I was toddling around in nappies when the US flag was taken down in Havana in January 1961. The decision to break off diplomatic relations between the USA and Cuba was taken a day earlier by President Eisenhower. So started a period of frozen relationships between the two neighbours which included years of trade embargoes.
It is a very significant act of statesmanship that Barack Obama and Raúl Castro have now restored diplomatic relations. It is without doubt a good thing – the people of Cuba have suffered for long enough.
This event, to me, answers the question: “What is Barack Obama for?” It is difficult to imagine a Republican president doing the same thing.
It tops a long list of achievements by President Obama. You can read a version of the list here, so I won’t recite it. I would just mention the Affordable Care Act 2010, or “Obamacare” if you watch Fox News. By passing that act, and making it stick, Obama did what five US Presidents tried and failed to do over the period of a century. He reformed US healthcare, bringing 32 million people into coverage. It is a towering, stunning achievement. In particular, it was very skilfully brought in at the start of Obama’s presidency while he was still, to an extent, in his “honeymoon” period and there were sufficient votes in Congress for it. The longest serving US Senator, Robert Byrd, was brought into the US Capitol building in a wheelchair to triumphantly vote for the act. By my maths, Obama engineered the act at the only time there was the maths in Congress to pass it – such was the skill of the enterprise.
Finally, I should declare an interest – I have been an unreconstructed Obama fan since he was senator from Illinois. So, yes, I know, MRDA (Mandy Rice Davies Applies) for this article.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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26 Comments
I’m a fan of Obama, but I think we need to listen to Marco Rubio more on foreign policy. He called China the world’s biggest dictatorship and says similar things about Cuba.
It is not essential for countries to be democratic, but they at least need to be able to demonstrate the support of their people and when a dictatorship threatens a democracy we should petty much have a presumption in favour of the democracy.
We need to stand up for free speech and political freedom.
Never mind. The Labour Party are busy resurrecting the old left wing ideology at home. Che Guevara berets anyone?
Shurely Shome mistake…….Steady on Eddie……. “It is not essential for countries to be democratic”, ?????????????????????????????
As for Rubio……….. Liberals have nothing in common with a right wing Republican from Florida wanting a massive increase in military spending, has a 99% approval rating on his voting record by the American Conservative Union, and is pledged to abolish Obama’s greatest achievement, the health reforms..
Hi David, I find that I am actually tougher on non democratic regimes than most politicians. The consensus seems to favour free trade above everything and I want a new and less close relationship with the likes of China and Saudi Arabia.
It takes a lot of courage to call for democracy and we shouldn’t abandon those calling for it.
My phrase of “it isn’t essential for countries to be democratic” refers to my belief that democracy and self-determination are not entirely the same thing. For instance: we have a Queen, but she has the consent of the public.
Eddie
Western forms of democracy imposed on non-western countries may not work.
Does this mean that Cubans can eagerly await being abused by US global corporations that set up on the island as they are in the States?
Amazon: Devastating expose accuses internet retailer of oppressive and callous attitude to staff
Working four days in a row without sleep; a woman with breast cancer being put on “performance-improvement plans” together with another who had just had a stillborn child; staff routinely bursting into tears; continual monitoring; workers encouraged to turn on each other to keep their jobs.
Life at Amazon sounds bleak, according to a devastating, 5,900-word expose by The New York Times. [More]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/amazon-devastating-expose-accuses-internet-retailer-of-oppressive-and-callous-attitude-to-staff-10458159.html
Gives some idea what can be expected in the UK when TTIP is ratified – or does someone know that there is going to be a clause in the agreement specifically disallowing such action? Not that the treatment of Amazon staff in the UK is acceptable at present.
[The global internet retailer founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, which paid just £11.9m in tax in Britain last year despite UK sales of £5.3bn, has previously been accused of treating warehouse staff in the UK “like cattle” as they are driven to work harder].
Eddie Sammon 16th Aug ’15 – 4:02pm
“…. listen to Marco Rubio more on foreign policy. He called China the world’s biggest dictatorship and says similar things about Cuba.”
If Mr Rubio said this it indicates that his knowledge and understanding of scale is as dimwitted and limited as his knowledge of politics.
By whatever measure one might want to use Cuba cannot possibly be “the world’s BIGGEST dictatorship”.
Just like that other Republican Ms Palin who thought she could see Russia from her kitchen window, this just ndicates the basic ignorance of geography on many right-wing Americans.
To answer Paul Walter’s original point, President Obama will be remembered for lots of good things including Cuba and Iran.
He took over as President when the USA was embroiled in several expensive and pointless foreign wars and the USA and World economies had been trashed by bankers. The USA is better off today thanks to Obama.
As a black American who has not so far been shot, imprisoned or abused by the police, President Obama will hopefully always be remembered as making history by being elected in the first place.
‘Just like that other Republican Ms Palin who thought she could see Russia from her kitchen window, this just indicates the basic ignorance of geography on many right-wing Americans.’
I too find Sarah Palin ridiculous, but this is exaggeration rather than foolishness. She was the Governor of the US state which was a former Russia colony and extends to within 60 miles of Russia.
Fidel Castro was so long in charge of Cuba that we forget what went before. I remember reading in the Readers’ Digest ,of all places, an article entitled ‘I saw Castro liberate Cuba.’ Its first page can be found on https://www.flickr.com/photos/shastrix/2289637943/
President Batista ran a pretty standard, for the time, Latin American military dictatorship. This came complete with corruption, lack of civil rights, underdevelopment, oppression of the peasants and being too accommodating to the Mafia.
Castro’s honeymoon with West ground to halt when he was seen to be too friendly with Krushchev’s USSR and scare the USA witless by offering missile sites to the USSR, 60 miles from Florida.
The story since then has been one of American post-traumatic stress and obsession. Normalisation and cutting back on sanctions has been decades overdue, especially since many of the USA’s allies, such as Canada never thought them necessary.
The Spanish-American war about 1900 had resulted in independance for Cuba and made a satellite of the USA, which made the direction of Cuba’s political movement in the early 1960s so unwelcome. .
Thanks to the constitutional set up of the USA, intended by the founding fathers to create government in which no single arm could do anything by itself, Foreign policy is one of the few areas where and American President can have a relatively free hand, should they choose to use it.
So, via Ping-Pong Diplomacy, Richard Nixon chose to start building a relationship with Maoist China and eventually paid an official visit to Beijing. It has been said that, at the time in the early 1970s, only a Republican President, perhaps only Nixon, could have done this. Today, we see President Barak Obama, both renewing the official relationship with Cuba and managing to be a humble American on an official visit to African states, yes raising issues of serious concern (treatment of their LGBT community), but also acknowledging the problems faced by his own society (guns).
Obama’s Presidency has, in many ways been a disappointment, but history may well say the only Obama could go to Africa …….. and perhaps Cuba. Important as it is, Obama will be remembered as more than the first black President of the United States of America.
Cuba is certainly not a democracy, but it is much freer than most Communist states were, and indeed than many countries are today – countries that the USA is happy to trade with. I was in Cuba in June on a 15-day holiday travelling round the island, and at no time did I feel restricted in where I could go (other than military camps which are restricted here too), or what people I spoke to were allowed to say – unlike in East Germany which I briefly visited in the 1980’s. I had a number of political discussions with our English-speaking guides, trying to understand how the Cuban society works, faults and all.
Positives are the free health service (Ché’s most lasting achievement), free education, homes for all (though some very cramped), and an attempt at a society that serves everyone. Plus a mostly good climate, amazing architecture, lovely people, and those classic American cars.
Problems are lack of development – horse traps and BMWs share the same main roads! – over-dependence on sugar (diabetes is common), and the distortions caused by tourism, in which a waitress can receive in tips as much as a doctor earns in a month.
The long US embargo has been a disaster for them, especially after USSR support ceased in 1989, but I worry that Cuba will now be taken over by the big corporations that they threw out 60 years ago. Go and see it for yourself before it’s Disneyfied.
David Wright, an excellent summary of Cuba today and coming from your direct recent experience all the more telling.
I have never been there and my only direct contact has been with a Cuban Doctor who visited the UK on a government exchange (this was in the 1990s under the Conservative governments of Magaret Thatcher and John Major – neither obvious sympathisers of communist dictatorship).
The amazing improvements in public health (as evidenced by a life expectancy superior to that of many US states and cities) since Fidel Castro puts other countries to shame.
Gays should be careful.
David Wright 17th Aug ’15 – 1:11pm
“Positives are the free health service (Ché’s most lasting achievement), free education, homes for all (though some very cramped), and an attempt at a society that serves everyone. Plus a mostly good climate, amazing architecture, lovely people, and those classic American cars.”
I am glad for your post David – because I had something in the back of my mind that Cuba was a good place to live – despite its isolation. Your post prompted a search that found Cuba was judged to be the 12th happiest country in the world in the 2015 Happiness league – compared to the US [105] and UK [41].
https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/non-economic-data/happiest-countries
I think we can be sure that their happiness rating will fall rapidly once the US global corporations get their metophorical teeth into them.
John Tilley, are you a democrat or not? It’s very simple: democrats should be prepared to criticise non democratic states and institutions, including our own royal family.
I have a thesis that if you ask much of the left to choose between democracy and equality they would choose equality and you seem to be proving that right. It is also evidenced by people complaining about the legitimacy of our current government who wouldn’t be complaining if Labour won.
On reflection, and as someone who had for many years viewed the US in a positive light – I think, since the global free market was established – the US can reasonably be viewed as the Evil Empire whose primary export is misery!
@David Wright – you beat me to this trip! Like what you posted. Very accurate.
Although I speak Spanish (learnt as a “Chilang”o, i.e. the DF de Mexico), I do find colloquial Cuban Spanish very difficult (although my dog is named in Cuban Spanish – Guajiro).
It is great that Cuba is coming in from the cold, particularly as Putin is taking our relations with Russia into the deep freezer!
Having lived in the USA for 27 years off and on, I can on state that I find the American right totally abhorrent, and verging upon the insane.
Eddie Sammon 17th Aug ’15 – 2:31pm
It’s very simple: democrats should be prepared to criticise non democratic states and institutions, including our own royal family.
Eddie the US is a democracy only in name – certainly not in practice.
The sheer cost of getting elected to Congress means that only the richest, or those supported by the richest, can make any headway in the contest. Since the very richest tend to be the main shareholders of the largest US global corporations – it is they who control Congress.
Last time I looked – just 9% of the US citizenship approved of Congress [does that sound like a nation that is a democracy?]. As these corporations are taking ever greater control here in the UK – through the Tories – it won’t be too long before the HofC is similarly placed.
Eddie Sammon 17th Aug ’15 – 2:31pm
“..John Tilley, are you a democrat or not? ”
Why do you ask in the context of this thread?
Is it because you fear that acknowledging the positive achievements of the government of a small island state In the Caribbean might turn me into a communist?
Can I direct you to the earier comments of —
Ian Sanderson, David Wright and John Innes. They are all clearly excellent Liberal Democrats.
As for me – I have just listened to ‘The Reunion’ on BBC Radio 4 this weekend about Guantanamo — that is the part of Cuba where people have been incarcerated without charge and without trial in some cases for 13 years now.
Not only have the inmates been subjected to ritual humiliation, denied contact with their families and legal representatives for months on end, they are ot even allowed to kow why they were kidnapped in various parts of the world and sipped to Cuba.
Guantanamo is that part of Cuba that has been under the control of the USA for the last 100 years.
BTW — When you mention ” our own royal family.” are you talking about those Germans and that Greek who adopted the false names ‘Windsor’ and ‘Edinburgh’ to fool the masses?
I think you need to re-examine your thesis. 🙂
Thanks John. I asked because criticising non democratic regimes can be risky business so I get frustrated when I feel others don’t come to support.
You make a very good point about Guantanamo Bay. We should criticise that too.
I know you have to be careful with economic interests, but I feel that we should stand by those who ask for democracy. If the support is peaceful then it doesnt matter how big the opponents are.
It is about honour and shame and I think we need to support those trying to create what we ourselves would want.
I’m more concerned about China than Cuba, but I still don’t see how it is a great achievement by Obama.
John Roffey
“Cuba was judged to be the 12th happiest country in the world in the 2015 ”
I suppose it was all those years of waiting for buses that did it.
Eddie
To illustrate my point about admirable improvements in Cuba I thought you might be interested to see this fromThe Washington Post —
“…Despite healthcare spending levels that are significantly higher than any other country in the world, a baby born in the U.S. is less likely to see his first birthday than one born in Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. Or in Belarus. Or in Cuba, for that matter.
The U.S. rate of 6.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births masks considerable state-level variation.
If Alabama were a country, its rate of 8.7 infant deaths per 1,000 would place it slightly behind Lebanon in the world rankings.
Mississippi, with its 9.6 deaths, would be somewhere between Botswana and Bahrain.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/29/our-infant-mortality-rate-is-a-national-embarrassment/
John, if we praise Cuba then it sends the message that violent revolution against democracy is justifiable if it produces good health care and it is not only communists who like that message but Isis and other fascists.
What democracy Eddie? The Cuban revolution was against the Batista dictatorship, which has seized power from a democratically elected government, and held it by suppression, torturing and killing those who opposed it.
As a Liberal, I cannot support violent revolution, but I can understand why so many of the Cuban people did, and why they supported the Castro regime which followed. Nor do I know what my political views would have been had I grown up under such a dictatorship.
Hi David, I know, I’m just saying in theory to much praise for an autocratic regime might hold back democracy.
I agree with Paul Walter about the achievement that he highlights in the original post. 60 or 40 year vendettas against countries that didn’t follow the American policy of the time are a ridiculous way to conduct foreign policy. At the same time for balance it would be nice to see acknowledgment that in most things Obama has continued the same bad policies of his Republican and Democrat predecessors (as often the case with historical ‘turning points’), with only it seems recent change on the environment. I appreciate as Phil Rimmer says that the President has limited (little) domestic powers. Most of all on the comments I agree with many of the points made by Eddie Sammon – those on ‘the left’ including those Liberals who use that terminology are quick to absolve dictatorships of their oppression if they make social progress, most especially if those regimes are non-white. Cuba is illiberal and intolerant and has made great social progress. The hypocrisy of the EU (let alone France, Britain, Germany) in dealing with regimes that don’t match its principles is breathtaking, though I hope things will improve under the very capable Federica Mogherini. From Egypt to China to Azerbaijan to Thailand ‘Western’ government and EU hypocrisy is very real. But you can’t simply quarantine a country as successive US governments have done to Cuba and Vietnam. So this is a success for the first half white President.