I attended a fascinating talk a few months ago at the Milken Institute in LA.  Julia Sweig has authored a book, “Cuba – What Everyone Needs to Know.”  She is Director for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations – and passionate about all things Cuban. Her talk was full of fascinating insights about the dynamics, politics and effectiveness (or lack thereof) of our decades-old sanctions.  Focusing on the three primary centers of influence . . .

• In Cuba, the transfer of power from Fidel to brother Raul, the increase of private economic activity and remarkably effervescent public debate – even within the state-owned media.
• In Florida, the fact that Obama won the state’s 27 electoral votes speaks to the weakened influence of the anti-Castro hardliners who represent only 7% of the voting population, but who contribute millions to (mostly Republican) campaign coffers
• And in Washington, although it’s now a back-burner issue for Obama, the facts that, 1) American public opinion favors an overhaul of our policies and, 2) the President need not defer to the status quo of his predecessors would signal that big changes can finally happen.

The LA Times book review summarizes a lot of this complicated history quite succinctly. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/24/entertainment/ca-julia-sweig24?pg=1

Bottom line, Cuba is evolving into a confident and independent nation, despite our relentless and outdated policies. Since their every move is affected by the long arm of the superpower next door, the average Cuban knows much more about America than we do about Cuba. And, as these things go, I expect that there are many misconceptions on both sides.

I wish I could claim to have strategically planned it, but I was fortunate to be able to pose the final question of the afternoon’s Q&A. I asked, “How do you see the U.S. government’s position on lessening the currently onerous licensing restrictions for Americans to freely travel to Cuba?”  I was surprised to learn that there are four times more investigators looking into illegal remittances to Cuba than to terrorist countries.

Yikes!  Those who travel to Cuba illegally are taking a big risk.  Americans are free to travel to North Korea, Iran, Syria . . . but not Cuba.  Hmmm . . .

This reinforces my mission – to take Americans to places they typically would not go, to touch and be touched by the people and culture of a place that we cannot possibly understand until we have a personal experience of the place.