A Clash of Histories

A Clash of Histories

Orlando J. Pérez, Ph.D.

Associate Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Millersville University of Pennsylvania

The recently concluded VII Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama brought together leaders from all 35 independent countries of the Western Hemisphere. The inclusion of Cuba for the first time since these summits began in 1994 was historic. The theme of the meeting, “Prosperity with Equity,” is a laudable goal for the region. However, the substantive results of the Summit will not be known for years.

Whatever happens in the future to achieve “prosperity with equity” the VII Summit of the Americas will be remembered by the meeting between President Barack Obama and the Cuban President Raúl Castro. The meeting was the first between a U.S. president and his Cuban counterpart in 59 years. It marks an inflection point in the dialogue between the two countries initiated on December 17^th, 2014, when President Obama announced the lifting of travel restrictions and the start of conversations to normalize relations. Both leaders emphasized that deep differences remain between the two countries but that the dialogue underway is important for laying the groundwork for more productive and mature relations between two countries so close geographically but so far apart ideologically.

Before the historic encounter the two leaders made speeches at the plenary session. The speeches could not have been more different and reflected the difficulties in bridging the gap between the two countries. President Obama focused on the need to tackle key economic and security problems. He argued “The United States will not be imprisoned by the past — we’re looking to the future,” and went on to say that “The Cold War has been over for a long time.” President Raúl Castro spoke for 48 minutes—claiming more time than allotted to make up for the six previous summits he had missed—and over half of the time focused on historical incidents dating back to the wars for Cuban independence in the nineteenth century, the Bay of Pigs invasion during the early 1960s and the more than 50 years of hostilities between the two nations. Castro’s historical lesson, and those by the presidents of Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela, reflects the deep cultural differences between the United States and Latin America. The people and government of the United States have relatively short memories and believe inexorably in progress. Tomorrow is always better than yesterday! For Latin Americans history defines the present. Historical grievances shape the way countries relate to one another (for example, Bolivia’s ongoing struggle to regain its “access to the sea” from Chile). In the case of the United States, Latin Americans find it very hard to forgive and forget the alleged abuses committed against the region in the past 150 years. They remember every military invasion, CIA covert program and exploitation by U.S. transnational corporations.

For their part, U.S. leaders want to focus on the billions of dollars of aid and support for democracy. President Obama in particular has been keen on emphasizing practical solutions to problems rather than on offences that happened “before I was born.” Ironically, among the most hardline presidents at the Summit it was Raúl Castro who gave the most credit to President Obama’s new approach. After excoriating the United States for violations of Cuba’s sovereignty, Mr. Castro said “I apologize to him because President Obama has no responsibility for this.” Mr. Castro then said “President Obama is an honest man.” In acknowledging that President Obama has “no responsibility” for the past—something that leaders like Ecuador’s Correa or Venezuela’s Maduro actually disagree with—Mr. Castro is perhaps reflecting the realization that holding on to historical grievances might not serve the interest of the Cuban people or the survival of his regime.

It is clear that the positive statements were not an accident. They reflect the pragmatic foundations of the new U.S.-Cuba relations. For the Cuban regime normalization of relations with the United States is essential in order to overcome the economic dislocations that Venezuela’s political and economic crisis has engendered. For more than 50 years, the Castro-led regime has done everything and anything to survive. A pragmatic understanding of geopolitical imperatives, while maintaining revolutionary rhetoric, has been the cornerstone of their survival strategy. For the United States, normalization of relations with Cuba is not just about Cuba but about a broader regional strategy that seeks to remove a thorn in the relations with the rest of Latin America. As a U.S. official said “Our Cuba policy, instead of isolating Cuba, was isolating the United States in our own backyard. ”By itself Cuba is not all that important for U.S. geo-strategy, but as a symbol of a new era in which ideological and historical grievances give way to practical considerations rooted in solving economic and security problems, the Cuba initiative might be invaluable in establishing the foundations for more positive and productive relations between the United States and Latin America. Thus, the VII Summit of the Americas might serve to begin a process for transcending history.