First things first: the U.S. Department of State classifies Cuba as a totalitarian police state and has no formal diplomatic relations with the government of Fidel Castro. However, the U.S. does still operate an “Interest Section” which is housed in the same building as the old embassy (we “gave” it to the Swiss to avoid being thrown out). The building is surrounded by Cuban troops 24 hours a day, and anybody seen loitering around, walking too close, or gazing into the building is promptly shuffled off by armed men. Nobody gets in or out without showing a passport and having his information recorded and forwarded to the Ministry of the Interior.
The Ministry has its own police force, and when our group arrived on the island, we were introduced to our case officer. We were also issued Cuban identification papers which had to be presented for even the most basic transactions (changing currency, using the library, catching a cab). Our little brown booklets marked us as foreigners while Cubans held a variety of colors to indicate party status and rank within the government.
Our case officer explained that he was responsible for knowing more or less what we were doing and where to find us, and he also told us about the rules of our stay. We were to notify him through our program director any time we left Havana, we were to leave the country as soon as classes were over, and we weren’t allowed to have Cubans anywhere near our living spaces or in our building after 10pm. During the day, they could enter our common area, but they had to present ID and be registered. While these rules were ostensibly for our protection, they allowed the government to keep tabs on us and all the people we associated with.
Out and about in the city, there were uniformed police in kiosks at all major intersections and on almost every corner downtown. I can only speculate as to the presence of plain-clothes officers, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Trucks filled with soldiers rolled through the streets frequently, but they represented just a tiny fraction of the island’s defense force. Cuba’s government requires 2 years compulsory military service from all able bodied 18 year olds, and so practically everyone has been trained and prepared to fight in the event of an invasion. Tunnels, fortifications, and weapons caches litter the city, and drills are held periodically so that everyone knows where to report for duty.
Government offices and facilities (the University where I studied for example) have their own command posts, and employees and students on site when the alarms sound are expected to defend these areas.
In the neighborhoods and apartment complexes, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution handle the mobilization.
The CDR has houses on each block across the country, and they are staffed by an elected neighborhood delegate. They organize social and service events in each community, and these events, while "voluntary," are best attended to avoid being singled out for special surveillance or punishment.
In the early days of the revolution, the CDR network was used extensively to enforce ideological conformity and identify potential counterrevolutionaries. I must say that the CDRs I visited seemed quite benign (my local delegate was a friendly and drunken old man), but it is difficult to tell from the outside how active they still are in reporting dissent and policing the population.
With the state presence so ubiquitous it’s hard to imagine anything slipping through the cracks, but the illegal migrants, squatters, unregistered taxi drivers, prostitutes, drug dealers, and black marketeers are living testaments to the fact that it is impossible for a government to be everywhere and control everything. To put it bluntly, human beings are smart enough to know what they can get away with under any system.
In Cuba, the enforcement of the government’s complex and absurd laws is quite sporadic. If you are unlucky enough to be stopped at one of the main check points surrounding Havana, if you are careless enough to draw official attention to your business, if you do not tow the party line in conversations with strangers, bad things may well befall you.
However, so many people are employed by the government that it is impossible for an impending crackdown to be kept secret. When something serious is about to happen, the news is spread quickly by word of mouth, and people take action to avoid detection.
I remember one fine day it was impossible to catch a taxi. That’s because the government had decided to start randomly checking licenses. Most of the illegal drivers had gotten wind of it, and they wisely decided to take the day off. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get the memo, and so I ended up having to pay some jerk five times the normal rate for a lift home.
It may not be easy, but people survive, people work around the law to live their lives. The vast majority of casual dissidents, law breakers, and petit capitalists are never caught.
This is the reality of every state.
When governments attempt to change the fundamental behavior of their citizens, they are ignored by most, obeyed by some, and supported by those whose natural behavior happens to align with official policy. The state can play its whack-a-mole enforcement game indefinitely, but it cannot change us.
At the very worst of times, we can be cajoled into apparent acquiescence, displays of allegiance, acts of conformity, but the state can never silence the rebellion that takes place inside our minds when our rights our violated.
In the end, I was struck by the similarities more than the differences when I went to Cuba. Family, work, romance, and rest are at the core of life – and oppression and resistance define every society, even our own star spangled paradise.
