cars that are so nostalgic for the tourists became a symbol of the opening of the United States Embassy, a magnificent illusion. Even moments before beginning the ceremony to raise the flag those care became protagonists of the décor reminding us that the border between one country and its stereotypes is a fine line that separates reality from fiction.

We should not have been surprised of the stage setting. If we use the conventional distinction between hard power and soft power that Joseph Nye made popular, it is clear that in Obama the empire is a symbol. A clear difference to that used by George W. Bush of the military threat. The current administration trusts, above all, the strength of the word and the image to achieve its political objectives. A difference that sometimes is not subtle and shortens the distance between the hawk and the dove as when the Under Secretary of State, Roberta Jacobson said in Havana in a press conference in the building that had been the Interest Section of Washington, the strategy of the United States towards Cuba remains the same as in the previous administrations; it is just a change of tactics.

But let us return to the symbol. In an article of the New York Times published in 2004, Ron Suskind, informed that after objecting to the way Bush conducted the war in Iraq making it a mass spectacle, the main advisor of the president, Karl Rove answered: “Do you think that decisions arise from an analysis of reality? The world no longer functions that way. Now we are an empire and when we act we create our own reality”. That was the political discourse that made Iraq a “pacified” country in which democratic stability would be envied by the nations around it; the ones who would have no choice but to join in. More than ten years later, the symbols that create and recreate the uncomfortable reality of those “dark corners” of the planet are auctioned.

And in that manner the symbol makes good press so that in August 14 in Havana it was leaked in all the press releases. In the ceremony of the United States mission, the old cars were decorated with the stars and stripes that refused to fly – in an implacable sun and no breeze from the Malecon that Friday - and the three marines who had waited 54 years to see it flutter in the flag pole. And John Kerry of course. But the old cars, conserved impeccably as if they had been stored in a museum waiting for the return of the US embassy were the cherry on the pie, a perfect metaphor that Cuba was frozen in the past. An exotic postcard of return. But what no one said, this magnificent body that circulates throughout Cuba, heirs of iron and tin from the Second World War survived a blockade that did not let even a washer slip through – like nothing that the Cubans needed to live –. However, inside they were ingeniously repaired with Russian motors, Chinese batteries, Polish brakes, Angolan tires, and light bulbs from any part and shock absorbers made with nickel from the “Che Guevara” factory in

Moa. The form is not innocent regarding the content and this symbol for those who inhabit the island it is joke. At least.

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