The Cuban Embargo as an Ideological Stand-in

The Cuban Embargo as an Ideological Stand-in
[11-06-2014 10:22:29]
José Azel
Investigador, Universidad de Miami

(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- As Poland struggled to establish a
democratic government, more than one hundred political parties competed
for personal and political power. Lech Walesa humorously captured the
situation by commenting, "When two Poles get together three political
parties emerge." That proportional proliferation of political ideas is
about the same for Cubans when discussing how to bring about a change in
Cuba's polity. U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba -specifically the U.S
embargo- is often the cornerstone of this debate.
Thematically, but unfortunately not qualitatively, the disagreement over
the embargo is not unlike the great debates on political philosophy
surrounding the American and French Revolutions exemplarily carried out
by Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. The Burke-Paine dispute is richly
explored by Yuval Levin in his book "The Great Debate."

Both Burke and Paine were men of ideas and of action. Burke was a
devoted defender of the inherited traditions of the English constitution
who argued brilliantly for a patient and gradual reform of his country's
institutions. In contrast, Paine fervently believed in the potential of
Enlightenment liberalism to advance the cause of justice by uprooting
corrupt and oppressive regimes and replacing them with governments
answerable to the people. As Levin brings out in his book, "Each voiced
a worldview deeply at odds with the other over some of the most
important questions of liberal-democratic political thought."

Up to recently, I have always thought of the embargo debate as a
disagreement over strategy; about differences over modes of political
change. On the one side, those of us that, like Paine, believe that in
order for Cuba to have a prosperous democratic future it s necessary to
replace that oppressive regime with a government answerable to the
people. On the other side those that, like Burke, believe that patient
and gradual reforms of the institutions of the Communist regime is the
best strategy to advance the wellbeing of the Cuban people.

Superficially, the embargo discussion may be a disagreement over
tactics, but it is a dispute rooted much more deeply in
political-economic thought, illustrating that the Cuban diaspora is not
one people in any meaningful political sense. To paraphrase Lech Walesa,
when two Cubans get together three political visions for Cuba emerge.

As critics of the embargo correctly point out, this policy has failed to
bring about a change in Cuba's polity; this is not disputed. But
critics, in an exercise in casuistry, never quite explain how their idea
of a unilateral, unconditional elimination of U.S. economic sanctions
will succeed in bringing about such a change. Perhaps because a
structural change in Cuba's polity is not a goal they value highly.

Also not to be disputed is the fact that under a totalitarian system,
where all economic activity is deemed to be at the service of the state,
economic sanctions work to diminish the economic resources available to
the regime. The U.S. embargo has accomplished that. Thus, a unilateral,
unconditional elimination of economic sanctions will inevitably enhance,
in some degree, the economic wherewithal of the Cuban regime. Why
support a change in policy that will strengthen a regime that oppresses
your countrymen?

Apparently, my friends on the other side of this debate are not
comprehensively repulsed by the collectivist policies of the Castro
regime. This is not to suggest that they support the Castros or the
repressive nature of that regime. I am sure they do not. But it does
suggest that at some level, and in some measure, they are intellectually
drawn to the pervasive use of the state's coercive power by
self-appointed wise men to drive society towards their preconceived idea
of a just society. It suggests an ideological genuflection to Cuban
collectivism.

Their political vision, like Burke's, is pious, gradualist, and
reformist. They are distrustful of a citizen's relationship to his
society that is defined by the individual right of free choice. They are
willing to accept economic changes mandated by authoritarian rule
without democratic reforms to empower the citizenry to freely choose
their path. This is abhorrent to those of us that, like Paine, believe
that the rights and freedoms of the individual must be the centerpiece
of political life. I have now come to believe that, among Cubans, the
embargo is just the ideological proxy for this more fundamental
political debate.

Source: The Cuban Embargo as an Ideological Stand-in - Misceláneas de
Cuba -
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/Article/Index/539811c53a682e0c28710d24#.U5g2OvmSwx4