For Cuba, Eased U.S. Travel Ban Could Open the Door to Cultural Exchanges
Cuba welcomes American culture and believes that cultural exchanges between citizens of the two countries would be helpful, according to a senior Cuban official. "For both our peoples, it's helpful to have an intense cultural exchange," said Fernando Rojas Gutiérrez, a vice minister in the Cuban Ministry of Culture. "There is a willingness from the Cuban side to appreciate American culture."
Rojas noted that American television shows and films are widely seen in Cuba, despite the decades of hostile political relations. His comments in an interview strongly suggest that Cuba would welcome a cultural outreach initiative by the Obama administration if that is part of its forthcoming changes in policy toward Cuba.
If fulfilled, the upshot of more cultural exchange could include—depending on the lifting of U.S. legal restrictions—more travel to Cuba and even the partial opening of a modest market for American cultural products.
As for cultural exchanges with the United States in general, Rojas said, "We wish to advance in this direction. The main step has to come from the American side, as with other things."
He noted that Cuba, unlike other socialist countries in the past, "never banned" American cultural products. Rojas said that Cuban culture itself is strengthened by interaction with American art and cultural products. "A good deal of this updating [of Cuban culture] is due to contact with American culture," he said.
Rojas also criticized the Bush administration's "total elimination" of such cultural exchanges. He predicted that any improvement under President Obama "will require recovery time."
Obama has already eased Bush-era restrictions on private remittances by Cuban Americans to relatives on the island, and the administration is moving to relax some travel restrictions. As early as this week, a group of key senators is expected to call for dropping the travel ban that has been a centerpiece of the U.S. economic embargo.
Reader Comments
Cuba-Its been long enough
The silencing of our neighbor has never made any sense to me and I believe that there are no ill feelings to feed upon.
The Cuban people and government seem to speak to other countries and are welcome there, why are we not working toward peace and prosperity with them?, is it because of some special interests?.Did they hurt someones feelings?,I believe its time to put to rest the hatred that has seperated our countries and get on with living and exchanging our cultures afterall the missle crises has been over for decades tne Russians are more friendly and there are less bone heads in this world because of the information highway.
forget cuba
I know I haven't forgotten about the cuba missle crisis and we should all remember how close we came to war with Russia because of Castro and his thugs and the mistreatmeant of the cuban people. I think they're looking for a hand out and obama is just the right dope to give it to them why not he's giving it to everyonelse but the the ones who need it.I say cuba can wait and take care of business at home.
US-Cuba Relations like Russia need to be reset
There is a project currently underway in the United States that will help the Cuban people teach Americans about their culture & society. This program is now running in the United States and Russia and is slowly spreading out across the world. The goal is to employee 2 million people around the world to gather and prepare student artwork and short stories from every country and city on the planet to be put into Kids Art Album eBooks. The purpose is to learn about other countries cultures through student art. Every country is important but especially so for Cuba and Russia. www.kidsartworkfactory.com Employment link: www.kidsartworkfactory.com/Employment/Main_Eng.htm. Spanish, Russian, French and German pages to follow this week. Putting people to work, honoring kids artwork and learning to resect other people's cutlures is very important. This project has been submitted to President Barack Obama, Russian President Dimtry Medvedev and the 52 State Governors of the United States. Top priority is to put 2 million people to work and 95% of the world's school age children to honor their culture and country. www.kidsartworkfactory.com Employment link: www.kidsartworkfactory.com/Employment/Main_Eng.htm
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