It's quite revealing when leaders of the Cuban-American community speak
of their desire to "restore" democracy to Cuba.
Democracy has never existed in Cuba. That nation went, essentially, from
being a Spanish colony, to a succession of right wing dictatorships, to
Castro.
One might argue that these Cuban-American leaders are using the word
"restore" loosely, really meaning "establish."
I think not. Their word choice reflects their real aspirations.
They do want to restore something in Cuba: their prior positions
of privilege, wealth and power as supporters of the dictator Batista.
To them, that's what "democracy" must mean.
Because they certainly don't know what democracy means to the rest of the
world.
Most tellingly, they clearly do not believe in free speech, since they
have largely succeeded in silencing, through threats and actual violence,
any members of their community who have dared to challenge their leadership
policies.
Even such innocuous activities as bringing Cuban singers or dancers to
this country to perform were thwarted for many years by the threats of
violence coming from, or with the blessing of, the Cuban-American
leadership.
During the Elian Gonzalez brouhaha, the Cuban-American community was most
openly revealed to be intolerant, violent, and led by irrational,
consumed-by-hatred demagogues.
It is quite frightening to contemplate what type of "democracy"
they would subject the people of Cuba to were these Cuban-American leaders
ever to regain power there.
