“Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” were the progressive slogans of the bourgeois French Revolution. Capitalism cannot deliver on those promises, because it needs inequality as a fundamental condition for its existence, since it is based on exploitation. It needs inequality amongst the people within a country and inequality amongst nations, and imperialism is a mechanism to maintain this inequality.
The US policies of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), Manifest Destiny (1845) and Roosevelt Corollary (1904) treated the Western hemisphere as the US backyard and considered any interference in the region as a declaration of war against the US.
The struggle of Cuba against imperialism is a fight between David and Goliath. The strategy of isolating Cuba started in 1961 through embargo and elimination of Cuba from the Organisation of American States (OAS), of which Cuba was a founder when it was formed in 1948. In spite of all the measures against her, Cuba not just survived but thrived by becoming a model of sustained development, reflected in enviable human development indices in healthcare and education, infant mortality, life expectancy and homelessness.
These achievements, in spite of the US attack, are the reason behind the people’s determined defence against counter-revolution. It is this model—where growth is distributed to all—that the US wants to destroy, so that no other country dares to show defiance and pursue an independent trajectory. The Haitian Revolution (1804) was a threat to the earlier system of slavery in the US; Cuba is a threat to capitalism if it is allowed to flourish.
It is not a secret that US democracy is a choice between two parties with one policy. The evidence lies in the sadistic approach both Democrats and Republicans have towards Cuba. The Torricelli Act (1992) passed by Bush and the Helms-Burton Act (1996) passed by Clinton were enacted when Cuba was at its weakest in the Special Period (1991–2000), after the Soviet Union was dismantled. The Torricelli Act was designed to control Cuban trade, prohibiting American firms from trading with Cuba. The Helms-Burton Act not only prevented US firms from trading, but went a step further and sanctioned other countries from entering into trade with Cuba. This law allowed any firm to be sued in US courts for trade with Cuba, and it was opposed by many countries because it was an extraterritorial application of US law, which violated international law.
These laws were a prelude to the sadistic steps taken later by Trump, who portrayed Cuba-Venezuela-Nicaragua as the “axis of evil” and believed that if the revolution in Cuba cannot be defeated, she should be annihilated.
The UN resolution of 1992 to lift the Cuban embargo was voted for with an overwhelming majority. In recent years, between 2017 and 2022, the US and Israel voted against it (Brazil voted against in 2019). But the US, which is an “apostle” of democracy, refuses to let Cuba breathe. Cuba is a shining example of valiant fight by the people to protect the revolution. In 1991, in the National Assembly, Fidel Castro asked the question: “What can be expected of us? That we capitulate, run down our flags, surrender, abandon the struggle?”—to which he got the answer “NEVER”. That was the anti-imperialist spirit that Cuba has maintained all along.
As Vijay Prashad mentioned in one of his articles, the people who desire a counter-revolution in Cuba are the ones who hate her for the hope it gives to the third world countries; the defiance it shows against imperialism; the gusanos—or worms—whose property was confiscated and who fled Cuba after the revolution. These parasitic classes formed the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), which was modelled on AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee); both work for the Republican Party.
Latin America has been the laboratory to test neoliberalism. After the coup in Chile in 1973, the “Chicago Boys” trained by Milton Friedman implemented neoliberalism, resulting in disaster. With the failure of neoliberalism and capitalism in a systemic crisis, the old method of colonial exploitation is being revived, and that is demonstrated in the Middle East by the Zionist plan to create Greater Israel.
This is the reason that the US is trying to undermine all international institutions like the UN, and eradicate the rules-based order which is no longer suitable. It is under these circumstances that Cuba needs to be protected, because to protect the dream of a better world is our obligation to future generations.
