It recently struck me that there is a certain logic behind the seemingly senseless handling of Castro, Inc. by practically the whole world (and I don’t mean the likes of China and Russia, which would of course support one of their own). There may be exceptions, but by definition, they’re a minority (and even the US is not that much of an exception).
Obviously, this is nothing new, and the fact it’s been going on so long adds to the sensation of senselessness, since by now the “revolution” is a decrepit, geriatric scam which has miserably failed to deliver on its promises and has destroyed Cuba (not to mention far richer Venezuela). Yet, the world’s attitude remains essentially the same — not simply indifference or tolerance, but formal acceptance, enabling support, implicit preference for the Castro era over republican Cuba, and unfailing awe over “free” health care and so-called education.
Clearly, ignorance is no longer a plausible excuse, assuming it ever was, and at this point, the idea that the world doesn’t know the truth is both risible and indecent. There are multiple factors at work, but what may be the key concept is devastatingly logical, certainly from an alien perspective: Cuba is as it should be, and its people are where and how they belong. If one believes that, then there is no real problem with the status quo.
The reasoning, conscious or not, acknowledged or not, goes something like this:
“It’s just a Caribbean island, fertile enough but hardly a gold mine, and even much bigger and richer Latin countries have all sorts of serious dysfunction. Why shouldn’t Cuba be like Haiti or Nicaragua? Why wouldn’t it be a third-world dystopia? Why on earth would it have its act any more together than, say, Mexico? Because those people, as opposed to authentic Cubans on the island, think they’re different or better than Latinos? Because they presume to be first-world material? Because many of them claim to be white instead of brown? Please. We’re all superior adults here, and we shouldn’t countenance such puerile delusions. The situation in Cuba is natural, not to say normal.”
See how simple it is, not to mention convenient? Who needs moral or ethical dilemmas, especially when they’re moot? Why shouldn’t Cuba be there for the benefit and gratification of its foreign betters? You know, like Canadians, no matter how cretinous, and even the most cringe-worthy Brit twits. Why shouldn’t Spain indulge its neocolonialist fantasies? Why should Latrines be ridiculously and embarrassingly outperformed as they once were by one of their own? That was an aberration, surely, and somebody had to put things in their proper place. Because that’s all El Comandante did, really: restore natural order.
So, you can all relax and rest easy now. The world is not insane or irrational. There is a logical explanation, whose various components (bigotry, prejudice, stupidity, arrogance, conceit, political bias, greed, opportunism, self-seeking, etc.) all fit very neatly into one overarching condition — what some would call perversity, but Cubans call HIJEPUTEZ.