I watched the first part of the movie Che tonight. It was about Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s involvement in the Cuban revolution that over threw the government of Fulgencio Batista. The Cuban revolution became part of the cold war because of the support it received from the Soviet Union. As a result Americans have received a lot of misinformation on the causes of the revolution. Cuba was a classic example of why revolutions happen. Like the Vietnam war it had little to do with Democracy/capitalism VS Communism. A vast majority of the Cuban people were suffering. The government was incredibly corrupt, the country was essentially run by organized crime from the United States and and the top one percent held most of the wealth. It should be noted that much of that privileged one percent ended up in Miami and has controlled our policy towards Cuba for decades, Needless to say the situation in Cuba was a formula for revolution. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara came from Argentina to join forces with Fidel Castro to over through the Batista dictatorship and was successful.
I think it’s important that we understand the causes of the revolution in Cuba to better understand what is going on in the rest of the world today. The Arab spring was not the result of religion but a privileged oligarchy, unemployment and poverty. Not unlike Cuba in the late 50s. We should also learn that our Cuban policy has been counter productive and keep that in mind when we react in the future.