Philip Tang,

One of the fascinating features of Western democracy is the number of people who are drawn, against all the evidence, to prefer and praise dictatorships. There is a massive blind spot that has been evident for most of the twentieth century.

I went to La Trobe University in the 1970s, when it was a hotbed of left-wing militancy. We had more realistic (and quite funny, though unintentionally so) Maoists than Julie Bishop thinks run education in Australia (though not as real as the ones in China). We had a Communist Club, which published a sheet called “Red Moat” and which was full of the praises of Chairman Mao, the Great Helmsman and swimmer extraordinaire, and denunciations of the running dogs of US imperialism and the reactionary, fascist NCC-DLP-ALP-Liberal Party-union-business-CIA-ASIO-Melbourne Club conspiracy that ran the world. None of this stopped the students electing DLP supporters and their allies in sufficient numbers to run the SRC, but there were certainly many students who believed the tripe that described Maoist China.

In the 1930s there were Western intellectuals who went to the Soviet Union and came back full of praise for its wonders.

The people of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have cast off their communist overlords. Indeed, most of the overlords just gave up. They knew the whole system was a fraud and basically said to each other, “Okay, the game's up - we had better go quietly”, though they lifted a bit of the silver on the way out. China remains an authoritarian state, but it is communist in name only. That leaves Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam as the only communist countries left, so it is no surprise that Castro gets picked as the next phoney hero.

In time, Cuba will become a real democracy, as Taiwan and South Korea have. We cannot make it happen any faster, but the human spirit will prevail eventually in every nation on Earth.

ChrisC:

Your alma mater La Trobe University is still a hotbed of Castroism. This banner is held aloft by Professor Barry Carr, Director of the Latin American Studies Institute there. He is a veritable propaganda mill in defense of the Cuban Revolution and allied causes. Australian academia is infested as no other with apologists for the Castro regime. I guess the farther one is geographically from the world's longest-lasting tyranny the easier it is to defend it.

I don't usually comment on my own articles because, when you're published you've had your say .. but I have to say many of the comments on this one have given me a good laugh! - as *sneekeepete* said, firmly held conclusions are not arguments - but there were *a few* arguments in there, so (1) *Paul_of_Melb*, having lived in a 'communist country' doesn't really add much to anyone's opinion, any more than one gains expertise in capitalism by living in a capitalist country - you have to do a bit better than that (2) *John from Melbourne*, calling Fidel Castro a 'mass murderer' puts you well ahead of the US State Department, which admits there are no killings or disappearances in Cuba - supporting "terror and genocide in Africa" indicates that you are upset he helped Africans confront the apartheid regime (3) *Keith* and *Philip Tang*, your brilliant new theory that democracy = inwards migration will confound all those mainstream analysts who imagined that migration gravitated towards wealthy countries (from now on democracy=rich country and dictatorship=poor country - simple!), it will also confound the best researcher on Cuban migration (Mexican based Ernesto Rodriguez Chavez) whose surveys showed it is overwhelingly economic migration, not migration of refugees (4) *texcaver* saying "Mexico is far ahead of Cuba in any public health, social welfare sector that one chooses" is really a comment off the top of the head (did you go to Mexico to dive in the Cenotes, like me?) - although Mexico has almost double the average per capita income of Cuba, its infectious disease indicators (HIV, TB, diarrhea, measles, malaria) are double that of Cuba, or worse - see my article on this comparison (http://journal.paho.org/?a_ID=524), (5) finally *La Ventanita*, I am glad you feel Puerto Rico is a democracy because you have a non-voting Commissioner, can vote for [an electoral college to elect] a President if you leave Puerto Rico and go to the mainland, and you can put your candidates in Miss Universe - but, hey, this system has certainly lowered your expectations! - best wishes all - Tim

No, Tim, it's you who have given us all a good laugh. If "firmly held convictions are not arguments," then your conceit that Cubans enjoy greater freedoms under tyranny than Americans do under a democratic government is the ne plus ultra of cynicism. Can you really be that deluded? No, I don't think so. But you are certainly that cynical.

So "having lived in a communist doesn't really add much to anyone's opinion." Well, it's obvious you've never lived under a communist regime nor would you, because you do know better. If Castroland is the Eden you claim, then why do you languish in Australia, whose democracy you must surely consider as deficient as America's?

As for Castro being "a mass murderer," it's a fact which isn't disputed by the U.S. government or any human rights organization. During 48 years of unelected rule, Castro has imprisoned 2 million of his countrymen, exiled another 2 million and is responsible for the deaths of 102,000 Cubans. This in a population which numbered 6.6 million in 1959 and 11 million today.

In 1934, there were 54,232 cases of malaria in Cuba. By 1958, the number had dropped to 61 cases. Typhoid fever cases numbered 187; diphtheria cases 85; and there were just 6 cases of polio in a population of 6,630,921. Cuba, in fact, was the healthiest nation in Latin America before Castro's revolution. Its health care statistics were comparable to Europe's, not Mexico's. And, of course, pre-Castro Cubans had a higher income per capita than did Mexicans.

From 1902-1958, 1.2 million foreigners immigrated to Cuba. Relative to its population no other nation in the Americas (including the U.S.) received more immigrants than did pre-revolutionary Cuba in the first half of the 20th century. (One of those immigrants was Fidel Castro's own father). In 1958, more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans did in the U.S.

Fidel Castro did sell 75,000 Cubans as cannon fodder to the USSR and these were used to promote the Soviet hagemon's interests in Africa. The United States, by contrast, never demanded even one Cuban life as bloodgeld.

Mr. Anderson,

Perhaps you missed my post while looking at the “humorous” ones. I posed some serious questions that challenge your opinion of democracy in Cuba.

Can you answer these questions?

-Elections. What were the results of the last election? Who was the opposition and what percentage of the vote did they receive?

-Democracy means diverse opinions. You defended Cuban media on the grounds that its not subject to corporate interest. Well, the Communist party runs all the media. Let’s test the openness of this media:
Can you post Granma articles about the opposition in the last election? Can you post neutral articles or videos from the news that neutrally describe the opposition, interview them, and describe platforms and different ideas in national politics? Can you post any op-eds or harsh criticisms of Fidel, or stinging satire, from any of the Cuban media sources? I don’t mean one or two in the last 15 years, I mean a number of them.

-Human rights. Comparing Cuba to the US is a poor way to make an argument. How about comparing Cuba to Canada, where I live? All HR organizations criticize Cuba, no matter how “mild” you consider the violations. You mentioned suppressing of entrepreneurship. This is a major issue in Cuba, not a laughing matter. The UN charter of rights states a person has a right to earn a living. Cuba restricts the informal market more than any other country in Latin America. You’ve been to Cuba, have you not noticed how much of the population wants to make a buck off you? All of which is illegal. Where is the voice of democracy for those that want to open private video banks? Give salsa lessons to tourists? Provide services from the home, such as washing clothes for people? All restricted and subject to government approval.

Here is a summary of violations (scroll down the 5 summarized): http://dave-esquinacaliente.blogspot.com/2006/11/cuba-attempts-to-shame-canada.html

And here is another criticism of a similar discourse to yours: http://dave-esquinacaliente.blogspot.com/2006/10/criticism-of-vancouver-communities-in.html

I would like to hear your defenses of the questions proposed, since these questions aren’t usually asked.

Here is Amnesty International's recent press release on human rights concerns in Cuba.

http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGAMR250032007

Restrictions on access to the Internet are a good indicator that Cuba is a police state. Once the broadband connection to Venezuela is installed, limited bandwidth can no longer be used as an excuse.