As documented with a video clip here, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO) referred to Cuba this week during a public press conference. He said he is an idealist but admires men who exercise power, such as Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara (to the applause of his audience). He noted that young people prefer Che for reasons of idealism, but that Fidel Castro was the driving force behind Cuba’s “process of independence,” and added that Cuba was an example, “one of the few countries in the world which has not permitted foreign intervention.”
Evidently, the 30 years of Soviet intervention in Cuba conveniently slipped his mind.
I had not heard him speak before, and just the way he talks, even apart from what he was saying, made a very bad impression. He struck me as a greasy, possibly inebriated and corrupt demagogue, and by corrupt I mean corrupted in his thinking and perception. I was also struck by the “Cuba is an example” bit, obviously meaning a role model to follow–which immediately reminded me of Pope Francis saying “Cuba is a symbol,” also apparently meant admiringly.
Of course, this is nothing new or surprising for AMLO, Mexico or “Latins” in general. Needless to say, he took the side of Cuba’s dictatorship immediately after the 11J protests on the island, blaming Trump and the “blockade” (which he says is a kind of genocide), and he continues to play footsie with Havana — including buying Cuba’s dubious Covid vaccine, still lacking approval by the WHO, for Mexicans. Evidently, ideology and politics trump even public safety.
It’s very simple: people like AMLO, who is more or less the norm among “Latins,” are and have long been part of the problem when it comes to Cuba’s tragedy and misery. They are not all as explicit (read obnoxious) about it as he is, but the result is the same. Such people are quite alien to Cubans who want their country rid of totalitarian tyranny so it can recover from over 60 years of degeneration and destruction.
In other words, we are not of the “Latin” species and should not accept that designation, which is both offensive and demeaning. We are Cubans, period, which already carries plenty of baggage, and we don’t need other people’s.