Articles
A visit to planet Cuba
There are some ads in Cuba: this hole-in-the-wall bar borrows an international logo for a local drink. And hundreds of bars have small signs claiming that Ernest Hemingway drank there. The droll slogan at one hipster bar, however, admits ‘Hemingway never came here’.
Phillip Frazer
It’s been six weeks since I spent 12 days in Cuba – just enough time to get why it felt more like visiting another planet than another country (and I’ve visited 32 of those). Cuba is about 140km from Florida, but for 55 years the USA has forbidden its citizens from visiting the largest island in the Caribbean, or from spending a single cent on anything Cuban. This is in retaliation for the 1959 revolution in which the Castro brothers and a few thousand followers took back their country and sent the Yanks packing, leaving behind their fancy cars and a few hotels built by and for the American mafia. What my trip taught me is that this blockade has defined what Cuba is today more than Karl Marx, Fidel, the Soviet Union, or any other single force has. When I told friends I was going to Cuba they understood, on some level, how big a deal the blockade has been, because everyone
CHESS
by Ian Rogers Play at Byron Services Club, Mon 7pm The World Youth Championships have been a happy hunting ground for Australia in younger age groups, with Bobby Cheng’s gold medal in the World U/12 Championship six years ago the highlight. However, Australia’s top juniors tend to become tied up with school in their teen years while their overseas rivals may have turned professional, meaning that strong performances by Australians in the U/16 and U/18 age groups have been few and far between. The 2013 Youth Olympiad in Chongqing was the first sign that the new generation of Australian juniors could hold their own even in older age categories, Australia missing a tie for second in the U/16 team event due to a 1.5-2.5 loss to Russia in the final round. On Thursday, at the World Youth Championships in Halkidiki, Australia’s Justin Tan was able to avenge that defeat, beating Kiril Alekseenko in the final round of the U/18 division to cost the Russian Grandmaster
said: Yes, you should go now before Obama opens it up and it gets swamped and spoiled by the Yanquis. The assumption everyone shared was that the Cuban people are blind to the tsunami that is poised to engulf them. We all know it but they don’t. But they do – they get it. They more than anyone know how hard it is to resist Yanqui culture, money, and power, because they did it in 1959 and again in 1961 when the US mercenary force invaded at the Bay of Pigs, and lost. a gold medal and to secure a tie for fourth place for himself, Australia’s best result in that event in the modern era. (Rishi Sardana, an Indian player who in search of greater opportunities has changed his flag to Australia, also finished tied for fourth but Australia can take little credit for that fine perfrmance.) India dominated in Greece, taking five gold medals in the 12 categories – U/8 to U/18, open and girls – while Russia, China and the US could not manage a single gold between them. Porto Carras World U/18 2015 White: J Tan Black: J Szotkowski Opening: Sicilian Defence 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.Qd2 Nf6 8.0-0-0 Be7 Avoiding the trick 8...Ng4 9.Bf4! e5 10.Nd5 Qb8 11.h3!. The active 8...Bb4 is well met by 9.f3 Ne5 10.Nb3, not caring about the doubled pawns. 9.f3 b5 10.Kb1 h5 11.Bd3 Bb7 12.Rhe1 Ne5 13.Qf2 Nc4?! 13...d6 was far safer. 14.Bxc4 Qxc4 15.Nb3! a5 16.Rd4 Qc6? Black needed to trust in 16...Qc8!? 17.Nxb5 a4 with some counterplay. 17.e5! Nd5 18.Nxd5 exd5 19.Rd3! Kf8 20.Nd4 Qa6 21.Nf5 Qe6 22.Nxe7 Kxe7 23.Bc5+ Kd8 24.f4 Ra6 24... g6 was the last hope. Now Black is steamrollered. 25.f5 Qe8 26.Bd6 Rh6 27.Rg3! Qh8 28.Qc5 Bc6 29.Bf8! Rh7 30.e6! fxe6 31.fxe6 g5 32.e7+ Ke8 33.Qd6 1-0
When I planned this trip for me and my daughter Zane – she’s 25 and lives in Florida – I did my usual web-surf for off-the-track lodgings and adventures, but soon realised that Cuba doesn’t have the cacophony of choices just about everywhere else has. In fact, joining a guided tour for the first time in my life looked like a top notion, specifically the tour offered by an Australian outfit called Cuban Adventures.
Cuban life stories They drive brand-new Chinese buses, their guides are Cubans with engaging life stories, they put you up in home-stays every night, and they mix the gorgeous Caribbean beach visits with trips up the mountains to Santa Clara where Che’s army of men and women guerillas captured a trainload of weapons from the dictator Batista’s troops, and advanced on Habana for a triumphant reunion with Castro, as Batista fled the country back in 1959. The Aussie tour team also delivered the ‘environmentally and socially responsible travel’ they promised. Over our 11 days Zane and I ate breakfasts in our families’ homes, dinners in restaurants we discovered in back alleys, and the most memorable meal on a hillside organic farm overlooking the radiant green val-
leys of Vinales. We talked and laughed with our fellow touristas – two Irish gals, three American women my age, and a bonzer environmental official from Wagga Wagga named Chris. We listened to our guide Diosbel (yep, beautiful god) tell stories and sing songs of revolution, carefully sidestepping political land mines all the way. Throughout all this, in the lovingly tended houses and meticulously maintained public places that used to be private, what was most present and most compelling was what was missing.
No ads, no malls There were no adverts, no billboards for stuff along the highways (though a few portraits of Jose Marti and Che with fearless peasants and workers), no jingles on the radio or TV about Toyotas or toothpaste, no garish signs on shopfronts or malls – no malls! The 55-year blockade has spared Cuba and its people the plagues of obsessive consumption and accumulation. Not much recorded music pollutes public airspace either – people play music live in cafes, plazas, and on cobblestoned streets. This is what gives the place its other-planetness. Where else are there buildings and streets, fields and rivers, airwaves and byways in which the public space is not for sale or rent to the highest bidder, to fill them with messages, images, and noises unasked-for and unwanted? You share this country with other people, not mediated by the fog of artificial relationships. Warning: even though I ticked Cuba on my Westpac online banking and it gave the okay, they are beholden to American Express, which still enforces the US blockade, so Westpac cards are useless there. Q See Phillip Frazer’s blog at coorabellridge.com
Online comment of the week It is disgusting that so much harm is done purely for profit. So many people drink too much because they want to check out and don’t want to feel how empty their lives are. Alcohol is a factor in irresponsible behaviour, domestic violence and road accidents to name just a few of its awful effects. Greedy people do not care. Q Comment by Denise Morden in response to the
story at www.echo.net.au/ draconian-liquor-laws-devastate-community-rights-tosafe-neighbourhood
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The Byron Shire Echo November 11, 2015 11