I don’t want to stray into a minefield, but the problem with Cuba is the self-denial of its protagonists. Nobody – least of all me – suggests that ALL has been bad since the revolution or indeed in the making of it. On the other hand, the protagonists seem incapabable of acknowledging that ANYTHING was or has been bad, such as – as Briggs has pointed out before – the brutality of Che Guevara or the ossification of Cuba’s society since the revolution.
An ossification the regime is now trying to put right, but they clearly cannot avoid the key question: If some economic liberalisation and basic freedoms are right NOW then why have they been WRONG for the last 50 years? Bit like the Catholic church and celibacy. The Pope CAN’T abolish this basic lunacy since it would prove they have been wrong for about TWO THOUSAND YEARS. It would also mean he has had a lifetime of self-restraint for NOTHING!!
As for the “key question syndrome”, I wonder if Balls is asking himself it in Labour’s case? If “reality” and financial restraint (which means of course the dreaded “cuts” they have been whinging on about since the last election) are correct NOW then WHY weren’t they correct for Labour’s Binge Years? In their case they could and should blame it on Brown, as I do, but I suppose thy don’t want to be “disloyal” – a bit like Stalin putting the fear of God into the Bolsheviks even after his death.
(I have decided to refer henceforth to the Labour years as “The Binge Years” since – like the Cultural Revolution, The Black Death, the Terror and so on the phrase is A) appropriate and B) sticks in the memory.)
Oh dear ……
