Customer Reviews

This Is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ben Corbett's "This is Cuba" is a frustrating read, at least for a Cuban-American with family still living on the island. On the one hand Corbett lived in Cuba, lived among the people, and contributes an undeniable first-hand account of life there. On the other, he refuses to make a clear judgment about the sociopolitical system he recounts.

The book's thesis is that Castro's regime has so perverted incentives, that every Cuban, in one way or another, breaks the law every day. That in order to survive, Cubans must be outlaws. But rather than condemn such a system, Corbett sheepishly asserts that this is only the result of misapplied socialism, and that if only things were done better, it would all work out.

The book is also riddled with incorrect translations from Spanish that make you wonder about the rest of the book's foundations. It also contains many inaccurate cultural references, such as calling La Virgen de la Caridad Cuba's "patron saint"; she is the Virgin Mary. It is frustrating that most American readers will not catch the mistakes.

Despite these criticisms, however, I would still recommend this book. Corbett lived in the island, saw what went on with his own eyes, and such an eyewitness account is very valuable. Even if he sometimes equivocates, his descriptions of crumbling buildings, unscrupulous block snitches, and the resilient character of everyday Cubans is good.

One important theme Corbett draws out in this book is how the Castro regime has become completely dependent on the tourism trade and has made the Cuban people completely subservient to that interest. First-person stories of this development are key to understanding today's Cuba.

I am Cuban and I been living in this great country the USA for 26 years. Most of my family still lives in Cuba and everything Mr. Corbett writes in this book is true. I disagree with maybe one or two things, but when I finish reading this book I thought it was great that finally someone wrote a book so honest about my country. When it comes to Cuba nobody ever ask the Cubans what they think. Mr. Corbett did ask and he lets the people tell their stories. He wrote this book very humble and it feels good to know some people are listening instead of having all the answers like all of these people that goes there for a week and think they know Cuba. Most people writes about how great Castro is and how the Cubans love him, a lie. Also I want to correct this reviewer below. The title of this book, This Is Cuba, is an expression we have in my homeland. When someone asks maybe "Why does the people here make only eight dollars a month while Castro buys for himself an airplane for fifty million?" A Cuban will answer "Because This Is Cuba!!!" If you really want to know Cuba then you should read this book and maybe Before Night Falls and Dirty Havana Trilogy.

I visited Cuba in March 1997 and have always been drawn back to books that allow me to vicariously revisit the country.

Ben Corbett's book manages to walk a fine line between an admiration for Cuba (especially her people) and often stern criticism of the Castro regime. It differs, therefore, from many other books about Cuba. Corbett is no Miami based Cuban exile with a chip on his shoulder but nor is he a naïve promoter of the Communist Party government. In short, Corbett has real credibility.

From another angle, Corbett is clearly no blow in visitor who, after a week or two in the country, regards himself as some sort of expert. Instead, Corbett has visited the country on a number of occasions and for considerable lengths of time in each case. He has immersed himself in the country from a variety of perspectives and has clearly travelled widely and met a host of individuals, many of whom he now counts as friends.

It seems to me that Corbett has a love for Cuba but a distinct distaste for the regime. Yet for all this, he has no axe to grind. Far too many critical Cuba commentators are allied with the exile communities in Florida. Unfortunately, for all the errors and flaws of the regime, its hasty end may well herald the return of the exiles and a still less than positive outcome. There may be no velvet revolution.

I recommend this book to all readers interested in Cuba and its future.

Ben Corbett's "This Is Cuba" has new relevance in a surprising new world in which we encounter Fidel Castro's sudden fallibility. While Corbett's book is apologetic in its initial undertaking (Corbett admits about halfway through that "I really believe in Castro's Socialist vision, but...it seemed more and more futile"), I think the triumph of the work is you see and feel his learning and refining that position as he works his way through the island. [And let's be clear: Corbett really earns major respect here - he's gathers up the story literally street by street, house by house in Havana and elsewhere.] So we get nice, sharp little vignettes like this:

-----

"The government does nothing for the people," Enrique explained. "Never."

"But this is a Socialist..."

"Cuba is not Socialist," he stopped me cold. "Cuba is centralist."

-----

Corbett reports episodes like this over and over, until at the end, he comes up with this (and it really hits the mark right now):

"Today, Castro is irrelevant. He's only holding up the show...He lives in the past and cannot move forward. This is not the destiny the Cuban people envision for themselves. There is only one place for Castro to go, and that is to the grave...The ultimate truth for Fidel Castro is very sad. In the depths of his mind he realizes he has lost his people."

So, why the four stars? I still think "Cuba Diaries" by 'Isadora Tattlin' (an assumed name) is the better book of this genre. I was totally fascinated by that work, as is everyone else to whom I have recommended it. It's tremendous.

All I can say is Wow! I'm blown away. This is a disillusioning book on life in modern Cuba that tells it exactly like it is. It's raw, engaging, and daringly unbiased in its analysis. Forget everything you've ever heard or read about Cuba. This one undermines it all, and does so with incredible detail. I felt like I was right there in Havana, hanging out with the Buena Vista Social Club, buying rice in the black market, and meeting the people in the book face to face. As a fine arts professor and Latin arts trader, I've been to Cuba four times in the past year. I have a voracious appetite for anything Cuban. However, nothing has managed to spin my head around like this book. I couldn't put it down, and many things I thought I understood about Cuba have been shattered. I hate you Corbett!

Anyone who harbors romantic notions about Fidel Castro's Cuba might be disturbed, perhaps even angered by Ben Corbett's book, for he shows very clearly how it is that the so-called Revolution is little more than an old-fashioned Latin American dictatorship hiding behind a veil of outworn platitudes. Anyone who has had to live there--not as a foreigner, but as a Cuban--will applaud this book, and recommend it with enthusiasm. Relying on his own experiences and on ordinary people that he met while living in Cuba, Corbett paints one of the most realistic portraits of life on that benighted island that have ever been published in America. Corbett convincingly argues that the economic strangulation of the Cuban people has been caused by the policies of Castro's oppressive regime rather than by the U.S. embargo. He does this by focusing on the details of daily life in present-day Cuba, and by highlighting the many ways in which individual initiative is crushed in the name of impossibly paradoxical utopian ideology. All of this is done with prose as spare as it is elegant. Corbett wears his heart on his sleeve, and in this case it is a very good thing, for he turns into an eloquent champion of human rights, lifting the veil on a ruthless dictatorship that has been masquerading as a humanitarian experiment for far too long. This should be required reading for anyone who is thinking of visiting Cuba or buying a Cuban cigar.

Ben Corbett has written a good book, flawed in some important ways but also full of new, illuminating insights into Cuba - - both the Cuba of reality and of imagination.

Corbett's "outlaw culture" is a Cuban reality. Irony of ironies, the Revolution has produced both a socialist state and economy and a chaotic, energetic entrepreneurial street culture. It's the latter that Corbett investigates, and investigates pretty well - - from illegal Chorizo vendors to tattoo artists. To be honest, I found his portraits of these "outlaws" a bit repetitive - -they all seem to say the same thing in the same way: the Revolution has failed, the Revolution is hypocritical, etc. Perhaps that's because Corbett tends to rely on a couple of key native-informants - - he keeps returning to this select group with its own take on contemporary Cuba and the Revolution.

On the other hand, I found Corbett's contextualizing work very helpful - - explaining the backdrop to the "Special Period" or Cuban schools or tourist company "ownership" of Cuban property. Here, Corbett does a real service.

More troubling is Corbett's sometimes screedy invocation of the free market as the solution to Cuba's ills. He nods to the Embargo but doesn't in my opinion really grapple with the disasterous and profound effects of the Embargo on the Cuban economy, society and culture. I got a little tired of his repeated invocations of the free market as Cuba's miracle drug. For instance: "Personal independence and private enterprise is [sic] the best incentive for Cubans, who seem to have a natural entrepreneurial bent." The Cuban future and past seem too complex to be safely wrapped up in this nostrum.

Ultimately, Corbett's vision of Cuba is tantalizing, his report is captivating - - but his own ideological perspective tends to both limit his insights and make his writing less adventurous, exciting, and energetic than it might be.

This is a great book. Not just a great Cuba book, or travel book...it's an excellent piece of writing with a objective, surefooted point of view that cuts through a controversial, incredibly complex subject with precision, heart, humor, and an unflinching sense of witness. One of the great things about it is illustrated by the fact that although the author is a fan of socialism and Castro, he frames one of the most devastating descriptions ever written of the bankruptcy of the economic, political, social, and philosophical situation in Cuba today. There might be those who take umbrage at what Corbett has done here, but no visitor to contemporary Cuba will fail to recognize the unvarnished validity of what he says or admire the lapidary, congenial way he says it.

Unlike many writers who pop into Cuba and pop out with the answer--not to mention the legions who make up their minds on sheer ideology--Corbett has visited the island many times over a period of years, and has considerable experience living there for long periods of time. He lived somewhat underground: in illegal circumstances, which brought him into easy contact with mass opinions not quickly offered to strangers. And he was lucky enough to have been there during several very revealing periods, including crackdowns and crises.

Corbett organizes his experiences into twenty-odd chapters in a way that seems effortless, but is actually an ingenious method of arranging the multi-leveled task of describing a society. Chapters discuss a day in school, black market, prostitution and hustling, the effects of "Buena Vista Social Club", the incessant marches, the crush for tourist dollars, diet, and the attempts to escape--either legally or otherwise. And each spins out into an embrace of the whole nutty economy and culture. The subtitle of the book, "An Outlaw Culture Survives" is extremely indicative: throughout it we see a constant struggle for survival in a system of parallel cultures that operate beneath the laws and oppression. And throughout we are apalled and impressed by the dogged ability of Cuban ingenuity to pull through, to rig things up, to balance necessity, law, doctrine, and black humor.

One phenomenon he descibes is a good example of the multi-level impact of his calm observation: derrumbes. From time to time buildings in Havana just collapse--failure due to age, poverty and lack of safety codes. Sometimes people have enough warning to run outside, often several families die. And the neighbors cannibalize the collapsed houses to repair their own homes. The first reaction of a NorthAmerican to the idea that urban buildings fall down and people are used to it is one of horror and disbelief. It goes against everything we think a city and society should stand for. Then we think about an economy in which some homes survive by using debris from those that collapse--not a bad analogy for the Cuban economy that has degenerated to a flea market selling off the last old stuff in the attic. Then maybe we start to admire the hunker down courage of people who live like that, who accept a system so different from the one their parents knew. And we marvel at the many who move to Havana from the country--even with possible penalties of jail and fines equal to five years pay for doing so--because the small towns and countryside offer much less opportunity for survival. The real genius and miracle of Cuba is in its people. By the way, appoximately a quarter of Havana's buildings are officially unsafe, a moderate earthquake would probably topple 75% of them. It is illegal to photograph or report derrumbes.

Corbett (and his Cuban friends) have a fine eye for ironic contradiction and the bitter laughs it provides. Cubans love to camp on beaches but under the current regime are not allowed to--beaches are reserved for tourists with dollars. In the workers' paradise, labor unions are illegal. Castro proclaims socialism and trumpets against U.S. capitalism yet whores for American capital. Foreign companies pay well for construction and oil workers, but the government keeps the money and pays the workers the usual $7 a month stipend for their work--in a system supposedly built on rebelling against exploitation of labor. Prostitution, supposedly impossible under Marxist principles, is tolerated because it brings in foreign dollars. Those who are lucky enough to win the visa "lottery" and leave Cuba end up having everything they owned taken from them by their government--and have to pay for exit visas. It just goes on and on. For the reader--for Cubans it's been going on and on for fifty years.

Though basically a fan of Cuba, Castro, and leftism, Corbett doesn't flinch away from realities that most starry-eyed chroniclers gloss over or ignore: that Cuba is a fascist state. The government controls everything, including where you live, police are numerous and everywhere, a block-by-block citizen spy network reports everything that happens, goods are seized by the state on any pretext...and above all, the prime characteristic of slave states that makes their apologists uncomfortable--the people are not free to leave. What better definition of imprisonment, oppression or slavery could there be than that: you can't leave if you want to.

It's as much a tribute to Corbett as to the Cuban people that this exhibition of socioeconomic malpractice is basically upbeat. And that's the way Cuba is: you see all this atrocity going on around you, but you leave happy and singing the lyrics. The last chapter of "This Is Cuba" is the most quizical of all: what happens next? If Castro died tomorrow and Cuba burst out into the real world after a half-century of being kidnapped away from the world economy, what would happen? They have nothing to sell but the usual Third World inventory: their labor, soil products, beaches and willing women. They have nobody who has a clue how to market goods, run a factory, design competitively, distribute products, organize labor. On the other hand, they have become a country of survivors: tinkerers, corner-cutters, jury-riggers, co-operators. If they have a chance to avoid being Haiti, it will be because of Cuban resilience. Corbett ends his book like this:

"(the will to survive, to live, to endure, and even to resist)...are the ingredients of focused human determination. Today, Castro only stands in the way of the people. They are now prepared to define Cuba's destiny. And in this preparedness, perhaps Castro acheived the greatest victory of all." Whether that is a ringing cheer for Castroism or analagous to saying that men come out of penitentiaries better prepared to live on the street remains to be seen.

I am a 32 years old cuban who left Cuba in 1999. I was born into the "revolution" and was able to witness most of the stories told on this book. However, this book goes deep into the real heart of Cuba discovering things that even me as a Cuban, I was unaware of. Great Job!!!!

From the wealth of descriptive detail and the depth of his insights into Cuban life, it is obvious that Ben Corbett went far beyond the typical American journalist's two-week taxi tour of the island. Corbett has put in the time and the miles to take the reader into the streets, homes and minds of the Cuban people. The book is a cultural immersion that chips away our American preconceptions about Cuba. It presents an extremely illuminating portrait of the island that will probably disturb anyone whose view on Cuba is either glib or set in political stone. The only thing I didn't like about the book was the poor quality of the printing; most of the photos are more like ink blobs than images. Other than that, I highly recommend it. Someone should send a copy to Bush.