Cruise cancellation will be counterproductive

Miami Archbishop John Favalora's decision to cancel the cruise that would take Catholics to Cuba in conjunction with Pope John Paul II's visit, despite its good intentions, will be counterproductive. Its negative impact will be felt in Miami and, above all, by the Cuban Catholic Church.

The decision exacerbates the division within the Miami ``community'' -- and I use the word advisedly because it implies a unity that doesn't exist. The archbishop's action echoes other recent events that reveal the veto power of a group that has anointed itself as the moral supervisors of all that is related to Cuba.

Whether these individuals have the implicit support of the majority -- which is unclear -- is not the issue. Those who wanted to participate in the cruise, and in past canceled events, also have rights. The unity of community should be forged on inclusive values, such as tolerance, not on convergence in all specific matters.

The tendency to censor alternatives is as worrisome in Miami as it is in Havana. Both are the product of the politics of passion. From this perspective, politics are construed as a moral crusade for absolute ends. Anyone who questions or deviates from the line is considered a heretic. In the final analysis, though, the responsibility does not rest with the group that lobbies to reach its objective. In fact, these groups are exercising their democratic prerogative.

What is more troubling is that, more often than not, decision-makers self-censor out of fear of reprisal. In the process, they not only abdicate some of their responsibility, they leave a vacuum of leadership in the community at large. Their actions usually hurt the same people they are trying to help.

Archbishop Favalora's action is, ironically, contrary to the interest of those who opposed the cruise. The decision feeds the notion that Cubans in Miami are recalcitrant, an old and tired image that the Castro government has used and abused to help itself stay in power. The Cuban government will wave this banner yet again and international public opinion will condemn Cubans in Miami once more.

The decision also goes against the interest of the Catholic Church in Cuba. Several years ago, in its most daring manifesto yet, the Cuban Church called on the government to initiate a process of reconciliation. For the Castro government, reconciliation is unpalatable because it would entail an embrace of his opponents in exile. Now a group of exiles who met with the archbishop has resorted to similar logic, but in reverse. Meanwhile, most Cubans on the island have supported both the pope's visit and the cruise. Unfortunately, prospects for national reconciliation seem dimmer today.

The cancellation, and the group who sought it, reveal a lack of trust in the only national autonomous organization on the island. The unexpected consequence is to weaken the Cuban Church, not strengthen it and, by extension, Cuba's civil society.

The argument that the cruise was frivolous confused form with substance. The cruise was not meant to be a fun-in-the-sun experience but a pilgrimage by sea, a sea that has divided a nation and swallowed hundreds if not thousands of Cubans. What more appropriate route to take?

Rather than giving the appearance of superficiality or normalcy, a ship of believers docked in Havana Harbor could have been the symbol of material and spiritual harmony the Cuban people so desperately seek. And wasn't this quite similar to what proponents of the flotilla Democracia have wanted to accomplish -- to reach Cuban waters in a gesture of civic solidarity and peaceful resistance?

The compelling power of such symbolism will be missed as Catholics pass through Jose Marti Airport almost undetected by the population.

To argue that cruise-goers would have unwittingly contributed to Fidel Castro's staying power was naive and an exaggeration of their power. This presumed, first, that travel expenses would have been significant within the context of a bankrupt economy. Second, that the money spent would have ended up in state coffers (and not in the privately-owned paladares, or the informal economy that the socialist government is unsuccessfully trying to eradicate). Third, the logic behind this argument is that economic decline automatically leads to regime change, while economic prosperity leads to political inertia. Both propositions are unsubstantiated and oversimplified at best and historically incorrect at worst.

Finally, the group that convinced the archbishop to cancel the cruise operates from a very traditional, almost corporatist, interpretation of history and politics. The concept of vertical unity (unidad vertical), so often the rallying cry both in Miami and in Havana, conceals a hierarchical notion of power in which only elites matter in bringing about political change. People at the grass roots are omitted as a force in sociopolitical transitions.

Rather than vertical unity, why not think about horizontal unity that would bring people together across shores? People-to-people contact can be the genesis for social transformation on the island, as it has been worldwide. Why should Catholics not show that reconciliation implies solidarity above and below governments? After all, the main issue in Cuban politics is not the embargo or U.S. policy, but relations among Cubans.