Cuba Journal BLURRED LINES BETWEEN POLITICS AND RELIGION by A. James Arnold photos -- top: Jill Nussbaum; bottom: courtesy of Professor Arnold Chango is the god of strength and manly virtue. He is always dressed in red. As a giant portrait of the Christ rises over one side of Plaza de la Revolución in preparation for the Pope's visit, the world's media focus on the oppositions between Woytyla the anti-communist and Castro the godless dictator. Once again we are thrown into the realm of manichaean choices that make journalists' juices flow. What strikes me is how much the Christ looks like El Che, who stares at him from the monument to the Revolution across the square. For 12 days in early January, I saw innumerable representations of Che Guevara in every tourist shop from Havana to Matanzas. They blend together into one vast hagiographic project. Che the martyr died for the Revolution, he was buried in Bolivia and, in 1997, his bones were raised from the dead and repatriated to Cuba. Now his benevolent presence gazes down on ordinary Cubans all over the island, exhorting them to renewed efforts: "¡Hasta la Victoria, siempre!" The Pope has gone home now, and the effort to appropriate the meaning of the visit of Su Santidad is already well under way. In Havana the government will use it to show up the inhumane consequences of the U.S. economic blockade. In Washington the government will use it to rail at the lack of individual and political freedom in Cuba. What will ordinary Cubans do? A few will continue to lurk outside the luxury hotels on the Malecon to mug or otherwise separate Western European tourists from their dollars. (One Spanish colleague was beleaguered by a band of ragamuffins on his first day in town. Trained by a Cuban Fagin, perhaps, they distracted him so well that he never realized one of them was picking his pocket.) The dual economy has set up such glaring disparities between the socialist state and the international tourist industry -- Cuba's new cash cow -- that envy, resentment, and occasional petty crime are inevitable. Some will peddle their bodies to the well-heeled tourists who come in search of nubile flesh. There was ample evidence of this in and around our hotel. The prostitutes stood out: thinner, more provocatively dressed, and darker than the local women who worked in the hotel. Someone is turning a blind eye. Is Cuba becoming the next destination for sex-seeking tourists? (Another Spanish colleague affirms that in her country this is already well known.) The vast majority of ordinary Cubans will continue to labor under difficult conditions to turn out work of sometimes surprising quality. At the printshop of the state publishing house, we filed past a machine over which a prominent sign announced "Aquí trabajó El Che." Handshakes from friendly printers, words of welcome, the ubiquitous mojitos (how many times were we told it was Hemingway's favorite drink? Or was it rum and Cokes this time?), presentation copies of the latest issue of Casa de las Américas, hot off the presses, and then a box lunch, the daily fare of the workers in this prestigious establishment. The sandwich was filled with a fatty meat resembling French rillettes. Most of my fellow jurors for the 1998 Casa de las Américas literary prize politely disposed of their box, leaving the sandwich untouched. What did the workers think? I got mine down with swigs of the local rum, less deadly than the sugary colas available everywhere. A week earlier, while channel-surfing the TV system provided by a satellite antenna near the guard post of our well-fortified tourist compound in the Yumuri Valley, we caught Fidel lecturing on "values" before a very large crowd in a stadium. El Comandante en Jefe, at age 71, looked tired in his fatigues, his beard ratty. The general impression was that of an uncle good-naturedly, but firmly, lecturing the kids. (Questions at breakfast the next morning: --Where was Fidel delivering this speech? --For what purpose? --He is running for parliament as a representative from El Cobre, a district of Santiago in Oriente province, in this weekend's elections.) On Sunday morning the Cuban members of our literary prize jury disappear for hours; cars take them to vote. The cars are late; working sessions of the jury's sub-groups are delayed. (Questions later at poolside: --Is voting compulsory in Cuba? --No. --Are voter registration cards checked? --Yes. --Ummh, OK --How is it that all our Cuban colleagues can vote in one place? --We can vote anywhere in the country, and more than once. I begin to reminisce about Chicago in the days of Mayor Daley; no, not the kid, the Old Man: "Vote early and often!") Granma, the party daily, is distributed on the bus to Matanzas at the beginning of our next outing: Fidel won! I only understood the significance of Fidel's running for office from El Cobre during the Pope's visit. As the entire world now knows, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre is the patron saint of Cuba. She had been removed from her shrine only three times in history: at the emancipation of the slaves, at the conclusion of the wars of independence, and at Fidel's triumphant entry into Havana in January 1959. (Oh! ... I get it!) Two weeks later CNN informs us that the Pope will remove the Virgin from her niche and she will be paraded triumphantly before the faithful. (So ... it's like the giant portrait of Christ facing El Che: who gets to control the image of power and protection?) Saint Barbara represents Chango for adepts of santería, who must also be Catholics. Fidel is also protected, they say, by one of the divinities of santería, the local Afro-Caribbean religion. As the Pope's visit nears, CNN's Havana bureau chief -- Lucia is by now an old friend -- gives the voice over to an old black and white film from early in the Revolution: doves descend onto Fidel's shoulders. Proof! (How do they do that anyway? Popcorn hidden in his epaulets?) This revelation clarifies the purpose of the strangest event of our stay in Cuba: a visit to a santería show in the home of the aunt of one of the cultural apparatchiks whose main duty seems to be to keep us entertained and out of trouble. He tells us proudly that his aunt has been a santera, or priestess, for forty years. When she begins the ritual in a chapel in her house, he assists her. The chapel is filled with strangely attired dolls; I recognize only a Virgin in a place of honor. On the floor is a basket overflowing with dollar bills. Is this why the house is so much more prosperous than any other residence we have seen on our bus rides through the town and countryside? My wife is ushered into the front row for the ritual, along with a Spanish-speaking writer from the U.S. who translates for her. The crowd is dense, the air heavy; I go out to the courtyard where a band is setting up for the musical entertainment. The Havana Club rum for the mojitos is delivered already iced in boxes. The drums look authentic, whatever that means. I note that the musicians and costumed dancers are all black; the santera and her nephew are white. What's the deal here? Once back home, I consult a Cuban friend who served on the jury five years earlier. Santería used to be all black, he tells me. CNN later informs us that the Revolution has been favoring santería, and some protestant denominations, because of their loose, non-centralized structure, which is easier to manipulate than the Catholic hierarchy. I have the impression that I'm getting it at last ... On the bus, Spanish colleagues with whom I converse in French tell me that within the organization the apparatchik is considered to be "protected" because his aunt is a santera. He is rising in the bureaucracy and his rivals tend to fall ill. I don't doubt it for a minute.

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