Geography Archives: Cuba

Cuba is a small country. But because it became in 1959 the first country in the Western hemisphere to thoroughly break with U.S. domination, and embark on a path of national independence, events concerning Cuba have a geopolitical significance many times greater than its size. Present events show that this continues to be the case.

Cuba’s anti-imperial foreign policy helped end apartheid in South Africa and sustain liberation movements worldwide. Historian Piero Gleijeses says that’s one of the main reasons why the US has terrorized the island nation through today. 

Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua all demonstrate what a society can do when it embraces a centralized system, people over profit, and solidarity. Not only are citizens protected, but the will to fight against threats like COVID-19 is all the stronger when nations are united behind a popular and radical project.

In honor of Fidel Castro’s birthday, Vijay Prashad writes about his legacy for the peoples of the Third World and his clarity in raising the primary crises facing humanity.

Only “niggers” have the right to employ the example of George Floyd to fight oppression.   And, “there are no niggers in Cuba!”  So proclaimed someone who identified himself as a “nigger” to a group of us at George Floyd Square on Saturday afternoon, July 31.

A broad representation of Cuban scientists will address a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden evidencing Cuba’s scientific and political capacity to face Covid-19, in an altruistic manner, despite the limitations of the U.S. blockade.

The dog-whistle calls of “Freedom for Cuba” that reverberated round the world on 11 July, emanating from a mix of forces in Cuba, which were carefully manipulated and crafted by the CIA and U.S. anti-Cuban forces abroad, shed a great deal of light not only on U.S. foreign policy hypocrisy but on left-wing hypocrisy and impotence, both here in Ireland and elsewhere.

Cuba only needs around 30 million syringes to vaccinate its entire population–that is a million dollars. This is a tiny sum for the countries, either together or even individually, which oppose the blockade of Cuba.

Painting itself as a grassroots collective of artists fighting for freedom of expression, the San Isidro Movement has become a key weapon in the U.S. government’s assault on the Cuban revolution.

Today with the height of imperial arrogance and hubris, the U.S. State Department issued a joint statement to further its plans to destroy Cuba and all the gains it has made in health, education and welfare.

On 23 July 2021, a full-page appeal appeared in the New York Times calling on United States President Joe Biden to withdraw the vindictive U.S. blockade against Cuba.

On July 22, U.S. President Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris released a “fact sheet” on U.S. “measures” against Cuba. The release from the White House said that Cuba was a “top priority for the Biden-Harris administration.”

Don’t believe everything you read on social media.

The disturbances in Cuba were marked by unprecedented violence and vandalism, jeopardizing the lives of hundreds of Cubans, including peaceful demonstrators and revolutionaries who took to the streets in response.

The current Black-centered Cuban protest operation is very well orchestrated and if Black people in this country are not careful, they will end up amplifying the dictates of U.S. imperialism.

Four days after Moïse’s assassination, Cuba experienced a set of protests from people expressing their frustration with shortages of goods and a recent spike of COVID-19 infections.

The United States was never satisfied with having lost the Cuba subjected to its ambitions. Therefore, shortly after the victory of the guerrillas of the Sierra Maestra, they tried to invade the island with mercenary troops. They were defeated in April 1961. The following year, President Kennedy decreed the blockade of Cuba, which continues to this day.

While there are plenty of reasons for ordinary Cubans to currently feel disenchanted about life on the island, there are also strong suspicions that these protests were not quite the grassroots uprising they were made out to be in the U.S. press.

In his Twitter account @jaarreaza, Minister Arreaza wrote, “Another characteristic of the international incitement of aggression against #Cuba. Imperialism is clumsy enough to leave traces of its misdeeds.”

The U.S. government can cause economic misery for the Cuban people, but it cannot, it appears, convince them to overthrow their government.