Ok after a very long time in presidency and leadership 81 years old Fidel Castro announced that he will step away and resign from the Presidency of Cuba . Still there is no big change as expected , Cuba is not freed yet ,it is still under the Castro dynasty rule. Now officially the President of Cuba is Raul Castro ,the brother of Fidel ,already Raul was leading the country during all the time his brother was sick , well he is still sick and can't complete the job and speak for 6 hours in a speech not to mention Raul got sick for playing the second man where as he is the first man.
There is no actual change in Cuba ,do not believe that ridiculous speech of Bush, those Cubans in Florida should not be so happy ,the nightmare is not over , it is renewing itself .
With my all respect to Castro and his revolution history , I do not like a man whose policies for 40 years caused thousands if not millions try to cross the ocean in poor boats to survive . Socialism is not bad thing but dictatorship is .
By the way here is the letter of the commander to his people the compatriots. "The original Spanish version from the official newspaper of his party "
Some wise pants will ask me hey Zein why did not Castro leave the Presidency for his son just like in the middle eastern Arab presidents but to his brother ?? Well I will say this is because his son is a doctor ,not interested in politics,half American and most important he does not wear a military suite like his uncle. Seriously the guy may be just hates the politics and all this jazz , may be he wants to enjoy his daddy fortune away from all these speeches and parades. Raul reminds me of Rafaat El-Assad ,the only difference is that Rafaat was too anxious to rule Syria and Hafiz got many Sons Mashallah !! "In picture Castro on a camel in a visit for Algeria in 1971,when Algeria was in the Eastern Camp"
Anyhow Castro had the longest presidential period or to be accurate longest ruling period because before he was president ,he used to be the prime minister.
I do not know the actual feelings of the Cubans but I guess after all that time they will not believe that they are not going to have to listen to him for 6 or 7 hours .
I will not wish this to happen in Egypt that the old man steps away because this means that the younger man will take over the rule
To read about Castro's decision,life and world reaction ,I recommend you to waste some time in CNN.com and BBC.Com ,especially the later as they made this wonderful gallery about his life .
I've been to Cuba...beautiful island but Egypt is paradise in comparison...poverty in Cuba is completely out of control...there is a reason they are all trying to escape...massive poverty, prostitution out of control..the list goes on..
ReplyDeleteSocialism as a system is not entirely successful it seems, at least not in Cuba...
I agree with u..from what i can see...no real change is iminent...
@n.american princess,Egypt is a bless , oh boy all those people who escaped,are escaping and are trying to escape can't be all wrong,they can be only lovers of captilism , they were suffering from something wrong for sure
ReplyDeleteMay be there will be no change for some years , but we should not forget that Rual Castro is not that young too ...
Is everyone simply forgetting that the U.S. has applied an illegal, (under international law) economic embargo against the nation, has enacted terrorism against Cuba, sent CIA trained mercenaries to re-take the island and return it to U.S. corporate control, or, should we forget the CIA's own admission that they tried with the help of the Italian mafia to assassinate Dr. Castro more than 22 times? This is just the short list.
ReplyDeleteWhere is it carved into stone that this country, its leaders and its people only exist to serve American and by extension, international capitalist hegemony? We hear from the anti-Castro Cuban talking heads about freedom while the U.S. president cheats lies and wages war only against the world's poorest countries. Does anybody really believe that dissent is not squashed violently in the United States? Heard of Jose Padilla? Leonard Peltier or Mumia Abu-Jamal? Political and personal assassinations are also a part of the American political paradigm and to label Dr. Castro and his government, which has toppled no other governments anywhere and to my certain knowledge has not allowed masses of its own national population to wallow in poverty after a major natural disaster, as little more than another dictatorial entity is more than shortsighted. It is acceptance of European empire. If peoples and nations have a internationally recognised right to operate as they seem fit, Cuba also enjoys that right just like every other entity recognised by the U.N and other international bodies.
Also, to say that socialism does not work is missing the point. Capitalists have worked tirelessly to marginalise the world economic system since the European tribal wars of the last century. In 1918 the U.S., Britain and other imperialist concerns in Europe invaded Russia with the expressed intention of overturning the revolution and have worked covertly behind the scenes globally to prevent it from being viable in a world market controlled by the West and the U.S. in particular.
It only takes a willingness to see the situation as it really is as opposed to the mythologies created by the American government seeking to regain what they consider their right to entitlement of that nations natural resources and population. If Cuba has poverty, it is due to the U.S., not the Cuban government. Dr. Castro did not institute the embargo, the U.S. has and has been cited internationally for human rights abuses towards that country and several others.
Change for the better is not the ability to work for substandard wages to an American multinational firm and strip-malls hawking useless items that keep the owners and investors of one such example in mink furs. No one has given an damn about the Cuban people until they stood up and defined their own reality, a break from the historical parent/child relationship or, "The White Man's Burden" as raised by Kipling that the U.S. and it seems many others blinded by America subscribe to.
As a member of a Aboriginal population genocidally pushed aside and marginalised in favour of an ethno-centric Anglo-Protestant domination of the Americas, I suggest that critics of Cuba study the entire history of the nation rather than the imperialist rhetoric of the American mafia and big business. In fact, read the CIA's own expose of it's murderous activity towards that nation and it's own dissident population: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm
Angryindian; you sound like very mature and kowlegable sole. it is saddening when the nasses get dupped that easily. The US labeled Cuba as the devil Communist regime and acted accordingly,what then happened to all other south Americal nations who followed the American political formula? is any of them better than Cuba in terms of Healthcare, Education, and basic human needs and safety? doubt it. Did the US help any of them to progress? The answer is big NO. The same applies for the east Europian and even Russia after colapse of comunism, they didn't treat them any differently instead they promoted huge economic contact with China (the still comunist regime). I am not a comunist or socialist but I find this treatment of Cuba to be very shameful.
ReplyDelete@anrgy indian , again I do not think that all those millions who escaped from Cuba are just bad stupid capitalistic people who should be burned in hell for betraying their country and Dr. Castro for nothing , I do not care about the U.S ,I do not care about the politics , I care about the People , it is not about the sanctions only and economic life , have you read "The Animal Farm" before !!??
ReplyDelete@Ohio for every political and economic systems there are pros and cons do not just generalize on using terms like yes business and coroperations destroyed and are destroying south America , the socialist and communist regimes are not that innoncent or great
You are missing the point entirely. What I wrote was in defence of the Cuban people. I merely point out that the Castro government is not responsible for the condition of Cuba, the U.S. is. What many of the "accepted" opinions say about Cuba and Dr. Castro in particular is that if we really cared about his people he would acquiescence to American imperial will and work within the American legal system to "earn" a true Cuban national independence.
ReplyDeleteNo nation or people should be subject to such conditions not only under international law but by way of simple common decency after hundreds of years struggle in defence of such republican ideas.
But in the case of Cuba and the United States, the European colonial government and business culture is accorded an entitlement that they have not earned and do not deserve. After "stealing" Cuba from the Spanish, the U.S. totally controlled the island, (Cuba was never in practise respected as a country until the Revolution) with a violent hand, multiple times worse than is accorded the Castro government who if it can be said atrocities occurred, (as occurs in any and every revolution, conflict what have you) took place early during the transitional period. You must as a matter of logic also factor in the fact that the U.S. invaded the country under a false flag/covert operation that failed and has used subversion in an attempt to destroy the country ever since. This is all a matter of public record. If Cuban leaders were excessive, it was due to fears of more of the same sort of negative action from the United States who, again, this is a matter of public record, placed hundreds of operatives in the country and paid Cuban saboteurs to disrupt Cuban society in order to cause a popular revolt. So far, none of these tactics have worked.
Why? Because the Cuban people want their independence. Where did I get that bit of information? From a television interview aired on American cable (A&E Network) with Bill Colby, former director of the CIA who said that they were never able to topple that system because the people respected their leader although they may not agree with him about everything and that they do not want to lose their national freedom. The first freedom they have had since Colombus invaded their territories.
Let me also be clear about my politics. I am Indigenist. I am not a supporter of communism. Left-wing politics kills Aboriginal people as well. See Tibet, China, Mongolia and Africa for further information on this.
Capitalism is the economy of imperial/colonial action and it is entirely correct to blame America's most important religion on internal as well as external American political behaviour.
And yes I have read Animal Farm. I own it.
@angry indian,I understand what you are trying to say here let me add two cents no defending the capitalism but just to put things straight I studied economics , historicaly Capitalism is the oldest form of economy in the face of this earth , we began to hate it when the classical school came out in UK ,it became associated with imperalism due to the fact it was the time of colonalism in the world but what there unfortunately with all its disadvantage and it became worse because it is no longer native rich men or rulers but rich countries
ReplyDeleteabout Cuba my dear let's speak about important thing Cuba could have made with no suffering if there is democracy in the country in the first place
look democarcy and regimes like of people like Dr. Castro do not meet
how do I know because in Egypt we had the same experience "Nasser"
While your position sounds rational, it ignores or misses the fact that whatever tight socio-political controls that exist or have existed in Cuba, (it is much freer now than it ever has been) were a rational reaction to U.S. imperialist pressure. How any observer of this fifty-year farce of good vs. evil morality power plays can dismiss the documented fact that American operatives in cahoots with the criminal element of the U.S.-Italian mafia worked behind the scenes to wreak havoc in the country.
ReplyDeleteRetired CIA officers has testified to poisoning the milk supply, foodstuffs and destruction of crops to turn the population against the government. Space limits how much I can list here but I hope you would at least be willing to look at the publicly accessible material. This is all accepted common knowledge and codified in the public record.
With pressure internally driven by a superpower that is externally choking the life out of the people expressly to encourage popular dissent, how else were they supposed to respond? Paranoia in Cuba was created by the U.S., not Dr. Castro. He is being falsely and childishly blamed for everything wrong in that nation and by extension, all of Latin America. Dr. Castro is not behind the multinational corporations ripping out the soul of South America killing off Aboriginals and political activists and members of the Catholic clergy who speak up for the people.
To declare socialism a "failed" doctrine is also foolhardy since as I stated earlier it had never had enough breathing room to mature into anything other than a survivalist economic system. The capitalist European paradigm did not wish to deal with a viable competitor. To not see this is to not understand at the most basic levels capitalist culture and philosophy. A cursory examination of the works of Malthus or Adam Smith can explain this much more lucidly than I should attempt as it is not my central field of study. But it is clear that the belligerence of capitalist action is and should be expected given the basis of capitalism is exploitation.
Comparing socialism post WW2 with Stalin's Russia is unfair, especially since only Soviet-style hardliners that populate the extreme left view Stalin as communist. He was a totalitarian thug and racist who killed more people, many of them he own indigenous people of Georgia, than the German Nazi party did in Europe proper.
Just as commie-capitalist China, who the U.S. feels comfortable working with and owning money to, is not the same sort of communist state as say Vietnam, the blanket condemnation accorded Cuba ignores the reality that Cuban socialism is just that, Cuban, not Eurocentric or "White" as laid out by Marx. Just as Protestants differ from Catholics but remain classified as "Christian", Cuba is remains socialist while acknowledging their own unique post-colonial socio-political culture.
The "democracy" everyone speaks of really means the freedom for the United States power brokers to influence via propaganda and subliminal invective the collective opinions of the Cuban people towards a return to American domination and exploitation. I just wish people were more honest about that because that is the real bottom line concerning Cuba.
The entire world is deemed capitalist driven and the entire world other than a few selective pockets are poor. Africa, Asia and the Americas are bountifully rich yet their peoples are dirt poor. The expansive "middle-classes" are just that, in the middle and kept there as a buffer to keep the masses of the desperately indigent in their respective places, at the bottom of the human register. Capitalism could care less about "the people". Check why Marx was such a radical in England int eh first place. Four families living in a one-room unit. Child-labour, no rights in employment if employed and the sexual exploitation of women in return to life-sustaining goods. Even the CIA says Cuba takes care of its people better than most European nations including the colonialist United States.
The reality of democracy in Cuba is not in McDonald's and Starbucks hawking GMO products to the Cuban people. None of what they sell should be called food anyway. It is in the Cuban people having the right to determine their own destiny, not the wishes of the very same imperialist country that stole them from Spain so they themselves could exploit them. Do you think Kosovo is being recognised because the Bush administration believes in their right to liberty? They did once petroleum was speculated to be there.
it puts a whole new light on the Clinton war of aggression in the Balkans, ennit?
@angry indian ,why every time I say democracy all people look to the American model , what about the European model of democracy oh I am sorry no need to mention the European example because of the black history of capitalism forget about them
ReplyDeleteWhat about countries like South Korea , Japan and Malaysia , especially Malaysia
why also democracy is considered bad product of the west
I am saying this because this talk the Egyptian people had to let their freedom and democratic life because it is a bad product of the western invaders and that's why we should go away from it
I am sorry but I am from a part in the world the United States administration works so hard to kill any democratic life
I am not speaking about Mcdonalds and Starbucks , I am speaking free press, freedom of expression , also free trade as long as it is in the benefit of the country
While South Korea, Japan and Malaysia are recognised as democracies, political dissenters and observers are quick to point out that like in the U.S. appearances are deceiving. Political opposition parties in these nations are unofficially marginalized and often violent suppression involving organised crime gangs with links to the establishment. Japan has been cited for just these tactics along with the Yakuza in several major elections as has S. Korea.
ReplyDeleteFree press, freedom of expression and free trade are good slogans. But are they truly recognised in any political system that currently exists? My argument is that Cuba has come the closet to achieving a system that worked to achieve these goals. The fact that Cuba has not been able to realise that dream is a direct result of the pressure placed on the nation by its former colonial master, not the Cuban government.
Dr. Castro gave a series of speeches in the 1980's in which he on behalf of the Cuban government apologised for overzealousness and paranoia on the part of the revolutionary transition government and formally apologized to the victims of these actions. Since that time Dr. Castro has formally apologized to Homosexuals for their mistreatment by the government and society, some (not all) political dissenters have received formal apologies and Dr. Castro has as well done much to point out the sexism, racism and other social issues that still exist in Cuban society. As an Afro-Indian indigenous to the Americas, this information about Cuba says much as we have never had leaders here who admit not only to mistakes, but outright wrongdoing.
This side of Cuba is never, never, never, ever discussed. Ever. We may hear of health care, education, life expectancy and literacy rates surpassing the capitalist world but rarely if ever, the best of the Cuban system. How could a tiny island nation survive if it was not dedicated to its people? Democracy will naturally come when the U.S. stops trying to retake the island for its own uses. It would have come a long time ago had the Bay of Pigs and 22 assassination attempts against its leader not occurred in the first place.