What normalizing ties with Cuba means for America
OPINION Cuba has never quite fit into the American diplomatic conscience in the assuring sense that many patriots would expect of a banana republic. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, Cuba was briefly administered by the United States until 1902 when the former Spanish colony gained nominal independence and began a half-century history as a fragile republic. Since then it has existed as an island 90 miles off the Florida coast, a bastion of casino life, with ties to Mafiosi, communists, rebels, outlaws and virtually anything could be thrown into the face of a morally uptight Pilgrim-born America that historically has had difficulty accepting life except on its terms. SEE ALSO: US-Cuba relations after President Obamas speech But that America began dying in the cultural revolution of the 1960s and continues withering out to this day when the pop, social, demographic fabric of our nation bears little resemblance to what it was half a century ago when the arrival of Fidel Castro made Cuba the face of this nation’s worst Cold War fears. Cuba became our whipping boy, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the normalizing of U.S. relations with China. It also became the U.S.s dirty little secret, not the least of it being the Guantanamo Bay detention camp which now stands as a symbol of prisoner torture that is trying this countrys sense of decency. Moreover, there is no proof that the U.S. has ever tried to assassinate the detested North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un other than the fictitous plot in the controversial new film The Interview — but there are Congressional volumes documenting American failed attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, from exploding cigars to poisoned diving suits. That is how neurotic U.S. relations with Cuba have been. As President Obama said Wednesday, the establishment of full relations with Cuba is an admission of the failure of the countrys rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born. Surely, there will be a hue and cry over the action from those who confuse the perceived threat to their outdated outlook on the world to an actual danger to the U.S. from Cuba, which no longer exits, assuming it ever did beyond the minds of some holding on to the past. Normalizing relations with Cuba may not only be the biggest international development for the U.S. since doing the same with China but also perhaps the most important positive development between the U.S. and a Latin nation ever. SEE ALSO: Obama says its time for a new approach on Cuba Much has been made about how Cuba has been a country frozen in time, largely because of outdated technology and streets crowded with American automobiles from the 1950s. But in a sense, the U.S. mindset has also stood still not only with how it regarded Cuba but in how it failed to understand a small, independent Latin nation unwilling to bend to the arbitrary authority and wishes of a xenophobic America that has wanted its hemispheric neighbors to exist only in its footsteps. This ending of a Cold War-era standoff, then, is a positive step showing that America is no longer afraid of accepting a relationship if not a friendship with close neighbors who think and believe differently that we do. With any hope or luck, this may even pass on to those within America itself.The post What normalizing ties with Cuba means for America appeared first on Voxxi.
OPINION
Cuba has never quite fit into the American diplomatic conscience in the assuring sense that many patriots would expect of a banana republic.
After the Spanish-American War of 1898, Cuba was briefly administered by the United States until 1902 when the former Spanish colony gained nominal independence and began a half-century history as a fragile republic.
Since then it has existed as an island 90 miles off the Florida coast, a bastion of casino life, with ties to Mafiosi, communists, rebels, outlaws and virtually anything could be thrown into the face of a morally uptight Pilgrim-born America that historically has had difficulty accepting life except on its terms.
SEE ALSO: US-Cuba relations after President Obamas speech
But that America began dying in the cultural revolution of the 1960s and continues withering out to this day when the pop, social, demographic fabric of our nation bears little resemblance to what it was half a century ago when the arrival of Fidel Castro made Cuba the face of this nation’s worst Cold War fears.
Cuba became our whipping boy, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the normalizing of U.S. relations with China. It also became the U.S.s dirty little secret, not the least of it being the Guantanamo Bay detention camp which now stands as a symbol of prisoner torture that is trying this countrys sense of decency.
Moreover, there is no proof that the U.S. has ever tried to assassinate the detested North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un other than the fictitous plot in the controversial new film The Interview — but there are Congressional volumes documenting American failed attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, from exploding cigars to poisoned diving suits.
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That is how neurotic U.S. relations with Cuba have been.
As President Obama said Wednesday, the establishment of full relations with Cuba is an admission of the failure of the countrys rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.
Surely, there will be a hue and cry over the action from those who confuse the perceived threat to their outdated outlook on the world to an actual danger to the U.S. from Cuba, which no longer exits, assuming it ever did beyond the minds of some holding on to the past.
Normalizing relations with Cuba may not only be the biggest international development for the U.S. since doing the same with China but also perhaps the most important positive development between the U.S. and a Latin nation ever.
SEE ALSO: Obama says its time for a new approach on Cuba
Much has been made about how Cuba has been a country frozen in time, largely because of outdated technology and streets crowded with American automobiles from the 1950s.
But in a sense, the U.S. mindset has also stood still not only with how it regarded Cuba but in how it failed to understand a small, independent Latin nation unwilling to bend to the arbitrary authority and wishes of a xenophobic America that has wanted its hemispheric neighbors to exist only in its footsteps.
This ending of a Cold War-era standoff, then, is a positive step showing that America is no longer afraid of accepting a relationship if not a friendship with close neighbors who think and believe differently that we do.
With any hope or luck, this may even pass on to those within America itself.
The post What normalizing ties with Cuba means for America appeared first on Voxxi.
