{"id":13335,"title":"Cuba after Castro","link":"https:\/\/bst-europe.eu\/de\/globalization\/cuba-after-castro\/","date":"29. November 2016","date_unix":1480421545,"date_modified_unix":1480421545,"date_iso":"2016-11-29T12:12:25+00:00","content":"
\"Marcelo<\/a>
Marcelo Montecino @ flickr.com , slightly edited<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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On November 25, 2016, a true icon of the 20th<\/sup> century passed away. Love him or hate him\u2014and most people seem to pick one or the other\u2014Fidel Castro remains one of the most recognized politicians of all time. The fact that he achieved such notoriety governing an island in an often forgotten corner of the globe is a testament to the intensity of the nerve he struck.<\/em><\/p>\n

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There are many reasons to hate the man who ruled Cuba from 1959 to 2006. From the execution of prisoners of war in the late 1950s, to decades of heavy handed limitations on basic human rights, Fidel Castro was a dictator, and one with bloody hands at that. At the same time, there are reasons to respect what he accomplished. Cuba is a significantly safer country than its neighbors, and boasts a highly educated society. Its medical infrastructure may be crumbling, but its doctors are top notch, and they travel the world serving some of the globe\u2019s poorest communities in exchange for a pittance of a salary.<\/p>\n

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Ambivalence on Castro is matched by ambivalence regarding the success of his decades-long experiment. When I was in Cuba, I met college students who seemed to have one set of clothes and needed 35 cents for dinner, but could debate Dostoyevsky with fluidity. I walked the Malecon, Cuba\u2019s famed beachfront boulevard, basking in the utter lack of commercializing \u2013 no neon lights, no posters of women in bikinis trying to sell me something, no McDonald\u2019s. But I also saw the food lines at the grocery stores, and I struggled mightily to replace a part when my microphone broke.<\/p>\n

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Was it worth it? Were the decades of poverty, scarcity and repression worth a crack at a more egalitarian, enlightened society? And would that experiment have been more successful\u2014would it have been less repressive\u2014had the United States supported the upstart Castro in the early 1960s instead of isolating him? I am in no position to answer the first question \u2013 my guess is the answer is no, it was not worth it. It is probably not fair to conduct such an experiment without participants\u2019 permission<\/span> and as disappointed as I am in aspects of our strip-mall society, I feel very lucky to be from the US, and not Cuba. At the same time, I can easily imagine a compelling argument for why quality of life is better in Cuba then in near-by (capitalistic) Dominican Republic. Cuba is safer, its smarter, its more inquisitive, and healthier to boot.<\/p>\n

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In terms of the second question, the answer is, of course, yes. The historical record clearly demonstrates that US isolation of Castro ultimately pushed the Cuban leader towards the Soviet sphere, and that without the US trade embargo, the Castro economy may not have been crippled from the start.<\/p>\n

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