Engaging Cuba - The academy’s responsibility

Engaging Cuba: The academy's responsibility
By Miguel Martinez-Saenz

Since Obama's December 2014 announcement that the United States would
normalize its relations with Cuba, there has been an onslaught of
communication about what this means, how it can help Cubans on the
island, why it is problematic, why this is a defiant attempt by Obama to
win political points and why this illustrates Obama's sympathies to
socialism and dictators. Misunderstandings have permeated the news.

As the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at a residential
university in Ohio, I have been approached by many agencies hosting
trips to Cuba to develop partnerships with Cuban higher education
institutions. And numerous advertisements have appeared in my inbox
urging me to travel to Cuba "before it is spoiled." After all, these
advertisements proclaim you don't want to lose the opportunity to see
Cuba before the "capitalists" modernize it. The irony is deafening. To
say this is patronizing and condescending is to understate the
reemergence of the "colonial gaze," which tends to treat the other as
exotic, to be objectified and exploited.

As the doors begin to open and we start to peer in, it is vital that the
academy strive to recognize the complexity of Cuba's history, its rich
and varied arts and cultural traditions, its attempt to resist an
imperial project, its human rights record, its suppression of voice, as
well as its attempt to provide universal healthcare and education. We
must resist telling a single story, either a story framed exclusively by
stakeholders who despise the revolution and its aftermath or by
stakeholders who have romanticized the happenings on the island. The
residents of the island, with their varied opinions and with their
varied aspirations, deserve better from us. Neither romanticizing,
patronizing, nor demonizing will do.
To deny the human rights abuse record of Cuba is to ignore,
misleadingly, some of the 'ugliness' of the revolution. Considering the
continued censorship and confinement of artists and democratic
activists, e.g., Tania Brueguera and El Sexto, or to the long history of
censorship initiated by Fidel Castro's "Palabra Contra Los
Intelectuales," it is impossible to deny the fact that many Cubans have
been forced to live double lives, lives of self-censorship that included
overt surveillance, and constant threat of detainment.

We need to remember, however, that not everyone on the island is
complicit with the political, ideological and social path the government
continues to forge. We should remember that many courageously challenge
their homeland as they aspire to live in a country that will allow them
to express themselves sincerely without fear of reprisal. And just as
some accept reluctantly that the United States is the United States of
George W. Bush, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Obama, we also recognize that
it is the United States of Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James
Baldwin, Philip Larkin, Muddy Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash and
Nina Simone. Our stories, after all, are always complex and tortured,
and should not be reduced to a single homogenous narrative.

Through an initiative titled "Opening Doors to the World" Otterbein
University hopes to tell a story that shows our students and our
surrounding community that they must always resist telling and believing
"a single story." We have an obligation to share with our students and
our community both the artistic achievements of the Cuban people as well
as to engage in critical dialogue about Cuba's history. Adopting a
visual arts exhibitions titled "An Island Apart" combining it with
panels on Cuban social and political history, with panels on doing
business in Cuba today and culminating with a celebration and
performance by one of Cuba's premiere composers and jazz pianists, Jose
Maria Vitier, we hope those who are fortunate enough to experience all
our programming will come away resisting "a single story." As
educational institutions, we need to create educational opportunities
that don't "show people as one thing over and over again," that don't
just simplify and repeat.

Cuba's history, which lacks no unemotional rendition, is a history of
conquest, a history of struggle, a history of contestation, and to
suggest otherwise is to reduce its people both living and dead
irresponsibly. And, it is also a history that has produced some of the
most beautiful and moving music, some of the world's most celebrated
writers and poets, a history that has produced courageous folks willing
to risk their lives in their struggle to realize a democracy, a history
that has challenged the world to reflect on the possibility of, even in
its failure, a classless society, a history that has challenged many in
the Americas to wonder how it is that we might forge a just society. I
am not an apologist nor am I am attempting to placate the establishment
in any of its forms. Our burden, as educators, is always to question the
status quo, wherever it resides and whatever its face. Only then can we
achieve a critically engaged public culture worthy of being called
"democratic."

Martinez-Saenz is the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at
Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio.

Source: Engaging Cuba: The academy's responsibility | TheHill -
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/262840-engaging-cuba-the-academys-responsibility