Peaceful Transition in Cuba using an old Jewish parable

This is the first time I have posted in 2 years. I believe there can be a relatively peaceful transition in Cuba by taking lessons from an old Jewish parable said by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov about 350 years ago. The name of the parable is The Turkey Prince, and I reccomend that y'all read it at www.nachalnovea.com/breslovcenter/articles/article_tprince.html . My comments are thus: I believe there will be at least 3 stages of transition of Cuba to Free Cuba. 1) The Chinese model will first be used, with economic liberalization and some loosening of social controls, but with raul fully in charge. 2) Next stage will be the Turkish model; with free elections, but with the army being the power source behind the scenes 'guaranteeing" that policy goes according to the ideas of the "revolution". The power structure behind the scenes will reconcile the "revolution" of 1959 with free elections. This will be a critical time for strenghthening and expanding civil society and also reconciliation between the Cuban people both in Cuba and Miami. 3) The last stage would be the Guantanamera stage, which Cuba will return to the 1940 contitution, in the spirit of the song Gauntanamera. I know this sounds dreamy, but I think there is a chance things in Cuba can happen in this or a similar way on their way to freedom.

A worthy parable, but I suspect something more rapid and above the table will occur, like East Europe in 1989.

The driving forces are the Cubans on the island and the exiles. The island population is usually depicted as satisfied with communism or exhausted, but, due to their friendliness with visiting Americans, I suspect they are waiting for their moment, as East Europeans were. The exiles are energetic, restive, and wealthy, and are eager to push and pry at every seam and weakness.

The imponderable are how long the Castro brothers will live or keep their grip on things, and the degree and quality of violence that will attend the end of their regime. Will they die or become incapacitated before the end of the year, or linger for several years, with lessening repression to keep matters from boiling over?

Will there be riots, arson, or mass disobedience as in East Germany, or a coup d'etat by the security services as in Romania? Perhaps a bloody repression that requires US response? No doubt some would be reformers like Gorbachev or Deng are waiting in the wings, but will they even have a chance to gain the stage, or will events overwhelm their efforts?

The calendar is a regular thing, but History moves in fits and starts. At the this moment, in Cuba, it is lacing up its sprinter shoes.

As odd as it may sound, even the tyrannical Russian Czarist regime was reforming, probably successfully, until Stolypin's resignation in 1911 and WW I in 1914. Nicholas and Alexander were tragic figures but, with peace and reforms, they might have survived had Czarism evolved into a liberal constitutional monarchy. More recently, the Boer regime in South Africa reformed and permitted Black majority rule, and there are some other examples of tyrannies reforming.

The problem with communist regimes is that they regard party control as irreversible, which makes them corrupt and almost always inflexible. Even so, the East European revolutions of 1989 and the Russian Revolution of 1991 were remarkably peaceful because the legitimacy of those regimes had thoroughly evaporated. When the crunch came, the armed forces were unwilling to enforce or permit the bloody repression required to keep the communists in power.

Fidel has rejected the Chinese model of economic liberalization as too risky. Successors may try it, but the US will almost certainly insist on free elections, civil rights, protections for exiles who return, and resolution of expropriated property claims. The best chance for a post-Castro communist regime is to find a pliable dissident who will head a transitional government in return for peace, amnesty for communists, and retention of their personal wealth. If so, as in East Europe, the more agile excommunists will then run the place for five or ten years or so after Castro is gone.

"'Do you think that I couldn't get you out of there if I wanted to?" asked God, terribly irritated. Rabbi Nachman was afraid to answer. "It would be so easy. I wouldn't even have to break [the butter churn] open. All I'd have to do would be to put a thousand bees in it, just like that.'
"Rabbi Nachman shuddered.
"'All right. Stay there. Why are you afraid? Don't you like music?'
"'Yes,' peeped Rabbi Nachman, from deep inside the churn. 'I like music.'
"'Don't you like humor?'
"'Yes,' peeped Rabbi Nachman. 'As a youth, I was fond of humorous circumstances. I particularly liked wry expressions, mistaken identities, and circumstantial confusion.'
"'So why don't you like bees?'
"'I don't understand.'
"'Why don't you like bees?' God shouted, and the world was clapped by thunder.
"'I hear you, Majesty, I hear you,' said Rabbi Nachman, trembling.
"'I created bees the same day that I created music and humor. I made it so that bees are the visual manifestation of both. Transcribing symphonies into bees, and vice versa, is most amusing, and a good joke is nothing more than a bee in disguise. Can't you see that?'
"'I see that Sire,' answered Rabbi Nachman.
"'No, you don't,' sighed God. 'I'll have to invent a way.' And then God looked at the churn, which exploded from Rabbi Nachman, its pieces shattering into the silence of the universe. Rabbi Nachman found himself naked at the feet of God, and he had to shield his eyes because the light was too bright. 'Rabbi Nachman,' said God, 'you are now a bee on earth.'
"Suddenly, Rabbi Nachman found himself several feet above a mountain meadow, flying in a hill-hugging ellipse, looking for the brightest flower. He was a bee in Germany, in 1266. At this point, his wife rattled the top of the churn to tell him that it was dinnertime, but not before he felt with magnificent intensity what it is like to be a single living note in music; and to trace lines long ago predetermined in the air; and not before he realized that a coat of yellow-and-black fur, two lantern-like antennae, and buzzing wings are the basic materials of humor."
- Mark Helprin, Ellis Island & Other Stories

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