Tell me again how American tourists can make a difference in Cuba?
One of the favored arguments put forth by embargo opponents to lift travel restrictions on Americans is that the Cuban dictatorship would not be able to handle the sudden appearance of American tourists. Americans, they would like us to believe, are far better ambassadors of freedom and liberty than their Canadian, British, or European counterparts. Set loose on the streets of Havana large groups of drunk Americans wearing colorful shirts, baggy shorts, and socks with their sandals and in no time the oppressed Cuban people will rise up and topple a dictatorship that has had 50 years to perfect its machine of repression.
Even the proponents of this argument know it is ridiculous, but the true goal behind it is to play to the pride of Americans. By telling them they are the only tourists that can bring freedom to Cuba, they hope that the huge holes in their argument will be overlooked. It is with this hope that opponents to the embargo and Castro supporters alike continue to use this fallacious argument.
The Cuban dictatorship, however, has a zero-tolerance policy for renegade tourists, as this article in the Miami Herald today points out.
In Cuba, bringing a message or help can lead to jail
People who travel to Cuba under U.S.-funded programs to promote democracy risk landing in jail.
Jan Bubenik went to Cuba to ``spread the hope'' but did everything wrong.
Working on behalf of an American pro-democracy group, the former student leader of the Czech Velvet Revolution knocked on a Cuban dissident's door and sat down to chat -- then spent the night in a hotel in the same Ciego de Avila town. He was quickly picked up by Cuban authorities and jailed for more than three weeks.
``Nobody ever told me to look over my shoulder,'' Bubenik said in a telephone interview from Prague. ``They sent us like lambs to the slaughterhouse.''
Bubenik's 2001 arrest was the last time a pro-democracy activist on assignment for an American organization was detained for more than a few days in Cuba -- until a subcontractor was arrested Dec. 5 for reportedly distributing U.S.-funded laptops and mobile phones.
The cases underscore the danger democracy groups and humanitarian organizations face distributing aid and democracy materials in Cuba, where anything as benign as doling out church donations is illegal. But the clandestine voyages are carried out regularly by scores of travelers, armed with tourist visas and secret missions, who set out to dupe one of the best intelligence services in the world.
I would be remiss if I did not address the associated argument used by embargo opponents, which states that denying Americans the ability to travel to Cuba is unconstitutional. Americans are free to travel to North Korea, Iran, Burma, and other dictatorships, they say, so they should also be allowed to visit Cuba.
On the surface, the argument comes across as a strong one, but like the "American tourist" argument, it is based solely on emotion. If the goal is to promote democracy in Cuba, a simple question exposes this argument for the farce that it is:
How much success have American tourists had in bringing democracy to these countries?
What was that? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, can you repeat your answer?
Yeah, that's what I thought... none.
The most interesting (and distressing) thing one notices when analyzing this argument is that its users are fully aware that it is nothing more than empty rhetoric. It makes one wonder what their true motives are.
How about a compromise ???
Americans can travel there ... they just can't come back
Mr. Mojito -
Like your idea idea. Full disclosure: Will suggest it to those who brag that visiting Cuba by some political alchemy will make cagasstro nice.
It won't.
They wanna go there, sing bag-man's praises? They oughta stay there & do it up close, feel the love rather than from up here where they go on and on and on about their DGI-escorted 'stooge tour' of the island gulag.
What'd this guy, there, Bubenik, think'd happen? He'd take a run down Cuba, chat up dissidents, and what them zany DGI guys would show up dressed in Huckleberry Hound costumes and hand everybody chocolate Hoodsies and twenny dollar bills?
This guy realize where he was going? He endangered himself and everyone with whom he had contact on the island.
While back, this Canadian visits Cuba. He brings a small portable radio to tune Cuban AM stations and tell his fellow radio listeners up here what he heard.
In America, people do that alla time. In Cuba? Big secret.
So big, them zany, fun loving DGI guys grab this guy, keep his radio, and kic him loose only after several terrifying days.
This guy had visited Cuba in the past many times, but said he'd never get near the place again after being roughed up & held by cagasstro's goons.
Visiting Cuba will make fido nice. Yeah. Right.
Just like sharing a box of Good 'n Plenty's with a rattlesnake will make him nice.
Talk about studies in naivete.
Paul Vincent Zecchino
Manasoviet Key, Florida
18 December, 2009
Mr. Mojito,
I’ll apply the same logic to the exiles going to Cuba now.
Leave them there if they like Cuba so much as they should have never come to America.
Ditto on the above. Why should we apply a standard for Americans that we can't apply to our own. Alberto makes a logical leap in knocking off the "Americans should be free to travel" argument. The "promote democracy in Cuba" and the "Americans should be free to travel" arguments are really two different ones. I'm sure Orbitz isn't dumping money into a campaign for travel to Cuba because it is concerned for the man on the street in Cuba. I don't really like the idea of lifting the ban by itself - I can't think of anything that we do that would please the regime more. Tourist are ideal revenue sources for the regime - their only demands are safety, low cost, sun and fun. Easy money for Castro Inc.
I disagree with you Cardinal. I don't believe my logic made any "leaps" whatsoever when I compared both arguments. I did not say the arguments were the same, only related.
My point, which you seem to have missed, is that just because Americans are free to travel to a country with a dictatorship, it does not mean that their presence there will help the citizens of that country achieve freedom. At this moment, you have opponents of the embargo using both of these arguments simultaneously to achieve a relaxation of the travel restrictions to Cuba. Therefore, whether they like it or not, both arguments become entwined, including the faults behind them.
some do use the argument but some don't - I agree that the former is lame and honestly, the latter doesn't mean spit to me, but makes sense. As Horace Greeley once said of Democrats - "I'm not saying that all Democrats are saloon keepers, I'm just saying that all saloon keepers are Democrats." Not every travel ban opponent uses the freedom for Cuba bit but all of those that believe American tourists will free Cuba are obviously opposed to the ban.
I think the title of my post, Cardinal, makes clear who I was referring to in regards to those arguments. Nevertheless, the saloon keepers anecdote is priceless.
Mr. de la Cruz makes a good point in saying that American tourists have just as unlikely chance of democratizing Cuba as visitors from other countries. I have not been to Cuba, but from friends and colleagues of mine who have gone there it seems that it is not the type of visitor who goes, it's the environment they find there that can determine whether the visitor will have an impact. Cuba's controlled political atmosphere and the fact that the government keeps everyone under its thumb, economically speaking as well as through civil rights repression, means that no matter who visits there won't be a liberalization. That could mean the Pope, leaders of multilateral institutions, etc. could visit and no improvement may occur. Perhaps some will disagree, but that's the impression I get from friends and colleagues. For those of you who want yet another unhappy account of life in Cuba, please visit this blog entry written by a friend who went to Cuba for 10 days this November:
http://www.freemarketeros.com/Site/Blog/Entries/2009/12/19_No_Goals_in_Cuban_Life.html
Keep up the great work at Babalublog.
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