Revolutionary Ideology and Memory in Havana

The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology and Mnemonic Landscape in PresentDay Havana Author(s): MariaGropas Source: Current Anthropology, Vol.
48, No. 4 (August 2007), pp. 531-549 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
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Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007
531
The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology and Mnemonic Landscape in Present-Day Havana

by Maria Gropas
In post-Soviet Cuban state discourse, things are done for the Revolution and la patria rather than for the building of socialism. This repatriotization of revolutionary ideology does not imply a total wiping of the state of socialist political ideology, but even when the message to be conveyed is based on socialist ideology it is constructed around a patriotic dimension. Landscape serves as a mnemonic device for perpetuating a particular historical memorya way of remembering the past and of using this remembrance to fuel the present and preserve the future of the Revolution.
Perhaps one of the most distinctive images of Cuba is the large steel sculpture of the face of Che Guevara on one of the walls of the Ministry of the Interior in Havanas Revolution Square (g. 1). Shown around the globe in documentaries, lms, and magazines and a popular attraction for foreigners visiting Cuba, this portrait is seen by many as the epitome of revolutionary idealism and commitment. For me, however, it came to represent everyday life in Havana, personifying a complex web of revolutionary morality and practical immorality in which Revolution and survival, whether economic, social, political, or national, struggled to coexist. Between September 2001 and July 2002 I drove past Revolution Square daily on my way to and from the agricultural cooperatives in which the development project I was working on was being implemented. It became part of my daily ritual to comment on what I called Che Guevaras changing face. Depending on the days unfolding, depending on whom I had spoken to, what I had experienced, and what I had been told, I would jokingly comment to my European boss on Ches facial expression. Some days, when we talked to people who expressed a deep commitment to the Revolution, I would say, Today he is smiling or Today he has his eyes wide open and is contentedly contemplating the Revolutions successes. Other days, lled with endless bureaucracy or with numerous accounts of the difculties of getting by on minimal peso salaries in a largely dollarized economy, I would say, If he
Maria Gropas completed her Ph.D. in social anthropology at Cambridge University and wrote this article while a UNESCO postdoctoral fellow at that university. She now works in the public sector (her mailing address: Eleftherias 52, Voula 166 73, Athens, Greece [marogropas@gmail.com]). This paper was submitted 23 III 05 and accepted 31 XII 06.
could, today he would have his eyes shut. Soon enough, Che Guevaras changing face came to symbolize for me the uctuating emotions and expectations of Cuban colleagues and friends describing their lives in the peso/dollar reality of postSoviet Havana. I came to realize that in fact Ches portrait represented a political memory and that much of the discourse employed by the state and its institutions was aimed at constructing what Werbner (1998, 15) has called a memory in which the political cannot be meaningfully studied apart from the moral. The portrait reected the tight interrelation between the moral and the political that continues to characterize state discourse. The interweaving of landscape with the past and with memory has been addressed by others (see Harwood 1976; Basso 1988; Tilley 1994; Ku chler 1995; Aretxaga 1997). In the context of Northern Australia, for example, Morphy has argued that place and place names are integrated within a process that acts to freeze time; that makes the past a referent for the present. The present is not so much produced by the past but reproduces itself in the form of the past (1995, 239). The Cuban material detailed in this article, however, takes this point farther. Havanas rural and urban landscapes reect a revolutionary reading of historical events and historical persons. That the landscape can be perpetually read in terms of historical narratives is a key feature of both the repatriotzation of revolutionary ideology and the production of patriotic duty. Havanas landscape of billboards and grafti acts as a mnemonic device, reminding people of their past, and confers a morality on their past struggles, thus giving meaning to their present-day struggles. The mnemonic landscape is a device for reminding Cubans of a particular reading of their history that can be used as a tool for creating dominant state narratives. It is a technique for preserving knowledge (Miller
2007 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2007/4804-0004$10.00
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Figure 1. Steel sculpture of Che Guevara on the Ministry of the Interior building in Havanas Revolution Square.
1999), for remembering the historical struggle of the Cuban people. The existence of a memory of struggle is both presentoriented and future-oriented (Werbner 1998a). In this context, it can be argued that memory is a device for preserving the Revolutions future (see Moore 1998 on postcolonial Africa). Much of the debate about what landscape means has been limited to the realm of the aesthetics, overlooking the economic, social, and political complexity within which landscape exists and by which it is inuenced (Gropas 2006). Indeed, Landscape is a way of seeing that has its own history, but a history that can be understood only as part of a wider history of economy and society (Cosgrove 1998, 1). In other words, landscape is also a history made manifest. It is a living process; it makes men; it is made by them (Inglis 1977, 489). It is my contention here that landscape in Havana is a device through which a particular reading of historya particular Revolutionary historical discourseis made manifest. It is a way of remembering the past and of using this remembrance (characterized by notions of morality, justice, and national dignity) to fuel the present of the Revolution and preserve it for the future. I start from the foundation that landscape is both the world we see and a construction of that
world (Cosgrove 1998). In other words, I approach landscape not as a static image but as a process which is historically, socially, culturally, and politically inuenced and informed (Hirsch 1995; Gropas 2006).The vast psychological, sociological, historical, and anthropological literature on memory is beyond the scope of this paper.1 My concern here is with landscape as a canvas upon which a Revolutionary construction of Cubas historical past is painted and through which a particular cosmology is constructed and perpetuated. This cosmology is founded upon notions of morality, patriotic duty, and historical justice that are encompassed by the idea of the Revolution. Landscape plays a part in the way in which people make sense of and engage with the material world that surrounds them (Bender 2001). It also contributes to the way in which identities . . . whether . . . individual, group, or nation-state (Bender 1995, 3) are formed. I start by showing that in post-Soviet Cuban state discourse greater emphasis is placed on doing things for the Revolution and la patria than on the building of socialism. The Revolution was built around ideas of historical justice and moralityan attack on vice, gambling, and disease, as Fidel Castro declared in January 1959 (Thomas 2001 [1971]). The choice of the word repatriotization is intended to indicate a return to those foundations. I go on to discuss the concept of the Revolution, showing that it has myriad meanings for Cubans and is often quite different from and unrelated to the concepts of socialism and communism. I point to the importance of history and Cubas historical continuity of struggle in present-day state constructions of ideology and the ideological colonization of the landscape in order to perpetuate the status quo. Indeed, I suggest that, while the Revolution may be attributed a wide range of meanings, it has been constructed as being about belonging to a sovereign imagined community (see Anderson 1991). Castros claim in 1965 that the Revolution is as Cuban as its palm trees and rum appears to have become a self-fullling prophecy. Indeed, constructed through a sanctication, or eternalization, of previous social struggles, the historical patriotic dimension out of which the Revolution grew and with which it is perpetually associated has come to mean for many that to be a Cuban patriot is to be a revolutionary. Finally, I show how the landscape, urban and rural, reects and reinforces this ideology.
The Revolution Asks This of You!

I arrived in Havana in autumn 2001 after a year of following the procedures necessary to obtain authorization to carry out my research in the country. It was only after I unexpectedly secured an afliation with a European nongovernmental or1. For a comprehensive sociological overview of the topic, see Olick and Robbins (1998). See also Crane (1997) for a historical and Bloch (1992), Werbner (1998a), and Watson (1994) for an anthropological perspective.
Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology
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ganization (NGO) to work on a development project in agricultural cooperatives around Havana that I was granted legal status to remain in Cuba for the duration of my research. Cuba is not a place which favours anthropological research, especially when it is instigated from the outside, and obtaining permission to carry out research in Cuba is complicated and time-consuming (see also Holbraad 2002). Rosendahls (1997) ethnography of Palmera (pseudonym) and Holgados (2000) ethnography of women under socialism are among the few published ethnographies. Each cooperative involved in this development project had a monthly ritualthe assembly (asamblea)in which the managerial body and the membership reported to one another. The assembly was also a forum in which the decisions of the political organization to which private cooperatives throughout Cuba belonged, the Asociacio n Nacional de Agricultores Pequen os (ANAP), were communicated to the members.2 In December 2001 the main issue being addressed in the assemblies was that of milk. The message was a request that milk-producing members sell more milk to the state rather than selling it privately or illegally through the black market. Though the cooperatives were, at the time, contractually bound to selling 34% of their milk production to the state (at a lower price than that on the private market), milk remained scarce and was highly valued. Given the general lack of milk available through legal channels, selling milk and dairy products on the street could be lucrative. The high-ranking ANAP ofcial and Party member who was attending one of these assemblies to convey this message addressed the cooperative members as follows:
With the blockade and the mad cows, the price of clean milk on the world market is high, and the state does not have enough dollars to buy more powdered milk. For this reason, I ask you to give more milk to the government and the Revolution. Campesinos have a moral duty to sell more milk to the Revolution! [This is] what the Revolution is asking of us, so I ask you to think of our children! I want to meet with each milk producer of this cooperative one by one to talk about how much he can increase [the amount of milk he will sell to the state]. I want to get an individual commitment from you. The Revolution asks this of you!
Cuba. In a similar situation in 1975, Fidel Castro addressed sugar mill workers, encouraging them to increase their production, as follows: There is no greater satisfaction than the fulllment of duty, or more rewarding victories than those attained by the seless and heroic workers who are building socialism (Havana Domestic Service 1975). In 1975 the goal was the building of socialism, whereas in 2001 the message was constructed around la patrias children and the Revolution. The state discourse of the Revolution is centred around making Cubans think in terms of belonging to a geographically and historically vulnerable patria which is struggling to remain free and truly Cuban. This discourse is in turn linked with state legitimacy. While this notion was also used in national struggles for independence dating back to the times of Jose Mart , it has reclaimed center stage in post-Soviet discourse.3
Dening the Revolution

What does the Revolution mean? Is a revolution not a moment of change at a precise point in history? How can we still be talking about the Revolution over four decades later? One of the ethnographic puzzles4 I faced early in my eldwork was the frequency with which the words Revolution and revolutionary were used in Havana. Given that development work in Cuba involved working alongside Party members, these words were commonplace on the project site. What is of particular interest is that they were also often heard in informal conversations and everyday talk. This triggered my interest in understanding the meaning attributed to this word. The concept of the Revolution assumes different forms depending on ones perspective and on the context at hand. In ofcial and public discourse, the most straightforward definition is that of Fidel Castro, displayed on a wall in the most popular ice-cream parlour in Havana: Revolution is feeling the historical moment, it is changing everything that needs to be changed, it is full equality and freedom, it is being treated and treating others as human beings, it is emancipating ourselves for ourselves and by our own efforts. What it means to people who use it in their daily conversations is best exemplied by its use in the family I lived with, a predominantly female household in a central neighbourhood of Havana. My landlady, whom I will call Angelica,5 was a retired schoolteacher in her seventies. During most of my stay, her sister Celia and Celias son Eduardo, a civil engineer in his midtwenties, and his girlfriend, Paloma, who worked in a garment factory, lived with us. Angelica, Celia, Eduardo, and Paloma called themselves revolutionaries, meaning that they fully supported the Revolution and Fidel Castro. They were, nonetheless, at times outspoken about what they considered the
3. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this point out more clearly for me. 4. I owe this expression to Marilyn Strathern. 5. All names are pseudonyms.
This speech personies the Revolution and constructs the cooperative members as morally responsible subjects. In this context, the Revolution comes to mean the ongoing state political projectevent, structure, and process. Rather than merely representing an event in history and a radically different structure from that which existed before, it is also an ongoing process of which moral and revolutionary citizens are part and to which they contribute for the sake of
2. The ANAP was created in 1961 to unite the Cuban peasants and small farmers who belonged to non-state agrarian cooperatives. It has 210,000 members and covers more that 1.6 million hectares of land (ANAP 1999).
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Revolutions shortcomings. They repeatedly stressed that certain things had to change in Cuba but underlined that processes of change ought to come from within Cuba. For them, the worst thing that could happen would be for Cubans to espouse capitalism, especially in its U.S. form. (Many people perceived a distinction between U.S. capitalism and the capitalism found in Europe, the latter being considered more socially oriented.) One evening over dinner at home, Paloma criticized the governments decision to prohibit Cubans from entering certain tourist resort areas. She then said, But I am not a gusana,6 I am a revolutionary. Its just that I see both the good and the bad. I asked her to explain what she meant by saying she was a revolutionary. She answered, I mean that I sympathize with the 1959 Revolution, its ideals, and I support the [present] government. She went on to say that the Revolution represented a profound change in Cuban history, signalling the beginning of something better and something real. She stressed that this change in regime was something that had actually happened rather than the empty rhetoric that had been so common in Cubas history. She said that this change was still under way today, in spite of the difculties it was faced with. From this perspective, the concept of the Revolution goes beyond the 1959 historical event to encompass an ongoing process and structure. Another interesting conceptualization of the Revolution came from Eduardo: The Revolution is the good things that came out of the change [in 1959]; its free health care for all, for example. Socialism, however, is . . . very good hospitals and doctors for all, but with no medicines. An event that illuminates the way people relate to the Revolution is Jimmy Carters visit to Cuba in May 2002. Carters visit was considered of the utmost importance, given that he was the rst (former) U.S. president to visit the island since Fidel Castro came to power. On the last day of his visit, he spoke at the University of Havana, and Cuban university students and others were invited to debate with him. Fidel Castro was also present, along with the minister for foreign affairs and other high-ranking ofcials. In his speech, Carter spoke of the need to put old quarrels between the two countries aside and establish friendly relations. Though he made reference to the achievements of the Revolution in the domains of health care and education, he stated that Cuba should join the path of all the other Latin American democracies. He continued, After 43 years of animosity, we hope that, someday soon, you can reach across the great divide that separates our two countries and say, We are ready to join the community of democracies, and I hope that Americans will soon open our arms to you and say, We welcome you as our friends (CNN 2002). When I asked Eduardo and Paloma what they thought of the commonly held U.S. and
6. Gusano (worm)connoting the lowest form of lifeis used locally to refer to class enemies and more specically to Cubans who are antirevolutionaries (Harnecker 1979).
European view that Cuba was not democratic and that human rights were being violated, Eduardo responded:
These people know nothing about this place. Look, the Revolution is mineI live it. It is our realityfor them it is just an outside opinion or a political ideology. For us, its about us, its about our country. I can tell you things that bother me about the Revolution, but I dont want to hear bad things about it. Its like if you told me bad things about your sister and then I told you bad things about her. You would not permit that, would you? [No,] because she is your sisterit is the same with the Revolution.
This protective approach toward the Revolution is similar to that espoused by many people I met during my eldwork. There was a widespread tendency to defend the Revolution against foreigners, who were seen as criticizing it without having lived it or understood the changes it had brought about (see also Kapcia 2000). Indeed, one of the driving forces behind the Revolutions endurance is the islands proximity to the United States and the fear of invasion. This is not simply a fear of a cultural absorption by [a] polity of larger scale (Appadurai 1990, 295) but also a sense that the countrys sovereignty may be at risk. All of my informants maintained that they lived their life in a state of siege, concerned that an attack by their northern neighbour could come at any time.7 Cuban citizens undergo military training in preparation for aggression against la patria. This mandatory military training could be seen as reinforcing the sense of an imminent attack. This sense of being under siege is an ideological resource which has been cultivated and nurtured by the state apparatus and used as a mechanism of unication for a struggle against external aggression. Indeed, over the years, state rhetoric has presented the Revolution as the epitome of the countrys historical struggle against colonialism (by both Spain and the United States) safeguarding the islands territorial integrity. Historically, the United States joined in the last stages of the War of Independence against the Spanish to help the mambises8 win their independence in 1898. After independence, the United States took over Cuba in what was initially to be a temporary measure. One of the highest-ranking ofcers in the U.S. Army served as governor of the island until May 1902 (Thomas 2001 [1971]), and after the handing over of Cuba to local rule there continued to be heavy U.S. involvement in political and economic affairs. Until 1959 75% of the countrys arable land was owned by foreigners, most of them North Americans (Sheak 2002, 2). Moreover, the Platt Amendment, which was contained in Cubas 1901 Constitution, gave the United States
7. This phenomenon dates back to the very beginning of the Revolution (see, for example, Thomas 2001 [1971]). I thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this. 8. Mamb is thought to be of African origin, meaning the child of a vulture or of an ape. It was rst used by the Spanish colonizers to refer to those who rebelled against them and then assumed by the rebels themselves (Thomas 2001 [1971], 1061).
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carte blanche to intervene politically, economically, and militarily in Cubas internal affairs whenever it saw t (Miller 2003). This involvement and intervention provided fertile ground for widespread resistance. Though the Platt Amendment formally lasted until 1934, the aura of the old days still hung about U.S. Cuban relations in the 1950s (Horowitz 2003, 5). Foreign intervention, corruption, gambling, police brutality, and the low social status of black people contrasted with the afuence of white Cuban landowners contributed to the emergence of resistance movements. As Celia recalled, the rich lived a life of luxury and frequently went shopping in Florida, while the majority were largely illiterate and could scarcely survive. Constructed against the backdrop of this historical landscape, the 1959 Revolution appropriated words such as imperialism, colonialism, tyranny, and pseudo-republic, and they have since been repeatedly employed to portray the historical continuity throughout the centuries of struggle for a more socially just and truly Cuban Cuba (Miller 2003). With the revolutionary government in power, measures of symbolic importance were also adopted to indicate a conscious break with and rejection of this past. Amongst these, the Havana Hilton Hotel, which towers over the centre of the capital, was nationalized and symbolically renamed Habana Libre (Free Havana). Casinos and brothels aimed primarily at foreign tourists and local rich men were closed, and land and privately held beaches were returned to the people as a form of justice to Cubas history (Miller 2003). Thus the Revolution is associated with notions of the Cuban nation and carries with it feelings of patriotism, pride, dignity, resistance, social justice, and independence (Dilla Alfonso 1994). Indeed, national sovereignty and independence have, since the very beginning of the Revolution, taken the form of a sacred symbol used by the Party to address the people, assert its right to rule, and maintain popular political allegiance. This is evident in a comparison of one of Fidel Castros early speeches with a very recent one:
Now we are making history. But another type of history. We have not learnt our lesson in vain. . . . We are not in 1901, nor in 1933, when they [the United States] put themselves here and imposed an Amendment [the Platt Amendment] which was shameful and a humiliation to the country. In [1933], they bought Batista and he miserably betrayed the people. Now, there is no Platt Amendment, and they can neither buy nor subordinate us. (Castro, January 1959, quoted in Pe rez 1980, my translation) Our heroic people has fought for 44 years from a small Caribbean island only a few miles from the most powerful imperial power that humanity has ever known. By doing this, [Cuba] has written an unprecedented page in history. Never has the world seen such an unequal struggle. . . . We will face all threats, we will not give in to any pressure, and
we are ready to defend la patria and the Revolution with ideas and with arms until the last drop of blood. . . . Never has a people had more sacred things to defend or more deeply held convictions for which to ght, [so much so] that it prefers to disappear from the face of the Earth than to renounce the noble and generous work for which many generations of Cubans have paid with the high cost of the many lives of their best sons. (Granma 2003, 19, my translation)
Separated by 44 years, the speeches shared motifs are the historical continuity of struggle, the Revolutions moral standing, and the nations independence and sovereignty. These themes provide a common thread linking us with those who have fought throughout history for our common principles and values. The defence of la patria from external aggression (in its multitude and varied forms) is thus translated into an almost sacred historical obligation to the Cubans who, throughout the nations history, have died in defence of la patrias freedom. This historical point is felt even by the Revolutions ercest Cuban critics living on the island. For instance, in May 2002, a nationwide mass mobilization was organized in response to George W. Bushs placing Cuba on the U.S. list of terrorist countries. This placement produced anger amongst the general public, where it was widely felt that Cubans had been the victims of terrorist actions over the years. For instance, the perceived terrorist threat of the Miami-based Cuban-American community and the U.S. economic embargo were locally dened largely as acts of terrorism. The states objective was to send a clear message to the U.S. government that the Cuban people were united in defending their patria and that they objected to being referred to as terrorists, particularly by the U.S. government. Granmas9 coverage of the mobilization described it as a gigantic march for la patria, and during the march people shouted revolutionary slogans such as !Viva Cuba Libre! !Abajo las mentiras! (Long live free Cuba! Down with the lies!) and waved Cuban ags so that the imperialists could see them. The turnout in Havana was massive, and the streets were lled with people from as early as 5 a.m.10 I was there with 38-year-old Diego, one of the ercest critics of the regime I encountered during my stay. After the march I asked him why he had participated. He answered:
I came and I said what I said because even though I am against Castro, I love my country. Castro is not my country, and I am proud that we are the only ones who have stood against the United States. I dont want us to be like those other countries that follow whatever the United States says.
9. The principal Cuban newspaper, which takes its name from the yacht on which, in 1956, the rebels crossed from Mexico to Cuba following their exile, eventually to overthrow Batista in 1959. 10. Because of the heat and the humidity, mass mobilizations are held at dawn.
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We are independent, probably the only independent country. I want us to remain independent.
My purpose in relating these narratives is not to ask whether people were coerced into attending by their work centres. Rather, it is to show that not only do ofcial state narratives construct mobilizations like this one as patriotic acts supporting a sovereign patria but also my informants maintained that they participated and perceived other peoples participation as an expression of national independence, integrity, and unity and a protest against the hegemony of the northern neighbour rather than a demonstration of adherence to socialism or communism. When I returned from the march at around 9 a.m., Angelica was eating fruit in her rocking chair in the living room and watching the news coverage of the march on television. She claimed to be a revolutionary both in theory and in practice. Indeed, since the very beginning she had participated in mobilizations and worked hard for the Revolution. On this occasion, however, she had chosen not to attend the march, claiming that she was too old. She asked me to tell her how it was, so I sat down next to her and described my experience of it. During my description the television set in front of us was showing aerial pictures of Havanas streets inundated with people. When I told her that I was amazed at the number of people who had participated in the march, she said:
People went to this [mobilization] out of conviction. Look, Maria, Cubans unite against the Yankee. Even though some people can be against Fidel, these same people are against the Yankeenot against the [U.S.] people but against the [U.S.] government. Its just that we have suffered a lot because of them, and Im not only talking to you about after [1959] but also about centuries before. They have exploited the whole of Latin America to the very maximum. Thats why we are so against the Yankees.
Figure 2. Billboard depicting Antonio Maceo and Che Guevara: Present in the Battles of Today.
This image of uniting against the Yankee government was apparent not only in organized events but also in the urban landscape. For instance, walking down a street in Havana, I stumbled across an engraving on the pavement that read Cuba Yes! Yankee No! The patriotism contained in revolutionary ideology and visually expressed in the landscape has been crucial in creating a morally laden political subjectivity. The landscape becomes a technique for evoking memories of the patrias struggle against domination and the sacrice of heroes for an independent, Cuban Cuba. This nds a moral platform in a particular mnemonic construction of the past and has create[d] a master narrative around which . . . people could build a sense of shared community (Cole 1998, 1056).
Landscape and Mnemonics

Historical events have an important spatial dimension. Their importance, however, lies not necessarily in what really
happened but, rather, in its having become an integral part of the historical consciousness and the identity of the peoples that bear them (Santos-Granero 1998, 144). This interweaving of landscape, memory, and historical consciousness is important because it both evokes and becomes memory. It is by the evoking of memory thorough the ideological colonization of the landscape that a particular ideology becomes part of a collective memory as a conceptualization that expresses a sense of the continual presence of the past (Crane 1997, 1373). The interesting twist in the Cuban case, however, is that this ideological colonization of the landscape is presented as being part of la patrias historical memory, the preservation of lived experience, its objectication. This intertwining of history and the Revolution has become so entrenched that their boundaries have become blurred and one is often unable to distinguish the two. Cuban history and the Revolution are, in the discourse, conceptualized in terms of one another. Historical symbols of the 1898 War of Independence against Spanish colonialism and of the 1959 revolutionary struggle are intertwined to maintain an imagination of a historical continuity of struggle throughout the nations history. This mnemonic construction of the past is made manifest through billboards calling not only for unity in a struggle for national dignity against external impositions but also for personal sacrice similar to that undertaken by the great historical martyrs in the name of la patrias independence. On almost every street one can read a variant of United with Dignity and Sacrice or be confronted by the faces of historical heroes and martyrs appropriated in support of the revolutionary cause. The streets of Havana are full of billboards referring to Cuban triumphs such as the Bay of Pigs battle. The idea is that, just as they were then, Cubas independence and revolutionary principles will be defended by the victorious people. The faces of Antonio Maceo and Che Guevara, side by side next to the words Present in the Battles of Today (g. 2), and the portrait of Che, the international
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Figure 3. Mural in Havanas central bus station depicting Cubas history, showing Jose Mart (center), Cubans marching with the banner Down with Tyranny! (right), and Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos.
revolutionary, looming over the hot and bustling Havana streets imply that past struggles are relevant in present-day Cuba and are even projected into the future. In parallel, the struggles of today are legitimated through the references to the past and their continuity with the present (see also Pe rez 1980). A striking example of the common thread linking the different struggles for independence is a full-length mural in Havanas central bus station portraying the history of Cuba as depicted in ofcial discourse (g. 3). The murals narrative begins at the left with slavery under Spanish colonial rule and the liberation by Jose Mart . It continues with the times of tyranny under capitalism and Batistas rule, with men in suits playing cards personifying an era of decadence and immorality. Directly below them are the Cuban people marching towards freedom, as it were, holding a banner which reads Down with Tyranny. This image is followed by the revolutionary armed struggle led by Fidel, Che, and Camilo Cienfuegos bringing justice, morality, and pride to la patria. Indeed, as Pe rez maintains, the national past has served as a major source of moral subsidy, conferring on the process of Revolution both continuity and, out of that continuity, legitimacy (Pe rez 1980, 80). Walking with Eduardo past the countless billboards that adorn the city, I asked him if he paid any attention to them. He replied:
I dont think that I look at them and start thinking of my countrys history and all that . . . , probably some of the time I dont even notice themthough when they change I do notice that they have changed. Maybe its something like you have in your country with advertising of products. . . . But, at the same time, I must say that I am very conscious of my history, of my countrys history. Its part of my ev-
eryday life, so, maybe, I dont know . . . maybe at some subconscious level it works.
While I cannot begin to address the notion of memory and the way it works at the conscious or subconscious level, what can be inferred from this narrative is the presence of a mnemonic landscape. The myriad billboards depicting links between la patrias past with the Revolution and the present are state techniques of rendering the status quo relevant to public opinion. They are mnemonic techniques for preserving knowledge, techniques which focus on preserving a certain reading of history by devising ways of remembering it (Miller 1999).
The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

The historical narrative linking Cubas history with the Revolution is an important resource for the state in times such as these, when external global conditions are unfavourable and the island has been forced to open up to foreigners. The collapse of the Soviet model may have trampled on the Cuban economy and jolted Cubas political status quo, but it proved an almost cleansing experience for some Cubans. Indeed, it provided space for them to openly voice their disenchantment and even lack of afliation with the Soviet model. While billboards and grafti with revolutionary and socialist slogans have been part of the Cuban landscape since the overthrow of Batistas regime, since the early 1990s the slogans have been more about the Revolution and la patria than about socialism or communism. When I pointed out this shift to Eduardo one day, he said, Well, I remember seeing portraits of Lenin and of Marxmostly of Leninthroughout [the city]. Now,
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I only know of one portrait of Lenin inside the University [of Havana]. Most of the people I spoke with considered socialism in its practical application (rather than its values) a failed Soviet experiment. Socialism had a Soviet ring and therefore a foreign connotation that contrasted with the Revolutions Cubanness. Indeed, this view has a historical basis. In the 1960s there was widespread social and political euphoria, but it was soon replaced by the Soviet invasion. This invasion, a Cuban sociologist told me, consisted of the Soviets [coming in with] manuals on how to do socialism which did not always correspond to the expectations of the Cuban population and the specicities of the Cuban economy. Moreover, the close political and economic links between Cuba and the Soviet Union translated into an exchange of populations whereby Soviets came to Cuba to teach the ways of socialism and Cubans were sent to universities in Moscow and Leningrad to be educated. Through this close contact, the general impression in Cubaopenly voiced since the collapseis that the Soviet way was an extremely dry and rigid application of socialism. As a result, since the Soviet collapse, many Cubans openly voice their association of Soviet socialism with a freezing-cold place where, as you know, things were quite bad. The Soviet period is often considered locally to have stied the innovative and more appropriate independent Cuban ways of thinking about socialism that characterized the Cuban Revolution at its birth (see also Katz 1983). Therefore, while the Revolution and la patria tend to be seen by many Cubans as mutually reinforcing, the same is not the case for socialism, which is considered the Soviet and, by extension, foreign element of the equation. The interesting contradiction, however, is that the Revolutions socialist set of values, including free health care, education, and social equality, also still carries a very positive value for many. Communism, in contrast, is much more vaguely and ambiguously dened. Although the ruling party is called the Communist Party of Cuba and has links with other so-called communist states and although Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist in the early days of the Revolution, ofcial discourse does not maintain that Cuban society is communist. The rare use of the term communism, however, is not merely the result of ideological precision. There is also a lack of clarity about what communism is, given that it has never been achieved. I was often told, Im a revolutionary, but Im not a communist, because I dont knowand no one really knowswhat real communism is because it has never existed. Celia had worked voluntarily in the small brigades building houses, spent half her adult life in Party meetings, and headed her neighbourhoods CDR (Comite de Defensa de la Revolucio n), but when I asked her if she was a communist, she looked at me in surprise and said, Me a communist? No! no! no! I have too many weaknesses to be a communist. A communist really has [the feeling of] sacrice, is a complete altruist. No, I have a thousand defects. Look, Che was a communist. I could never compare myself to him.
She described herself instead as a revolutionary, because I really think the principles of the Revolution are very beautiful. The distinction between these two notions has been largely disregarded in popular and academic literature (see, e.g., Aguila 1994; Pe rez 1995; Horowitz 1994, 1995, 2003; Aguirre 2002). Cuba is often constructed as a generalized object of knowledge (Ferguson 1990, xiv), and Cuban society has been described as a communist enclave, a dysfunctional member of the postcold war community of communist states, unable to develop in a normal and healthy manner as long as Castro is intent on retaining absolute political control (Bunck 2003, 163). Others have even described it as a hell where thousands of Cubans will die if he [Fidel Castro] does not abandon socialism or the Cubans do not rid themselves of the dictator, [and where] the dream of the old is to die to be saved from further suffering or from having to witness the likely bloody end of this tragedy. . . . Cuba has become a hell (Montaner 2003, 522). Since 1961, constructions of Cuban society and historical narratives have been largely dichotomized in contemporary writings according to their authors ideological afliations: Cuba is referred to either as an island of communist austerity (Vuillamy 2002) or as the cradle of democracy (Harnecker 1979). While there are, of course, notable exceptions (see, e.g., Dominguez 2004; Alonso 1994), much of popular and academic discourse perceives a dichotomy between pro (the communists, the oppressors, the Castroites) and anti (the dissidents, the human rights activists, the anticommunists) revolutionary discourse. Indeed, it has been argued that such conicting discourse is due to Cubans having strong visceral passions on both sides of the ideological divide (Kirk and McKenna 1999, 214). This representation, however, overlooks the existence of a middle ground that is particularly prominent in post-Soviet Havana. The following narrative by a 20year-old woman echoes many others that I heard during my eldwork:
This system did a lot for the people; educating the people, making us more cultured, more human, giving us education. But as far as the economy [is concerned], we are going lower than the ground. I do not understand that . . . everything is in dollars. I do not like that there are hospitals lled with dirt and cockroaches yet there is money to build more hotels. I do not like that they give milk on the ration card up to the age of seven because they say there is not enough, yet you see in the dollar shops11 Cuban milk in dollars or in the hotelsthere is so much milk that they throw it away. I do not like that he [Fidel Castro] did not think about what would happen if the Soviet Union did not
11. These are supermarkets whose namechopinis derived from the English word shopping. They were established in 1994 and trade in dollars. The prices in dollars are approximately equivalent those in Europe. Though there are a few shops that sell clothes and other household equipment in Cuban pesos, this makes little or no difference to buyers, as the price in pesos is based on the ofcial dollarpeso exchange rate.
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exist and that when it crumbled we had to face a very rapid change with dollarization and tourism. Maybe if it had been over a longer period people would have gotten used to it, but everything was so sudden. . . . I know that before [1959] it was very bad, because my grandmother, my mother, my grandfather, my father, tell me, but I know that I see bad things today as well. Im in the middle: neither in favour nor against.
Yurchak (2003) has noted that in the Soviet context peoples reality was also described in terms of binary oppositions such as repression and freedom, truth and dissimulation. Similarly, Cuban society is represented from the outside in dichotomous terms such as for/against, democratic/totalitarian, capitalist/communist, free/not free. As the above narrative illustrates, however, in post-Soviet Havana, as in late socialism in the Soviet Union, local understandings and nuances are much more complex and intertwined. The disparity between the popular perceptions of communism and socialism and the Revolution contrasts with the dominant state discourse, in which the Revolution, socialism, and la patria are virtually synonymous. These three words Patria, Revolucio n, Socialismoare emphasized and tantrically repeated in state discourse, suggesting that one could not possibly exist without the other. Indeed, in a speech in December 1989, Castro maintained that in Cuba, Revolution, socialism, and national independence are insolubly linked. . . . If capitalism returned some day to Cuba, our independence and sovereignty would disappear forever. We would be an extension of Miami (quoted in Gunn 1990, 140). This emphasis remains crucial to state narratives. While the Revolution and la patria tend to be considered as mutually reinforcing, socialism is often seen as the Soviet element of the equation. As previously mentioned, the interesting contradiction is that the Revolutions socialist aspects (free health care, education, and social equality) still have a positive value for many people, and this may well be the reason the leadership seeks to patriotize the socialist principles of revolutionary ideology. Billboards bearing Fidels picture and the slogans Patria or Death (g. 4) and Socialism or Death connect socialism to la patria and echo the slogans of the mamb ses, Independence or Death and Patria and Freedom (Thomas 2001 [1971]), drawing a subtle, historically contingent connection between Fidel, the (socialist) revolutionary project, and la patria. The repatriotization of revolutionary ideology does not imply a total wiping of the state of socialist political ideology. The socialist element is still, in political and social terms, very much present in ofcial discourse. For instance, the United States is still referred to as the Empire and its allies are referred to as the capitalist countries. My point is that it is not as common as it used to be. Participating in a landmark socialist event such as May Day appears to be more about an independent revolutionary patria than about Marxist-Leninism. For instance, on May Day in 2002 the inhabitants of
Figure 4. Billboard depicting Fidel Castro in military gear. Patria or Death! We Shall Overcome!
blocks of ats around Havana displayed patriotic symbols such as the Cuban ag on their balconies. Moreover, the event was organized around a campaign to Free Our Five Compatriots, Prisoners of the Empire, referring to the ve Cubans incarcerated in U.S. prisons charged with espionage,12 and not around the international workers movement. Indeed, May Day was portrayed in ofcial discourse as an act of patriotism, and posters throughout the city read that it was a patriotic duty to be at the Plaza with Fidel on May 1. On May Day in 1964, the billboard in the Plaza read Long Live MarxismLeninism and Long Live the United Party of the Socialist Revolution. In 2002, however, there were no billboards in Revolution Square that so much as alluded to Marxist-Leninism. Instead, there were billboards reading First with la Patria, carrying the double meaning of May 1 and rst (and foremost).
A Landscape of Heroes and of Exemplary Cooperatives

The ideological colonization of the rural landscape around Havana is another example of the mnemonic techniques employed by the state in order to perpetuate the status quo. The ways in which people relate to rural and urban areas are distinct, and there is a powerful historical narrative behind peasant relations to land and to revolutions throughout Latin America (see Wolf 1971).13 While these relations constitute important dynamics, they are beyond the scope of this paper. The material on rural Havana presented here is included solely because it provides another, less well documented, illustration of the intertwining of revolutionary ideology in Havana with notions of morality, history, and present challenges (see San12. The Five Compatriots, also referred to as heroes of the Revolution and of la patria, have been sentenced by the United States to between 15 years and life imprisonment. They and the Cuban government claim that they were tracking down Cuban Miami-based terrorist groups that were plotting terrorist acts against Cuba (Milne 2003). 13. I thank an anonymous reviewer for insisting on this point.
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only for the cooperatives that bear their names but also for society at large. Third, Humphrey (1997, 4041) notes,
In the Maoist period in China, and to a lesser extent in the Stalinist one in Mongolia, we can see the hijacking by the Party of the very structure [of Mongolian life] I have described. Mao himself was not to be emulated, but he, as the great teacher, presented to the masses from his own life many quasi-invested models of moral qualities. . . . The important thing to note here is that there were many of these Maoist exemplars, and unlike the situation in more politically relaxed periods of Mongolian life, they were designed to blot out all previous modelsthat is, to take over the moral landscape. Figure 5. The ritual centre of an agricultural cooperative, with portraits of Camilo Cienfuegos (left), Man of the Vanguard, and Che Guevara (right), Until Victory, Always!
tos-Granero 1998). A great deal of importance is attributed to the image of a cooperative, from its name to its public appearance. Heroes and the historical continuity of struggle are important elements of the agricultural landscape. Basso notes that placenames may be used to summon forth an enormous range of mental and emotional associationsassociations of time and space, of history and events, of persons and social activities, of oneself and stages in ones life (1988, 103). Making a similar point, Tilley claims that in the process of naming places and things they become captured in social discourses and act as mnemonics for the historical actions of individuals and groups (1994, 18). This creation of a particular emotive universe in the landscape through naming is important in conferring historical and social signicance on a geographical space. The association of cooperatives with heroes and historic events serves as a device for evoking emotional connections to historical and social rhetoric rooted in the historical continuity of struggle for the liberation and independence of la patria. All the agricultural cooperatives in the Havana area are named either for heroes of the 1898 War of Independence and the Revolution or for important landmark events. The heroes are considered moral exemplars (Humphrey 1997) upon whom members behaviour should be modelled. The name of a cooperative is exhibited on a concrete plaque outside its ofce. Though I cite Humphreys use of the term exemplar to portray a particular construction of a moral landscape based on exemplary gures, the morality of exemplars in Cuba differs in three respects from Humphreys Mongolian case. First, the exemplars are called heroes. Second, whereas in the Mongolian context exemplars are chosen by individuals depending on their particular circumstances at a given time, in Cuba heroes are universal and the subject of ideological education; Camilo Cienfuegos and Ce sar Escalante (both heroes of the struggle for independence) are heroes not
In Cuba, however, previous models are not blotted out but rather emphasized and constructed through a revolutionary reading of history and around a moral universe of heroes struggling for la patrias freedom from tyrants and oppressors. In order to present the image of an exemplary revolutionary cooperative, each cooperative is required to have a designated space for its monthly assembly meetings and social events called the recreational space. I refer to this space as the ritual centre, since it is decorated with portraits of the revolutionary hero for whom the cooperative is named and with the diplomas and certicates awarded to the cooperative by the ANAP and/or the Party for outstanding individual and/ or collective efforts and results (g. 5). The ritual centre may also be decorated with revolutionary grafti such as the one found on the wall of a cooperative ofce reading Freedom for Our Brothers Prisoners of the Empire (referring to the aforementioned ve Cubans incarcerated in the United States) (g. 6). In the past few years the organization responsible for the political orientation of private cooperatives, the ANAP, has required the exemplary cooperative to have a rinco n Martiano (Mart corner) or plaza Martiana (Mart square), a shri-
Figure 6. Sign on the wall of the ofce of an agricultural cooperative. Freedom for Our Brothers Prisoners of the Empire!
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nelike monument to la patrias suprahero Jose Mart , who is considered the grandfather of the Revolution. The Mart corner is strategically situated at the entrance of each cooperatives ofce and contains such essentials as a miniature of the house of Mart s birth, a bust of him, ornamental owers, the names of the cooperatives founding members, and the date of the cooperatives founding (g. 7). Moreover, it must include the national symbols stipulated in Cubas National Constitution of 1901 (when Cuba was declared a republic): the Cuban ag, the national shield, the national anthem, the national ower, and the royal palm tree (palma real). The use of botanical metaphorsin this case both the national ower and the royal palm treecan create a sense of identity between people, heritage, territory, and state [and] . . . congure the nation as limited in its membership, sovereign, and continuous in time. . . . [Such] kinship tropes substantialize hierarchical social relations and imbue them with sentiment and morality (Alonso 1994, 383, 385). As Brow has suggested elsewhere, the idiom of kinship has a special potency as a basis of community because it can draw upon the past not simply to posit a common origin but also to claim substantial identity in the present (quoted by Alonso 1994, 384). The Mart shrine nds its symbolic potency in the juxtaposition of la patrias quintessential symbols. These national symbols are honoured by the socioeconomic and political unit representative of the Revolutions agrarian politics. In the coexistence of these symbols in the same space we nd a symbolic vocabulary of struggle, liberation, and nationalism expressed as part of an imagined historical revolutionary project. This construction provides the Revolution with both moral and historical legitimacy and, given the Mart corners recent introduction as an essential part of the cooperative landscape, can be seen as part of the repatriotization of revolutionary ideology in post-Soviet times. The importance attached to the Mart corner by the leadership is illustrated by several facts. To begin with, the prerequisites for a Mart corner are found in the ANAPs general rules booklet, and the socialist emulation in which cooperatives are ranked twice a year awards points for the bestkept Mart corner. The construction of an image of the exemplary cooperative has wider implications. Following Aretxagas point that names dene reality, create history, and shape memory (1997, 43), such images link historical moments through a particular discursive historiography, serving as devices for politicizing and promoting revolutionary consciousness in times of struggle. This is also a way of making entities which were once neglected for not being particularly high forms of production (given that these cooperatives were not, strictly speaking, state but private) part of the wider revolutionary project (Deere, Meurs, and Pe rez 1992). While private, they are incorporated into the revolutionary framework because they reect particular values. In this way the cooperatives can be presented as successful expressions of the revolutionary
Figure 7. The Mart corner of an agricultural cooperative.
structure, with roots deeply embedded in the struggle against exploitation and giving the land back to the people. The above examples are all sites which are both socially and ideologically demarcated. As a result of this demarcation, the importance of these sites is not only their manifest and distinctive appearance, but their qualifying and latent meaning (Kuper 1972, 421). Indeed, one of the reasons behind requiring such sites, as a Party member and ANAP employee explained, is that it is part of a wider project of educating the campesino and his/her family about Cubas ofcial revolutionary history of struggle for independence and freedom from Spanish colonialism and American-led foreign capitalist exploitation. As the organizations ideologist said, I educate them all on our heroesso that we dont forget what is ours, because if we are here it is [thanks to] them, and that cannot be forgotten.
Conclusion
The concept of landscape has been employed here as a heuristic device to help illustrate the repatriotization of ideology in state discourse. Havanas landscape of posters and billboards, grafti, and shrines to historical and revolutionary heroes is a medium for expressing ideology. This mnemonic landscape constructs a politicised memory . . . in which the political cannot be meaningfully studied apart from the moral (Werbner 1998, 15). It makes revolutionary ideology pertinent to the present and projects it into the future by reminding people of their past and conferring a morality on past struggles. The distinction between the Revolution, communism, and socialism is important in understanding the endurance of the Revolution and the relative ease with which Cuban state discourse can adaptthrough the battle-of-ideas campaign and
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the repatriotization of revolutionary ideology, for instance to become more relevant for people and the challenges they face today. As we have seen, the discourse of the Revolution has from the very beginning made many Cubans think in terms of belonging to a geographically and historically vulnerable patria and to link aspirations to remain free and truly Cuban to state legitimacy. While this was certainly the basis upon which it came to power in 1959, the Revolution increasingly encompassed and emphasized socialism. In postSoviet times there has been a return to the core values of the Revolution. While this return does not completely exclude socialist ideals, the more homegrown foundations of the Revolutionmorality, patriotism, and national dignityhave become more and more dominant in state discourse and are gradually coming to overshadow the building of socialism.
Acknowledgments
The material presented here was gathered during my doctoral eldwork (20012002). I thank David Sneath for his comments, ideas, insight, and support and Benjamin Orlove and ve anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. I acknowledge the generosity of the following funding bodies that made my research possible: the Domestic Research Studentship (Cambridge University), the Isaac Newton Studentship (Cambridge European Trust), the Pembroke College Studentship, the Richards Fund (Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University), the Wyse Fund (Trinity College/Department of Social Anthropology), the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust (Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University), and the David Moore Memorial Fund (The Arkleton Trust). I thank UNESCO for nancial assistance during the writing of this article. A draft of the article was presented to the Senior Seminar, Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University. The views expressed in the article are mine alone.
Comments
Virginia R. Dominguez Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana/ Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A. (vdomingu@uiuc.edu) 13 II 07 Gropas has a sense of something deeply present and consequential in contemporary Cuba, and, drawing on some very different types of materials, she is trying here to put together a plausible narrative that articulates that sense. I have mixed feelings about the paper, though somewhat less about its argument. The essay does not really hang together well, at least to my editorial eyes. The material offered as evidence is not really all that much about landscape or memory (despite the essays
title or self-proclaimed frame of analysis), and the overall impression is of a collage rather than a tight argument. The analytic frame that looms large here seems partly appropriate but largely not, and other frames of understanding (regarding state socialism, U.S. imperialism, nationalism, and even capitalism) are so weak or backgrounded that they feel absent. Enormous debates about Cuban politics, Cuba-U.S. relations, Cuba-USSR relations, and the Cuban revolution itself are elided, ignored, or so marginally addressed here that a reader unfamiliar with Latin American studies or the history of state socialist societies is likely to overestimate the importance of Gropass essay or its degree of novelty. And, as an article itself, the essay is not neatly crafted. Too many themes seem both present and equally highlighted, detracting from the sharpness of argument that I like to see in a journal article. At times the essay appears to want to contribute to visual culture, at other times to the lively UK-centered discussions of landscape and history. And it mentions, more than analyzes, mnemonic devices. Most frustrating is its handling of Cubas post-1959 state ideology, government, and shifts in practice, because this is where it also stands to offer real insight. And to any Cubanologist or Latin Americanist (and I do not really fall into either category with ease) it offers tantalizing but overly brief and underdeveloped insights into Cubas relationship with the United States before and after Castros takeover in January 1959, the long-standing public hagiography of Che Guevara, the extent of internal dissent in Castros Cuba, the nature of urban/rural differences, and the role of Cuban nationalism in all of this. Yet I like Gropass hunch, and I appreciate her courage in trying to nd a way to share it with the rest of us. I nd it there in her term repatriotization, with its ambiguity about whether it concerns patriotism or nationalism. I nd myself agreeing that it is there in the interviews and in snippets of public discourse issued by state agencies and by seemingly private parties. Less clear is whether this is really a return to Cuban patriotism or a public reafrmation of it since the collapse of the USSR. I suspect the latter. Verde como las palmas (green like the palm trees) was something I rst heard in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was there in the early periods of the Cuban Revolution. It may have been backgrounded publicly for some years (perhaps mid-1960s to mid1970s), but much else about Cuban public and private practice and discourse throughout the 1960s to 1990s continued to reveal a kind of Cuban national self-condence, a cando attitude, that is easy to see and often rattles the White House and the U.S. Congress. It is what frequently leads Cubans to seem upbeat and inspiring (but also pushy and arrogant) in the eyes of many who encounter them/us, whether in Cuba or in its diaspora. So I am not so sure that repatriotization is the right term. I do think that the evidence Gropas offers here is persuasive about its current level of visibility and even governmental endorsement. I am less sure how novel it is to suggest that state socialist ideologies can coexist with nationalism and patriotism, even
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with a strong version of the latter. I have a hard time contemplating the Vietnam War without it, or the discourse and actions of the North Korean government today, or the long, complex relationship of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party to the USSR even at the height of Soviet inuence in Hungary. Perhaps we should take Gropass essay as a reminder of how present, how deeply felt, and how generative nationallevel patriotism is today, regardless of ofcial political or religious ideologies that may seem more visible or audible, the sheer volume of transnational movement of people, goods, or ideas, and the afrmations of postnationalism and the demise of the nation-state that began to emerge in the late 1990s. Is the alternative not exceptionalism?
Nadine Fernandez Central New York Center, SUNY Empire State College, 219 Walton Street, Syracuse, NY 13202, U.S.A. (nadin.fernandez@ esc.edu) 8 III 07 Gropass work represents the latest in a small but steady stream of anthropological eldwork in Cuba since the early 1990s (e.g., Carter 2000; Crabb 2001; Daniel 1995; Fernadez 1996; Forrest 1999; Fosado 2004; Hernandez-Reguant 2002; Perry 2004; Roland 2006). She presents an interesting analysis of what she terms the repatriotization of revolutionary ideology, that is, state discourses emphasis on ideas of patria/ nationalism over socialism. She pays close attention to language and varying views on the revolution, but at times her argument about change can be heavy-handed. The strength of her argument lies in her focus on the notion of landscape as represented by the ubiquitous billboards and slogans that proclaim the revolutions successes, values, and ideals. This idea of mnemonic landscape, Gropas argues, is a means of using a politicized memory of the past to create the present and ensure the future of the revolution. The emphasis on past struggles and heroes (e.g., the war of independence) becomes a way of understanding and valorizing current struggles such as the effort to maintain sovereignty (e.g., in the face of U.S. threats). She argues that the landscape of revolutionary propaganda fosters a particular reading of Cuban history that stresses la patria/nation, duty, and morality. These ideas, in turn, help to justify current battles and sacrices as they are contextualized as extensions of earlier struggles for la patria. This is a fascinating analysis of the meanings and use of the revolutions visual messaging and the use of a morally grounded, nationalistic discourse and imagery to build support for the revolution both in the city of Havana and in the rural agricultural cooperative where she worked. It allows her not only to present the revolution as an evolving process rather than a particular event in the past but also to posit an often-overlooked middle ground in the debates about the revolution that characterize much of the academic literature on Cuba.
She moves onto shakier ground, however, when she asserts that this emphasis on morality, duty, and la patria has emerged with new vigor since the fall of the socialist bloc. The pre/ post-Soviet-period aspect of her argument plays down the fact that the revolutionary government has always relied heavily on moral claims and incentives. Che Guevara himself epitomized this moral/political connection in advocating moral (over material) incentives for work. This is not an idea that emerged after 1990 but the very root of the revolution. Changes have certainly taken place since the collapse of the socialist bloc, but there are also continuities which have helped to keep the revolution in power for more than 40 years. A more nuanced analysis of the way these moral/political connections have been employed over the past several decades would have helped root Gropass analysis of landscape. Gropas found that Cubans she spoke with critiqued Sovietstyle socialism as rigid and perceived it as a foreign imposition on the Cubanness of the revolution. This critique of the Soviet period is very interesting and could have been more deeply explored. In hindsight, of course, it is clear that Soviet-style socialism failed. However, for many Cubans the period of the 1980s, the heyday of Soviet support, was a time of relative plenty. The Cuba of the Soviet era was one of greater material comfort, economic prosperity, and educational opportunities, thanks to Soviet subsidies and aid. Many Cubans remember it not as something foreign but as a time of abundance in comparison with the very austere rst years of the revolution and the extreme scarcities of the early 1990s Special Period. In the early 1990s it was common to hear glowing descriptions of Cuba antes (before), referring not to before the revolution as in Miami but rather to before the Special Period exactly that period of Soviet support that Gropas suggests is now critiqued as too foreign. Perhaps perceptions of this more recent past are also being reshaped in light of yet another invasion of foreigners, who now come bearing beach towels instead of manuals on how to do socialism. One piece of the landscape that Gropas does not mention is the commercial and tourism billboards which stand alongside the revolutionary slogans. What images and memories of the past are these mnemonic landscapes resurrecting, and what present and future are they constructing? She has provided a close reading of one aspect of the visual/ ideological reality in Cuba. Now, perhaps we are in a better position to think about broadening the panorama.
Martin Hall Bremner Building, University of Cape Town, ZA-7700 Rondebosch, South Africa (mhall@bremner.uct.ac.za) 21 II 07 For Gropas, Cubas landscapes are the mediation of the present through the construction of the past. The core theme of the 1959 Revolution and its images of guns, freedom, and revolutionary leaders provide a set of icons that organize a
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rich political discourse of national identity. This discourse plays in opposition to the idea of the Empirethe United States and its political allies, who encircle the island both practically through economic constraints and guratively by representing Cuba as an exemplar of oppression. Cuba has a special place in South Africas slow revolution, which begin with the Soweto uprising in June 1976 and ended with the rst democratic elections in 1994. During the 1980s, the South African Defence Force engaged directly with Cuban militia in Angola, culminating in the key 1987 battle of Cuito Cuanavale. For the South African state and its U.S. ally, Cuban involvement in Southern Africa epitomized the malign intentions of the Soviet bloc. For the African National Congress and the broader post-apartheid consensus, Cuba represents commitments to the ideals of liberation, freedom, and democratic principles. Cuba has provided models of good practice for the reconstruction of the South African state, whether in education, health care, or the arts and culture. Aspects of post-apartheid landscapes provide parallels to the post-Revolutionary Cuban landscapes that Gropas discusses. Robben Island, some 5 km from Cape Towns Table Bay, has been constituted as a living representation of the imprisonment of key ANC leaders (including, of course, Nelson Mandela). Visitors are guided through the prison compounds by former political prisoners and are told of the intellectual and political work of the exercise yards and the stone quarry as foundations of the liberated state. In one reading, Robben Island could be seen as a simple manifestation of nationalism. Howeverand in the same way that Gropas insists on a more nuanced reading of Havanas revolutionary landscapethis would be to ignore the debates around the meaning of the Island in the years after 1994. For example, the emphasis on Nelson Mandela and the ANC has led others to insist on recognition of the revolutionary role of the Pan African Congress and its leader Robert Sobukwe, also imprisoned on Robben Island. Others have criticized the omission from ofcial memorialization of the anti-racist political traditions of the Western Cape and its own landscapes of memory, such as forced removal and the District Six Museum. As with the debates that Gropas describes, all would defend and celebrate the democratic South African state while disagreeing on how the past should be understood in the context of the present. As with the role that Gropas discerns in Havanas billboards and revolutionary images, so the physicality of South African landscapes such as Robben Island and District Six serves to give substance and shape to verbal formulations and exchanges. There is, though, one key difference between contemporary Cuba and contemporary South Africa. Cuba is enclaved, surrounded by the Empire which, in Gropass account, is as much an icon of Cubas contemporary conditions as the abiding images of Guevara and Castro. South Africa is the opposite, a poster-child of Western-style freedom and democracy. Robben Island is a World Heritage site, the location of spectacular events such as a joint production with the Swedish
national opera of Beethovens Fidelio, and a must for every celebrity visit. This opens up an interesting set of questions for Cubas future landscapes after Castro, when the cordon is lifted and Havana is again, as before 1959, an integral part the U.S. tourism industry, a themed destination resort where, perhaps, the Havana Hilton welcomes the world under another manifestation of Che and Fidel, now benignly watching over designer boutiques, beaches, and musical theatre in the tradition of Les Miserables. South Africa provides useful pointers for imagining such future landscapes. The post-apartheid period has been a range of new and largely successful entertainment destinations (Hall 2006). A legal requirement that gaming licences be linked with community development has seen many of these linked with concepts of heritage, while, following global trends in the entertainment industry, there is invariably a unifying theme that seeks distinction through the spectacular. Cape Town has GrandWest, which directly appropriates the liberation landscape of District Six in a streetscape of shops and restaurants. Those in Gauteng (the economic and political hub of the country, which includes both Johannesburg and Pretoria) can choose among an East African landscape (at the Emerald Resort), the imagined landscape of a lost Africa (at the Lost City), and a form of highveld Tuscany (at Montecasinoa themed destination in Johannesburg with a capacity of 10,000). Such landscapes are popular with the full spectrum of South Africas population. It will be fascinating to see how Cubas landscapes continue to mediate past and present once the Empires blockade has been lifted.
Martin Holbraad Department of Anthropology, University College London, 14 Taviton St., London WCIH 0BW, UK (m.holbraad@ ucl.ac.uk). 12 III 07 Gropass ear-to-the-ground ethnography of revolutionary discourse in present-day Cuba is a much-needed contribution to a eld that remains tentative because of political circumstances on both sides of the Florida straits. With few notable exceptions (e.g., Rosendahl 1997), the ethnographic research that began to be carried out in Cuba by non-Cuban anthropologists in the 1990s has been limited mainly to the eld of Afro-Cuban culture, often with a view to Black Atlanticist concerns (e.g., Dianteill 2000; Hagedorn 2001; Palmie 2002; Brown 2003; Wedel 2004). Indeed, for those of us who have conducted long-term research on the island, Gropass eldwork among state functionaries and farmers in an agricultural cooperative in rural Havana represents an admirable achievement. So do the insights she offers in this article into the signicance of the Revolution to ordinary Cubans, as well as the ways in which this is moulded by the islands thoroughly politicized landscape. By way of building on each of these two strands of Gropass argument, I make a couple of points. The major concern of the article is to show that in recent
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years in Cuba terms like revolution and revolutionary have shifted in meaning, shedding some of the socialist connotations of the Soviet era in favour of a moral emphasis on the national dignity of la patriawhat Gropas calls the repatriotization of the Revolution. In this connection, Gropass ethnographic material shows that notions of revolution are at once uid in their meaning and supremely salient to Cubans ideological discourse not only politically but also, as some of her informants expressions would indicate, at a personal and emotional level. Anthropologically speaking, this combination of semantic haziness and moral weight brings to mind Le vi-Strausss 1987 inuential point that oating signiers play a pivotal role in the symbolic constitution of cosmological thinking. Along these lines, one might think of the discursive characteristics of revolution by analogy to Oceanian notions of mana (Le vi-Strausss prime example of a oating signier) or, indeed, ache , the equivalent of mana in Afro-Cuban religion (Holbraad 2007). The point of such a comparison would be neither to mystify Cuban notions of revolution nor to assent to Le vi-Strausss contention that such oating signiers are essentially meaningless (1987, 55, 64). Rather, the idea would be to complement Gropass mainly pragmatic analysis, which is focused on the political efcacy of ideological discourse, with a more symbolically minded approach that would treat the Cuban Revolution as an irreducibly cosmological enterprise. The fact, for example, that the revolutionary character of Cuban society is sustained discursively almost half a century after the events of 1959 (the Triumph of the Revolution, as people in Cuba call it even in everyday parlance) arguably lends those events the proportions of a cosmogony. As indicated by the matter-of-fact way in which the Revolution is annualized in all manner of texts (e.g., dating this years correspondence An o 49 de la Revolucio n), the Revolution can be posited as a point of originin a relevant sense, the origin of time itselfby comparison to what anthropologists in other contexts call origin myths. On such a view, a chief difference between, say, the origin myths of tribal ethnography and that of the Cuban Revolution is that while in the former case time typically is owed to divinities, in the latter it is an achievement of a People and its Leader and Heroes, as Gropas describes. Gropass argument about the ways in which the Revolution has shifted historically from socialism to patriotism could then be recast in terms of contrasting ways of imagining the cosmogonical powers of a peculiarly collective subjectivity, for example, the tension between the particular collectivity of a Cuban Revolution and the universal one of internationalist socialism. Such a perspective may also serve to qualify Gropass argument about the mnemonic role of Cubas politicized landscape. Her discussion of the way memorialized events, heroes, and slogans serve to fuel present-day revolutionary discourse draws on theories of landscape and memory that may not necessarily be transposed without qualication to the context of the Cuban Revolution. For example, if, seen
as a political cosmology, the Revolution involves a set of distinctive temporal notions and practices, then what constitutes memory and how past, present, and future may be articulated cosmologically must be treated as open ethnographic questions. Similarly, if such a cosmology turns on the subjectivity of collectives, then one will have to reconsider traditional anthropological concerns with what used to be called socialization, which seems a premise of Gropass discussion of the efcacy of state discourse in moulding peoples memory. In other words, a relevant anthropological question is who, in revolution, is the subject. Such lines of inquiry would link Gropass fascinating ethnography more explicitly to compelling analyses of time, memory, and subjectivity in recent anthropological writings on socialist and post-socialist societies (e.g., Humphrey 1994; Kharkhordin 1999; Ssorin-Chaikov 2003, 2006; Yurchak 2006; Pedersen 2007).
Mona Rosendahl Institute of Latin American Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm S-106 91, Sweden (rosend_m@lai.su.se) 14 III 07 Gropas treats a subject which is and has been a central issue for decades in Cuba, namely, the visualization in language and landscape of what Cubans call the Revolution. It is a pleasure to read her article, especially since this important issue has received little attention in other research about Cuba. Gropass article captures the contradictions in political discourse as experienced by people in everyday life and shows how the state is able to construct and reconstruct the image of the Revolution to t the current situation. Using the concept repatriotization, Gropas argues that in post-Soviet Cuba a patriotic and nationalist discourse has replaced the more socialist and Sovietied discourse of the 1970s and 1980s. I agree with her that there has been a shift in ofcial discourse since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The ideological heritage from Jose Mart , as she shows, stressing dignity and national sovereignty, has become more and more important in speeches and slogans. My main objection to an otherwise extremely interesting article is precisely the use of the concept repatriotization. Gropas argues that socialism was the main ideological message in ofcial discourse during the Soviet era and that it is still present although to a much lesser degree. My view is exactly the opposite. I would argue that socialism has never been a very important part of revolutionary discourse, other than in ofcial speeches and slogans and then only in high-prole events such as May 1, which is one of Gropass examples. I also consider that the shift from socialism to patriotization has been partial and gradual and has varied not only over time but in the different elds of discourseofcial state discourse, local political discourse, and the discourse of individuals.
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During my eldwork in a small town in the East of Cuba in the 1980s (see Rosendahl 1997), local politicians hardly ever mentioned socialism or Marxism/Leninism but talked about the achievements of the Revolution in terms of the peoples rights to education, medical care, jobs, etc. They also often quoted Jose Mart , and dignity was an important catchword in speeches, along with historical comparisons with the bad times before the Revolution (referred to as antes). The subjects echoed those treated in speeches by Fidel Castro or the other national leaders, since the local leaders followed the Party line very closely. Although many people did not agree with the excessive descriptions of improvements, many, especially those who had experienced extreme poverty before the Revolution, could concur that there had been improvements, and this gave the discourse legitimacy. When the economic crisis deepened in Cuba in the mid1990s, ofcial discourse among top-level politicians also changed, as Gropas shows. One of the reasons for this, I believe, was that earlier discourse had programmatically stressed the achievements of the Revolution, often by citing long lists of feats. When the country fell into economic crisis, it was no longer possible for the leaders to legitimately make these claims, and this led to silences (Rosendahl 2002) and eventually to a discourse with stronger emphasis on the historical links to the wars of independence and on the ideas of Mart on dignity, la patria, and national sovereignty. I would like to stress that the collapse of the Soviet Union meant a stronger emphasis not only on la patria but sometimes also on socialism. Precisely at the beginning of the socalled special period in 1990, when the world expected, hoped, or feared that Cuba would leave the socialist path, the slogan Socialism or Death (echoing the slogan used from the beginning of the Revolution Patria o Muerte/Homeland or Death) was introduced. This was done, Fidel Castro explained, to reassure the Cuban people and the world that Cuba would continue on its socialist path. As Gropas shows, people without political posts have much more complex and nuanced views of the Revolution than is usually depicted. For most people in everyday life the social achievements of the Revolution are the most important, as well as the patriotic aspect. Even those who are very critical of the government and the political system defend their country. Gropas quotes a man from her eldwork in 20012 as saying, Even though I am against Castro, I love my country. This is almost verbatim what a man said to me during my study in 199890. Although he didnt like the system, he said, I would defend my country to the last drop of my blood. Gropass article makes a vital contribution to Cuban studies and to political anthropology. It also shows the importance of a historical approach and the difculty of pursuing such an approach, especially in a eld that has been little studied.
Reply
I thank the commentators for having taken the time to read my article and provide such insight. Their comments give me the opportunity to clarify a few points. First, the concept of repatriotization seems to have attracted the most interest. I explicitly noted that in speaking of repatriotization I was not suggesting either (a) that the socialist element was no longer present in post-Soviet Cuban state discourse or (b) that this patriotic discourse was new to post-Soviet Cuba. I emphasized that the discourse of la patria dated back to the times of Jose Mart and that the 1959 revolution did not start off being about socialism. What I tried to show here is that, while reference to socialism started moving toward center stage after 1961, in more recent years we have noted a greater emphasis on the independent patria than on the building of a socialist and/or communist society. This is not to say that discourse on morality and patria was not present before. On the contrary, I have insisted that one of the Revolutions constants has been the reference to a historical continuity of struggle for la patrias independence. My eldwork experience indicates that in post-Soviet Havana ofcial state narratives seem to be going back to basics, as it were. Indeed, during my eldwork I found that, in Havana at least, people were now (in contrast to the 1960s) more willing to accept doing things and making sacrices for la patria than for the building of socialism. By no means did I intend to claim that there was a sharp dichotomy in the discourse of pre-and post-Soviet times. Nor did I claim that the two discourses (on la patria and on socialism) were mutually exclusive. I may not have succeeded in wholly escaping this dichotomy, but I believe that there is analytical utility in seeing revolutionary discourse as shifting and adapting. Rosendahl points out that in the 1980s local politicians spoke about the Revolution rather than about Marxist Leninism and that in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet collapse ofcial discourse greatly emphasized socialism at a time when the world expected that Cuba would abandon it. Her point actually strengthens my argument that state narratives in Cuba are forever adapting to the challenges of the time. This is why ideological discourse cannot be viewed as monolithic. Indeed, it would be of great interest to see whether, following the relatively recent rise to power of various leftleaning governments across Latin America (e.g., those of Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Bachelet in Chile, Cha vez in Venezuela, and Lula in Brazil), state narratives in Cuba have seen a recent shifthowever slighttoward a greater emphasis on socialist discourse. Some very interesting points for further research have emerged from the comments. Fernandez, Hall, and Holbraad
547
have suggested ways in which research on Cuba can be taken further. Fernandez points to an aspect of Cuban history which has not been documented: the Cuban critique of the Soviet period. I completely agree with her that the Soviet period was plentiful from a material perspective. Indeed, I was often told about the tins of ham that came from the Soviet Union, which, at the time, were often rejected but during the Special Period were recalled nostalgically. My eldwork data suggest, however, that from an ideological perspective perceptions were more complex. I am inclined to think that this plentifulness is on some level associated with the scarcity that followed in the early 90s. Indeed, as time passes, research on CubanSoviet relations may shed more light on the way that period was perceived locally. Halls discussion of the South African case opens up a whole new way of seeing the Cuban material. An anonymous reviewer of my article wrote that it would be interesting to know whether this study might have wider implications. Halls comments indicate that postapartheid landscapes present parallels to the landscapes I have discussed. Further research on such parallels would, I believe, be most valuable. Holbraads perceptive theorization of the articles more pragmatic approach is constructive, and the approach he suggests is extremely valuable. His question of who, in revolution, is the subject is an intriguing idea for further research. I have one slight reservation, however, reading his idea that the Revolution could be seen as taking on the proportions of a cosmogony or origin myth. A key constant of the Revolutions discourse is precisely the idea that the Revolution is part of a process which dates back to the Spanish occupationan achievement of a historical trajectory of struggle. Given the continuous delving into history that is so common in revolutionary discourse, I am unsure whether the revolution is discursively constructed as a point of origin or as a constellation of several such points found throughout Cubas history. Dominguezs comment provides insight into the challenges one faces in writing about Cuba. First, it differs from the others in being personal rather than academic, based, as she herself writes, on feelings. Feelings about style or approach should not be allowed to cloud the academic judgment of the material presented. It is also the only comment which focuses largely on what is missing from the article or should have been included. Silences and omissions are unavoidable; inevitably, a great deal will be left out or merely touched upon. In the end, the guiding principle is to do justice to ones material. Indeed, I remember being taught in my rst year of anthropology at Cambridge to go where my eldwork took me and not where I thought it should take me. My article is overwhelmingly ethnographic, and this, in my opinion, is its main contribution. The Cuban-studies literature includes books and article on the internal dissent and the Cuban-USSR and Cuban-U.S.A. relations that interest Dominguez. These contributions are valuable for an under-
standing of the Cuba of yesterday and today and provide a foundation for further research. They are, however, largely the work of historians, political scientists, sociologists, and economists. The eldwork reports of anthropologists can complement and extend them. Dominguezs misreads my article when she says that it claims to be novel by suggesting that state ideologies can coexist with nationalism and patriotism. No such claim has been made. This article is an exposition of the uidity of the notion of revolution and of its salience in ideological discourse. It explores the differences locally perceived between the concepts of revolution, socialism, and communism and approaches these concepts as analytically distinct. Herein, I believe, lies its novelty and interest. Maria Gropas
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The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology and Mnemonic Landscape in PresentDay Havana Author(s): MariaGropas Source: Current Anthropology, Vol.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/518299 . Accessed: 24/01/2014 15:10

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology and Mnemonic Landscape in Present-Day Havana

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

The Revolution Asks This of You!

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Dening the Revolution

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Landscape and Mnemonics

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

A Landscape of Heroes and of Exemplary Cooperatives

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Figure 7. The Mart corner of an agricultural cooperative.

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

Current Anthropology Volume 48, Number 4, August 2007

Gropas The Repatriotization of Revolutionary Ideology

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