A policy of isolation designed for the cold war had no place in the 21st century - Obama
Obama then quotes José Martí: “I’m growing a white rose.” He then says he comes with a word of peace. “Havana is only 90 miles from Florida but to get here we had to travel a great distance, over barriers of history, of ideology, barriers of pain and separation,” he says.
He says that American battleships crossed those waters “to liberate but also to exert control over Cuba,” and “that short distance has been crossed by hundreds and thousands of Cuban exiles.”
Obama then describes the long and tortured history between nations: the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war, the history of colonialism.
“One constant was the conflict between the United States and Cuba. I have come here to bury the last remnant of the cold war in the Americas.”
“I am here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuba people,” he adds.
“The differences between our governments over these many years are real and they are important.”
“The United States and Cuba are like two brothers that’ve been estranged for many year,” he goes on. “We both live in a new world, colonized by Europeans. Cuba was in part built by slaves who were brought from Africa … Like the United States, Cuba can trace her heritage to both slaves and slave owners.”
Obama praises the history and love of art – Ernest Hemingway gets a nod – sports that Americans and Cubans share: Jackie Robinson and baseball, Muhammad Ali and boxing.
“Even as our governments became adversaries our people continued to share these many passions,” he says. He goes on about these common values: “a sense of patriotism, and a shared pride. A lot of pride.”
Family and education are also shared values, he says: “That’s why I believe our grandchildren will look back on this period of isolation as an aberration,” in a longer history of friendship.
The president gets to the differences between nations. A one party system vs two parties. Socialism vs an open market.
But despite these differences, he says, he and Raúl Castro are working together to normalize relations and create new joint initiatives: trade, healthcare, science and the environment, etc.
“Many people on both sides of this debate have asked, why now? Why now? There is one simple answer. What the United States was doing was not working. We have to have the courage to face that truth.”
“A policy of isolation designed for the cold war had no place in the 21st century.”
He invokes Martin Luther King Jr.: “We should not fear change, we should embrace it.” This gets applause.
“I believe in the Cuban people,” Obama tells the crowd, in Spanish and English.
The US is normalizing relations with those people, he says. Cuban young people should believe in hope – not “blind optimism” or cynicism – he goes on.
“I’m hopeful because I believe that the Cuban people are as innovative as any people in the world,” he says. “In the United States we have a clear monument to what the Cuban people can build. It’s called Miami.”
Then he praises cuentapropistas and the ingenuity used to keep relic vehicles running. Cuba’s system of education is “an extraordinary resource”, he tells the crowd, to big applause.
“Being self-employed is not about becoming more like America,” Obama says. “It’s about being yourself.”
He talks about some of the men and women he met yesterday at an entrepreneur event. “Hope begins,” he says, “with the ability to earn your own living.”
This is the logic in the financial and trade reforms, and encouragement of travel between the US and Cuba, Obama explains.
“As president of the United States I have called on our Congress to lift the embargo.”
The audience claps enthusiastically to that. Obama says it’s a burden on the Cuban people. “Even if we lifted the embargo tomorrow, Cubans would not realize their potential without continued change here in Cuba” – small applause for that.
“Two currencies shouldn’t separate the type of salaries Cubans can earn. The internet should be available across the island … There’s no limitation on the United States for Cuba to take these steps. It’s up to you.”
He then says that these reforms require “the free and open exchange of ideas” – a veiled call for freedom of speech.
“I know these issues are sensitive, especially coming from an American president. Before 1959, some Americans saw Cuba as something to exploit. Ignored poverty, enabled corruption.”
“Since 1959 we’ve been shadowboxers in these politics,” he says. “I know the history, but I refuse to be trapped by it”
“We will not impose our political or economic system on you. We recognize that every country, every people,” must choose their own model he says.
But he insists he needs to be honest with the Cuban people. As Marti said, “liberty is the right of every man to be honest,” Obama quotes the poet.
“I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with healthcare, and education,” Obama says.
“I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear. To organize and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully. And that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights.”
“I believe that every person should have the freedom to exercise their faith peacefully and publicly.”
“And yes I believe … [in] free and democratic elections. Not everybody agrees with me on this.”
“But I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people and people around the world.”
“Now there’s no secret our governments disagree,” Obama goes on, again referring to “frank” conversations with Raúl Castro.
“Economic inequality, the death penalty, racial discrimination, wars abroad. That’s just a sample, he has a much longer list,” Obama jokes. “But here’s what the Cuban people need to understand,” he says, welcomes the disagreements.
“We do have too much money in American politics. But in America it’s still possible for sombeody like me,” he goes on, “to pursue and achieve the highest office in the land. That’s what’s possible in America.”
Because of those freedoms, because of those debates, he’s able to stand there as African American president of the United States, he says.
“There’s still enormous problems in our society. But democracy is the way we resolve them.”
He then talks about expanding healthcare, gay rights, fighting inequality, and the fact that there were two Cuban American Republicans running for president and a woman and a democratic socialist still in the 2016 presidential race.
“Who would have believed that back in 1959?” That’s a measure of our progress as a democracy.”
“There’s already an evolution taking place inside of Cuba, a generational change. Many suggested that I come here and ask the people to tear something down,” Obama continues. He says he wants Cubans to lift something up.
I’m appealing to the young people of Cuba, he goes on.
“The future of Cuba has to be in the hands of the Cuban people,” he says in Spanish.
Then he addresses Castro directly: he tells him“you need not fear” the voices of the Cuban people. He says he hopes Cuba will play a large part in the western world.
“My hope is that you can do so as a partner with the United States.”
Obama then lists some of the joint projects the US and Cuba have already begin: brokering peace in Colombia’s 50-year guerrilla war, fighting Ebola in Africa, etc.
Then the president recalls first meeting Raúl Castro at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, and that they recognized the South African leader’s example.
“We’ve been a part of different blocs of nations in the hemisphere, and we will continue to have profound differences,” he says. But as we normalize our relations I believe we can foster a new sense of unity in the Americas.
“We are all Americans,” he says in Spanish. He urges American countries to relax their grip on ideologies and the disputes between them. “We are in a new era.”
Obama speaks of the Cuban exiles and their children in the United States: “I can tell you today that so many Cuban exiles carry a memory of painful and sometimes violent separation. They love Cuba. A part of them still considers this their true home. That’s why their passion is so strong, that’s why their heartache is so great.”
“This is not just about politics. This is about family,” he says.
Obama adds that “the home that was lost, the bond that was broken” – these are the trials of Cubans and Cuban Americans.
“People are people and Cubans are Cubans,” he says. “The reconciliation of the Cuban people,” between children of revolutions and exiles, he says, is central to Cuba’s future.
Sometimes history starts small, Obama says in the conclusion of his speech.
|The tides of history can leave people in conflict and exile and poverty,” he goes on, “but the recognition of a common humanity. The reconciliation of a people bound by blood and the belief in one another – that’s where progress begins.”
He calls on the young people of to move their country forward – another subtle call for them to walk toward democracy. Then he makes one final nod to the past, saying the Americas’ histories “encompass revolution and conflict, struggle and sacrifice, retribution and now reconciliation.
“It is time now for us to leave the past behind. It is time for us to look forward together. Un futuro de esperanza” – a future of hope.
“My time here in Cuba renews my hope and my confidence in what the Cuban people can do. We will make this journey” together, he says.
He delivers the closing line of the speech in a quieter tone: “Si se puede” – yes we can. “Muchas gracias.”
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