Should We Criticize Mandela?

Should We Criticize Mandela?
May 15, 2013
Alfredo Fernández

HAVANA TIMES — A well-known episode in contemporary history is the fact
that, when the government of South Africa established the apartheid
regime, former South African president Nelson Mandela, then a civil
rights activist, personally asked the United States to impose an
economic blockade on the country in order to hasten the collapse of a
government where 12.2 % of the population – the whites, or Boers, as
they were also known – trampled on the most elementary rights of all
other citizens with impunity.

Some days ago, we saw a heated debate about the petition that a number
of renowned Cuban dissidents have made to the US government, calling for
hardline measures that would bring about the economic collapse of the
country and thus definitively remove the Castro brothers from power.

What supporters of the Castro government see as a blockade, detractors
see as a mere embargo, for the Cuban government is able to trade with
all other countries around the world and even import over a hundred
products from the United States itself (provided it pay cash).

The tired debate over the lifting or preservation of the economic
blockade imposed on Cuba has traditionally been the most sensitive topic
handled by Cuban dissidents, where two emblematic figures – Ladies in
White leader Berta Soler and blogger Yoani Sanchez – maintain
diametrically opposed positions on the matter.

Soler believes the lifting the blockade would mean conceding defeat and
granting an unmerited political victory to the Castro government, which
would, in no way, put an end to the abuses perpetrated against the
opposition.

Sanchez, on the other hand, sees the suppression of the blockade as an
opportunity to deprive the Cuban government of the arguments it has long
used to justify the inefficiency and dysfunctionality inherent to the
system.

The repercussions that Berta Soler's petition to the US government had
in different on-line media dealing with Cuba-related issues are what
have prompted me to write this post.

Soler, who asked for a "firm hand against the Castros", met with a wide
spectrum of criticisms and praise, though accusations of being an
annexationist who has no political vision, is disloyal to her people and
acts as a CIA agent, were the most common.

The most notable argument used against Soler is that "the Cuban people,
in general, are opposed to the blockade."

Though this point is not be taken lightly, we could say, in Soler's
defense, that the Cuban people did not think twice before supporting the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, that it was responsible for
vigilante-style violence in the 80s, that it accepted the establishment
of the double-currency system (Cuba's economic apartheid), without
protesting, in 1993, and that, along with members of the Cuban Writers
and Artists Federation (UNEAC), it stood silent while 3 young men who
attempted to hijack a ferry were executed following summary trials and
75 government opponents were jailed for their activities.

If the above does not completely deprive the Cuban people of any moral
authority to opine about these matters, it does, at least, invite us to
exercise prudence when lending it an ear, particularly when we recall
that lucidity has not been one of the more outstanding qualities the
masses have shown in the course of history.

A bird's eye view of recent history would reveal the many opportunities
the Cuban government lost to help alleviate many of the hardships
endured by its population today.

Today, with or without the blockade, Cubans residing abroad could be
allowed to invest in the country, a measure that would help the
country's domestic economy, employing thousands of workers in
enterprises that, no doubt, would also offer better salaries than those
paid by the government.

Cubans residing abroad who have publicly expressed their differences
with the status quo and have been banned from the island could be
allowed to return to their country of origin.

All political prisoners could be released, as they do not constitute a
risk to Cuba's national security.

Successful farmers could be given ownership over new lands and expand
land leases, which thus far have not reduced food shortages in the
slightest. The population could also be given free and unrestricted
access to the Internet.

There is a long list of such measures that the tired US blockade does
not in any way impede implementing, save, perhaps, for the Castro
government's fear of losing its power. In a post-blockade Cuba, with the
doors of the world's most powerful nation flung wide open, such measures
will, in my view, prove next to impossible to hold back.

The petition to impose a blockade on South Africa's government was seen
by Mandela's compatriots (save the Boers, of course), as the
consummation of his political vision.

Today, Berta Soler, asking exactly the same for a government which, in
practice, imposes a very similar destiny on those who do not belong to
its political "race" (the monolithic Cuban Communist Party), has to face
accusations from all sides which put the legitimacy of her struggle in
question, from people who, apparently, have forgotten the difficult
roads the Ladies in White have traversed since 2003.

After seeing these two human rights activists make these requests with
the intention of improving their country's lot, and incurring such
different reactions, I cannot help but ask myself whether we should also
reprimand Mandela for demanding such measures for his own people.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=93107