VICE (2013) s04e07 Episode Script
Palestine Now & Viva Cuba Libre
1 This week on "VICE": Young people are rising up in the West Bank.
(speaking Arabic) (explosions) This is the kind of thing that really pisses off the Israeli soldiers, and now they've started to shoot back live bullets.
And then, the underground cultural revolution in Cuba.
Relations are normalizing because all the young people in Cuba are seeing how it is to live in the rest of the world.
(speaking in Spanish) (theme music playing) (gunshot) Crowd (chanting): Hands up! Don't shoot! Hands up! The effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people has been going on for decades, and it has failed at almost every step.
Now, that hopelessness has given fuel to a new uprising in the West Bank.
(indistinct chattering) Every single day for weeks now Palestinians have been coming here and clashing with Israeli soldiers.
(tires screeching) (indistinct shouting) (speaking in English) (sirens blaring) Shihab-Eldin: All across Palestine, the youth are taking to the streets to protest the current state of affairs in the occupied West Bank.
We're in the heart of Hebron, which is, for many Palestinians, the most extreme example (explosion) of what life is like.
This is the front line between them and the Israeli soldiers who've been firing tear gas.
They're rolling tires across the street with cardboard in it burning.
This is the kind of thing that really pisses off the Israeli soldiers, and now they've started to shoot back live bullets.
(gunshots) (indistinct shouting) For decades, the conflict here has been stuck in the same cycle of bloody violence with near-constant casualties on both sides.
But what we found in our time in the West Bank, is today, the youth are the ones leading the uprising.
And just like the young people behind the Arab Spring, these kids say that their own government is a big part of the problem.
(speaking in Arabic) Shihab-Eldin: The protests we saw were sparked completely by the youth.
Even the volunteer medics that were treating the injured were kids.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: As the casualties poured in, we talked to the protesters on the ground about why they are risking their lives.
(speaking foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: The losses here have continued, whether it's from Israeli bullets or Palestinian attacks.
And with no leader guiding the uprising, the situation is only intensifying on the ground.
We spoke with Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, an expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
What makes this uprising different than previous uprisings? First is the failure of the Palestinian leadership to do anything to relieve the sense of despair that Palestinians have been feeling in the occupied territories since the occupation began.
The prospects for young Palestinians are extraordinarily limited.
No horizon, no future.
Things are much worse today after Oslo.
Shihab-Eldin: In 1993, the Oslo Accords were supposed to begin a path towards peace, and established an interim government in the West Bank known as the Palestinian Authority.
What was the expectation of the Palestinian Authority? That this was the embryo of a Palestinian state.
The Oslo agreement was supposed to accomplish a continued negotiation.
The hope was that it would lead to a two-state solution, and the Palestinians could have some arrangement for autonomy or self-government within that.
Unfortunately, it's deluding very few people in Palestine and a lot of people outside into thinking the Palestinians are well on the way to statehood.
They're not.
They've moved away from self-determination since Oslo.
So, in a sense, the Palestinian Authority itself is an illusion? It is.
It's a cardboard facade behind which nothing exists.
Shihab-Eldin: There haven't been any presidential elections in more than ten years, since President Mahmoud Abbas came to power.
And with polls showing that nearly 70% of the population wanting him out of office, the anger on the streets is palpable.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: Just down the street from Mahmoud Abbas' presidential palace, we found a group of protesters calling for him to step down.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: A lot of the Palestinian youth tell us that they see the Palestinian Authority as a symbol of the occupation.
Why would they be saying that? Well, the aspect of the Palestinian Authority that's most unacceptable to Palestinians is its security cooperation with Israel.
Shihab-Eldin: That's because under the Oslo Agreements the Palestinian Authority security forces are charged with maintaining the peace, which includes suppressing protests.
But it's what the PA can't do that's angering the Palestinians, which is their inability to stop Israelis from creating new settlements in the occupied West Bank.
What has happened since 1967 is the establishment of communities of Israelis inside the occupied territories.
Every place that a settler goes, the military goes.
Every place the military goes, restrictions against the native population, the Palestinians, follow.
This is why settlements are such an enormous factor in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Shihab-Eldin: We met up with Daniel Luria, the head of an organization that helps move Jewish Israelis into East Jerusalem, reclaiming land they say is theirs by divine right.
I'm gonna take you now to a predominantly Arab neighborhood.
And about 12 years ago, Jews started to return to the old village.
(speaking in English) Okay.
Good to know.
So you're carrying a gun? Yeah.
(speaking in foreign language) What's he saying? Um, he says all of this is a lie, and you are robbers.
This is everything here.
This is the center of it.
Whose land is this? Right.
Whose land is Jerusalem? Whose land is Israel? Why can't it be both people's land? It can't be.
Why not? It doesn't work.
(speaking in foreign language) You can tell that this is as tense as it gets.
Come, come, come! Before 1948, this used to be an old synagogue.
That's correct.
And now It's been returned.
Correct.
It's been returned.
So, last week there were families living here.
Correct.
And they were the ones who were And those were illegally squatting in an old synagogue.
For 77 years, they were living here.
In a synagogue.
Shihab-Eldin: Reconstruction started here immediately, but this isn't the only new settlement on this block.
We met a couple just as they moved in down the street.
So, when do you move in? (speaking foreign language) Straight away.
It's their honeymoon.
He just got married, he's moving in now.
Shihab-Eldin: But as settlers were moving into one house, we met a Palestinian family that was being evicted from theirs.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: As both sides maintain claims to the land, the Israeli settler population has increased dramatically.
The settler population has tripled in the last 25 years.
There were a couple hundred thousand after about 25 years of occupation.
There are another 400,000 for a total of 600,000 today.
Shihab-Eldin: The Palestinians see these settlements as a provocation.
But when they clash with settlers, Israel escalates its security measures across the region.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than the city of Hebron.
So, right now we're crossing through one of the checkpoints in Hebron.
Security is so tight here, the city's been divided into sections, with the majority of Palestinians living in an area called H1, and the Israeli settlers living in H2, which is where we were.
All of the shops are closed.
There's absolutely no one in the streets.
It feels like a ghost town.
This street we're walking on has been off-limits to Palestinians for years by order of the Israeli military.
Right over there is a Palestinian cemetery.
If you look, all of the tombstones are written in Arabic.
It's literally two feet away from a street where Palestinians can't come.
And even on the Palestinian side back in H1, we could see how rigid this divide was.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: As more and more kids grow up under the rules of this agreement, it will only feed into more violence and a furthering divide.
Dr.
Hanan Ashrawi was involved in the early negotiations of the Middle East peace process, and a former member of the Palestinian Authority.
Young Palestinians taking to the streets and throwing rocks say they're not just disillusioned by the occupation, they tell us they're disillusioned by their own government.
The Palestinian Authority is part of the occupation.
We're not surprised that the young people are disillusioned, and they are angry.
They're sending a clear message to the world.
The peace agenda, the negotiated settlement, the two-state solution has not worked.
The leadership could not deliver.
It seems like there's a bigger and bigger disconnect.
There is a wide gap, yes.
These perceptions are cumulative.
If you allow your system to atrophy, your leadership to become geriatric, then of course you're going to have a situation of total discontent and anger.
The only way forward is through elections.
We need elections, we need a new leadership, and we need the youth to be part of this.
Shihab-Eldin: Until that happens, the youth seem to only gain more resolve in their anger towards both the occupation and their own government.
(speaking foreign language) (sirens blaring) America and Cuba have been adversaries since Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in 1959.
But this month President Obama has made history by becoming the first sitting US president to visit the country in 88 years.
We're focused on the future.
And I'm absolutely confident that if we stay on this course we can deliver a better and brighter future for both the Cuban people and the American people.
So, muchas gracias.
It's part of the so-called "Obama Doctrine," which is the president's policy of re-engaging with traditional enemies.
And we've been following the process with Cuba since last year at the 2015 Summit of the Americas.
(sirens blaring) Smith: We're here in Panama City at the Summit of the Americas.
And it's a historic summit because for the first time since Eisenhower, the head of state of Cuba, Raúl Castro, and the head of state of America, President Obama, are gonna actually meet for the purpose of normalizing relations.
Point is, the United States will not be imprisoned by the past.
We're looking to the future and to policies that improve the lives of the Cuban people and advance the interests of cooperation in the hemisphere.
(speaking in Spanish) Smith: Now these statements both represented a sea-change in relations between the US and Cuba.
The Obama Doctrine is this administration's foreign policy shift, which now engages in dialogue and treaties with countries like Iran and Cuba that have long been considered our enemies.
But this decision in particular marks a huge leap forward in our relations.
Now, that's because at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba as a strategic check against American power.
This triggered the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of all-out nuclear war.
But even though the crisis ended, the US tightened its economic embargo on Cuba, and travel between the two was totally cut off, thereby isolating the Cuban people for more than half a century.
Now, to gauge the attitude within the Cuban government today, we spoke with Abel Prieto, a former minister of culture and a close Castro aide.
For our audience, which is mostly young people, there's a fascination with Cuba.
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the cultural aspects of what's happening in Cuba.
(speaking in Spanish) We would love to.
Smith: So we accepted his invitation to see what's actually happening on the ground in Cuba.
Because we had heard that the country's large youth population was playing a big part in forcing the regime to change its policies.
And ground zero for this social movement is Alamar, Cuba's largest housing project, which is a hotbed for political dissent.
Edgaro Gonzalez grew up in Alamar and explained to me just how music had bridged the divide between Cuba and America.
So, I grew up in this.
Like, every day, all day, all we did all day was listen to hip-hop all day.
Smith: And how did you learn how to speak English? I listened to Biggie every day.
Yeah.
You know? This was my house.
Okay.
I had the only entrance to the rooftop over there.
You know, you just went up to the rooftop and tried to get some signal from Key West.
Smith: Though Cuba has been cut off politically for over 50 years, their close geographic proximity has actually allowed for music to be shared over the radio.
And you just, you know, move the antenna around.
So, you kinda put it up to try to get a signal? Yeah, try to get a signal.
From Florida.
Yeah, right there.
So, what effect did that have on the young people who live here in Alamar? Whoa.
You know, they be kind of letting love for hip-hop.
Everybody knew every character of the Wu-Tang Clan.
People love American culture.
(speaking in Spanish) When we were starting doing hip-hop, it got really popular the government started realizing and said, "Yo, we gotta shut this down.
" And so Reggaeton now would be the most popular in Alamar? Smith: Now the reason why the government would want to control the music scene is that for decades it was policy here to denounce all things American.
(speaking Spanish) Now, although this seems like old Cold War rhetoric, the regime is still putting this out today, as we saw firsthand at the Museum of the Revolution.
We got the cowboy.
We got the Caesar.
Is that Caesar? Bush Jr.
(speaking Spanish) So they're saying thank you for being such a bad guy that we then have a revolution.
So, it goes from Batista to Reagan.
What does it say about Reagan? Smith: But what we found out was that the bridge between cultures couldn't be stopped.
And the government was speaking one way, and the people another.
We're here in the barrio in Havana with the biggest Reggaeton star.
And we're gonna interview him and talk about Reggaeton and how that's pushed all of these changes even further 'cause the government tried to stop it, but they couldn't because everyone needs their dance hall.
(cheering) (singing in Spanish) Smith: The music made in this tiny studio goes all over Cuba.
Baby Lores explained to me the importance it's had in bridging the divide between America and the Cuban people.
(singing continues) (speaking in Spanish) Smith: How does your music get out to so many people? Smith: The paquete has spread Reggaeton across the country and evolved into kind of a canned Internet with hand-delivered hard drives packed with pirated music, videos, and TV shows that had not been accessible to Cubans before.
But since traditionally as few as four percent of Cubans actually have Internet access at home, the hackers who make the paquetes have to steal Internet access at tourist hotels to get the material that their customers want.
How are you? Nice to meet you.
A leading hacker named Danny showed us how he does it.
Smith: How often do you download from hotels like this? How much, average cost? The smuggled equipment in this small room sends pieces of the Internet all across Cuba.
So you have to get all of this equipment from-- Where does it come from? So you can get any series you want and give it to anyone in Cuba? (HBO audio logo plays) Smith on TV: This week on "VICE": The future of recreational drugs.
He's got our show.
How many people do you think in Cuba get a paquete every week? (phone rings) So we're getting a call in right now.
We saw a hacker who's downloading all the shows, all the Internet, putting it into drives, giving it to his runners.
It goes out all weekend, which is one of the real reasons why relations are normalizing.
Because all the young people in Cuba are seeing how it is to live in the rest of the world.
So while it's been an underground cultural revolution that's moved the Cuban people ever closer to their American neighbors, on our side, it's been driven by our political leaders.
So we spoke to Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor and one of the architects of the Obama Doctrine, about this political shift.
In the policy changes the president announced, in addition to the normalization in diplomatic relations, we basically are facilitating any type of travel that can be permitted under a general license, which will make it much easier.
But we also authorized certain commercial activity.
And telecommunications is the most liberal.
We're opening the door for US companies to help develop infrastructure in Cuba.
You'll start to see an opening, in certainly the economic space.
You see Airbnb seeking to get into Cuba.
You see the NBA and Major League Baseball looking to go down there.
Essentially, a flood of interaction between Americans and Cubans that hasn't taken place in over 50 years.
Is this part of this new unfolding Obama Doctrine? Absolutely, it is.
And the president's view is we don't lose anything through engagement.
We can break out of the past, but that doesn't mean we have to compromise our values.
People say, "While you're making this change, "you're putting aside the things that America cares about.
" Well no, we actually think this is a better way to stand up for the things America cares about.
Smith: The Obama Doctrine has caused a lot of pushback not only on Iran, but Cuba as well.
And now it's become a debate that's cut across partisan lines.
And at least two of the presidential candidates have publicly stated a desire to unwind these developments.
This is throwing an economic lifeline to the Castros at a moment when their regime was vulnerable and it was a serious mistake.
We somehow ignore the fact that 90 miles from our shores is an anti-American Communist dictatorship that oppresses its people and sows instability.
Smith: We spoke to Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top negotiator in dealings with the US, about the shifting relationship between Havana and Washington.
On the Cuban side is anyone thinking that okay, Obama is obviously pushing to normalize relations with Cuba.
But as of today, Rubio from Florida, Cruz from Texas, would probably try to push back the advances that Obama and your government have made.
Do you think about that? The changes and the announcements have been made through executive decisions.
The next American president can undo through the same ways, means, what has been done so far.
But I don't think it will be easy to do that.
Because this is good, not only for our both countries, but also for the region and for the whole world.
And I see having a respectful relationship that can enrich Cuba and that can enrich the Americans too.
Smith: So what President Obama's visit marks is a step where two traditional enemies are for the first time starting a dialogue.
If you look at the Iran deal, the Cuba policy, these are seen as these hugely controversial things, but Americans generally support them.
Sure.
Washington doesn't.
For whatever reason, it's easier to bomb another country than it is to sometimes engage a certain country.
If this is really about helping the Cuban people, 97% of the Cuban people support normalization with the United States.
What will be interesting to watch is how the interaction with the United States and the interconnection with the rest of the world helps normalize, not just the relationship between the United States and Cuba, but Cuba's own position in the hemisphere and the world.
(speaking Arabic) (explosions) This is the kind of thing that really pisses off the Israeli soldiers, and now they've started to shoot back live bullets.
And then, the underground cultural revolution in Cuba.
Relations are normalizing because all the young people in Cuba are seeing how it is to live in the rest of the world.
(speaking in Spanish) (theme music playing) (gunshot) Crowd (chanting): Hands up! Don't shoot! Hands up! The effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people has been going on for decades, and it has failed at almost every step.
Now, that hopelessness has given fuel to a new uprising in the West Bank.
(indistinct chattering) Every single day for weeks now Palestinians have been coming here and clashing with Israeli soldiers.
(tires screeching) (indistinct shouting) (speaking in English) (sirens blaring) Shihab-Eldin: All across Palestine, the youth are taking to the streets to protest the current state of affairs in the occupied West Bank.
We're in the heart of Hebron, which is, for many Palestinians, the most extreme example (explosion) of what life is like.
This is the front line between them and the Israeli soldiers who've been firing tear gas.
They're rolling tires across the street with cardboard in it burning.
This is the kind of thing that really pisses off the Israeli soldiers, and now they've started to shoot back live bullets.
(gunshots) (indistinct shouting) For decades, the conflict here has been stuck in the same cycle of bloody violence with near-constant casualties on both sides.
But what we found in our time in the West Bank, is today, the youth are the ones leading the uprising.
And just like the young people behind the Arab Spring, these kids say that their own government is a big part of the problem.
(speaking in Arabic) Shihab-Eldin: The protests we saw were sparked completely by the youth.
Even the volunteer medics that were treating the injured were kids.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: As the casualties poured in, we talked to the protesters on the ground about why they are risking their lives.
(speaking foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: The losses here have continued, whether it's from Israeli bullets or Palestinian attacks.
And with no leader guiding the uprising, the situation is only intensifying on the ground.
We spoke with Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, an expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
What makes this uprising different than previous uprisings? First is the failure of the Palestinian leadership to do anything to relieve the sense of despair that Palestinians have been feeling in the occupied territories since the occupation began.
The prospects for young Palestinians are extraordinarily limited.
No horizon, no future.
Things are much worse today after Oslo.
Shihab-Eldin: In 1993, the Oslo Accords were supposed to begin a path towards peace, and established an interim government in the West Bank known as the Palestinian Authority.
What was the expectation of the Palestinian Authority? That this was the embryo of a Palestinian state.
The Oslo agreement was supposed to accomplish a continued negotiation.
The hope was that it would lead to a two-state solution, and the Palestinians could have some arrangement for autonomy or self-government within that.
Unfortunately, it's deluding very few people in Palestine and a lot of people outside into thinking the Palestinians are well on the way to statehood.
They're not.
They've moved away from self-determination since Oslo.
So, in a sense, the Palestinian Authority itself is an illusion? It is.
It's a cardboard facade behind which nothing exists.
Shihab-Eldin: There haven't been any presidential elections in more than ten years, since President Mahmoud Abbas came to power.
And with polls showing that nearly 70% of the population wanting him out of office, the anger on the streets is palpable.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: Just down the street from Mahmoud Abbas' presidential palace, we found a group of protesters calling for him to step down.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: A lot of the Palestinian youth tell us that they see the Palestinian Authority as a symbol of the occupation.
Why would they be saying that? Well, the aspect of the Palestinian Authority that's most unacceptable to Palestinians is its security cooperation with Israel.
Shihab-Eldin: That's because under the Oslo Agreements the Palestinian Authority security forces are charged with maintaining the peace, which includes suppressing protests.
But it's what the PA can't do that's angering the Palestinians, which is their inability to stop Israelis from creating new settlements in the occupied West Bank.
What has happened since 1967 is the establishment of communities of Israelis inside the occupied territories.
Every place that a settler goes, the military goes.
Every place the military goes, restrictions against the native population, the Palestinians, follow.
This is why settlements are such an enormous factor in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Shihab-Eldin: We met up with Daniel Luria, the head of an organization that helps move Jewish Israelis into East Jerusalem, reclaiming land they say is theirs by divine right.
I'm gonna take you now to a predominantly Arab neighborhood.
And about 12 years ago, Jews started to return to the old village.
(speaking in English) Okay.
Good to know.
So you're carrying a gun? Yeah.
(speaking in foreign language) What's he saying? Um, he says all of this is a lie, and you are robbers.
This is everything here.
This is the center of it.
Whose land is this? Right.
Whose land is Jerusalem? Whose land is Israel? Why can't it be both people's land? It can't be.
Why not? It doesn't work.
(speaking in foreign language) You can tell that this is as tense as it gets.
Come, come, come! Before 1948, this used to be an old synagogue.
That's correct.
And now It's been returned.
Correct.
It's been returned.
So, last week there were families living here.
Correct.
And they were the ones who were And those were illegally squatting in an old synagogue.
For 77 years, they were living here.
In a synagogue.
Shihab-Eldin: Reconstruction started here immediately, but this isn't the only new settlement on this block.
We met a couple just as they moved in down the street.
So, when do you move in? (speaking foreign language) Straight away.
It's their honeymoon.
He just got married, he's moving in now.
Shihab-Eldin: But as settlers were moving into one house, we met a Palestinian family that was being evicted from theirs.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: As both sides maintain claims to the land, the Israeli settler population has increased dramatically.
The settler population has tripled in the last 25 years.
There were a couple hundred thousand after about 25 years of occupation.
There are another 400,000 for a total of 600,000 today.
Shihab-Eldin: The Palestinians see these settlements as a provocation.
But when they clash with settlers, Israel escalates its security measures across the region.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than the city of Hebron.
So, right now we're crossing through one of the checkpoints in Hebron.
Security is so tight here, the city's been divided into sections, with the majority of Palestinians living in an area called H1, and the Israeli settlers living in H2, which is where we were.
All of the shops are closed.
There's absolutely no one in the streets.
It feels like a ghost town.
This street we're walking on has been off-limits to Palestinians for years by order of the Israeli military.
Right over there is a Palestinian cemetery.
If you look, all of the tombstones are written in Arabic.
It's literally two feet away from a street where Palestinians can't come.
And even on the Palestinian side back in H1, we could see how rigid this divide was.
(speaking in foreign language) Shihab-Eldin: As more and more kids grow up under the rules of this agreement, it will only feed into more violence and a furthering divide.
Dr.
Hanan Ashrawi was involved in the early negotiations of the Middle East peace process, and a former member of the Palestinian Authority.
Young Palestinians taking to the streets and throwing rocks say they're not just disillusioned by the occupation, they tell us they're disillusioned by their own government.
The Palestinian Authority is part of the occupation.
We're not surprised that the young people are disillusioned, and they are angry.
They're sending a clear message to the world.
The peace agenda, the negotiated settlement, the two-state solution has not worked.
The leadership could not deliver.
It seems like there's a bigger and bigger disconnect.
There is a wide gap, yes.
These perceptions are cumulative.
If you allow your system to atrophy, your leadership to become geriatric, then of course you're going to have a situation of total discontent and anger.
The only way forward is through elections.
We need elections, we need a new leadership, and we need the youth to be part of this.
Shihab-Eldin: Until that happens, the youth seem to only gain more resolve in their anger towards both the occupation and their own government.
(speaking foreign language) (sirens blaring) America and Cuba have been adversaries since Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in 1959.
But this month President Obama has made history by becoming the first sitting US president to visit the country in 88 years.
We're focused on the future.
And I'm absolutely confident that if we stay on this course we can deliver a better and brighter future for both the Cuban people and the American people.
So, muchas gracias.
It's part of the so-called "Obama Doctrine," which is the president's policy of re-engaging with traditional enemies.
And we've been following the process with Cuba since last year at the 2015 Summit of the Americas.
(sirens blaring) Smith: We're here in Panama City at the Summit of the Americas.
And it's a historic summit because for the first time since Eisenhower, the head of state of Cuba, Raúl Castro, and the head of state of America, President Obama, are gonna actually meet for the purpose of normalizing relations.
Point is, the United States will not be imprisoned by the past.
We're looking to the future and to policies that improve the lives of the Cuban people and advance the interests of cooperation in the hemisphere.
(speaking in Spanish) Smith: Now these statements both represented a sea-change in relations between the US and Cuba.
The Obama Doctrine is this administration's foreign policy shift, which now engages in dialogue and treaties with countries like Iran and Cuba that have long been considered our enemies.
But this decision in particular marks a huge leap forward in our relations.
Now, that's because at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba as a strategic check against American power.
This triggered the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of all-out nuclear war.
But even though the crisis ended, the US tightened its economic embargo on Cuba, and travel between the two was totally cut off, thereby isolating the Cuban people for more than half a century.
Now, to gauge the attitude within the Cuban government today, we spoke with Abel Prieto, a former minister of culture and a close Castro aide.
For our audience, which is mostly young people, there's a fascination with Cuba.
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the cultural aspects of what's happening in Cuba.
(speaking in Spanish) We would love to.
Smith: So we accepted his invitation to see what's actually happening on the ground in Cuba.
Because we had heard that the country's large youth population was playing a big part in forcing the regime to change its policies.
And ground zero for this social movement is Alamar, Cuba's largest housing project, which is a hotbed for political dissent.
Edgaro Gonzalez grew up in Alamar and explained to me just how music had bridged the divide between Cuba and America.
So, I grew up in this.
Like, every day, all day, all we did all day was listen to hip-hop all day.
Smith: And how did you learn how to speak English? I listened to Biggie every day.
Yeah.
You know? This was my house.
Okay.
I had the only entrance to the rooftop over there.
You know, you just went up to the rooftop and tried to get some signal from Key West.
Smith: Though Cuba has been cut off politically for over 50 years, their close geographic proximity has actually allowed for music to be shared over the radio.
And you just, you know, move the antenna around.
So, you kinda put it up to try to get a signal? Yeah, try to get a signal.
From Florida.
Yeah, right there.
So, what effect did that have on the young people who live here in Alamar? Whoa.
You know, they be kind of letting love for hip-hop.
Everybody knew every character of the Wu-Tang Clan.
People love American culture.
(speaking in Spanish) When we were starting doing hip-hop, it got really popular the government started realizing and said, "Yo, we gotta shut this down.
" And so Reggaeton now would be the most popular in Alamar? Smith: Now the reason why the government would want to control the music scene is that for decades it was policy here to denounce all things American.
(speaking Spanish) Now, although this seems like old Cold War rhetoric, the regime is still putting this out today, as we saw firsthand at the Museum of the Revolution.
We got the cowboy.
We got the Caesar.
Is that Caesar? Bush Jr.
(speaking Spanish) So they're saying thank you for being such a bad guy that we then have a revolution.
So, it goes from Batista to Reagan.
What does it say about Reagan? Smith: But what we found out was that the bridge between cultures couldn't be stopped.
And the government was speaking one way, and the people another.
We're here in the barrio in Havana with the biggest Reggaeton star.
And we're gonna interview him and talk about Reggaeton and how that's pushed all of these changes even further 'cause the government tried to stop it, but they couldn't because everyone needs their dance hall.
(cheering) (singing in Spanish) Smith: The music made in this tiny studio goes all over Cuba.
Baby Lores explained to me the importance it's had in bridging the divide between America and the Cuban people.
(singing continues) (speaking in Spanish) Smith: How does your music get out to so many people? Smith: The paquete has spread Reggaeton across the country and evolved into kind of a canned Internet with hand-delivered hard drives packed with pirated music, videos, and TV shows that had not been accessible to Cubans before.
But since traditionally as few as four percent of Cubans actually have Internet access at home, the hackers who make the paquetes have to steal Internet access at tourist hotels to get the material that their customers want.
How are you? Nice to meet you.
A leading hacker named Danny showed us how he does it.
Smith: How often do you download from hotels like this? How much, average cost? The smuggled equipment in this small room sends pieces of the Internet all across Cuba.
So you have to get all of this equipment from-- Where does it come from? So you can get any series you want and give it to anyone in Cuba? (HBO audio logo plays) Smith on TV: This week on "VICE": The future of recreational drugs.
He's got our show.
How many people do you think in Cuba get a paquete every week? (phone rings) So we're getting a call in right now.
We saw a hacker who's downloading all the shows, all the Internet, putting it into drives, giving it to his runners.
It goes out all weekend, which is one of the real reasons why relations are normalizing.
Because all the young people in Cuba are seeing how it is to live in the rest of the world.
So while it's been an underground cultural revolution that's moved the Cuban people ever closer to their American neighbors, on our side, it's been driven by our political leaders.
So we spoke to Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor and one of the architects of the Obama Doctrine, about this political shift.
In the policy changes the president announced, in addition to the normalization in diplomatic relations, we basically are facilitating any type of travel that can be permitted under a general license, which will make it much easier.
But we also authorized certain commercial activity.
And telecommunications is the most liberal.
We're opening the door for US companies to help develop infrastructure in Cuba.
You'll start to see an opening, in certainly the economic space.
You see Airbnb seeking to get into Cuba.
You see the NBA and Major League Baseball looking to go down there.
Essentially, a flood of interaction between Americans and Cubans that hasn't taken place in over 50 years.
Is this part of this new unfolding Obama Doctrine? Absolutely, it is.
And the president's view is we don't lose anything through engagement.
We can break out of the past, but that doesn't mean we have to compromise our values.
People say, "While you're making this change, "you're putting aside the things that America cares about.
" Well no, we actually think this is a better way to stand up for the things America cares about.
Smith: The Obama Doctrine has caused a lot of pushback not only on Iran, but Cuba as well.
And now it's become a debate that's cut across partisan lines.
And at least two of the presidential candidates have publicly stated a desire to unwind these developments.
This is throwing an economic lifeline to the Castros at a moment when their regime was vulnerable and it was a serious mistake.
We somehow ignore the fact that 90 miles from our shores is an anti-American Communist dictatorship that oppresses its people and sows instability.
Smith: We spoke to Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top negotiator in dealings with the US, about the shifting relationship between Havana and Washington.
On the Cuban side is anyone thinking that okay, Obama is obviously pushing to normalize relations with Cuba.
But as of today, Rubio from Florida, Cruz from Texas, would probably try to push back the advances that Obama and your government have made.
Do you think about that? The changes and the announcements have been made through executive decisions.
The next American president can undo through the same ways, means, what has been done so far.
But I don't think it will be easy to do that.
Because this is good, not only for our both countries, but also for the region and for the whole world.
And I see having a respectful relationship that can enrich Cuba and that can enrich the Americans too.
Smith: So what President Obama's visit marks is a step where two traditional enemies are for the first time starting a dialogue.
If you look at the Iran deal, the Cuba policy, these are seen as these hugely controversial things, but Americans generally support them.
Sure.
Washington doesn't.
For whatever reason, it's easier to bomb another country than it is to sometimes engage a certain country.
If this is really about helping the Cuban people, 97% of the Cuban people support normalization with the United States.
What will be interesting to watch is how the interaction with the United States and the interconnection with the rest of the world helps normalize, not just the relationship between the United States and Cuba, but Cuba's own position in the hemisphere and the world.