I Was So Much Older Then...

...I'm younger than that now. The Dylan lyrics came to me as I read the first entry on Yahoo's Cuba news roundup today. It was from The University of Miami newspaper, entitled "To free or not to free." As I read, I was reminded of my brief, inglorious stint on my college paper. So full of myself, ready to make sweeping pronouncements on the basis of my eighteen years of experience. The days when I thought I knew everything and believed everything my professors said. And when above all, I wanted to be cool. So enveloped in the warm glow of yesteryear, I began to read.

Given to the occasional Shakespearean allusion myself, I could overlook the stretch here. And I was so mellowed by my stroll down memory lane that my blood pressure remained relatively stable as I read

I'm not going to give you monotonous and overstated examples of how Cuba has had some relevant improvements under Fidel Castro, like the "best education in Latin America" argument or even the innovative and environmentally-friendly agricultural system (which happens to be not only sustainable but also an example to follow for many nations).

Besides, he writes he's not going to do this, although he does manage to sneak it in, fallacious as it may be. I guess he didn't read the book about how Castro has trashed the environment. No, it seems his argument is basically that a "free" Cuba would fall to the all the economic and social ills of the Caribbean and Latin America. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, he makes statements such as

Just like Jamaica or Haiti, political freedom would prevail and economic advancement would finally be a reality. I can picture La Havana with American-owned casinos, Bentleys and Ferraris parked outside the five-star hotels, nightclubs pumping techno until sunrise and University of Miami students eating McDonalds at 7 a.m. right after a long night of spring break partying.

Now, I ask you, is that such a dire fate? Let me spell it out: E M P L O Y M E N T.
But, no, apparently it is better to keep Cuba as a third world theme park. Oh, that's right. Those little brown natives don't really want to have just a fraction of what the developed world has.

In Cuba, American corporations will not pay menial wages and Chinese companies will not destroy the local industries. Cuba will not be transformed into a dependent and rotten economy under the flags of globalization.

Speaking of employment, how much more menial can the wages of Cubans get than the twenty dollars a month they presently get, especially since their ration books don't begin to cover a minimal diet and the rest must be purchased dearly on the black market. My favorite is the implication that Cuba now has an independent and healthy economy. I must have imagined that they were propped up first by the Russians and now by Venezuelan oil, that the sugar harvest is now at depression era levels. The list of their present successes is endless.

... And if you're one of those leftists who believe Latin America did not prosper from neo-liberalism, let me prove you wrong. Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay and other countries did extremely well in the '90s when neo-liberalism was at its best. Their economies boomed (and then heavily crashed), investments soared (and all the profits left the country), states underwent privatization (only to be bought by foreign companies) and most importantly, poverty was a big concern (but nothing much changed, other than an exponential growth in inequality).

These are real concerns, but they get lost in the hyperbole. And why assume that Cuba would not go the route of say Costa Rica, the United States? And what is the alternative?

So we should all chant "let's free Cuba" and remember that Cuba will be different because no frenetic capitalism will invade the island. More importantly, when advocating its freedom, remember that it will all be done in the name of destroying communism once and for all. As for the ideals of valor, solidarity and the spirit of a once-true social revolution, remember them the most, because soon they will be replaced by our dear consumerist values.

That's a straw man. There is no need to destroy communism; it has destroyed itself. What you have in Cuba is the rotting carcass of a dead beast. This is the sad part, whatever the people might have been led to believe, there was no "once-true revolution," because it's very leaders didn't believe it. It was all a big fat LIE.

I think the writer's heart was in the right place, but it takes getting knocked around a bit to learn that maybe situations are a lot more complex than they would seem to be. Parting questions, how many would trade our dear consumerist values for repression and want? Imagine if you could not publish this editorial because it was not in keeping with the government's interests and that by the very act of writing it, you had signalled yourself as a dissident, opening yourself up to imprisonment under conditions that make Guantanamo look like a sleepaway camp?

I've quoted most of it, but you can read it here