The news: ‘Historic’ survey of Cubans living in Cuba released!
In the first weeks of April 2015, a flurry of
headlines sourcing a new poll of Cubans
living in Cuba took over the news. According to a Google news search over 7,000
articles were found citing the poll.
Mainstream media was all abuzz: The Washington Post, CTV, TIME Magazine, Reuters,
Miami Herald, Yahoo News, USA Today
and many others all published articles about
the findings of the poll.
Headlines analyzing the details of the poll
ranged from the obvious, “Poll shows vast
majority of Cubans welcome closer ties with
US”, or “Poll: Cubans expect US detente to
improve economic lives”, to the scandalous,
“Obama Almost Twice as Popular in Cuba
Than in US, Poll Says”, or “Despite Optimism, Many Cubans Still Wish To Leave,
Secret Poll Finds”, or “Obama more popular than the Castros in Cuba”, or “Historic
poll: Facebook is 20x more popular than
Twitter in Cuba.”
The only surprising headline I could find
in the mainstream news that bucked the
trend taking the poll results in a whole new
direction was from the New Republic which
proclaimed, “Cubans Are More Satisfied
With Their Political System Than Americans Are”.
How could one “historic poll” lead to so
many new conclusions?
Who released the poll and what was the
goal?
Upon investigation, it turns out that the
“Fusion poll” (as it is commonly referred to
in many articles) was conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International, a public
opinion research firm located in Miami,
Florida, on behalf of Univision Noticias/
Fusion in collaboration with The Washington Post.
From an article published on fusion.net entitled, “Historic poll: Obama is nearly twice
as popular in Cuba as he is in the U.S.”
they explain, “The door-to-door poll, considered the most comprehensive and largest
independent survey in Cuba in more than
50 years, was conducted by a team of local Cuban interviewers led by Miami-based
research firm Bendixen & Amandi. The poll
was carried out without the authorization
of the Cuban government between March
17-27 in all 13 provinces of the island, including the capital city of Havana.”
While this polling firm and poll methodology (explained in documents published by
Bendixen & Amandi International) seem
to pass the initial threshold for a valid survey, there are some critical questions not
mentioned in their “methodology” document or in their published report. After
reading carefully through their documents
I was left with many questions...
•
It is unclear how many Cubans refused
to be interviewed or were not interested
in participating.
•
The company claimed to have contacted
each “randomly selected” candidate 3
times for an interview, but gives no data
on how many people they were unable
to interview after 3 attempts or the general response rate.
•
The interviews were conducted in Spanish, but I was unable to find a Spanish
version of the report. This makes it impossible to tell how accurately the questions were translated for the English
report.
•
Their “Introduction” on the survey reads:
“I would like to ask you a few questions
about some important issues. I assure
you that I am not selling anything and
that the survey will only take a few minutes. Your responses will remain strictly
confidential.” But it is unclear if these
are the only things their survey team
said to introduce the poll. Did the field
team tell people this was a “secret poll”
not sanctioned by the government? Did
they say they were representing Miami-
based Bendixen & Amandi, or “Univision Noticias/Fusion” or the Washington Post?
Where to find the answers...
Interestingly, the Washington Post published an article exposing the answers to
some of these questions on April 8, 2015.
At the same time the poll was released,
their article titled, “Surveying Cubans
under the Castro government” gave some
insights that were nowhere to be found on
the Fusion or Bendixen & Amandi
International websites.
First, the title for the article, “Surveying
Cubans under the Castro government” is
clearly building up the idea that surveying
Cubans is different than surveying people
in any other part of the world. The bias of
the Washington Post and the poll they paid
for is evident in the first sentence of their
article which asks, “How do you conduct
a reliable public opinion poll in a closely
monitored society where political dissent is
strictly repressed?”
If the goal of their survey is to go and find
out what the people of Cuba think about
their government and the government of
the United States, doesn’t this question
seem to suggest that in the end they already
know what answers they are looking for?
Cubans are dissatisfied, want change and
are repressed in a “closely monitored society
where political dissent is strictly repressed”.
Right?
In his article Washington Post journalist,
Peyton M. Craighill, boasts that their poll
was, “designed and executed without the
authorization of the Cuban government” as
if this is somehow a positive or legitimizing
point!
“Interviews were conducted by Cuban residents personally trained by senior B&A
survey researchers.” How much did they
pay these people? Did they tell the Cubans
working for them that the poll they were
doing was “carried out without the authorization of the Cuban government”?
Finally, the most important information,
again not found in the poll or its methodology document, only in this one article from
The Washington Post notes that, “Among
all the households sampled for an interview,
39 percent completed one.” That means
61% of people they asked to do the poll
did not participate. Why is this not a headline? ‘61% of Cubans asked to take our poll
refused’ I guess it would have been harder
for Fusion, Univision and The Washington
Post to have their prestigious and ‘historic’
poll taken seriously if this was one of their
key findings.
What’s in the poll?
So far I have not
even explained what
was in the poll, other
than the headlines
pulled from the results. In many ways
the contents of the
poll are of secondary
importance, because
this survey and poll
were not designed
to be fair. They were
designed with predetermined answers
in mind, which the
Washington Post
journalist exposed
with his musings,
“How do you conduct a reliable public opinion poll in a
closely monitored society where political
dissent is strictly repressed?”
However, I would like to quickly examine
the article from the New Republic that I
mentioned in the first section of this article,
which is again entitled, “Cubans Are More
Satisfied With Their Political System Than
Americans Are.”
The article takes the poll findings in a different direction than the rest of the mainstream media around the world. Journalist
Joel Gillin writes, “According to a January
2014 Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans
are “dissatisfied with the nation’s system of
government and how well it works.” Meanwhile, 52 percent of Cubans are dissatisfied
with their political system, according to the
new poll by Univision/Fusion.
More than two-thirds of Cubans—68 percent—are satisfied with their health care
system. About 66 percent of Americans
said the same in a November 2014 Gallup
poll.
Seventy-two percent of Cubans are satisfied with their education system, while an
August 2014 Gallup poll found that less
than half of Americans—48 percent—are
“completely” or “somewhat” satisfied with
the quality of K-12 education.”
So while the questionable statistics in the
Univision/Fusion poll are meant to make
Cubans seem unsatisfied, miserable and
repressed when they stand on their own.
When put side-by-side with statistics about
how Americans feel about their political
system and social services we get a more
balanced look and realizing that even if we
accepted these numbers as fact (which I do
not, based on the holes and bias mentioned
above) they do not say anything as drastic
about the situation in Cuba as the mainstream media headlines would like us to
believe.
International Context since December
17, 2014
The reason this article will not look too
closely at the contents of the poll, is first
because of the stated bias with which the
Washington Post began this venture and
second because this poll is clearly being
used as a tool by the mainstream media to
make a particular point about Cuba. Only
the New Republic article chose to deviate
from the story that Univision/Fusion and
the Washington Post wanted everyone to
read.
The next question we need to ask is why
did the Washington Post and Univision/
Fusion choose now to invest in a ‘historic
poll’ about how Cubans see the present and
future of their country and the U.S.?
On December 17, 2014 U.S. President
Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul
Castro both announced the first steps towards reestablishing diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba after over 50 years
of US hostility towards Cuba.
Since December 17, 2014 the U.S. has
made several openings towards Cuba. On
March 29, 2015 the Obama administration
officially removed Cuba from their list of
“state sponsors of terror”, a very unjustified
label the U.S. had slapped on Cuba and also
one of the road-blocks to re-establishing
diplomatic relations between Washington
and Havana.
In April 2015, Cuba was welcomed to the
Summit of the Americas hosted in Panama
by the Organization of American States
(OAS) an organization with 35 member
states including countries in North, Central
and South America. The Cuban government had been banned from participating
in the OAS Summits for 47 years based
mainly in the insistence of the U.S. government that Cuba did not belong based on it
being a communist country and its desire
to isolate Cuba. While the ban was lifted in
2009, it was only this year that Cuba finally
took its seat at the table.
Then on July 1, 2015 U.S. President Barack Obama said, "Today, I can announce
that the United
States has agreed
to formally re-
establish diplomatic relations
with the Republic
of Cuba, and re-
open embassies
in our respective
countries. This
is a historic step
forward in our efforts to normalize
relations with the
Cuban government and people,
and begin a new
chapter with our
neighbors in the
Americas."
So we have seen since December 2014
many important moves by the U.S. government to forge a new relationship with
Cuba, but what are the changes based on?
A new era of U.S./Cuba relations Why
now?
Over the past 10 years or so, it has become
clear that United States government has
become more and more isolated from the
rest of the Americas, and even the rest of
the world, in its policy towards Cuba.
While in the 1960s, just after the triumph
of the Cuban revolution, the U.S. policy to
isolate Cuba was echoed by every country
in Latin America except Mexico, today the
U.S. policy of isolating Cuba has led to the
isolation of the United States itself. The
U.S. which is used to being master of the
world, has found itself being chastised by
other nations for its harmful and outdated
policy towards Cuba.
So let’s get back to the question: why did
the Washington Post and Univision/Fusion choose now to invest in a ‘historic poll’
about how Cubans see the present and future of their country and the U.S.?
It is true that these new moves towards better U.S.-Cuba relations are important for
the Cuban people and the Cuban government. However, one has to look at what has
been going on between the U.S. and Cuba
over the past 50 years to really grasp what
is happening today. Over the last 50 years
the various U.S. administrations have dedicated themselves to a single task in Cuba –
to overthrow the victorious 1959 revolution
led by Fidel Castro. They have planned this
through assassination attempts, the Bay of
Pigs invasion, the National Endowment for
Democracy and their “democracy building
projects”, the sabotage of Cuban agriculture, the payment of ‘dissident’ groups, and
most importantly their economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba.
The U.S. blockade was meant to starve Cubans into giving up on their revolution and
to accept U.S. hegemony over their island.
All of the United States measures against
Cuba have failed, and despite even the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the most
challenging periods, Cuba has thrived. Indeed, Cuba has become more popular, making allies and signing agreements across
Latin America and around the world. Just
this year Cuba has become known as a
world leader in the fight against Ebola in
West Africa sending hundreds of Cuban
doctors to fight the epidemic. Then on June
30, 2015 the World Health Organization
declared Cuba the first country in the world
to eliminate the mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. Cuba has Health
and Human Development figures that rival
that of many industrialized countries due
to great advances in its free education and
healthcare systems. Life inside Cuba is a
challenge, but very dynamic from its world-famous jazz, to baseball, to salsa, to cigars
and beaches.
While the Obama administration is making
steps towards Cuba, they have not given up
on their policy of “regime
change” for Cuba, meaning
overthrowing the revolution and its gains. This also
means they are not interested in leaving Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba where the U.S.
has its military base and
prison, world renowned for
torturing its prisoners. It
means they are not interested in finally ending their
blockade against Cuba
despite the fact that the
United Nations General
Assembly has resoundingly
condemned the U.S. blockade 23 times in the last 23
years.
So how can the U.S. government and the mainstream media make sure
that they get enough support for renewing
diplomatic ties with Cuba, while at the same
time keep the general population skeptical
about the Cuban people and government?
One method is to release a ‘historic’ poll
of Cubans living in Cuba, reaffirming that
despite all of the positive news coverage
you have heard about Cuba in the last year,
Cubans are still “closely monitored society
where political dissent is strictly repressed”.
They make sure that the poll questions will
get the answer that they started with. Then
publicize the results around the world, to a
mainstream media that will take that data
in whatever context they give them and not
bother to look outside the box or analyze
the content.
Where do we go from here?
From an article published on fusion.net entitled, “Historic poll: Obama is nearly twice
as popular in Cuba as he is in the U.S.” they
explain, “What’s clear is that tidy friend-or-foe days of the cold war have since been
replaced by something messier, modern and
more honest.” This might be the reporter’s
opinion after reading the survey results, but
all it shows is that these people have never
spent any time in Cuba. The so-called cold
war “friend-or-foe”/black and white/”you
are either with us or against us” is never how
the Cuban people or the Cuban government have seen the United States. The Cuban revolution has always distinguished between the American people and the American government. Cuba has always been a
warm and welcoming place for Americans
to visit. It has been the U.S. government
with this black and white mentality, forcing
travel restrictions on its own people, worried Americans will travel to Cuba and be
inspired by revolutionary Cuba.
This is why the U.S. and the mainstream
media are not interested in really understanding the feelings of the Cuban people
during this historic period of change. They
are not interested in sharing with people in
the United States a deeper understanding
of the challenges and gains made by the
Cuban people and their government since
the revolution triumphed in 1959. They are
too afraid that poor and working people
in the U.S. might see something exciting
about the path forged by the Cuban revolution – a path that has meant free healthcare,
free education, jobs, culture and dignity –
all things poor and working people in the
U.S. are fighting for today.
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