My subject matter that I'd like to write about is the American Embargo Act against Cuba i.e. the history of Cuba within the past hundred years; history we as Americans have not heard because of the propaganda against Cuba and it's "terrible dictatorship'. Most people believe Fidel Castro to be a villain, on par with Saddam Hussein; truth be told, America is the villain, and Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara are heroes for Cuba because they are against imperialism. My field of study focuses on their lives.
America, during WWI and WWII, tried to gain control of Cuba for its sugar, hoping to establish a monopoly on the sugar market; they even allowed gangsters to station there to turn it into a Caribbean Las Vegas, in a sense, since records of politicians were seen conversing and making business with these gangsters (for example: JFK).
Guevera started off as a medical student about to finish his education when he and a friend took a trip down to South America on a motorcycle, in which he recorded his time down there in what is now called "The Motorcycle Diaries." While traveling the continent, Guevara discovered the injustice of imperialism firsthand when encounter impoverished workers, and after a stint in helping out leprosy patients, he reconsidered his stance in life, and eventually decided to be a revolutionary.
Castro started off as a lawyer in Cuba, but seeing the injustice done to his people, became a revolutionary and set up numerous attacks against the dictatorship of Batista setup in Cuba by America, and when captured, defended himself in court with a speech taking hours, ending with the line "History will absolve me." He was then sentenced to 15 years.
Castro did not serve his full time, and eventually fled Cuba to South America, and along with other revolutionaries, including Guevera, came back to Cuba, and through guerrilla warfare, eventually overthrew Batista.
Now, because Castro and Che were highly-intelligent leaders for the working class, propaganda in America labeled them as "communists" and "bad for America." America did so much to try and destroy their government, even going as far as attacking Cuba, an event known as "The Bay of Pigs". America was fought off, but Castro had to think about protecting his nation and so sided with the USSR, allowing them to station nuclear weapons in Cuba, which even lead to "The Cuban Missile Crisis." Since then, the CIA has done everything in its power to destroy and discredit Castro, whether that be assassination attempts, dosing him with acid during his speeches, or even something as silly as shaving off his beard. Castro survived because he stayed in Cuba; Che, however, being the revolutionary, decided to leave Cuba for good to help other countries and revolutionaries against imperialism, and sometime in the 70s was assassinated by the CIA, his dying words being “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
When the USSR collapsed in 1990, Castro allowed people to leave Cuba, but did so even before so, but Cuba has been holding on by a thread since then. My questions are: what is the point of continuing this embargo? What do we as America have to gain with this embargo? What can we do to rebuild the bridge with Cuba?
Before joining with the USSR, the embargo against Cuba
Excellent subject for your summer research. Since you already know quite a bit of background on this subject, you are in a position to do some in-depth research on the embargo. The first two questions you pose are quite interesting to me too, and learning the answers to them is well worth your effort.
ReplyDelete