“Cubans from Castro on down are hopeful that the Pope's visit
will be an entree to lifting the blockade,” according to Teresa Meade, professor of
history, who visited the island nation last November as citizens were gearing up for the
papal visit.
Everyone there is saying, “If the Pope can visit, why can't
everyone else?”
“Many of the people in Cuba say they are not religious or
don't know much about Catholicism,” Meade says. “But there are a lot of
expectations. The Pope has spoken out against political blockades and this is the only
place they exist; even Iraq can get pharmaceuticals. Many Cubans think the Pope's
visit will embarrass the U.S. into lifting the blockade.”
Among items the Cubans desperately need, said Meade, are
pharmaceuticals, gasoline (about 90 percent of petroleum came from the now-defunct
U.S.S.R.), chemicals, heavy construction equipment, industrial goods and automobiles.
Cubans have been eagerly awaiting Pope John Paul II for months, Meade
said. As early as last November, when Meade visited Cuba with Pilar Moyano, modern
languages and Patricia Acerbi '98 for a conference on women's studies, posters
celebrating the Pope's arrival were appearing in the streets.
Lesbians and gays in Cuba are hopeful that the papal visit may improve
human rights conditions, even though “this Pope has not been especially interested in
gay and lesbian rights,” Meade says.
Meade points out that Cuban Catholicism is not the same version as the
one in Rome, since it is heavily influenced by Santeria and other African and Latin
American religions. Also, Cubans have long had free access to birth control and abortion,
with the average Cuban woman having two abortions during her life, according to Meade.
“That part of the Pope's message will go unheard,” she noted.
Meade, Moyano and Acerbi were to have been discussants (with Byron
Nichols as moderator) in a program titled “Cuba Past and Present: What Difference
Will the Pope Make?” on Thursday, Jan. 22, at 7 p.m. in Strauss Lounge.