img_3397.jpg

By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor and editor, Cigar City Magazine

You may not have even known it was happening, but “Rapprochement With Cuba: Good For Tampa Bay, Good For Florida, Good For America,” a conference sponsored by the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation and held Saturday at the Italian Club in Ybor City, was, by its very existence, a milestone in repairing the tattered relationship between Tampa and Cuba.

About 150 guests, panelists, professors and local politicians filled the grand, neo-classical Italian Club, once the social, cultural and political epicenter of Tampa’s Italian community. Whether the speeches, panel discussions, and networking sessions will really accomplish much toward ending the 50-year-old U.S. embargo, no one is really sure. However, to get a sense of where the Cuba barometer is pointing, you could start with the venue itself.

In 1955, a young, verbose Fidel Castro arrived in Ybor City. This was no accident, no anomaly. In fact, it made perfect sense. Castro, in a bid to gain popular support for his uprising against CIA-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, he followed — literally — in the footsteps of an earlier young, charismatic Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti.

Marti was the ideological voice of the first Cuban Revolution; the one American school children call the Spanish American War. In the 1890s, after an earlier 10-year conflict between Spain and native Cubans, Jose Marti rose to the fore of a new effort to oust Spain from the island of Cuba. Like Castro, Marti was an intellectual, a writer, poet. He traveled extensively throughout Florida between 1891 and 1895, raising money for Cuban independence. He visited Tampa some 20 times, giving speeches to Tampa’s cigar workers and strategizing with the exiled leadership headquartered in West Tampa and New York City. Marti’s revolution began in 1895. Teddy Roosevelt and the U.S. Army showed up a couple years later, in 1898.

So, 60 years later in 1955, Castro was on a PR tour of sorts that would take him to New York City and the cover of Time magazine but first, he spent some time in Ybor City. His choice for a speaking venue: The Italian Club. He met with then-club president Phil LoCicero at La Tropicana, where the two reportedly talked for hours. Castro’s request to rent the Italian hall was denied, as was his request to speak at the Cuban Club. Castro eventually rented the AFL-CIO Union Hall on 7th Avenue and 13th Street, which is today home of the Marti-Maceo Social Club.

On Saturday, 54 years after Fidel Castro was denied use of the club and 114 years after Marti rallied Tampa’s cigar workers to action, nearly 200 people, Republicans, Democrats, entrepreneurs, cattle ranchers, and exiled Cubans, gathered in Ybor City to talk, once more, about Cuba.

Rain drove the only five protesters away, even though Al Fox, the event organizer, invited them to come in for coffee and doughnuts.

Fox, president of the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy, assembled an impressive lineup of experts including an adviser on Cuba policy for the Kennedy Administration, Dr. Wayne Smith; former head of the Democratic Party of Florida, Alfredo Duran; and, via conference call, U.S. Congressman Bill Delahunt, D-MA, who has sponsored a bill to lift restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba. The bill has several co-sponsors including Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican; Rosa Delauro, Jo-Ann Emerson, a Missouri Republican; Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican; Ron Paul, a Texas Republican.

Locally, Tampa Congresswoman Kathy Castor, who was conspicuously absent on Saturday, has expressed her support for establishing direct flights between Tampa and Havana, to compete for business with Miami International Airport.

“Every time a flight leaves Miami for Havana, the airport collects roughly 50 dollars per passenger and other assorted baggage fees,” said local business owner Jason Busto, adding, “People who are opposed [to increased contact and trade with Cuba] are using a playbook from the 1980s.”

Business interests were in full force at Saturday’s meeting, eager to capitalize on reestablishing trade with the island.

“We’re exporting democracy and capitalism,” said Richard Waltzer, head of the Havana Group, a “facilitator” for companies looking to do business in Cuba, who says the two are linked. “We buy more products from China than any other nation. What’s the difference between China and Cuba?”

John Parke Wright, a cattleman who traces his Tampa roots back to Capt. James McKay and James Lykes, was also on hand. Donning a suit, cowboy boots and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, Park Wright wants to see Tampa and Cuba’s cattle trade “back on the map.”

Indeed Tampa’s connections to Cuba extend beyond Castro’s 1955 visit, beyond cigars and Jose Marti. In the 1840s, Captain James McKay (He of McKay Bay) began shipping cattle to Cuba from Ballast Point in Tampa. The still-prominent Lykes family was, by 1906 firmly established in Havana, operating one of the largest cattle ranches on the island. They also operated the Lykes Steamship Company, which shipped cattle and other goods between Tampa, Havana, and New Orleans.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Henry Plant operated a steamship line, which traveled weekly between Tampa, Key West and Havana. Ironically, at the very center of Tampa’s city seal is the Olivette, a one of Plant’s steamships that traveled regularly to Cuba.

The connections are even deeper. When the Spanish sold Florida to the U.S. in 1824, they may have taken groups of Cuban fishermen with them back to Havana.

In the 1500s Spanish conquistadores “governed” and explored Tampa Bay via Havana.

Havana is our sister city, said City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena. “Economically, socially, culturally, we are kin.”

“The whole purpose of the law is to stifle speech against people who speak against the deviant [gay] lifestyle.” —Bill Keller

The first and second installments of The Devi’s Advocate with Bill Keller drew lots of traffic and comments. Welcome to our third Q&A. I’ll be playing the role of Devil’s Advocate.

One of our most controversial religious figures, Pinellas-based Bill Keller is known for his incendiary rhetoric and unbending view of Bible-based morality. He believes homosexuality is an abomination, abortion is murder and … you can pretty much guess the rest. Click here for a bit more detail on Keller’s ministry.

Today’s Topic: The U.S. Congress is in the process of expanding Hate Crimes laws to include “sexual orientation,” “gender” and “gender identity” to federally protected classes that already include race, religion, color or national origin. Bill Keller doesn’t like this at all.

The Devil’s Advocate: By opposing the addition of gender identity to the existing hate crimes bill, does that mean you’re OK with crimes against gays?

Bill Keller: Absolutely not. I’m not in favor of any hate crimes legislation. If there’s an existing crime statute on the books, you’re going to be punished. If you commit a crime against one of the protected groups, what are you going to get? Three life sentences? It’s redundant.

So why are you concerned about adding gender identity to the law?

Let me tell you how this is going to morph: People who put these laws together say it isn’t there intention, but activists groups, the Perez Hiltons, gay activist associations will go out and make the case that the Bill Kellers are inciting people to violence against homosexuals when there’s no evidence of that happening. I don’t say this out of paranoia. It’s happened in Canada and Sweden and other places where these laws exist. In Canada, three pastors are in jail for this very thing.

So you feel as if you’ll be the target of a crusade by gay activists?

Yes. Let me give you an example of a great analogy from my life. CAIR (Council on Arab-American Relations) goes after any media personality that dares to speak out against Islam when, according to the Bible, it’s a false religion.

They said what I was doing was hate speech and inciting violence against Muslims. Eventually CBS [which aired his call in TV show Live Prayer with Bill Keller] gave me the option to stop talking about Islam or they would take my program off the air. There was no way I was going to let them censor me so the show went off the air. So the analogy is on point: If I speak out against homosexuality as it says in the Bible, I’m inciting violence against them, and there’s no proof of that.

I don’t think your analogy works at all. CAIR used their right to speech as a means to pressure an organization, CBS, to take away that avenue of your speech. That sounds like freedom of speech at work. Were you jailed for hate crimes when speaking out against Muslims?

Muslims aren’t a protected group.

Yes they are. The Hate Crimes legislation includes religion. I know you claim that Islam is not a religion but most everyone accepts it as such — certainly with regard to hate crimes laws.

Muslims can say I used hate speech, but everything they said was a lie.

They might argue that you disavowing Islam as a religion is a lie. It seems like two sides, each with the power of free speech, squared off, and in this case CAIR won out. So why, if you weren’t charged with a hate crime when you spoke out against Islam, do you think you’ll fall victim to Hate Crimes laws for speaking negatively about gays?

Here’s the point: Under this new legislation, homosexual groups will be make allegations against people like me and I could be brought into the legal system. The law is designed to scare people form speaking out against homosexuality.

Do you think it will actually have the effect of anti-gay religious leaders being hesitant to speak out?

Sure, we already have a generation of gutless pastors. It’s going to scare the daylights out of those guys.

So this is good news for the gay community.

Absolutely. The whole purpose of the law is to stifle speech against people who speak against their deviant lifestyle.

All right!

Once this law is on the books, mark my words, within 12 months, I’m going to find myself in a legal situation.

It would have to be a criminal legal situation, right?

Yes. I’m interested in seeing how far the courts are going to go in upholding this law.