The love affair of some on the left with Cuba illustrates their moral depravity
James Forsyth 1:21pm
That Gordon Brown can buy off potential Labour rebels by proposing a softer line on Cuba illustrates just how much of a special place the Castro despotism still has in the heart of some Labour MPs. These people are just like those on the reactionary right who used to cheerlead for apartheid South Africa. They are blinded to the hideous nature of the regime they’re supporting by the fact that’s its enemy is their enemy.
It is supremely ironic that these MPs have to be bought off to support 42 days detention. In their favourite hereditary-run despotism, the authorities lock people up indefinitely whenever they feel like it.
Some say we shouldn’t worry about this, it is only a few old Labour dinosaurs who think like this. But as Harriet Harman revealed recently, she—the elected deputy leader of the Labour Party—thinks that Castro is a hero of the left.
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Comments
Marin
June 11th, 2008 1:44pmSickening and disgraceful.
Pot meet Kettle
June 11th, 2008 2:18pmGranted. But then the willingness of Thatcher to take tea with Butcher Pinochet tells you a lot about the right too.
Ted Tedford
June 11th, 2008 4:18pmMr Kettle: Up to a point; but it also tells you a lot about the political climate in the 1980s. I'm no fan of the '...but he's our son-of-a-bitch' school, and I would not say he was a 'hero of the right'; but at least supporting Pinochet was a means rather than an end itself, the least unpleasant of the bad options. There is really no excuse for championing the Castro family regime, other than sentiment and/or moral blindness.
David Lindsay
June 11th, 2008 4:46pmAs I sometimes have cause to tell people, if I wanted a government which persecuted those who engage in homosexual acts, then I'd move to Cuba. The American blockade has won the Cuban regime the sympathy of huge numbers of people who should know better.
Since there is both a Santiago de Chile and a Santiago de Cuba, I propose the Santiago Test: however you reacted to the death of Pinochet, then that is how you should react to the death of Castro. Watch out for the people who don't pass the Santiago Test.
Mike Davies
June 11th, 2008 5:02pmThere is an Early Day Motion (number 982) which begins "That this House commends the achievements of Fidel Castro in securing first-class free healthcare and education provision for the people of Cuba despite the 44 year illegal US embargo "
82 Labour MPs signed it.
I'm not aware of any such glowing commendations of Pinochet from the mainstream right.
David Lindsay
June 11th, 2008 5:31pmWell, you can't have been reading the Mail or the Telegraph when he was over here. And you can't regard either the entire monetarist movement generally, or Margaret Thatcher in particular, as part of "the minastream right". (Actually, you might have a point there.)
Ted Tedford
June 12th, 2008 8:37amThe EDM to which Mike Davies refers is a bit like sponsoring one saying "This house commends the achievements of Chairman Mao for his sterling work promoting the livelihoods of Chinese undertakers."
Carlton Solomon
June 12th, 2008 10:13pmI am the son of Cuban exiles and when I see that there are people from democracies who speak with reverence or even just mere acceptance of tyrannical systems I feel the most overwhelming resentment that is beyond my ability to describe.
There's a reason that the people of ex-communist central europe and the Baltic states sympathize with us and it's because they know what it's like for the world to turn it's back on them.
In the 19th century the people who suffered Austrian rule favored Cuban independence and at the recent EU meeting in Slovenia they spoke in the name of respect for human rights in Cuba. The Czechs remember Neville Chamberlain and look at how the EU brushed aside the concerns of the Poles and the Lithuanians in their rush to sign an energy agreement with the Russians.
There is a permanent link between my own and the people of Central Europe and the Baltic states and it's the only good thing about our shared tragedies-that and knowing very well who your true allies are.
Nigel
June 13th, 2008 4:41amThe USA state of war and sanctions against Cuba hurt the Cuban people living there, and hinder change. So if you care about the 11 million there you would support normalisation of relations . If the US cares about its own people it should take advantage of the trade opportunities that it currently shuns to the detriment of its economy.
The US should grow up, and make up, and be friends with the Cuban people. They are not religious extremists trying to make nuclear bombs. Cubans want the US as their friends and can't see good reason for continued state of war. Why don't the US want Cuba as an allie?
I am a British chap who has lived and worked in Cuba for 8 years.