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Fed up with the economic hardships and the restrictions on personal liberties, hundreds of young have set out for Florida in flimsy rubber tubes or rafts. More than 1,000 Cubans, the majority of them under 30, have survived the dangerous crossing this year. "Take me with you in your suitcase," pleads a high school student, only half in jest. After months of leniency, malcontents are again being hauled off to jails or rounded up for warnings. Local block groups, with 4 million members, have formed "rapid-reaction brigades" to nip any protests in the bud.
But Castro has not stayed in power for 32 years simply by using bloody repression. Since early 1990 he has encouraged criticism from "within the revolution," and he has promised to debate change at the upcoming October party congress, although a multiparty system and a market economy are banned from discussion. The Union of Young Communists, with half a million members, has laid on entertainment for the young, giving pop concerts on the Malecon seaside drive. Twenty-four new government discos are promised around Havana.
The Castillito complex along the Malecon, for instance, boasts two restaurants, a video room with Sony TVs, a roller-skating rink, a disco with an Italian-designed light system and a pool with cavorting men and women. The entry fee to the government-operated club is only 1 peso (6 cents), a steal compared with the admission price at the Havana Club. Around Havana the youthful influence has spiced up revolutionary slogans, which are now splashed in neon colors on the walls. Sumate! (Get involved!) says one.
Yet university teachers say it is increasingly hard to get students to believe socialism will ever provide them with the standard of living they want. "They complain about a lack of stylish clothes," says Blanca Munster Infante, 30, a professor of Marxism at one of Havana's advanced polytechnic institutes. "They don't reject socialism, but they are pessimistic about making it work. They are disillusioned."
It would be wrong, however, to assume this discontent will translate into the demise of Castro and Cuba's brand of tropical socialism. While some 175 million live in poverty in Latin America, there are no beggars on the streets of Havana. The infant mortality rate is 10.7 per 1,000 births, in contrast to 60 before the revolution. "We see socialism is difficult to achieve, but capitalism isn't the answer either," says Sierra Wald, 17. "Nobody wants % Fidel to step down. People worry about what might happen without him." Young Cubans increasingly see themselves as the last idealists in a world that cares only about money. "Our society may be inefficient, but it is humane and just," says Dennys Gonzalez. Says a 25-year-old teacher: "Everybody's really worried about the future, but my students don't talk about politics. They want something fresh, but they don't want to change the whole system. They just want to enjoy life."