Apartheid protesters got it right (simply absurd Lincoln Diaz Balart op/ed)

Apartheid protesters got it right
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/issues_ideas/story/1241189.html

Twenty-four years ago, in order to counter the South African Apartheid regime's attempt to lure musicians to a tourist resort known as ``Sun City,'' numerous world-famous musicians (including Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Jackson Browne, and many others) came together to record an album with a title song by the same name, Sun City.

The song's lyrics read:

It's time to accept our

responsibility

Freedom is a privilege nobody rides for free

Look around the world baby it cannot be denied

Somebody tell me why are we always on the wrong side,

Ain't gonna play Sun City.

Our government tells us we're doing all we can

Constructive Engagement is Ronald Reagan's plan

Meanwhile people are dying and giving up hope

Well this quiet diplomacy ain't nothing but a joke

We're gonna say

Ain't gonna play Sun City.

The Sun City recording and the solidarity it manifested helped tear down the wall of silence around apartheid for a generation of young people. Horror was exposed, and many artists, musicians and athletes refused to set foot on South Africa until it was free.

Today, a new U.S. administration wants to ``constructively engage'' another tyranny, the one that oppresses Cuba. A singer known as Juanes says his upcoming concert in the Castros' private fiefdom will not be political, despite his plan to sing alongside despised dictatorship spokesmen such as Silvio Rodríguez. Juanes also says he hopes the concert will ``lessen the tension between Cuba (meaning the totalitarian regime which oppresses Cuba), the exile community, and the United States.'' To confuse Cuba with the oppressors of the Cuban people is an inherently political act.

Even if one were to believe Juanes' repeated professions of apoliticism and ``neutrality,'' he should read Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel's words: ``Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.''

I will always stand with those who resist the brutality of the Castros' totalitarian nightmare, such as the leader who is a voice of Cuba's conscience, who spent 17 years as a political prisoner for his nonviolent opposition to the dictatorship, and is a winner of the 2009 National Endowment for Democracy's ``Democracy Award'' -- Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez). With regard to Juanes, Antúnez said: ``For Cubans with dignity, the Juanes concert, appearing on stage alongside a specimen-troubadour of the tyranny, Silvio Rodríguez, will be a grotesque spectacle.''

Some defenders of the upcoming spectacle have engaged in the despicable in order to provide political cover for Juanes, announcing that they have ``polled'' political prisoners inside the Castros' gulag who ``support the concert.'' How do they have direct access and what exactly are they telling the political prisoners they ``poll''? A tragic reality of today's Cuba is that even immediate family members of Cuban political prisoners cannot see them at will to ``consult their opinions.''

In the film made during the Sun City recording, one of the participating musicians, Jackson Browne, explained why he and so many others got involved. ``Sun City's become a symbol of a society which is very oppressive and denies basic rights to the majority of its citizens. In a sense, Sun City is also a symbol of that society's `right' to entertain itself in any way that it wants to, to basically try to buy us off and to buy off world opinion.'' Browne and the other musicians vowed never to perform at Sun City because to do so would be to condone apartheid.

Browne was right then.

Juanes is not.

That LDB contrasts this concert in Cuba to South Africa's Sun City boycott is beyond crazy. He must be off his rocker to even use S Africa in any anti Castro diatribe. The strongest support for S Africa's apartheid system came from the Miamicuban wingnut factions because Cuba's government was the longest and most steadfast supporter of Nelson Mandela and the struggle to end S Africa's blood soaked apartheid regime.

The man is certifiable.








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Looking forward to more of same!

I guess Cubans in Florida have little to do with their time, if they create such a ruckus over a simple concert.

However, it would be interesting to see what would happen if this rocker would gut it up and ask a simple question during the concert: Why is it that Castro is so opposed to a simple free and fair election in which the opposition is allowed to organize and to submit non-communist candidates?

Because it would be an absurdity to ask such an uninformed question to the Cubans in attendance, because Cuba does have such elections.

Of course, it would sell well to the rather insulated & uninterested American public, and the gusanos could parlay that into some $ympathie$ por la causa farsante

I don't think that Juanes wants to look as stupid as an American teapartier/teabagger moran.


Now, if you want to know, information is available to you.

Cheers


http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates.

The Cuban government was reorganized (approved by popular vote) into a variant parliamentary system in 1976.

You can read a short version of the Cuban system here,
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Or a long and detailed version here,

Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections
Arnold August
1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968508405/qid=1053879619/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8821757-1670550?v=glance&s=books

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on the basis of free and fair elections.

The following is a quote from a Human Rights Watch statement to the UN:

"The Commission on Human Rights should pass a resolution under Item 9: condemning Cuba's imprisonment of individuals based on their exercise of fundamental rights to free expression, association, assembly, or movement; calling upon Cuba to release persons incarcerated in violation of their rights; and pressing Cuba to undertake legal reforms to bring its domestic laws into compliance with fundamental international human rights norms.

Furthermore, The Economist magazine (a British publication) reports Cuba doesn't have democracy. Having talked to Cubans who've left the island, it would seem these organizations are right: Cuba lacks true democracy, and the regime is merely an obsolete marxist mish mash led by people who should be in a geriatric ward. All they do is make left wing causes look bad.

And lets watch the geriatric comments, son.

Whether you agree or disagree with Castro, you have to give him credit for standing up to and fending off the US for half a century. I can think of a number of heads of state that have not been able to do that. And some a lot younger.

began his career working for Pinochet should tell you all you need to know.

And the Economist is a right wing publication.