Those Problematic Cuban Dissidents

April 27, 2015

Allies of US Policy or a Hindrance?

Those Problematic Cuban Dissidents

by RAFAEL HERNÁNDEZ


Translator’s note: Rafael Hernández edits Temas, a Cuban journal of social sciences and the humanities. Books he has authored or edited include: Cuba and the Caribbean and United States-Cuban Relations in the Nineties, 1989; Looking at Cuba -Essays on Culture and Civil Society (2003); the History of Havana (2006); and Shall We Play Ball? – Debating U.S.-Cuban Relations (2011). Hernández has taught at the University of Havana, and at Colombia and Harvard Universities in the United States.

Try to imagine a US political party calling for conversion to a political, economic, and social system similar to that of the People’s Republic of China. Let that party or grouping have no stable or defined leadership, or a coherent ideology other than opposition to the prevailing order in the United States and embracing the model of the PRC.

And maybe it defines itself as the genuine representative of North American society, yet stands for no real interest of any one social sector in particular. Let’s further suppose that the Chinese government, as part of its official foreign policy, granted this grouping hundreds of millions of yuan in order to promote a so-called project of “peaceful evolution” toward a model whereby the country builds intimate relations with China.

Finally, imagine that the People’s Republic was located exactly where Canada is today, with a population 30 times bigger and an economy 233 times stronger than that of the United States, which, for half a century, in this scenario, has had very bad relations with this country. And maybe this imaginary Chinese president insisted on being photographed with the leaders of such a grouping.

How would the US government react? Would it put this group in prison at the Guantanamo Naval Base, without any right to a trial or to legal protection? Would it regard the group as a peaceful protest movement because it doesn’t incite armed rebellion?

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/27/those-problematic-cuban-dissidents/