To recruit countries against Cuba is mad
By
Lorenzo Gonzalo Read Spanish Version
United
States administrations have characterized themselves by squandering
resources and opportunities in efforts to destabilize Cuba’s
revolutionary government.
Not
satisfied with the permanent fiasco that such a policy has created
for them, they persist in it. Recently, President George W. Bush rose
as the recruiter of countries that may be willing to collect funds
for "the new Cuba," after Fidel Castro.
Whenever
I visit the island, I tell Cubans there that there are topics more
important than speaking ill of the U.S.; worse yet, to create
situations that lead to comparisons between the two countries. This
defect, seen in many people of Cuban origin who live abroad, seems to
be occasionally practiced in some levels of Cuban officialdom.
A
big mistake, because, really, there are no points of comparison,
unless you accept the precipitate visions of those who, in lamentable
confusion, rant against the U.S. system out of the anger created by
the imperialist policy, a policy promoted by its growth and
development.
Or,
take those on the other shore who idealize the Cuba that existed
prior to the revolutionary process, comparing it with the U.S. in
economic terms. Don’t laugh; there are people who honestly and
deliriously believe just that. It’s a type of social madness.
When
I’m in the U.S., I criticize people who spend their lives speaking
ill of Fidel Castro. Also those who, when referring to a future Cuba,
advocate a nation that would reproduce the mechanisms of government,
administration and organization that exist in the United States.
What’s
ridiculous is not that those who speak like that are only the people
who were hurt by the revolutionary triumph of 1959; U.S. Government
advisers and national leaders speak like that, too.
There
are some who claim a lack of political and social culture. I tend to
think that it’s due to the historic facility with which their country
emerged, aided in its geography, the conditions in Europe at the
time, and the absence of essential class contradictions. This vision
makes them extrapolate facts and consider the spaces beyond their
borders as if they were susceptible to the same history.
At
the State Department, Bush called on allies to contribute money that
will aid in the "reconstruction of a future Cuba," and help
design a policy that would foster change from the inside of the
island. Many may think that promoting change from the inside bypasses
the small group of rabid Cubans who live in Miami, but that’s not so.
The whole of U.S. policy with regard to the island comes from the
Cuban designers in that group.
Bush’s
presentation seems to ignore that group, but in reality it conceals
the group’s objectives, so as to make them easier to swallow. That
group of Cubans is the tip of the lance when it comes to win
elections, whether by votes or by fraud, and is at the center of any
plan by the administration, especially the one directed by the war
complex of Bush, Cheney & Co.
It
is lamentable that, at a time when Cuba and the left are trying to
correct the errors they made while forming a new state, Washington
persists in unidirectional policies that are enacted by mandate.
This
president suffers from recruiting sickness. First, he recruits
soldiers and sends them to Iraq to be killed. Then, he recruits
mercenaries so that companies like Blackwater may murder civilians in
Iraq. Now, he recruits countries to tell Cuba how it should govern
itself.
This
is going to be difficult for him, because every year the United
Nations votes against the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Evidently,
Bush’s plans contain all the emotional contradictions that exist in
madness. He should see a psychotherapist.
Lorenzo
Gonzalo is deputy director of Radio Miami.
