Showing posts with label cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cuba. Show all posts

Thursday, July 15, 2021

The Little Island That Could

 


As a long-time visitor to Cuba, I have an ongoing interest in what happens in the island nation, as well as a deep respect for the resilience of its people. Despite having been exploited for centuries by outside powers, they have always found a way to work with the limited resources they have.

Cases in point: for years they have had a vaccine to treat lung cancer. They have also developed what seem to be effective vaccines against COVID-19. They provide free health care for all of their citizens, along with free education, up to and including university.

All of these feats, and many more, have been accomplished despite the crippling U.S.-imposed embargo that has been ongoing since 1962.

Despite that, U.S. news coverage has been focusing upon the large-scale demonstrations currently taking place in Cuba, protests prompted by food and medicine shortages. Most coverage is framed as an uprising against the government. The real culprit? The United States' intractable animus toward the Communist island. 

The following demonstrates the bias in reporting:


I'm afraid Mr. Biden's expressions of solidarity with the Cuban people ring both hollow and hypocritical. The United States has the power to relieve their suffering but clings to the long-cherished fever dream of an overthrow of the government, one that would be replaced by a government just like theirs. (After all, who wouldn't want to be like the greatest nation the world has ever known?)

There is much more to be said on this topic, but I will leave you with the thoughts of a Star letter-writer from today's print edition who puts the blame squarely where it belongs:

Use of Miami Herald piece misrepresents reality in Cuba

Re Thousands demand end of dictatorship in Cuba, July 12 With its source being the Miami Herald, the Star reports that “thousands demand end of dictatorship in Cuba,” although some sources put the number of protesters as “hundreds.” 

 Cuba’s population is estimated at 11,320,000 and I am certain that 99 per cent of Cubans see the U.S. stranglehold on them as more concerning than any other aspect of their difficult lives. 

This past June 23, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution titled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” 

This same resolution has passed the General Assembly every year from 1992 to 2021, that is for 29 years. This year, the vote was 184 in favour, two against (the U.S. and Israel). 

A comprehensive economic embargo against Cuba was put in place way back in 1962 by the U.S. after its embarrassing defeat at the Bay of Pigs. It has remained in place. That followed the 1960 cancellation by the U.S. of the annual purchase of six million tons of sugar from Cuba. 

It is not “chronic inefficiencies and paralyzing bureaucracy” that have eroded the country’s production capacity. Any country in the world, such as Canada, subject to an economic blockade by the United States for 59 years would be “in the throes of its worst economic contraction in over three decades” and suffering a plunge in foreign investment. 

Why can the Toronto Star and Canada in general not recognize a huge bully gone berserk as he endlessly beats up the little kid who bested him in a game a long time ago in front of the other kids? This is no game. Millions of Cuban children and seniors are the victims as the U.S. collapses their world out of spite, while insisting it is acting on their behalf. 

Wayne Robbins, Toronto




Monday, December 12, 2016

Fidel's Legacy



Although the Toronto Star is my newspaper of choice, there are times when I strongly disagree with its content. Recently, its most prolific writer, Rosie Di Manno, wrote a series of articles in which she was withering, to say the least, in her assessment of Fidel Castro. As one who has visited Cuba many, many times, and gotten to know a fair bit about the reality of its citizens' lives, I felt her scorn was both ill-informed and ignoble.

I see that I am not alone.

In today's paper, an array of readers' letters, only a few of which I reproduce below, take exception to her sweeping condemnations of Castro's legacy:
Having visited Cuba at least 15 times, I have nothing but utmost respect for the Cubans and their system. Fidel Castro achieved what no other leader in the Caribbean achieved—free medicare and education (including university).

My GP in Toronto was trained by Cuban doctors; their reputation world wide is phenomenal. I am outraged that so few people have acknowledged this. Whenever I have visited other Caribbean countries I have never felt as safe as I do in Cuba.

Ingrid Nicholson, Toronto

With some exception, your coverage of Cuba surprises for its lack of substance and facile Cold War rhetoric.

Rosie DiManno’s columns are an example. Long is the list of shortcomings, and few the nods of recognition for gains made against all odds. Adult literacy, education, and health made available to Cuba’s poor majority post-1959, and recognized as exemplary by the United Nations, is a singular achievement in social rights.

Among the greatest beneficiaries have been Afro-Cubans – children and grandchildren of slaves – who in that deeply racist country had been pushed to the margins. The children of once marginalized poor Cubans, and their children, are the professionals now clamoring for change.

These lessons in social justice are more relevant than ever given persistent racism, poverty, inequality and exclusion—certainly no longer exclusively for Latin America. And, echoing DiManno’s stridency, while many North Americans flocked to San Francisco to join flower power, we in Latin America were inspired by the Cuban example to fight for a more just and inclusive society. Let us not minimize or trivialize this.

VerĂ³nica Schild, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.

Ms DiManno actually wrote this, “And damn his eternal soul”? Really? And you published it? Really?

Our Prime Minister was castigated widely for saying a few kind words about Fidel. What will the assembled pundits and columnists say and write about her now?

If anything.

Ted Turner, Toronto

...This story was an “opinion piece” by Rosie DiManno, a very long piece that carried on to the second page under the headline, “Fidel’s dark legacy survives” and which ended with the phrase “And damn his eternal soul.”

The Star is Canada’s largest circulation newspaper. As such, it comes very close to speaking for Canadians. Ms DiManno is welcome to her opinions, but I believe the Star has insulted the Cuban people by putting her opinions on the front page at a time when they have just lost their leader of over 50 years. Sovereign countries have a right to determine their own path. And each country’s people have a natural tendency to admire and even love their leaders, especially at the time of their death.

To allow one non-Cuban person to tell Canada what the Cubans who live in Cuba – and they are the overwhelming majority of Cubans—are thinking about Fidel Castro is incredibly presumptuous, and simply not right.

Wayne Robbins, Toronto

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

A Sordid Tale



I want to tell you a story. It is a story I wish I didn't have to tell, given its sordid nature, and it is one that reflects badly on my own judgment.

Sometimes the world really is too much with us. As some will know, we just returned from a week in Cuba where we stayed at a 3-star resort half-way between Varadero and Havana that we visited once before, in 2010. During the second part of the trip I fell ill with a bug, likely from something I ate. My activities were therefore somewhat limited after that, a detail that seems relevant to the story.

A couple of days into our holiday, my sister-in-law, who accompanied us, told me that she had seen a man, likely in his fifties, with a young Cuban girl who appeared to be about 12 years old. They were sharing a bungalow. I did not actually see them until the day before our departure for home, when I ventured out to a barbecue being held nearby. The girl indeed looked to be about 12, but she could have been, I suppose, as old as 13 or 14. The age of consent in Cuba is 16.

While prostitution is fairly common in Cuba, the girls I have seen in resorts accompanying Canadian and European men have always been at least 18 or older. This is a terrible example of what appears to be child sexual exploitation, something I have never before actually witnessed. I do not blame the Cubans, a resourceful people, some of whom will do almost anything to survive economically. I do, however, blame people like the adult I saw who, I fear, may very-well be Canadian, and someone, likely the management at the resort, who is clearly complicit in this alleged crime, given that the girl was wearing a resort wristband.

And here is where my bad judgment comes into play. Should I have complained to the management? In retrospect, I sincerely wish that I had. My thought at the time was that such a complaint would have yielded nothing, for the above-stated reason. As well, about two years ago we met a Canadian couple at a resort in Holguin we have visited several times, and they told me a story that was quite instructive. The resort's previous manager had come upon a guest and his 'companion' who was clearly underage. She phoned both the girl's parents and the Cuban police. When the parents arrived, they were outraged by the manager's actions, as they had sanctioned their daughter's involvement with the man. The manager was later rebuked by her superiors and told to never do something like that again. As I stated, she is no longer the manager there.

These things, along with what we were told a few years ago by two Holguin friends who we got to know fairly well, convinced me that reporting would have been futile. I realize now that I should have nonetheless gone ahead and done so. To have drawn the conclusion I did was a failure of critical thinking and a failure of my moral duty.

So what did I do instead? Well, I took photos of the 'couple' at the barbecue; my thought was to post them, with the girl's face blurred out, on social media in the hope that someone wold recognize him. I had also intended to post them here for the same purpose, but I have come to realize that the Internet as such is not the answer, and could have set in motion an unfortunate chain of events. I do not want to compound my irresponsibility.

However, I did post a very truncated version of this story both on Tripadvisor and the closed Facebook group devoted to Cameleon Villas Jibacoa. Given the fury that I provoked on the latter, I now wonder exactly what it was I hoped to achieve in that venue. However, one person on that forum chose to offer not his abuse but his help in trying to identify the offender, as he has some contacts among the staff. He was a rare bright light in the midst of some very dark suggestions from others about my character and motives.

On Monday I contacted the RCMP, but got a disappointing response. The local detachment officer told me that the federal force's main mandates right now involve domestic security and organized crime. He suggested I contact our local police force, which, of course, lacks both the authority and the resources to pursue such matters. This morning I was able to reach the appropriate detective on my local police force, and he expressed shock that the RCMP was not interested, as it is their jurisdiction, and they have facial recognition software that might be able to identify the man I took pictures of. Nonetheless, he was quite helpful and is passing on my information to the local human trafficking division, and I am awaiting a call from them.

You might also wonder what the purpose of this post is, other than to serve a somewhat cathartic function for my own failure in this matter. The trajectory of this Cuban child's life is probably set, and nothing will likely change it. However, if this story has any value, it may serve simply as a reminder that we all have responsibilities whether we are at home or travelling outside the country. Since my return, I have tried to educate myself about the problem of child sex tourism, and I recommend the following two links to get you started, should you be interested:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/16/canadians_are_major_customers_in_cubas_child_sex_market.html

http://www.ibcr.org/images/contenu/publications/Tourisme-sexuel-int-lowres-en.pdf

Thanks for reading this story, and I would appreciate it if you not write any comments that suggest I did my best. I know I did not, and ultimately this story is about a much bigger problem than how I might feel about my own bad judgment.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Some Downtime



We are heading off for an inexpensive week in Cuba. It really pays to travel before high season kicks in. I'll be back at the computer in about a week.

See you then.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Change Is Coming To Cuba, Not All Of It Necessarily Good

Readers of this blog will know that I have a special affection for Cuba, having visited it many times and gotten to know, to some extent, the 'real' Cuba. Yet it would be wrong for me or any other non-Cuban to pontificate about what is best for the country, given the changes that are coming due to its increasing normalization with the United States. The course of Cuba's future has to be decided by Cuba itself.

Nonetheless, one hopes that the ecological balance highlighted in the following will continue well into the future, despite what will undoubtedly be an onslaught of American tourism:

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Cuba And Private Enterprise

Since we first visited the island in 2010, my wife and I have developed a deep respect and affection for Cuba and its people. As I have indicated in previous posts, those feelings were formed not just in the vacations spots we have enjoyed, but also by getting to know the 'real' Cuba through friends that we made off of the resorts.

On our last visit there, the people I talked to looked forward, guardedly, to the gradual normalization with Cuba's historical nemesis, the United States. While some North Americans have suggested that the nation will become little more than a colony of the U.S. once again, as you will see in this report from Democracy Now, new opportunities may well arise out of this meeting of socialism and capitalism.

I couldn't help but wonder, as you may too, whether the emerging Cuba might have a thing or two to teach inveterate capitalists, especially with regard to the benefits of treating one's employees well. A restaurateur who is featured in the video seems particularly possessed of a common sense that is sadly disappearing in North America:


Friday, January 23, 2015

On Hiatus



Time to head back to our favourite island before it is infiltrated by the Americans.

See you in about a week.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Remembrances Of Things Past



It was with some surprise that Canadians finally saw something positive emerge from the always suspicious and hateful Harper regime: its facilitation of talks between the U.S. and Cuba to begin the process of normalizing relations.

This echo of a time when Canada was looked upon as the world's honest broker prompted a Star letter-writer to express the following view:

U.S.-Cuba deal made in Canada, Dec. 18

Finally the Harper government plays a positive role on the world stage, by helping the U.S. and Cuba end over 50 years of hostility. This is the role Canada should be playing, and the role we used to play in the good old days – not the hectoring, finger-wagging, holier-than-thou lecturing of foreign leaders that is Stephen Harper’s preferred modus operandi.

Our Prime Minister should follow up this diplomatic triumph by re-opening Canada’s embassy in Tehran, pursuing serious dialogue with Vladimir Putin and putting some energy into resolving the crisis in Syria – which of course would involve actually engaging with Bashar al-Assad.

And while Harper’s at it, what about having a word or two with his buddy Benjamin Netanyahu about treating Palestinians like human beings?

None of this is any more likely to happen than a fat old white guy dressed in red fur coming down your chimney, but hey – this is a Christmas wish list. Canada’s instrumental and uncharacteristically statesmanlike role in the U.S.-Cuba deal was most likely a singularity, perhaps committed in a fit of absent-mindedness.

Too bad we can’t have more such lapses.

Andrew van Velzen, Toronto

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

It's That Time Of Year



We'll be away for a week due to our Vitamin D-deprived lives. Cuba beckoned. The price was right. See you soon.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Reflections from Cuba - Civic Responsibility

January 23, 2013:

In a previous post, I compared and contrasted Cuba and Canada in terms of the opportunities for achieving one's potential through access to information, ideas, etc., noting that in Cuba the opportunities are almost non-existent, while sadly, in our country, there are those who choose not to avail themselves of the almost boundless access to ways to develop themselves.

Today I want to consider people who have availed themselves, used the resources available, yet choose to close themselves off from any meaningful participation in our society. While I readily acknowledge that there are so many who do so much to enrich our society, I worry about the willfully ignorant who abdicate what I consider to be everyone's duties as citizens: to be informed, to participate either directly or indirectly in civic debate, and most importantly, to vote.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, a view to which I wholeheartedly subscribe. To live only to fulfill one's basic needs and instincts is to exist at the animal level, and while we of course are animals, our potential is much greater than other creatures with whom we share that designation. And because we live in community with others, that potential has the richest chance of realization when we strive together to improve the collective and not just ourselves.

While I have written about and acknowledged the complexity of issues and challenges that we all face and do not pretend to have either the knowledge or the expertise to tackle them, I firmly believe that informed discussion and debate is instrumental in finding solutions. To leave that discussion and decision-making in the hands of those who claim to have the interests of everyone at heart is to betray all of us. To say that one is not political or interested in politics is to turn one's back on one's fellow citizens. To do so is to only live for the self, perhaps the greatest 'sin' of all.

Despite my apparently pessimistic tone here, I do believe that given the right opportunities for engagement, many will rise to the challenges we face. For example, the Occupy Movement, while it seems to have lost its momentum, demonstrated that the right campaign can tap into and harness the deep discontent dwelling within our souls over the status quo. As described by writer Mark Leiren-Young in the December issue of The Walrus, the movement began as a guerrilla campaign by Abuster founder Kalle Lasn with a cryptic poster depicting "a petite ballerina striking an arabesque and Photoshopped onto the back of the iconic Wall Street bull, a phalanx of police in riot gear emerging from the tear gas behind them.... Over the ballerina, in red letters, hung the words 'What is our demand?" Printed below was "September 17th" and the words "Bring tent" followed by the Twitter hastag #ocuppywallstreet." The rest, as they say, is history.

As I write these words in Cuba, I have learned that eleven EU countries, including France, Germany, Greece and Spain are now preparing to enact the Tobin tax, something vehemently fought against by entrenched interests, that will impose a miniscule tax on currency transactions and other financial transactions. It is a good and encouraging response to the depredations wrought by reckless and herdless speculation, and I cannot help but believe it is also in reaction to an outraged European citizenry that has grown increasingly restive under the burden they have been expected to bear for problems not largely of their making. Interesting, the Tobin tax was precisely what Mallet Lasn had in mind with his Occupy poster.

So change for the better is possible, given the right conditions, stimulation, awareness and passion. But it cannot and will not occur in a vacuum.

John Kennedy's best remembered excerpt from his Inaugural Address is the following:

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

Perhaps being engaged in the issues of our times and participating accordingly is the best way to most benefit our country and our world today.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Reflections From Cuba - Updated

The following is one of several pieces I wrote on my Blackberry Playbook while on a recent holiday in Cuba. Because Internet access and outside information is limited there, I spent some time writing pieces largely drawn from things I was thinking about at the time, and therefore are perhaps not as overtly political in nature as my usual fare.

January 21, 2013:

What, I wonder, is worse, a society in which there is little or no opportunity to learn and grow, or one in which the opportunity exists but is ignored by a substantial proportion of the people?

That is one of the questions I am left with after our most recent visit to Cuba, our sixth time in the island nation, and our third occasion to learn about the 'real' Cuba under the auspices of friends we have there. And while I must, owing to the country's repressive political system, remain vague and circumspect about our friends and what we learned from them, let me say that they are educated people who do not work at or for any of Cuba's resorts.

Since we first visited the country, it has been difficult to regard it as a developing nation by virtue of the proportion of people who are educated. For example, Cuba's doctors are well-known throughout the world for the medical humanitarian assistance they give in disaster-relief (they are, as an illustration, still in Haiti three years after its devastating earthquake) and medical missions throughout the developing world. There are also many teachers, lawyers, engineers, etc., all thanks to the fact that education is free for all Cubans, as is medical care.

But there is, from my point of view, a much darker side to Cuban life. Their ability to realize their human potential is so constrained as to be almost non-existent.

As one would expect in a dictatorship, access to books and information is very limited. The lifeblood of the mind and spirit, writing that exposes us to new ideas and challenge our complacency, is generally unavailable, political tracts and screeds in their stead as far as I could discern. Libraries, where they exist, do not permit the borrowing of materials; all must be read within the library. And while some have access to email, only a select few, for example doctors, can utilize the internet. Television, except that available to tourists in hotels, is limited to state broadcasts consisting of old movies and information the government deems permissible for the people.

There are other things we have learned that I think prudent not to discuss here, but let me sum up this portion of the post by stating that, in my view, it is a country that infantalizes its citizens, resulting in a life that from my perspective and background would be a kind of living death. And while it would be easy to dismiss my assessment as a kind of cultural imperialism or arrogance, I can only say that I have been witness to the deep intelligence, passion and yearning of the people, forced into a kind of stoic acceptance of a life in which they would prefer more choice. That being said, I don't think their choice would necessarily involve embracing our lifestyle or values either, i.e unbridled free enterprise and worship of things material, just a less austere and controlled one.

Books. Learning. Reading. Writing. Without these, to paraphrase something Bob Marley once said, my life would be madness. They are what make existence worthwhile for me; their absence would reduce the level of my humanity and spirit.

So how do we judge a culture or society where access to such riches are scorned and rejected? As a teacher, it was something I saw all too often in students, but its incidence was not especially troubling, as much of such behaviour could be attributed to an immaturity they would eventually outgrow. Indeed, even those for whom encouragement to stay in school failed was, to me, never the tragedy that others made it out to be, as they always had the opportunity to 'drop back in' when experience taught them that their options without education were quite limited.

My larger consternation, however, resides in the intractable underclass in our society who, raised in a culture of poverty and welfare-dependency, never realize that the only way out is through the possibilities afforded by education. A partly self-induced form of infatilization, they live out their lives without realizing their potential, ignoring the opportunities the country makes available to improve their lot. Such waste is a tragedy that parallels what I see in Cuba. I will extend this further by being critical of both the conditions and the insularity seemingly extant on the native reserves in Canada, where by all that we have heard about places such as Attawapiskat, the people live in abysmal squalor. Like the aforementioned culture of poverty, unproductive living and unfulfilled potential seem endemic.

I realize, as my policy analyst son has taught me, that issues are never simple. I also realize that there is a richness to native culture and tradition that my comments here would seem to belie, just as I realize there is a constellation of social factors that contribute to the larger culture of poverty that I have briefly mentioned here. I also suspect that my apparent judgementalism here will offend the sensibilities of many. Yet simply excusing conditions because of their genesis does no good either. But solutions remain elusive, fascism and classism frequently substituting for real dialogue and problem-solving.

Solutions are never simple or obvious, either for Cuba or for Canada.

UPDATE: A sign of hope as to how education can heal some of the wounds still felt today by aboriginals over the their traumatic residential school experiences can be found here.

Friday, January 11, 2013

On Hiatus

There won't be any new blog posts for the next two weeks as we begin our annual hegira to Cuba, where the climate and the people offer a soothing respite from the Canadian winter. This will be our sixth visit to the island, and each time there we learn another facet of Cuban life, thanks to two friends that we visit, usually for a day, during our holiday.

Since Internet is very restricted there, I will be offline during our stay.

Any online comments to this blog will not be published until I return.

Keep the faith, everyone!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The Realities Of The Child Soldier

I suppose I might feel differently about Omar Khadr if I hadn't read a particular book, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It provided indelible insights into both the realities of the child soldier's world and the possibilities of redemption and rehabilitation. It should be read by everyone who is quick to judge and condemn Khadr.

Now 31 years old, Beah, a very bright, articulate and talented writer effectively conveyed in his memoir the horror of his experiences as a child soldier, conscripted into the army at the age of 13 to fight the rebels in Sierra Leone, although the bloody, inhumane behaviour of each side made them virtually impossible to distinguish.

I suspect it is the kind of world that Kadhr is very familiar with, uprooted as he was from Canada by his fanatical father at a young age and moved to Pakistan and Afghanistan to become part of Al Qaeda’s jihad against the West.

There is a story in today's Star about the ongoing efforts of a group of professors from Edmonton who developed a curriculum of study for Khadr, still languishing in Guantanamo Bay’s Camp Echo thanks to the reluctance of the Harper government to repatriate him. It is a story that goes beyond the stereotypes and the sensational headlines one usually associates with the Khadr name, a story suggesting that maybe, just maybe, there is something very salvageable about this former child soldier.

Of course, we have a chance of recognizing that something only if we are willing to relinquish our preconceived notions about the sole remaining Western inmate languishing in America's Cuban prison.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

How Long Before This Lynch Mob Mentality Comes To Canada?

As someone who is a regular visitor to Cuba and has seen both the good and bad of its society through friends that we visit there, I know that it has very real problems, but also very real benefits, under its dictatorial communist system. However, I can't help but wonder how long it will be, thanks to the reactionary dictatorship (aka the Harper regime) we in Canada are currently chafing under, before we adopt the 'lynch mob' mentality evident here.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Will I Be Deemed High Risk for Terror, Crime or Immigration Fraud ?

I have a confession to make. Since January of 2010, my wife and I have visited Cuba four times. So what, one might ask? Cuba has always been a popular destination for Canadians seeking some respite from harsh Canadian winters. What harm is there in that?

Well, potentially a great deal, if I understand the terms of the new border security pact that the Harper government has struck with the Obama government. Called Beyond the Border, it is being extolled by our 'leader' as the biggest breakthrough in Canada/U.S. affairs since the North American free trade pact. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

As reported in The Star, one of those details is the following:

Under a sweeping new entry-exit system to be in place next year Canada will share more information on travellers, including people arriving here from abroad, or going from here to third countries. So-called “trusted” travellers will be speeded across borders, while those deemed “high risk” for terror, crime or immigration fraud will be red-flagged, or prevented from getting here.

In his column, Thomas Walkom elaborates:

Canada will be required to give more information about its citizens and residents to the U.S. By 2013, the countries promise to put in place a “systematic and automated biographical information-sharing capability” and by 2014 a “biometric information-sharing capability.”

A new exit-control system will be put in place for those crossing the land border between Canada and the U.S. in order to “exchange biographical information on travellers.


So what does any of this have to do with our frequent visits to Cuba? Well, perhaps the most salient fact is that since 1982, Cuba has been designated by the Americans as a '"state sponsor of terrorism," the reasons for which can be seen by clicking on this link, reasons that are, in my view, typical of the United States' paranoid and jaundiced contempt for countries that don't embrace their worldview and values.

Nonetheless, I think the implication of this new border deal are clear. Personally, since I have not travelled to the U.S. for over 10 years, I doubt that the pact will have much effect on me, since if I had to choose between the two countries, Cuba would be my preferred destination.

However, fate can be capricious, and who knows if circumstances might at some point necessitate a visit to the U.S., that benighted country where reason has been largely supplanted by hysteria, and where productive policy has been replaced by demagoguery? Will I find myself being denied entry for my love of Cuba and its people, about whom I have written previously on this blog? Will I be taken to a back room and grilled about my relationship with certain Cubans that we have become friends with outside of the resort? Will I be subjected to the dreaded and invasive body search that can be imposed on the most unlikely of travellers?

These are questions that apparently are of no concern to Stephen Harper, who seems perfectly content to surrender our privacy rights and sovereignty because of the boost the pact will give to cross-border trade.

Quaint notions, sovereignty and privacy rights, aren't they?

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Fair and Balanced Reporting on Cuba - Part 3

Part Three of the program on Cuba, dealing with the country's medical diplomacy, can be accessed by clicking on the above title.

Fair and Balanced Reporting on Cuba - Part 2

Part Two of the Cuba report highlighting the role of preventative medicine can be accessed by clicking on the above title.

Balanced Reporting on Cuba - Part 1

Having visited Cuba twice in 2010, my wife and I have developed quite an interest in and affection for the people. Warm and gracious, they seem to exude a passion for life that transcends their very humble, in many cases quite impoverished circumstances. PBS, one of the few American sources of fair and balanced reporting, recently completed a three-part series on the country. Part One offers an overview of the country and its prospects for economic change and growth, while Part Two examines the vital role preventative medicine plays in the overall health of the people. Part Three examines the role Cuban doctors play in helping the people of poorer nations through medical missions.

While the reports do not gloss over the restrictive nature of life in Cuba, neither do they take a confrontational ideological stance towards what are remarkable achievements in a developing nation.

Part 1 can be accessed below: