Cuba: Dancing the Socialist Line

By CATHY BOOTH/HAVANA

It is 2 a.m. Sunday in the Havana Club, but Juan Antonio isn't dancing. Madonna's disco beat befuddles his salsa-savvy feet. It's just as well. A young woman in a white micro-mini has claimed his attention -- when he's not distracted by a cold, imported Heineken and the $1.2 million club layout with its wall of cascading water. Juan Antonio, 19, has gone to heaven in Fidel Castro's Cuba. He may never be unhappy again.

He may also never be inside the Havana Club again: tickets can be bought only with dollars, and by law he is allowed to hold no more than $5 in U.S. currency, half the price of admission. A visiting tourist pays Juan Antonio's way, but he is worried his friends will label him a jinetero, or gigolo. He is also worried that the police will arrest him for consorting with foreigners, so he asks that his real name not be used. His paranoia is so pervasive that he finds it hard to believe he can wander the club floor without being stopped.

Cuba is a nation of young people. Nearly 60% of the island's 10.7 million people were born after Castro came to power in 1959. They have known only socialism. They are the healthiest and best-educated younger class in Latin America, but they are greedy for more. They yearn for capitalist fare like jeans and jogging shoes, rap records and videocassettes. They have had their fill of rhetoric and bureaucracy, of long lines for buses and hamburguesas, the Cuban version of an American favorite, made with pork. The most visible rebels, known as los freekiss (freakies), hang out in the park around Coppelia ice-cream parlor, flaunting long hair and T shirts splashed with the logos of heavy-metal bands. But even government-approved bands like Carlos Varela sing openly of Cuba's woes. "The inequities in society frustrate the young. I couldn't make a popular song about how great things are here now," admits American-born Cuban rock singer Pablo Menendez, a Castro supporter. "The young have created pressure for change."

The dissatisfaction is particularly acute today. Last August, Cuba tightened its rationing measures because of Soviet aid cutbacks and the long-standing U.S. embargo. Every Cuban is entitled to only two rolls a day and less than a pound of meat every nine days. Particularly painful to the fashion-conscious young is rationing that limits them to just one new dress, a pair of pants and a pair of dress shoes a year. Grandmothers hand over their yearly ration of textile coupons to the young; mothers sell their gold jewelry for consumer goods like TVs and radios. "Those under 30 are bored with the story of the revolution and are cynical about the government," says a European diplomat. "They want jobs, dollars and consumer goods."

The Pan American Games, which began in Havana last week, have instilled a renewed sense of pride, but the headlong rush to develop tourist hotels that are barred to most Cubans has caused resentment. "We were born into socialism, but sometimes we feel we have nothing. We can't eat where tourists eat. We can't drink where tourists drink," says an angry 26-year-old at Havana's La Playita beach. "What would Marx and Engels say to that?"

Fed up with the economic hardships and the restrictions on personal liberties, hundreds of young have set out for Florida in flimsy rubber tubes or rafts. More than 1,000 Cubans, the majority of them under 30, have survived the dangerous crossing this year. "Take me with you in your suitcase," pleads a high school student, only half in jest. After months of leniency, malcontents are again being hauled off to jails or rounded up for warnings. Local block groups, with 4 million members, have formed "rapid-reaction brigades" to nip any protests in the bud.

But Castro has not stayed in power for 32 years simply by using bloody repression. Since early 1990 he has encouraged criticism from "within the revolution," and he has promised to debate change at the upcoming October party congress, although a multiparty system and a market economy are banned from discussion. The Union of Young Communists, with half a million members, has laid on entertainment for the young, giving pop concerts on the Malecon seaside drive. Twenty-four new government discos are promised around Havana.

The Castillito complex along the Malecon, for instance, boasts two restaurants, a video room with Sony TVs, a roller-skating rink, a disco with an Italian-designed light system and a pool with cavorting men and women. The entry fee to the government-operated club is only 1 peso (6 cents), a steal compared with the admission price at the Havana Club. Around Havana the youthful influence has spiced up revolutionary slogans, which are now splashed in neon colors on the walls. Sumate! (Get involved!) says one.

Yet university teachers say it is increasingly hard to get students to believe socialism will ever provide them with the standard of living they want. "They complain about a lack of stylish clothes," says Blanca Munster Infante, 30, a professor of Marxism at one of Havana's advanced polytechnic institutes. "They don't reject socialism, but they are pessimistic about making it work. They are disillusioned."

It would be wrong, however, to assume this discontent will translate into the demise of Castro and Cuba's brand of tropical socialism. While some 175 million live in poverty in Latin America, there are no beggars on the streets of Havana. The infant mortality rate is 10.7 per 1,000 births, in contrast to 60 before the revolution. "We see socialism is difficult to achieve, but capitalism isn't the answer either," says Sierra Wald, 17. "Nobody wants % Fidel to step down. People worry about what might happen without him." Young Cubans increasingly see themselves as the last idealists in a world that cares only about money. "Our society may be inefficient, but it is humane and just," says Dennys Gonzalez. Says a 25-year-old teacher: "Everybody's really worried about the future, but my students don't talk about politics. They want something fresh, but they don't want to change the whole system. They just want to enjoy life."

Take the example of Paradise, a farm that lies at the end of a dusty red road on the fertile plain south of Havana. A white bust of Lenin marks the entrance. By day Paradise is where Cuba's young dirty their hands with the real work of the socialist revolution, weeding, hoeing and harvesting in fields planted with banana trees. But by night it seems more of a '60s hippie commune, with parties in the "club," El Mosquito Picante (The Spicy Mosquito) and stolen kisses in the thatched hut out back.

Ninety miles away in Miami, Cuban emigres wish for Fidel's imminent collapse, but the island's university students who volunteer to take a two- week "vacation" in the fields don't see trouble brewing in Paradise. Marlen Fuentes, 21, her pants caked with red mud after a nine-hour day, is typical of the young Cubans who come. "We need a change," she says, "but from inside our system. We need to talk about our mistakes and find solutions inside socialism." These aren't assembly-line thinkers; they genuinely care about the gains of the revolution. "I don't have a car or a lot of jeans, but for me Cuba is more important," says Randy Alonso Falcon, 21, a student leader at the University of Havana.

As the sun set over Paradise, the students gathered for a ceremony that ended with Castro's latest call to arms: Socialismo o Muerte! -- socialism or death. There was a barely audible laugh at the choice, but the answer came back: "Socialismo!"