Yahoo – AFP,
Francisco Jara, 24 Dec 2014
 |
People
wearing Santa Claus costumes give out leaflets promoting a restaurant
in the
streets of Havana, Cuba, on December 23, 2014 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)
|
Havana
(AFP) - Cubans prepared Wednesday to celebrate Christmas, a resurgent holiday
banned for 38 years by the communist government, with an early gift from US
President Barack Obama: a historic rapprochement.
Across the
island, houses, restaurants, supermarkets, hotels and state-run stores have put
up Christmas decorations, embracing a holiday eliminated by Fidel Castro soon
after he came to power in the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and declared Cuba an
atheist state.
"El
Comandante" restored Christmas in 1998 after a landmark visit by pope John
Paul II.
 |
A Christmas
tree adorns the lobby of a
hotel in Havana, Cuba, on December 23,
2014 (AFP
Photo/Yamil Lage)
|
"Christmas
was a very deep-rooted tradition in Cuba. It was interrupted for 38 years,
which is no small thing, and yet it made a comeback," said the secretary
of Cuba's Conference of Bishops, Jose Felix Perez.
In Havana's
old city, Santas brave the Caribbean heat in bushy white beards and red suits
to hand out restaurant flyers alongside Mrs Clauses wearing decidedly skimpier
red outfits -- a scene that would have been unthinkable under Fidel.
On the
streets of the capital, the dashboards of cars are decked out with Santas,
wreaths and mini Christmas trees.
Less
playful decorations adorn the gates and courtyards of foreign embassies and the
US interests section, set to regain its status as an embassy under last week's
watershed announcement by Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over
from his big brother Fidel in 2006.
The thawing
of the two countries' Cold War animosity has raised many Cubans' hopes for an
economic revival in a country scarred by the "special period" of
hunger and shortages in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This year,
Perez said, "everything the two presidents announced is giving people hope
that their lives will get better and there will be greater understanding."
In this
country where Catholicism has long co-existed with local traditions that draw
on both Christianity and African religions, state-run stores are brimming with
Christmas gift baskets and restaurants and hotels are offering sumptuous
Christmas dinners.
At the
Ambos Mundos, where the great American writer Ernest Hemingway once lived, the
four-course meal costs $40 -- twice the average monthly salary of around $20.
"Before
there were no Christmas decorations. All this is totally new," a Latin
American diplomat told AFP.
Communist
Christmas
New Year's
was long celebrated as the main holiday in Cuba, bolstered by the revolutionary
significance of the date: January 1, 1959, is the day Castro's forces ousted
dictator Fulgencio Batista.
 |
A couple
wearing Santa Claus costumes greet a little boy as they give out
leaflets promoting a restaurant in the streets of Havana, Cuba, on December 23,
2014
(AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)
|
Starting in
1960, December 25 was declared a working day.
Christians
celebrated in secret, hoping to evade detection by the Revolutionary Defense
Committees (CDRs) deployed across the country.
Even after
the holiday was restored, Christmas celebrations were muted until Fidel handed
over power amid a health crisis.
In 2010 the
Cuban government opened talks with the Church, which led to the release of 130
political prisoners and the return of Church buildings confiscated in the
1960s.
Later that
year the main architect of the detente, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, celebrated
Cuba's first Christmas mass since 1959 inside a prison.
Today,
Cuban bishops broadcast Christmas messages on television.
In a
further goodwill gesture toward the Church, Raul Castro also restored Good
Friday as a holiday when pope Benedict XVI visited the island in 2012.
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This picture released by Estudios Revolucion shows relatives welcoming
freed Cuban prisoner Geraldo Hernandez (C) on December 17, 2014 in Havana
upon his return from the United States (AFP Photo)
|
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