HAVANA, CUBA — Cuba’s free-market reforms became law this week. The blackouts, conveniently, also continued.
The reforms, per USA Today, which take effect as early as this week, make official a set of changes that had, before being made official, been the changes. The government describes the package as “a significant opening” of the economy, a phrase it offered with the unselfconscious enthusiasm of a restaurant announcing a new appetizer while the kitchen loses power.
The opening arrives at exactly the moment the United States, through a fuel blockade that began in January, has cut off the oil the island’s economy has always run on. The blockade, per Al Jazeera, now means hours of blackouts, food shortages, and a water shortage for millions on the island. The government, when asked whether the reforms and the blockade are one story, says they are two, and that the two can be talked about separately, which is the position of a country that has, in the specific, made talking about them the thing it is willing to do.
The word “temporary” is, on this trip, the load-bearing structure of the entire conversation. The blackouts, which by early September had entered their fourth stretch of the year, are, per the resident who lit the candle outside the hotel, “temporary.” The water shortage is, per the same resident, “temporary.” The queue, which extended past the corner by the time it was counted, was, per the woman at its head, “temporary,” and then, at the corner, per the woman who had been there since before the corner, “a thing now.”
THE OPENING, AS IT LANDS THIS WEEK
- The reforms: now the law, and, per the government, "the changes."
- The blackouts: now the routine, and, per the residents, "temporary."
- The oil: now the subject of the blockade, and, per the government, "the thing the United States is doing."
- The talks: now the government's position, which is that it is willing to have them, which the United States, on this record, has noted.
The government has said it remains willing to talk, and on this trip it has been talking to the question with a consistency that is, in its way, the story. When asked if the reforms and the blockade could be the same story, the official said they could be talked about separately, and that the time for doing so is, “to be determined,” which is, on this record, the government’s answer to the question of when.
The candles, for the record, are now the infrastructure. The resident outside the hotel told us they “work,” and when asked how a candle works the way the grid used to, he said, and we quote, “it works the way it works,” said it again, slower, and then went inside, where, we understand, the candle was, by then, the light.
At press time, the government said the law is the law, the lights are not, and the talks are willing. When asked which of the three was the most, in the specific, temporary, it did not answer, which we are reporting here as the answer.
Sources: Cuba’s reforms became law in September, per USA Today; more free-market reforms rolled out amid U.S. pressure, per Al Jazeera; the oil blockade now means hours of blackouts and the government says it remains willing to talk, per PBS.