National Post (National Edition)
THE SOURCE OF CUBA'S ILLS.
LEFTISTS KEEP BLAMING AMERICAN EMBARGO, WHILE DOWNPLAYING REPRESSION
Cuba's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters has been an ugly reminder of the dictatorship's moral bankruptcy. As condemnation of the regime grows, the silence from the political left in the U.S. and Canada, for whom Cuba's failures is a source of anxiety, has been deafening.
The protests were catalyzed by COVID-related shortages of food and medicine — a major problem for a nation which, during the pandemic, has lost the tourism dollars that normally stabilize its economy. At their core, though, the protests were an expression of long-standing frustration with Cuba's dictatorship — a regime which, while rhetorically committed to social justice, has in practice stifled criticism of government failures through incarceration and thuggish violence.
On the streets of Havana and countless other cities, Cubans shouted not primarily for food and medicine, nor even an end to the embargo. It was the dream of shedding authoritarianism that animated them the most. Basic necessities, though sorely needed, mean little without structural change.
In response, hordes of police descended on unarmed pro-democracy protests — despite political expression being nominally protected in the Cuban constitution. The internet was shut down as protesters were beat up, shot and “disappeared.” The Cuban diaspora has reacted with outrage and pain, directed not only at the suffering of their kin, but also at the wider global silence which has enabled, and at times legitimized, this brutality.
It is leftist voices in particular that have been soft on
Cuba, either ignoring recent oppression, only meekly condemning it or, worse, minimizing the dictatorship's crimes by diverting attention to the United States' long-standing embargo of the Cuban economy (despite protesters seeing the embargo as a peripheral issue).
While the embargo contributes to Cuba's troubles, its effects are often overblown. Estimates of its annual cost vary greatly, ranging from approximately $700 million to $5 billion annually. Assuming a midrange number suggests that costs are equal to about three per cent of the island's GDP — harmful, yes, but not nearly enough to account for Cuba's economic malaise.
Poverty is better explained by Cuba's Soviet-style, centrally-planned economic system, which Cuban leaders have spent years promising to reform. When capitalist market reforms were implemented in China and Vietnam,
they lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty (while leaving both countries only superficially socialist). Cuba has not followed suit, choosing poverty over transformative change that could threaten the regime.
Deflections to the embargo also fail to explain or justify Cuba's repressive political culture, where opposition parties are outlawed and artists and intellectuals are jailed for daring to criticize the regime.
Yet the embargo has been a useful scapegoat for Cuba's autocrats, allowing them to obfuscate their failures by pinning blame on a foreign power.
Tragically, many international leftists have been parroting this line — including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Black Lives Matter, both of who used their considerable social media presence to minimize Cuba's authoritarian crimes by deflecting blame to the United States.
In Canada, the Trudeau government initially failed to condemn the crackdown. At first, Global Affairs Canada offered only a statement that ignored state violence and called upon “all sides” to engage in peaceful dialogue. Cuban-Canadian communities were outraged, accusing Trudeau of being complicit in the dictatorship's repression. Days afterward, Trudeau reversed and condemned state violence against the Cuban people, expressing support for Cuban demands for democracy.
Meanwhile, the Conservative party has emphatically criticized Cuba's brutal dictatorship, while the NDP continues to deflect blame to the embargo.
The Cuban diaspora continues to be a vital conduit to the outside world, publicizing violence experienced by family members back home while advocating for ending one-party rule. Opposition to the dictatorship has been largely cross-partisan.
Yet many non-Cuban leftists tend to delegitimize these voices by insinuating that the Cuban diaspora speaks only for a rich elite and therefore does not authentically represent the Cuban people. A common accusation is that émigré Cubans are merely the descendants of the corrupt minority that fled after Castro's revolution.
Rodrigo Barriuso, a Toronto-based Cuban filmmaker and rights advocate (whose debut film, Un Traductor, was Cuba's official entry to the Academy Awards in 2020), disputes this and characterizes it as “1980s thinking.” While that critique may have had some truth generations ago, many international Cubans, himself included, were born and raised on the island under socialism.
They experienced the dictatorship first hand and, like many others, fled when they could. Their exile is rooted in their disgust for autocracy and repression, not wealth and privilege. They maintain close relationships with their home country, visiting frequently and sending remittances to feed their families (which account for two to three per cent of the Cuban economy).
Diasporic advocacy comes with costs, too, as émigrés who attack the Cuban government abroad risk reprisals when visiting family on the island.
This coercive, statebacked censorship is abetted by non-Cuban socialists who see the diaspora as ideologically inconvenient — socialist twitterati frequently call exiled Cubans “gusanos” (“worms”). Progressives rhapsodize, rightfully, about the importance of centring voices from beleaguered communities, but where is that principle now?
Barriuso, who is a staunch leftist, comments, “I think it has to do with the fear of a crumbling, or altogether lost paradigm; the fear of seeing their communist Caribbean Disneyland fail its people in ways that are unjustifiable.” He stresses that many Cubans believe that the communist party should continue to exist, but as one of many options — because the Cuban people ought to be able to choose their own destinies.
Support for human rights shouldn't be a partisan issue. Neither should a people's right to self-determination. Cubans, most of all, should be listened to in conversations that concern their people's future. Unfortunately, the Cuban people are being thrown under the bus in defence of socialism — an ideology which, however lofty its ideals in theory, causes unimaginable misery in practice.
ARTISTS AND INTELLECTUALS ARE JAILED FOR DARING TO CRITICIZE THE REGIME.