The Power of Community, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
DVD and VHS, 53 minutes
$US20, Available from
REVIEW BY BARRY HEALY
"Peak oil", the notion that the world's supply of oil is entering a period of ever dwindling sources, is gaining greater acceptance, especially since the documentary The End of Suburbia was widely shown around Australia in 2005.
The End of Suburbia makes a powerful case for the seriousness of the issue, but is touched by a liberal Malthusianism that essentially communicates a bleak view of the future. This new production, from The Community Solution, a US alternative social education project with roots going back to 1940, looks instead at a positive example of coping with the oil crisis: revolutionary Cuba.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba lost its primary trading partner and source of oil. The US leapt at the opportunity for trouble-making and banned any ship that visited a Cuban port from entering the US for the six months following. Cuba's economy shrank by an incredible 35% in one year.
The greatest consumer of oil in Cuba was the agricultural sector. As a result of the sudden collapse of oil imports, food production was effectively paralysed and signs of malnutrition appeared. The crisis was termed "the Special Period".
Before the Special Period, Cuba relied on food imports to feed its people. It is only since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and with that Cuba's forced transition to permaculture and organic agriculture, that the country has really achieved food security. The transition has also provided innumerable health benefits for the Cuban people.
The Power of Community explains Cuba's transition from large farms or plantations and reliance on fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, to small organic farms and urban gardens. Cuba has undergone a transition from a highly industrial society to an ecologically sustainable one — a transition confronting us all as peak oil approaches.
The film's narrators are nearly all Cuban and their story is one of ingenuity and hardship followed by triumph. Community solidarity and sheer political will is what sustained Cuba.
Directed as it is at a US audience, the word "socialism" doesn't get a mention but the message is perfectly clear: there is a future for humanity — an alternative to capitalism. If a country like Cuba, with one-tenth the economic power of Australia, can achieve so much in such a short time, what will be achieved when socialism is realised here?
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 26, 2006.
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