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Southern Grease
Reviews
Movie - The Power
of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
After reading Lyle Estill's blog back in June titled, "Building
Cuba," I visited the website of The Community Solution, a program of
Community Service, inc., a non-profit dedicated to the development,
growth and enhancement of small local communities. They "envision a
country where the population is distributed in small communities
that are sustainable, diverse and culturally sophisticated."
Members of the Community Solution program visited Cuba to create a
documentary recording the transition of Cuba from a plantation-based
agrarian society to a micronodal model of sustainable living without
the use of petroleum-based energy or products. In the early 1990s,
Cuba experienced an almost total loss of petroleum in a matter of
weeks after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their main supplier of
external resources. During this "Special Period," Cubans had to
learn new ways of surviving without the basic necessities provided
by Soviet imports of raw materials for energy production and food
supply.
This documentary does an excellent job of capturing how Cuba
transitioned to this new model of living by conducting interviews
with experts on the Special Period who participated in the
transition either as native Cubans or ex-patriates who lived in Cuba
to help train the people in perma-culture, micronodal farming and
creation of biopesticides.
The viewer sees video footage of the urban gardens that produce the
majority of food that sustains the people of Cuba in large cities
like Havana as well as in rural communities. New public
transportation methods from bicycles to commercial vehicles adapted
to people-movers, are seen in use in the cities and rural areas.
Much can be learned from this documentary on ways that western
society can adapt their own personal habits and make daily decisions
that can help conserve energy in their own homes and communities.
However, it is important to comment on what's missing from this
documentary. By focusing on a very specific part of Cuban life, the
viewer can easily portray Cuba as a present day utopia. The
documentary does not mention at all the many negative aspects of
Cuban life such as the oppressive government, threats of violence
for being outspoken against the Fascist regime and the lack of basic
liberty taken for granted in most Western free nations. The murder
and torture perpetrated against the Cuban people by Castro's regime
is well chronicled over the years by Cuban exiles who successfully
fled the oppression of the Cuban regime since 1959.
To an extent, this film demonstrates the theory of how a Communist
country lives. Viewers who are knowledgeable about the negative
aspects of Communism may be turned off by this film but should try
to focus on the positive aspects that can be retained and put in to
use in a free market society. (i.e., sustainable living and
community involvement in energy conservation and local food
production)
For those viewers who are not familiar with the history of Cuba in
the 20th century, I recommend reading, "Back from the Future: Cuba
under Castro" by Susan Eva Eckstein. I am also looking for some
books or content written by Cuban exiles. I found myself
wondering, "Why didn't Cubans just leave Cuba during the Special
Period to look for work elsewhere?" The answer is "The government
wouldn't let them leave." The Cuban people were forced to deal with
the problem at hand because they lacked the basic freedoms that we
take for granted in the United States and in other free countries.
However, this lack of liberty has given viewers a glimpse and case
study of how the Cuban people survived peak oil. We can clearly
learn from it.
I find this documentary an important study that viewers can use as a
teaching resource for retaining the knowledge of how to live
sustainably and locally without relying on petroleum for energy and
basic necessities. If there is truth in Peak Oil, then even with our
basic freedoms and liberty, if global peak oil does eventually hit,
we will all have no place to go to get away from it. We will be
forced to react locally in order to adapt and survive.
Rating: Recommended with caveats listed above
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