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Drum: TRAVELS 97
This has had a heavy impact on the Cuban economy
and helps put into context the ramshackle state of
the Cuban infrastructure.
Cubans who wish to escape the depressing
conditions and shortages are further galvanised by
US policy which applies only to Cubans: that any
Cuban who successfully sets foot on US soil is
instantly granted full and automatic US citizenship.
It is therefore no surprise that many of the island’s
citizens harbour the ambition to abscond to the
United States. Norma Guillard, a clinical Psychologist
said: “Many people go away thinking that they will
the developed world, remains an embarrassment to
the US government, which is fearful that the
socialist example may contaminate the rest of Latin
America, signs of which are now becoming evident
in Bolivia, Venezuela and Uruguay.
From the Bay of Pigs invasion to the grotesque
public exhibition of the Elian Gonzales charade, the
Western media has succeeded in presenting a public
image of a Cuban society oppressed and destitute at
the hands of a merciless dictator. Western
propaganda has sought to saturate the public’s
minds with the ideal of a single solution in the
“ Western media has succeeded in presenting a public image of a Cuban society
oppressed and destitute at the hands of a merciless dictator. Western propaganda
has sought to saturate the public’s minds with the ideal of a single solution”
find paradise in other places, leaving behind what
they have here and later wanting to return because
they find out that the paradise is not what they had
imagined and that there is a lot of propaganda about
the imagined paradise.”
Cuba’s continued resistance against the world’s only
superpower has defied all the pundits’ predictions. It
is a phenomenon as to how under such conditions
Cuba has managed to sustain its sovereignty and
not succumb earlier to the demands of global
conglomerates and corporations, which have been
hovering over the island’s decaying carcass for
almost half a century, anticipating its final breath.
Cuba’s ability to sustain its population, fed, housed
and educated, with a free health system the envy of
forced spread of democracy. Given the image the
West has been spoon-fed about this isolated
Caribbean island for the past half century, it is easy
for the people of the west to view Cuban society as
a lost cause without considering the responsibility of
the US and other western governments for the
continual oppression of the Island. Hasta Siempre is
a documentary which through the eyes of the
ordinary Cuban seeks to examine the underlying
causes behind the current economic and social crisis
and dares to ask the million dollar question: Will the
revolution survive tomorrow?
Hasta Siempre will be screened at the Tricycle Cinema, Kilburn
High Road, London NW6 on 9 September 2005 at 7.00 pm. For
ticket details, call Rice ‘n’ Peas Films on: 020 7243 9191 or the
Tricycle Box Office on 020 7328 1000.