The long-suffering people of Cuba

The long-suffering people of Cuba
Lance Robinson
Saturday, November 14, 2009

In every dictatorship, especially a totalitarian or communist one, once
one gets past the hard-core adoring minority of the population who
supports it, mostly those with vested interests, there will always be a
broad mass of the people in whom resides seething resentment, deep and
abiding mistrust and outright hostility toward their rulers. This
springs no doubt from their total inability to exercise their personal
freedoms and decide for themselves what the course of their lives should
be. This is to be expected as this is the nature of dictatorship.
Lance Robinson

In the West, it is an established fact that the mainstream media has
always maintained a heavy anti-conservative or socialist bias.This has
become most pronounced in the United States, the once ultimate seat of
conservative democracy.

Over the years, through his controlled press, Fidel Castro has given the
world only the type of information on Cuba that fitted into his agenda
and which propagated the myth of his socialist paradise. He did this
through his formidable propaganda machine which has churned on without
let-up for half a century. The Western press wasted no time in gobbling
it up.

Here in Jamaica we have among us many of leftist ilk from academia,
journalists from the print and electronic media - veteran and otherwise
- and an across-the-board intelligentsia who always have supported and
still do support this cruel and anachronistic dictatorship in Cuba.
Shame on them.

The people of Cuba are our Caribbean brothers and sisters whom we should
stoutly defend at all times. Their human, political and economic rights
are of no less importance to their well-being than the removal of
external trade embargos. For indeed, with the advent of the former will
come the latter. Our efforts therefore at protecting Cuban interests
should be directed as much toward removing the embargo as it should be
toward restoring the domestic human rights of the people.

In Cuba, there stands a dichotomy of aspirations between the government
and the people. Being a dictatorship, the government will obviously
always try to perpetuate their power at any cost, while the people will
always want to embrace a brand of freedom which they have never been
able to exercise before. This often manifests itself in their trying to
escape from their homeland.

Unfortunately, so far, acknowledgement of this antagonistic chasm that
exists in Cuba between people and government, seems to have eluded our
Caribbean brothers in Caricom almost entirely. Instead of looking at the
broader picture which should also embrace the human rights of the Cuban
people, we have rushed headlong into a unilateral support for Mr Castro
and his compatriots in spite of the repressive policies that he
continues to exhibit towards his people.

There can be no doubt that the Cuban people enjoy many social benefits
with regards to education and health, among others. But when measured
against the total abrogation of their other human, political and
economic rights, that does tend to pale into insignificance. People
essentially want to be free, and freedom is a commodity that cannot be
sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

The ultimate sovereignty of any nation should reside in its people, not
in any self-appointed dictatorship. However, it is amazing how over the
years all debate or discussion on Cuba has centred on Fidel Castro
himself, to the total exclusion of his people. Castro has succeeded in
arrogating unto himself accolades and praises from nations far and wide,
using the Americans as the ultimate evil, while his people languish in
poverty and lack of hope in their ongoing bid to escape their paradise.

If it is so important for the Cuban gerontocracy to hold on to power,
then, as in the Chinese model, they could quite easily keep the label of
communist in a one-party environment while employing a free-market-type
economic model so as to unleash the full productive potential of the
country - yet still give their people a long overdue breath of fresh
air. This, however, would have to include a gradual relinquishing of
power by the existing elite, a price they might not be willing to pay.

Today the greatest impediment to progress and prosperity in Cuba is the
continued existence of the Castro brothers on the political scene.
Except for the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea, their archaic brand of
communist social engineering has long been rejected the world over by
all of its proponents who have moved on to instituting real people power
through democratic reform.

It is incomprehensible that in today's world, in this high-tech age of
the 21st century, the Cuban Government still maintains a revolution that
is Stalinist in its origins and antediluvian in its manifestations. A
revolution that is still imprisoning people for their ideas and beliefs;
a revolution that has become nothing more than the perpetuation of power
for a couple of geriatrics who have long lost sight of the best
interests of their people. Time indeed has stood still in Cuba for the
last five decades. For the sake of the long-suffering people of Cuba,
one can only hope and pray for a second revolution. A revolution of
contemporary ideas.

Lance Robinson is a freelance journalist.
lrobinson22@gmail.com

The long-suffering people of Cuba - JamaicaObserver.com (14 November 2009)
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20091113T200000-0500_163730_OBS_THE_LONG_SUFFERING_PEOPLE_OF_CUBA_.asp