The panel of experts at “Times are Changing”: What Does This Mean for the People of Cuba? on Friday, May 13, provided a nuanced view of the different layers of a society in transition.

The chair of the discussion Juliana Ruhfus, who recently dedicated an episode of her programme at Al-Jazeera English to Cuban economics, invited the speakers to critically evaluate the reporting on the Cuban reality.

“We need to reign in this ‘changing Cuba’ narrative. Yes, you’ve got the private sector, yes, you’ve got a new relationship with the US, Obama and all sorts of European heads of states and foreign ministers going with trade delegations, you’ve got the new foreign investment law. But at the same time for most people this is going very slowly,” Michael Voss, correspondent for CCTV.

Helen Yaffe, a specialist in the history of political economy, pointed out that reporters should be clearer about the underlying motivation of the United States. “The US objective hasn’t changed. And Obama himself is very clear about it. They still would like to see the end of the socialist system in Cuba.” She also noted that this agenda has quietly risen from pressure by other Latin American countries to involve Cuba in negotiations and the historical shortcomings of the US administration.

Emilio San Pedro, who reports on Cuba and Latin America for the BBC, added that the US motivation is also driven by the vision of lucrative investment. “I think they saw the opportunity because of the economic changes.”

Will Grant, BBC correspondent based in Havana since September 2014, also described the welcoming approach of Cubans to the rapprochement. “I think people are very, very tired of the same dynamic, same rhetoric and in that sense this change, whatever it may be, is welcome.”

Mr. San Pedro also admitted that nostalgia plays a huge role in the minds of Cubans, however, the young generation is emerging as a surprisingly rational and pragmatic group.

The panel also discussed an unprecendented protest in front of Ecuadorian embassy last year following an announcement that the state will require visa from the Cubans planning to visit. Mr Voss considers this the biggest popular unrest by Cubans who don’t normally engage in politics.

Pointing to the statistics, Ms Yaffe showed “the average salary in the state sector has gone up by 43% between 2011 and 2015.” Nevertheless, the raise has been uneven. Whereas those in the medical sector have seen their salaries rise two to three times, people in the education sector are still waiting. She also noted the imbalance in covering the country from Havana: “29 % of the Cubans work in the non-state sector and all the focus of the reporting is on those.”

Mr Grant tried to assess the extent of freedom of expression as a foreign correspondent in Cuba and recalled a rather positive story of Cuban medics helping in western Africa during the Ebola outbreak for which he hasn’t been granted access. “They’re protecting themselves, they’re protecting their revolution from a kind of spin (…) So it’s easier just to let the agency to say it.”

He also emphasised that journalists should make more effort to find broader angles and avoid focusing only on the institutional narrative between Washington and Havana. “It’s a very very special time to be here, it’s a very good story. (…)We need to find good new inventive creative ways making sure that the Cuban reality is at the front of what we’re doing.”

The evening will include short stories capturing the essence of big issues, films showing life in other parts of the world under difficult or extraordinary circumstances, and stories focusing on remarkable individuals.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with In the Valley of Guns and Roses director Simon Hipkins.

Full lineup to be announced soon.

FAMOUS IN AHMEDABAD
Director: Hardik Mehta
2016 / 29 min / India

Set during the kaleidoscopic backdrop of the biggest kite-flying festival in India, this stunning film witnesses the transformation of an 11-year-old Zaid from a boy next door to an aggressive and a passionate kite-runner – until he comes across a challenge that threatens to keep him away from the one thing he loves.

IN THE VALLEY OF GUNS AND ROSES
Director: Simon Hipkins
2016 / 25 min / UK

In the heart of Bulgaria’s Rose Valley, single mother Irina is desperate to give her four-year-old daughter, Stefi, a better start in life. Her main source of income comes from her dangerous work at a weapons factory where she measures and packs gunpowder into artillery shells.

THE NEW CHE OF HAVANA
Director: Alex Mallis
2016 / 7 min / USA
AlexMallis.com

A Cuban skateboarder and artist must reconcile looming changes and a nascent free-market economy with his desire to continue operating his tattoo shop – currently illegal in Havana.

SHOOTING THE TRIBE
Director: Gemma Atkinson and Fred Grace
2013 / 8 min / Colombia, UK

In 1989, the Kogi tribe of Colombia opened their doors to a BBC documentary film crew. Their intention was to send us a warning that if we continued to live our lives the way we do, the destruction of the planet was assured. 25 years later, Shooting the Tribe takes us back into the jungle of the Sierra Nevada, to understand why it is they, not us, whose way of life has changed.

BACK
Directors: Jenna Belhumeur, Elena Boffetta
2015 / 13 min / United States

BACK focuses on the hidden aspects of long-term confinement through the eyes of Otis Johnson, who was incarcerated for over 40 years. The documentary explores what re-entry means for inmates who are released in a society that has drastically changed over several decades.

Speaking as the first sitting US president to visit Cuba since the 1959 revolution, Obama switched to Spanish to say “El futuro de Cuba tiene que estar en las manos del pueblo cubano” — “the future of Cuba must be in the hands of the Cuban people.” His words mark a significant shift, we will be discussing whether they can be realised.

Chaired by Juliana Ruhfus, journalist, filmmaker, and senior reporter at Al Jazeera English, People and Power.
The panel:

Michael Voss is the CCTV correspondent based in Cuba. He moved there in 2007 for the BBC and has reported on the political and economic changes along with a broad range of social and cultural issues. He has been covering Latin America since the mid 1990’s when he was the BBC’s South America Correspondent.

Emilio San Pedro is one of the editors of BBC Monitoring and regional manager for Latin America. He was the Americas Editor for the BBC World Service and travelled frequently to Latin America and Cuba. He was in Cuba last year for a BBC World Service series of reports on the changes in the country. He was born and raised in Miami and is the son of Cuban exiles.

Helen Yaffe, a fellow in the Economic History department at the London School of Economics (LSE). Since 1995 she has spent time living and researching in Cuba, her publications have focused on Cuban political economy and regional economic integration.

Will Grant (via Skype) is the BBC’s Cuba Correspondent based in Havana. He has been studying and working in Latin America for 20 years, and covering the region for the BBC since 2001.

Photo: merc67 / Shutterstock.com

L-r: Jonathan Freedland, Norma Percy, Paul Mitchell. Photo: Tolly Robinson

The first of the four-part series looks at the initial two years of Obama’s administration, during which he passed the largest stimulus in American history; pledged – ultimately unsuccessfully – to close Guantanamo Bay; bailed out Michigan’s automotive industry; and crashed a meeting at the 2009 Copenhagen climate change summit to secure a deal between the United States and China.

The documentary, which took three years to make, is comprised of interviews with key figures within the administration, as well as previously unseen archive footage from the White House.

Jonathan Freedland. Photo: Tolly Robinson

Chair Jonathan Freedland asked if the structure of the documentary – focusing on a few, defining points of the administration – risked dramatising rather than documenting Obama’s years in the White House, creating a ‘West Wing’ narrative of events at the cost of accuracy.

In fact, Percy said, what surprised her most about making the documentary was “how much real politics is like the West Wing.” She added that Gene Spurling, who is interviewed in the first programme, was a consultant to The West Wing.

Norma Percy. Photo: Tolly Robinson

“What we try and do is show what it’s like inside the room when the big decisions are made. So what were the big decisions? What were the key meetings?” Percy said.

“Sometimes, trivial stories can be much more revealing than big ones,” she said. Obama dressing down Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner after a shambolic press conference, for example, or one economic adviser failing to invite a rival adviser to a crucial meeting – both of which feature in the first episode.

Mitchell said that the programme was not considered dramatic by the BBC when it was pitched. “If you think that getting three economic stories in a row in an hour of BBC primetime TV is considered dramatic – well, you have no idea what that was like. They weren’t keen at all [initially].”

“There’s absolutely no way in two hours that you can do an encyclopedia. What you really want to do is three or four stories, and do them really well. You want to pick the right ones – the ones which are consequential,” Mitchell said.

Paul Mitchell. Photo: Tolly Robinson.

Nearing the end of his presidency, Obama is now beginning to address that question of consequence, and legacy. This is reflected by the fact that the production team were able to secure an interview with the President through a newly appointed “legacy team” of press officers.

“Obama’s legacy will only continue to grow,” Percy said. “He did some amazing things: bringing healthcare to the American people, opening up relations with Cuba, and Iran [the US deal which ensured Iran would not obtain nuclear weapons].”

Mitchell added that determining Obama’s legacy would be a long-term project. “He set out to transform America, to move it in a progressive way. I think part of his legacy is going to be the degree to which he’s done that. It’s going to take a long, long time to understand where he succeeded and where he failed.”

The next episode of Inside Obama’s White House will be broadcast on Tuesday 22 March 2016 at 9PM on BBC2.

Cuba was the first communist state to be created in the western hemisphere – it’s also the last one standing. But the United States’ economic embargo against Cuba, coupled with the break up of the Soviet Union, has left this island nation struggling to provide for its citizens’ most basic needs.

In 2011, President Raul Castro introduced a series of dramatic reforms designed to stimulate growth. For the first time in decades, Cuban citizens were allowed to sell their homes and open businesses. Foreign companies are now permitted to invest in Cuba too.

The President insists that these measures are designed to preserve, rather than dismantle, Cuban socialism. But can he successfully open up the economy without betraying the promise of a classless society upon which the Cuban state was built? Juliana Ruhfus and Seamus Mirodan investigate.

People and Power is Al Jazeera’s weekly investigative documentary programme that looks at the use and abuse of power. People and Power: Cuba for Sale will be broadcast on Al Jazeera English on 24 February.

Reporters: Juliana Ruhfus and Seamus Mirodan
Runtime: 25′

The panel:

Richard Gott (moderator) is a British journalist and historian with forty years experience of Latin America. He was for many years on the staff of The Guardian newspaper in London. He is currently an honorary research fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London. He is author of Cuba: A New History (Yale University Press), and Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution (Verso).

Stephen Wilkinson first visited Cuba in 1986 and has been travelling to and writing about the island ever since. Now assistant director at the International Institute for the Study of Cuba, Stephen has a PhD on the subject of Cuban literature. He has written numerous articles on such questions as the history of US-Cuba relations, Cuban attitudes and policy towards homosexuals and the nature of the Cuban state. Stephen’s book: Detective Fiction in Cuban Society and Culture was published in 2006 by Peter Lang. He frequently comments on Cuba issues on The Guardian newspaper’s Comment is Free website.

Juliana Ruhfus is the senior reporter for Al Jazeera’s ‘People & Power’ investigative and current affairs strand where she has worked since 2006, when her film on Liberian ex-combatants launched the channel’s programming content. Nearly 30 films later she has gone undercover in Turkmenistan and in Cambodian orphanages, produced the five part ‘Corporations on Trial’ series, and her two-part investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women into the Italian sex-trade is one of the most-watched People & Power shows in its history. In 2010, she was awarded the Ochberg Fellowship, and in 2011 she received a scholarship for Harvard’s Global Trauma Program. She is currently on the European board of directors for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.

Since 1995, Helen Yaffe has spent time living and researching in Cuba. Her PhD thesis, undertaken at the London School of Economics, was published as Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009, and subsequently in four other language editions. Her research and publications have continued to focus on Cuban political economy, as well as the political economy of Latin American regional economic integration. Helen has taught Cuban and Latin American (economic) history at UCL, LSE and Birkbeck. She is currently a Fellow in the Economic History department at the London School of Economics (LSE) where she lectures and teaches on the history of economics.

Bernard Regan, Cuba Solidarity Campaign National Secretary. CSC campaigns against the illegal 50 year old blockade of Cuba, for an end to the US occupation of Cuban land at Guantanamo Bay, and to defend the Cuban people’s right to be free from foreign intervention. The Cuba Solidarity Campaign is broad based and has more than 5,000 members, affiliated organisations and local groups. Together we lobby MPs and government, organise solidarity brigades specialist tours and exchanges, and work to build links and better understanding between Britain and Cuba.

One World Echoes in London is a series of human rights film screenings supported by by the Czech Centre London. Celebrating the 15th anniversary of One World, Europe´s largest human rights film festival established in Prague in 1998 by the Czech NGO People in Need. This series offers a selection of extraordinary documentary films exploring societies and individual lives from a human rights perspective. Representing various countries where People in Need, the biggest NGO in Eastern Europe, runs its human rights, relief and development projects.

One World Echoes are co-organised by the Czech Centre London, Open City Docs Fest London 20-23 June 2013 and the Frontline Club.

Thursday 11 April 2013, 7:00 PM Frontline Club – Amazing Azerbaijan!
Amazing Azerbaijan! is a tale of two countries. A shiny democratic republic the government proudly puts on display for visiting journalists and dignitaries. Alongside a repressive and corrupt state with no respect for freedom of expression, where peaceful protesters are violently beaten and journalists are threatened or even killed. Followed by a Q&A with director Liz Mermin.

Friday 24 May 2013, 7:00 PM Frontline Club – Motherland or Death
For over fifty years Cuba has been following the battle-cry of the revolution, Patria o Muerte, which translates as Motherland or Death. Veteran Russian documentarian Vitaly Mansky centers on the generation born before the revolution. They are devoted to their motherland with heart and soul, yet curse the circumstances in which they are forced to live.

Wednesday 19 June 2013, 7:00 PM Frontline Club – Fortress BOOK NOW
Over twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union directors Klára Tasovská and Lukáš Kokeš travel back in time on their visit to the unrecognised Pridnestrovian Moldovian Republic. A separatist region within Moldova, with its own passports, an elected president and a legal system. This Open City Preview Screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Lukáš Kokeš.

Sunday 23 June 2013 2:30 PM Preview screening Open City Cinema Tent – Black Out BOOK NOW
Every evening during exam season in Guinea, hundreds of school children begin a nightly pilgrimage to the airport, petrol stations and wealthier parts of the city, searching for light. A literal and metaphorical journey to enlightenment, this evocative documentary tells how children reconcile their lives in one of the world’s poorest countries, with their desire to learn.

Sunday 23 June 2013 5:00 PM UK Premiere Open City Lighbox – Stone Games BOOK NOW
Do the Sudeten Germans who were tortured and killed during their expulsion at the end of the Second World War deserve a commemorative monument or not? In response to a stone monument in Nový Bor, Czech Republic a group of local inhabitants has unleashed a hate-filled ritual dance of national fervor and moral outrage that also turns out to be a sufficiently strong election issue.

Motherland or Death by veteran Russian documentarian Vitaly Mansky centers around the generation born before the revolution. As they reach the end of their lives, they begin to understand that they no longer have to live by that decades-old revolutionary mantra. They are devoted to their motherland with heart and soul, yet curse the circumstances in which they are forced to live.

Mansky portrays a stark gap between Cuba’s carefully crafted image and the reality of daily life, depicting Havana as a desolate place, a dilapidated skeleton, broken up and rearranged with stray dogs and cats, meat rations, lamp posts as gallows, and angry spewing sewers.

Directed by Vitaly Mansky
Duration: 99′
Year: 2012

This screening is part of One World Echoes, an international tour celebrating the 15th anniversary of One World, Europe´s largest human rights film festival established in Prague in 1998 by Czech NGO People in Need.

One World Echoes are co-organized by the Czech Centre London, Open City London Documentary Festival (20-23 June) and the Frontline Club.

A week after International Women’s Day, women were still very much in the spotlight for the screening of Forbidden Voices, a documentary about three female dissident bloggers at the Frontline Club on Friday 15 March.

Director Barbara Miller’s powerful film follows three women – from Cuba, China and Iran – who defy the restrictions of their countries’ media and fight for the right to freedom of speech. Miller and Farnaz Seifi, the Iranian blogger, were there to talk about the film after the screening.

Following each of the women throughout their daily lives, the film explicitly shows the government crackdowns they face. Cuban blogger, Yoani Sánchez, was publicly labelled a Washington puppet. Seifi, was detained and questioned under duress, and Chinese blogger Zeng Jinyan was intimidated into staying indoors.

When an audience member asked both Miller and Seifi which of the regimes they think is most repressive, both struggled to pinpoint one. Miller said:

“In a way they’re really similar, but in a way they’re really different. For example for the government of Cuba it’s really important to keep this smiley place. Iran and China don’t care so much about the way the world looks at them.”

Seifi added:

“I think the role China played is really important as China is the father of censorship and filtering in the world. Countries like my country, Iran, owe most of the knowledge they have for censoring, tracing and filtering to the Chinese Government.”

Miller explained that the process of filming proved very difficult due to the women being put under constant surveillance:

“We filmed in all three countries without permission – it would have been impossible to get the proper journalist permission for filming dissidents. So we visited all three countries as tourists….”

“In Iran it was just the cameraman that went and he was arrested twice in four days. In China we went three times and we weren’t able to film with Jinyan because state security was there day and night, and so in the end she had to film most of the material herself.”

When a member of the audience asked Seifi if she felt there was something particularly different about the blog as a voice of dissidence in repressive societies, she replied:

“Sometimes you feel so alone and ask is it worth it? Is it going to change anything? But I think these new ways of communication help those who try and struggle to make a change to feel like they got recognition. And that recognition gives you much more strength and motivation to continue.”

Miller added:

“All three women said they don’t want a revolution – what they want is change. What their blogs started was a dialogue, and it’s a way of changing the whole way of thinking, discussing and communicating.”

Miller explained that focusing on only women bloggers was not her original intention:

“When I started I wasn’t sure who to focus on, I was looking at male bloggers as well. But I became interested in how blogging gave vocal opportunity for women, for example in Iran, to really speak out in society. Also in Cuba most of the people in politics are men; the same thing in China.”

“I also liked the way women use political blogs in a really personal way – they are just talking about their lives and it’s just the truth. That’s what these regimes find dangerous.”

To find out more information see the documentary website forbiddenvoices.net or search #forbiddenvoices.

On the Internet, their voices are skillfully shielded, but the famous bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan and Farnaz Seifi aren’t afraid of the dictatorial regimes in their respective home countries of Cuba, China and Iran. With indefatigable determination, they keep people around the world informed about the abuses taking place in their countries.

Director Barbara Miller follows these brave young rebels on their dangerous journey. She traces their use of social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to denounce and combat human rights and freedom of speech violations in their countries.

It is not surprising that these fearless women were named among the world’s most influential people by TIME magazine, but will they ever achieve the equality that they so desperately want when there are still thousands of similar voices in prison or under house arrest?

Directed by Barbara Miller
Duration: 96′
Year: 2012

A round up of world news in the week ahead from journalist resource ForesightNews.

Monday 14 January

Five men charged with the gang rape and murder last month of a 23-year-old medical student on a bus in New Delhi are due back in court on Monday, following a 10 January hearing. The horrific case has provoked unprecedented protests in India, where rape victims are frequently blamed for attacks.

Meanwhile, a law lifting restrictions stopping all but a few favoured Cubans from leaving the island takes effect. For many Cubans, the termination of the so-called exit visa, which was announced last October, is one of the most significant relaxations to be announced by President Raul Castro. Commentators speculate that Castro hopes that the measure will lead to the injection of much-needed capital to the Communist state from Cubans travelling abroad.

Finally, outgoing US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will kick off a four-nation European visit with a stop in Portugal. The week-long tour will see Panetta meet counterparts in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Tuesday 15 January

US Vice President Joe Biden has said he will present his highly-anticipated proposals on gun law reform in the wake of the Newtown massacre by Tuesday.

Four highly-anticipated rulings from the European Court of Human Rights will be handed down on Tuesday in cases relating to the rights of Christians in the UK. The cases concern a registrar who refused to conduct same-sex civil partnerships, a relationship counsellor who was dismissed after expressing concerns over his ability to provide advice to same-sex couples, and a British Airways employee who was not permitted to wear a visible crucifix necklace, and a nurse who was also barred from wearing a crucifix necklace.

The Philippines Supreme Court is due to hear arguments in challenges brought against a controversial new law regulating online activity, which came into effect last October but was subsequently suspended. Critics of The Cybercrime Prevention Act 0f 2012 argue that the law is unconstitutional and threatens freedom of expression. A further hearing is due 22 January.

Finally, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will chair an open debate at the UN Security Council in New York on a comprehensive approach to counter-terrorism’. The debate is expected to be one of the highlights of Pakistan’s presidency of the SC this month.

Wednesday 16 January

On Wednesday, a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to hold talks in Tehran over Iran’s nuclear programme. The IAEA has long wanted to visit the Parchin facility, however this is not seen as likely this time around. The US has threatened to take action at the UN Security Council unless Iran shows ‘substantive cooperation’ with the IAEA by March.

Top US diplomat for Asia Kurt Campbell will arrive in Tokyo for talks with Japanese counterparts, following a visit on Tuesday to South Korea. The visit comes amid heightened regional tension, particularly between old foes Japan and China. He is joined on this trip by his counterparts from the Department of Defense and the National Security Council, an indication of the seriousness with which the Obama administration is treating the situation.

The IMF’s Executive Board, finally, is due to meet to review its loans to Greece and the country’s progress towards tackling its enormous economic challenges.

Thursday 17 January

Sticking with the IMF, on Thursday Managing Director Christine Lagarde will address media from the DC headquarters of the Fund, discussing her views on economic policy priorities for the year ahead. The latest self-made crisis facing the US economy, namely the brinkmanship over whether to raise the debt ceiling, is likely to feature in her remarks.

In Brussels, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton will host the latest round of EU-mediated talks between Serbia and Kosovo. Although Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic will be in attendance, the agenda for talks does not include the status of Kosovo, which Belgrade refuses to recognise.

Finally, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will be addressing an event organised by The Spectator. He may well be asked about the current conflict in Syria.

Friday 18 January

New Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida will be in Washington on Friday to meet Hillary Clinton for the first time since Shinzo Abe and the LDP swept to power in December elections. The worrying escalation of tensions between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu island chain is likely to be top of the agenda – it will be interesting to see whether Clinton sticks with the US policy of referring to the islands publicly as the Senkakus, thereby further irking Beijing.

As it happens, China will be releasing its GDP data for the final quarter of 2012 on Friday. Economists will be watching the data closely, since there is little growth elsewhere.

Saturday 19 January

The festivities surrounding Barack Obama’s second inauguration will kick off Saturday with a National Day of Service, where Americans are encouraged to engage in community service projects, a tradition started by the President in 2009. Defenders of Second Amendment rights are organising a ‘Gun Appreciation Day’ to coincide with the perceived onslaught on their right to bear arms. Their slogan is ‘Hands off our Guns’.

Sunday 20 January

A cease fire announced by leftist Colombian rebels on 19 November will expire today, unless it is extended. The extent to which progress is being made in talks between the FARC and Colombian government is unclear, but President Juan Manuel Santos has said a deal must be made by November.

Ahead of the national poll in September, elections will take place in the German state of Lower Saxony on Sunday. Half-Scottish Governor David McAllister, who represents Angela Merkel’s CDU, is seeking re-election in a vote being seen as a litmus test ahead of the September vote.

Finally, Barack Obama will be sworn-in as President by Chief Justice John Robert in a private ceremony ahead of the public inauguration ceremonies taking place Monday.

Images courtesy of spirit of america / Shutterstock.com