Talk:Special Period

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This page is so biased. "The period radically transformed the Cuban society and economy, as it necessitated the successful introduction of sustainable agriculture, decreased use of automobiles, and overhauls of industry, health, and diet countrywide." Are you serious? this makes it sounds like if it was a good thing. you decrease the use of automobiles, overhaul food and other living items because you want to, not because the government that sworn to provide cant...

User:racerboyGTR

Dear Racerboy,

You also decrease the use of automobiles etc because you can't afford them.

Graeme Cook (talk) 06:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it does appear that voluntary decrease of automobiles, etc. doesn't seem to work. Why's it so bad that a country had to adapt to an incredibly difficult situation and came out as an example to the rest of the world? -Lalabox --210.56.73.15 (talk) 01:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Change the photo caption, that street in Trinidad looks prosperous, not decrepit.

Merger

I agree. This page should be merged into the article on the Special Period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freedomwarrior (talk • contribs) 19:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So far there's one vote for merging these two articles. I'll count me as a second vote. I'll give it a little longer to see if there's any opposition, and then start the merger. NJGW (talk) 17:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"We have not yet come out of the Special Period": Raul Castro, July 26 2007

Economy_of_cuba#Special_Period says "Raul Castro reminded Cubans, in his July 26 speech in 2007, that the Special Period is not yet over," citing "The Revolution’s most important weapon: the people" - Granma International English Edition (Digital Granma Internacional), edition of July 27, 2007, on a speech by Raul Castro on July 26: http://www.granma.cu/INGLES/2007/julio/vier27/raul26.html

"In this forging of effort and sacrifice, the morale and conscience of this people has reached new heights.... And so it has been during the more than 16 years of the Special Period, of sustained effort by the entire country to overcome the difficulties and press onwards –and so it must still be, since we have not yet come out of the Special Period."

-- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 14:34, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just restored some sections that were hidden by a missing forward-slash (/), and one of them is "After the special Period." It looks like the documentary most of this article comes from claims Fidel Castro declared the Special Period over in order to embolden the people of Cuba, and that Raul made his statement for other political reasons. This article says the worst of it was the late 80's-early 90's, and that Cuba never fully recovered. Maybe that could be made more explicit, but empircally there's not much more you can say about it. NJGW (talk) 17:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Voluntary population control?

I've heard it said that Castro asked women to stop having babies during at least some part of this period, and that they largely complied. But I saw no reference to that in this article. It seems an incredible thing -- can you imagine the uproar if the head of a G8 country asked this of its women?

Is that something worth researching and adding?

Bytesmiths (talk) 23:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bytesmiths, I am Cuban and I lived in Cuba until 2006. I do not recall Fidel Castro asking to stop having babies, but the economical situation of the 90s was so critical (no food, no money, no transportation, let alone clothes, shoes and baby articles) that people just stopped having babies, or only had one. Having a baby in those conditions was almost heroic.--Lcwikip (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bytesmiths,

Yes, if you can find a reliable source.

Graeme Cook (talk) 07:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Decimated ???

"The collapse of the Soviet Union decimated the Cuban economy. The country lost approximately 80% of its imports, 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped by 34 percent."

If the cuban economy were decimated, it would have merely have been reduced by 10% of it's GDP, as "decimate" means to reduce by ten percent.

Perhaps the original author meant that the cuban economy had been DEVASTATED.