CUBA: THE CAPITALIST COMMANDANTE?
January 2003 23 mins
Woman serving food at DFA trade show Woman: Good morning, good morning. Were having hush puppies today. 01:34
Millar: Its a day like no other in the history of Cuba the Americans have come to town.
Woman: And we eat this with like a fish and brown beans. Youll like it, youll like it.
Millar: And Cubans are savouring tastes kept from them for more than 40 years. This is no ordinary trade show. And there embracing good old Yankee capitalism is El Commandante himself, Fidel Castro. 02:00
Castro at trade show Castro: Its a great thing. Lots of people are going to come here. You know we have traditional, historic relations between the U.S. and Cuba -- and the United States has done a lot to develop agriculture and industry in the world. 02:22
Millar: Nothing but praise now for former foes but at home the news isnt so good. A sliding economy and anger from the streets has put the president under pressure, and on the defensive as never before. Not that hes admitting it. 02:45
Castro: Were used to it. Weve had more than forty years of it. It doesnt worry us. We dont worry about it and we trust in the future. 03:05
Tropicana floorshow Millar: But in a country trapped in the past, a growing number no longer believe the old revolutionary has the answers. 03:24
The time warp charm of the old 1950s style cabaret -- Tropicana -- faces a new, politically charged competitor.
Rappers Cubans both young and old are daring to speak out. 03:51
Petit: The truth is behind the curtain in this country. The truth is behind the curtain and we open the curtain for the people.
Vladimiro: Even though there exists enormous fear in Cuba because we face a terrorist government people are beginning to lose their fear and they are starting to criticise government actions more and more everyday. 04:09
Havana Music
Millar: Havana - the home of the socialist dream, a Latin American workers paradise off the coast of America. But behind the dilapidated charm big business is moving in. Corporate America is eyeing off a new market. 04:34
Trade show The United States was on the point of obliterating this country. Now here they are doing what they do best selling everything from chewing gum to cows. 04:53
Man: We deliver the product with USDA inspection.
Castro at tradeshow Millar: Its gilt-edged capitalism -- $120 million worth of deals signed in just five days. The President is loving it. 05:10
Voice: Once a cattleman, always a cattleman. 05:21
Millar: Seth and Cliff Kaehler are in awe.
Seth Kaehler: A very intelligent man. Hes very nice. Hes very gentle. Hes just a very good person. 05:38
Millar: But for many young Cubans the Castro mythology has worn thin. El Commandante defended his approach. 05:45
Castro Castro: Show me another country in the world where young people have a better relationship with the government than they do here. All young people study, and for that we could get an Olympic medal. 05:56
Archival -- Castro Millar: For close to fifty years this revolutionary leader has famously defied the power of the United States. But the winds of change are blowing through this once isolated island state. 06:17
Alamar 15 kilometres to the east of Havana lies Alamar. 300,000 people live in this massive soviet era housing estate. It was designed to provide a home for Cubas loyal workers 06:36
But behind the walls of these tiny apartments the agitation is growing. 06:57
Gente de Zona Rap music
Millar: Across Alamar young people like Alex Delgado and his group, Gente de Zona, have defied Havana. Its rap, not salsa, here and they first heard it after illegally tuning into American radio. 07:13
The sounds of Black American frustration resonate here.
Alex Alex: Young people like to dance, to enjoy themselves. Everybody wants what is good in life but here in Cuba not everybody can have that. 07:43
Rap concert Rap music
Millar: Rap concerts like this are a lifeline for hundreds of young Cubans. Unemployed, bored and with little to look forward to, Sunday night is the one night of the week. 07:55
Rap music
Millar: At concerts right across Cuba rap bands, like Junior Clan, are pushing the old limits. 08:15
Junior Clan Junior Clan [singing]: I dont understand you people. Youre scared of change. Youre scared of one person. A nation like ours, born from revolution. Whats happening Cuban? Youre waiting your whole damn life without fighting? With fear? And just tolerating all the time? 08:22
Millar: Their message is aimed at Fidel Castro. 08:37
By day, in central Havana, the reason for their urban despair is clear. 08:46
Micael Micael: We speak of youth, we speak of the problems of what we need, the dreams that we have, the things we need to achieve.
Petit: We give a double meaning to each song, understand? If you do it straight forward you wont even be able to get to the end of the street. 09:03
Music
View from car of countryside Millar: The broken dreams of the urban young are one thing, but an hour out of Havana lies a country of faded lives. 09:18
Cubas economy is sagging and close to collapse. Sugar was the countrys number one export, but now half of Cubas mills are closing down. Townships across the island are feeling the impact.
Sugar plantation More than 100,000 sugar workers have lost their jobs. Pedro Suas is one of them. 09:50
Pedro walks with child Pedro: I feel sad. I worked there for a long time and I got to love it. Ill tell you the truth, sadness is really felt. Really there are lots of people whove worked there longer than me and theyre retired now. I hear their opinions. Theyre sad because they say I started there as a child and I left an old man, how could they let it go like that and pull it down. And they even cry sometimes. Ive seen it. 09:58
Sugar mill Millar: From his home, Pedro Suas looks out on the sugar mill where he worked for 18 years. Its a daily reminder of how the socialist dream has soured for this worker. Its just one of the problems confronting the president. 10:33
Castro Castro: Everyone in the world has had trouble with sugar. Basically, the production of sugar has outgrown the buying power of the market. What weve done is reduce the production. Why cultivate cane if you lose money? But we have the problem of employment solved because we can rationalise industry. We pay the workers and send them to study. 10:48
Millar: Dr Castros answer, though, is lost on Pedro Suas and others like him. 11:19
Pedro Pedro: A country should always have an economic base -- not destroy itself. You need to maintain it, give it maintenance -- then open it and let it bloom. But here I dont know -- it seems like theyre just destroying it. 11:25
Havana Millar: But sugar is only one of Dr Castros problems since September 11 the tourism industry has been in freefall -- a third of the countrys hotel rooms have closed, jobs have vanished and the American dollar has fled, though the leader has his own spin on that, too. 11:42
Castro Castro: Lots of North Americans come here. Wed have to move if they all came -- just to give them room. In a recent poll, more than 70% of Americans said they wanted to come here. 12:01
Millar greets Vladimiro Millar: But theyre not coming.. unless to do business. And with a leader on the defensive, old dissidents like Vladimiro Roca are now stepping up their attack. 12:14
Vladimiro Vladimiro: There still enormous fear in Cuba because we face a terrorist government and theres been a terror thats been sown among Cubans for many years -- people are beginning to lose their fear and they are starting to criticise the government. 12:24
Millar: Vladimiro Roca is a one time believer, a former government economist, whose father Blas Roca wrote the Cuban constitution. Hes publicly criticised the Castro regime in the past and paid a heavy price -- 12:40
Vladimiro walks with Millar in Havana -- five years in jail for advocating democratic elections and improvements in human rights. 12:58
For the first time since leaving jail in May. Vladimiro Roca is visiting the streets of central Havana and hes shocked by what he sees. 13:06
Vladimiro: This was a commercial area -- lots of stores and lots of movement because it was a business area and a commercial zone in the Cuba of my time. Now it is destroyed
Millar: Vladimir, what do you think when you see something like this?Vladimiro: The city looks like a bombing after a war. 13:33
Millar: On cue two women beckon us from across the road. Nancy and Maria Eugenia tell Vladimiro Roca theyve been living for two years in a disused cinema. 13:44
Nancy and Maria Nancy: In here its also collapsing, and it leaks a lot. The top floor is also collapsing.Maria: People over there have been living in the streets for more than ten days. 1356
Unstable Building Millar: Across the road, they say, another building is on the verge of collapse, yet people still live there. 14:16
Young man: Theres holes here because of the rain. Old man: And show him the corridor!Young man : Up here its broken as well. 14:32
Millar: Our angry resident turned tour guide takes us through a once grand Havana home. 14:47
Amalia Amalias in her mid eighties. Shes been living in this single room for more than 40 years. 14:56
Amalia: There have already been 50,000 letters written and nothing has ever happened.
Millar: This neighbourhood is symptomatic of the growing gap between the rich and poor in Cuba. Unemployment is high; Cubas official figures of just five per cent are considered dubious. And wages are low -- the equivalent of 20 Australian dollars a month on average. 15:11
Vladimiro Vladimiro: The economic, political and social situation really couldnt get any worse. Either the government takes measures to deal with the economic problems or there could be a social explosion. 15:34
Paya Millar: In a desperate effort to get the voice of the people heard earlier this year, one of Cubas best known dissidents, Oswaldo Paya, took an unprecedented step. He began the Varela Project -- collecting 11,000 signatures demanding new freedoms in Cuba, free elections, free speech and the right for Cubans to own their own businesses. 15:50
Paya Paya: Were basically saying we dont want to submit any more to fear and thats whats happened with the Varela project which is one step towards freedom. 16:16
Paya arrives with petitions Millar: Oswaldo Paya took the Varela Project signatures to Cubas national assembly in May -- the biggest ever challenge to Dr Castros power. Under the constitution just 10,000 signatures are needed to force a referendum. 16:25
Constitutional march Fidel Castro reacted swiftly to the threat, claiming to have collected 8 million signatures in the space of 48 hours. Thousands marched on the Havana waterfront demonstrating their support. The national assembly voted to enshrine socialism in Cubas constitution forever, ignoring the petition. But this month Fidel Castro made a concession he announced his government would respond -- exactly when, he didnt say. 16:43
Paya Paya: We think that changes have already started to happen. It started when a social vanguard of thousands of Cubans said here is my name, here is my address -- we want our rights and were tell you this without a mask. 17:14
Paya on phone Millar: But speaking without cover comes with a risk. 17:34
Paya [on phone]: Wont you talk to me? Yes. Who am I speaking with?
Millar: Oswaldo Paya endures constant threats and harassment from Cubas state security. Were with him at his aunts house when the phone calls begin. 17:42
Paya Paya: Its them. Thats how it will be all day long. Were not going to answer any more. This is just one of the ways. For us its routine -- but for an elderly lady who has to wake up early in the morning to hear rude things and harassment here we go again. (phone rings again) 18:03
Millar with Paya outside home Millar: Just two days later he invites us back, accusing state security of vandalising his home.Paya: This is an act of official terrorism against my family, against my children. 18:38
Junior Clan performing Millar: The young rappers, too, must learn to watch their step. 18:51
Junior clan singing: Whats going on people? Fight at our side, were the rebel youth and we dont care about politics that much.
Millar: Junior Clan are among friends here -- the police remain outside, but the governments presence is still felt. 19:02
The protest is a controlled one -- some of the organisers have been co-opted by the government, to encourage the rappers, but keep them under control.
Alex has already learnt if he wants success as a rapper he needs to toe the line. 19:23
Alex Alex: Every rapper knows how you live here, how you survive here and you should use that knowledge. and you should think -- whats your goal and how are you going to get there? 19:29
Millar and Petit on street Millar: Bands like Junior Clan know that challenging the system in this one party state is a fraught business. 19:41
Petit: Sometimes the police listen. The police listen in the street and they listen to the lyrics sometimes. Millar: They listen to the lyrics? Petit: They understand the lyrics and ask me what happened with them, what are you speaking in this song.
Concert Millar: Not only listening but watching their concerts, looking for the hidden meanings. 20:11
Petit: They came and asked me about it. And asked me why I was singing about freedom and I said I was talking about freedom of the slaves from the past but it has a double meaning. The song was about freedom then for them and freedom for us now. 20:17
Alex walks with Mari-Lu Millar: The boys from this band and the old dissenters know they take a risk. But the cracks in Cuban society are widening the outside world has tumbled in. In the housing estate of Alamar, it exposes a generation gap between rapper Alex Delgado and his mother Mari-Lu. 20:31
Alex: Of course resentment exists and that creates inequality. For example, I can be frustrated when I see someone who enjoys themselves more than I do, and has more luxuries more than I do. 20:53
Mari-Lu Mari-Lu: What young people know about the past, they know from history -- from what theyve been taught by their teachers. But they havent taken it in. People of a certain age who lived through all of that and who are living today, can compare the good and bad of then with the good and bad of today. And young people havent lived through both sides. 21:11
Fire and cooking on street Music
Millar: The revolution and the man behind it are still cause for celebration. 21:36
Voice: This is a sacrifice for the Cuban revolution.
Millar: Across the country Cubas true believers are preparing to mark the 42nd anniversary of the committees in defence of the revolution -- small neighbourhoods groups set up by Fidel Castro as the ears and eyes of the government.
Moon/drinking and dancing As night falls across Havana the rum begins to flow and these annual rituals of the revolution spill onto the streets. 22:05
Kooki Kooki: It means a lot. The revolution gave us many things free schools, medicine. 22:17
Millar: This is as much a celebration of the revolution as it is of Fidel Castro.
Rafael Rafael: Hes huge. Hes in the hearts of all Cubans. Hes the greatest. 22:31
Celebration on street Millar: Despite this display, a growing number are starting to contemplate a Cuba without its grandfatherly commander in chief at the helm. 22:38
Vladimiro Vladimiro: If Fidel were to die, change would happen a lot faster without this brake that is Fidel Castro. 22:48
Paya Paya: The regime doesnt have any plan for the future. Its people are held hostage. Fidel Castro has total power and those around him are preparing to be the future capitalists but at the same time theyre saying to the people socialism or death. 22:56
Mari-Lu on street Millar: For Mari-Lu, like so many Cubans of her generation, Fidel Castro holds a special place in her heart. 23:16
Mari Mari-Lu: Today people say they cant stand it any more, but if he stops on the corner the place fills up and they clap him. And if you speak about Fidel people feel emotional. Even people who want to leave the country feel emotion.
Singing on street Singing 23:39
Millar: And as the clock strikes midnight, the believers pay homage to Fidel and the revolution. But now more than ever it seems hes resorting to bluster when it comes to confronting his countrys new reality.
Castro Castro: Go deeper try to know Cuba and youll understand theres a lot of mythology and lies surrounding it. Youre an intelligent person and you can work it out for yourselfJournalist: Whats your greatest hope for the next 12 months?Castro: I havent had time to think about it -- but I think its going to be good. 23:54
Millar: It remains to be seen how much goodwill is left for the old revolutionary. 24:19
Chant: Long live our commander in chief, long live. Down with imperialism, down. Homeland or death. We will win.
CASTROS CUBAReporter: Lisa MillarCamera: Dave MartinSound: Woody LandayEditor: Woody LandayProducer: Vivien Altman 24:37
January 2003 23 mins
Woman serving food at DFA trade show Woman: Good morning, good morning. Were having hush puppies today. 01:34
Millar: Its a day like no other in the history of Cuba the Americans have come to town.
Woman: And we eat this with like a fish and brown beans. Youll like it, youll like it.
Millar: And Cubans are savouring tastes kept from them for more than 40 years. This is no ordinary trade show. And there embracing good old Yankee capitalism is El Commandante himself, Fidel Castro. 02:00
Castro at trade show Castro: Its a great thing. Lots of people are going to come here. You know we have traditional, historic relations between the U.S. and Cuba -- and the United States has done a lot to develop agriculture and industry in the world. 02:22
Millar: Nothing but praise now for former foes but at home the news isnt so good. A sliding economy and anger from the streets has put the president under pressure, and on the defensive as never before. Not that hes admitting it. 02:45
Castro: Were used to it. Weve had more than forty years of it. It doesnt worry us. We dont worry about it and we trust in the future. 03:05
Tropicana floorshow Millar: But in a country trapped in the past, a growing number no longer believe the old revolutionary has the answers. 03:24
The time warp charm of the old 1950s style cabaret -- Tropicana -- faces a new, politically charged competitor.
Rappers Cubans both young and old are daring to speak out. 03:51
Petit: The truth is behind the curtain in this country. The truth is behind the curtain and we open the curtain for the people.
Vladimiro: Even though there exists enormous fear in Cuba because we face a terrorist government people are beginning to lose their fear and they are starting to criticise government actions more and more everyday. 04:09
Havana Music
Millar: Havana - the home of the socialist dream, a Latin American workers paradise off the coast of America. But behind the dilapidated charm big business is moving in. Corporate America is eyeing off a new market. 04:34
Trade show The United States was on the point of obliterating this country. Now here they are doing what they do best selling everything from chewing gum to cows. 04:53
Man: We deliver the product with USDA inspection.
Castro at tradeshow Millar: Its gilt-edged capitalism -- $120 million worth of deals signed in just five days. The President is loving it. 05:10
Voice: Once a cattleman, always a cattleman. 05:21
Millar: Seth and Cliff Kaehler are in awe.
Seth Kaehler: A very intelligent man. Hes very nice. Hes very gentle. Hes just a very good person. 05:38
Millar: But for many young Cubans the Castro mythology has worn thin. El Commandante defended his approach. 05:45
Castro Castro: Show me another country in the world where young people have a better relationship with the government than they do here. All young people study, and for that we could get an Olympic medal. 05:56
Archival -- Castro Millar: For close to fifty years this revolutionary leader has famously defied the power of the United States. But the winds of change are blowing through this once isolated island state. 06:17
Alamar 15 kilometres to the east of Havana lies Alamar. 300,000 people live in this massive soviet era housing estate. It was designed to provide a home for Cubas loyal workers 06:36
But behind the walls of these tiny apartments the agitation is growing. 06:57
Gente de Zona Rap music
Millar: Across Alamar young people like Alex Delgado and his group, Gente de Zona, have defied Havana. Its rap, not salsa, here and they first heard it after illegally tuning into American radio. 07:13
The sounds of Black American frustration resonate here.
Alex Alex: Young people like to dance, to enjoy themselves. Everybody wants what is good in life but here in Cuba not everybody can have that. 07:43
Rap concert Rap music
Millar: Rap concerts like this are a lifeline for hundreds of young Cubans. Unemployed, bored and with little to look forward to, Sunday night is the one night of the week. 07:55
Rap music
Millar: At concerts right across Cuba rap bands, like Junior Clan, are pushing the old limits. 08:15
Junior Clan Junior Clan [singing]: I dont understand you people. Youre scared of change. Youre scared of one person. A nation like ours, born from revolution. Whats happening Cuban? Youre waiting your whole damn life without fighting? With fear? And just tolerating all the time? 08:22
Millar: Their message is aimed at Fidel Castro. 08:37
By day, in central Havana, the reason for their urban despair is clear. 08:46
Micael Micael: We speak of youth, we speak of the problems of what we need, the dreams that we have, the things we need to achieve.
Petit: We give a double meaning to each song, understand? If you do it straight forward you wont even be able to get to the end of the street. 09:03
Music
View from car of countryside Millar: The broken dreams of the urban young are one thing, but an hour out of Havana lies a country of faded lives. 09:18
Cubas economy is sagging and close to collapse. Sugar was the countrys number one export, but now half of Cubas mills are closing down. Townships across the island are feeling the impact.
Sugar plantation More than 100,000 sugar workers have lost their jobs. Pedro Suas is one of them. 09:50
Pedro walks with child Pedro: I feel sad. I worked there for a long time and I got to love it. Ill tell you the truth, sadness is really felt. Really there are lots of people whove worked there longer than me and theyre retired now. I hear their opinions. Theyre sad because they say I started there as a child and I left an old man, how could they let it go like that and pull it down. And they even cry sometimes. Ive seen it. 09:58
Sugar mill Millar: From his home, Pedro Suas looks out on the sugar mill where he worked for 18 years. Its a daily reminder of how the socialist dream has soured for this worker. Its just one of the problems confronting the president. 10:33
Castro Castro: Everyone in the world has had trouble with sugar. Basically, the production of sugar has outgrown the buying power of the market. What weve done is reduce the production. Why cultivate cane if you lose money? But we have the problem of employment solved because we can rationalise industry. We pay the workers and send them to study. 10:48
Millar: Dr Castros answer, though, is lost on Pedro Suas and others like him. 11:19
Pedro Pedro: A country should always have an economic base -- not destroy itself. You need to maintain it, give it maintenance -- then open it and let it bloom. But here I dont know -- it seems like theyre just destroying it. 11:25
Havana Millar: But sugar is only one of Dr Castros problems since September 11 the tourism industry has been in freefall -- a third of the countrys hotel rooms have closed, jobs have vanished and the American dollar has fled, though the leader has his own spin on that, too. 11:42
Castro Castro: Lots of North Americans come here. Wed have to move if they all came -- just to give them room. In a recent poll, more than 70% of Americans said they wanted to come here. 12:01
Millar greets Vladimiro Millar: But theyre not coming.. unless to do business. And with a leader on the defensive, old dissidents like Vladimiro Roca are now stepping up their attack. 12:14
Vladimiro Vladimiro: There still enormous fear in Cuba because we face a terrorist government and theres been a terror thats been sown among Cubans for many years -- people are beginning to lose their fear and they are starting to criticise the government. 12:24
Millar: Vladimiro Roca is a one time believer, a former government economist, whose father Blas Roca wrote the Cuban constitution. Hes publicly criticised the Castro regime in the past and paid a heavy price -- 12:40
Vladimiro walks with Millar in Havana -- five years in jail for advocating democratic elections and improvements in human rights. 12:58
For the first time since leaving jail in May. Vladimiro Roca is visiting the streets of central Havana and hes shocked by what he sees. 13:06
Vladimiro: This was a commercial area -- lots of stores and lots of movement because it was a business area and a commercial zone in the Cuba of my time. Now it is destroyed
Millar: Vladimir, what do you think when you see something like this?Vladimiro: The city looks like a bombing after a war. 13:33
Millar: On cue two women beckon us from across the road. Nancy and Maria Eugenia tell Vladimiro Roca theyve been living for two years in a disused cinema. 13:44
Nancy and Maria Nancy: In here its also collapsing, and it leaks a lot. The top floor is also collapsing.Maria: People over there have been living in the streets for more than ten days. 1356
Unstable Building Millar: Across the road, they say, another building is on the verge of collapse, yet people still live there. 14:16
Young man: Theres holes here because of the rain. Old man: And show him the corridor!Young man : Up here its broken as well. 14:32
Millar: Our angry resident turned tour guide takes us through a once grand Havana home. 14:47
Amalia Amalias in her mid eighties. Shes been living in this single room for more than 40 years. 14:56
Amalia: There have already been 50,000 letters written and nothing has ever happened.
Millar: This neighbourhood is symptomatic of the growing gap between the rich and poor in Cuba. Unemployment is high; Cubas official figures of just five per cent are considered dubious. And wages are low -- the equivalent of 20 Australian dollars a month on average. 15:11
Vladimiro Vladimiro: The economic, political and social situation really couldnt get any worse. Either the government takes measures to deal with the economic problems or there could be a social explosion. 15:34
Paya Millar: In a desperate effort to get the voice of the people heard earlier this year, one of Cubas best known dissidents, Oswaldo Paya, took an unprecedented step. He began the Varela Project -- collecting 11,000 signatures demanding new freedoms in Cuba, free elections, free speech and the right for Cubans to own their own businesses. 15:50
Paya Paya: Were basically saying we dont want to submit any more to fear and thats whats happened with the Varela project which is one step towards freedom. 16:16
Paya arrives with petitions Millar: Oswaldo Paya took the Varela Project signatures to Cubas national assembly in May -- the biggest ever challenge to Dr Castros power. Under the constitution just 10,000 signatures are needed to force a referendum. 16:25
Constitutional march Fidel Castro reacted swiftly to the threat, claiming to have collected 8 million signatures in the space of 48 hours. Thousands marched on the Havana waterfront demonstrating their support. The national assembly voted to enshrine socialism in Cubas constitution forever, ignoring the petition. But this month Fidel Castro made a concession he announced his government would respond -- exactly when, he didnt say. 16:43
Paya Paya: We think that changes have already started to happen. It started when a social vanguard of thousands of Cubans said here is my name, here is my address -- we want our rights and were tell you this without a mask. 17:14
Paya on phone Millar: But speaking without cover comes with a risk. 17:34
Paya [on phone]: Wont you talk to me? Yes. Who am I speaking with?
Millar: Oswaldo Paya endures constant threats and harassment from Cubas state security. Were with him at his aunts house when the phone calls begin. 17:42
Paya Paya: Its them. Thats how it will be all day long. Were not going to answer any more. This is just one of the ways. For us its routine -- but for an elderly lady who has to wake up early in the morning to hear rude things and harassment here we go again. (phone rings again) 18:03
Millar with Paya outside home Millar: Just two days later he invites us back, accusing state security of vandalising his home.Paya: This is an act of official terrorism against my family, against my children. 18:38
Junior Clan performing Millar: The young rappers, too, must learn to watch their step. 18:51
Junior clan singing: Whats going on people? Fight at our side, were the rebel youth and we dont care about politics that much.
Millar: Junior Clan are among friends here -- the police remain outside, but the governments presence is still felt. 19:02
The protest is a controlled one -- some of the organisers have been co-opted by the government, to encourage the rappers, but keep them under control.
Alex has already learnt if he wants success as a rapper he needs to toe the line. 19:23
Alex Alex: Every rapper knows how you live here, how you survive here and you should use that knowledge. and you should think -- whats your goal and how are you going to get there? 19:29
Millar and Petit on street Millar: Bands like Junior Clan know that challenging the system in this one party state is a fraught business. 19:41
Petit: Sometimes the police listen. The police listen in the street and they listen to the lyrics sometimes. Millar: They listen to the lyrics? Petit: They understand the lyrics and ask me what happened with them, what are you speaking in this song.
Concert Millar: Not only listening but watching their concerts, looking for the hidden meanings. 20:11
Petit: They came and asked me about it. And asked me why I was singing about freedom and I said I was talking about freedom of the slaves from the past but it has a double meaning. The song was about freedom then for them and freedom for us now. 20:17
Alex walks with Mari-Lu Millar: The boys from this band and the old dissenters know they take a risk. But the cracks in Cuban society are widening the outside world has tumbled in. In the housing estate of Alamar, it exposes a generation gap between rapper Alex Delgado and his mother Mari-Lu. 20:31
Alex: Of course resentment exists and that creates inequality. For example, I can be frustrated when I see someone who enjoys themselves more than I do, and has more luxuries more than I do. 20:53
Mari-Lu Mari-Lu: What young people know about the past, they know from history -- from what theyve been taught by their teachers. But they havent taken it in. People of a certain age who lived through all of that and who are living today, can compare the good and bad of then with the good and bad of today. And young people havent lived through both sides. 21:11
Fire and cooking on street Music
Millar: The revolution and the man behind it are still cause for celebration. 21:36
Voice: This is a sacrifice for the Cuban revolution.
Millar: Across the country Cubas true believers are preparing to mark the 42nd anniversary of the committees in defence of the revolution -- small neighbourhoods groups set up by Fidel Castro as the ears and eyes of the government.
Moon/drinking and dancing As night falls across Havana the rum begins to flow and these annual rituals of the revolution spill onto the streets. 22:05
Kooki Kooki: It means a lot. The revolution gave us many things free schools, medicine. 22:17
Millar: This is as much a celebration of the revolution as it is of Fidel Castro.
Rafael Rafael: Hes huge. Hes in the hearts of all Cubans. Hes the greatest. 22:31
Celebration on street Millar: Despite this display, a growing number are starting to contemplate a Cuba without its grandfatherly commander in chief at the helm. 22:38
Vladimiro Vladimiro: If Fidel were to die, change would happen a lot faster without this brake that is Fidel Castro. 22:48
Paya Paya: The regime doesnt have any plan for the future. Its people are held hostage. Fidel Castro has total power and those around him are preparing to be the future capitalists but at the same time theyre saying to the people socialism or death. 22:56
Mari-Lu on street Millar: For Mari-Lu, like so many Cubans of her generation, Fidel Castro holds a special place in her heart. 23:16
Mari Mari-Lu: Today people say they cant stand it any more, but if he stops on the corner the place fills up and they clap him. And if you speak about Fidel people feel emotional. Even people who want to leave the country feel emotion.
Singing on street Singing 23:39
Millar: And as the clock strikes midnight, the believers pay homage to Fidel and the revolution. But now more than ever it seems hes resorting to bluster when it comes to confronting his countrys new reality.
Castro Castro: Go deeper try to know Cuba and youll understand theres a lot of mythology and lies surrounding it. Youre an intelligent person and you can work it out for yourselfJournalist: Whats your greatest hope for the next 12 months?Castro: I havent had time to think about it -- but I think its going to be good. 23:54
Millar: It remains to be seen how much goodwill is left for the old revolutionary. 24:19
Chant: Long live our commander in chief, long live. Down with imperialism, down. Homeland or death. We will win.
CASTROS CUBAReporter: Lisa MillarCamera: Dave MartinSound: Woody LandayEditor: Woody LandayProducer: Vivien Altman 24:37