Exacto!
Right on Annie!
I think personal beliefs are to be respected, especially when they can be supported and defended by solid reasoning, even if for someone else it is bonkers! it is our diffences that make us interesting!
What makes a hero for me, is somebody who has strong principles and is willing to stand up for those principles, defend and maintain them. The two people I named Korczak and Castro both did that. One died for his principles, the other would have died if it had been necessary to defend his country and people against invaders. For me that makes them both heroes. For others they may be an idealistic fool and yet another idealistic fool who they call a dictator. I only asked for choices and why, not all possible arguments against from others to begin with. They are, after all, personal choices as are beliefs in all other things.
So, what makes a hero? What are the measures we must apply to see if someone measures up?I am sure they are different for all of us but what are yours???
A) I did not use the words 'smart' or 'patronising', so read again carefully and do not place those on my doorstep. As for snide opinions about my political opinions, then there we have another 'pot calling the kettle black' experience. Admittedly, on the mission I was on (well three of us actually), we were specifically looking at the situation of children, and it was 200 odd colleagues in the group who did other things (women, medical provision, civil society and so on) and we were there only eight weeks, so it was a mere 2009 glance if one wishes. Bearing in mind, my backdrop at the time was several years of experience with NGOs in Viet Nam where the world sees similar propagandised nonsense about the country, China that is not actually very nice, plus several central Asian countries that were and remain totalitarian but the label has changed from commie to something else, the I went with apprehension. UN missions are not lead around by their noses to see what the government allows and have far more scope for looking at the situation than NGOs. As much as I respect and have had a great deal to do with Amnesty, they do not get into countries themselves and much the same for other NGOs (which I find lamentable anywhere, but then roughly 90 out of 193 countries do much the same). So what I saw then was many times better than many other places, people were not as unhappy as propaganda tends to say, education was first class, medical provision ditto and we met people in the street, priests in their parishes, teachers and children in schools and so on. About two-thirds of them were pro-regime and the others anti. Since we had no 'minders' with us, there were no problems for the anti-regime people who usually said they were known anyway.
B) Fine, the mobiles, now that has improved very much more since that report. What you say about the internal network seems to be right looking at the part of our report one of the mission wrote, in fact you could well have extracted it from that or whoever you are citing possibly did. Not verbatim, but close. On the other hand, the Internet information from February 2011 will tell one that the high speed cable link to Venezuela was completed that month, that capacity had increased enough to allow growth in the sector and the screened connection to Florida Keys that had held back wider use to government, hotels and approved internet cafés because of the capacity problems had been almost resolved. In fact, although I don't know anybody there, I just thought I might ask somebody in the USA who does and this morning I find from him a response in which he says that: 'Internet use is growing fast. The Cuban telephone network is still not capable of carrying large amounts of traffic but cable replacement and masts are gradually being put in place. The priorities are hospitals and schools. Private users still rely on the cafés'. In 2009 there was only the pre-blockade cable and negotiations with another company in the USA was being interfered in by their government. Both governments block it and went for the Venezuelan option.
Now lay the blame on Castro.
David you are quite strong in your negative opinions of the US and Americans and I don't understand where your hate is coming from. It is certainly your right to express your opinions but don't forget that there are two sides to every battle. America needed to be obsessed by Cuba as long as Russian nuclear arms on Cuban soil were a threat to us. Our relations are slowly improving so wish us luck and stop being a hate monger.
@Jane. Yes but had the US not been so obsessed with Cuba, part of which it occupies as a result of a trumped up war and an unfair treaty which to their credit the Cubans have honoured, though goodness knows why, insisting on punitive blockades and sanctions to appease the criminal Cuban elements in Florida and the Republicans maybe Cuba would be less concerned about maintaining its security.
Hardly a point about heroes, but name a genuinely free country without making me choke myself with laughter Jane!
@ Brian, hardly what you would call a free society though!
My great-grandmother (she was Vietnamese, born in Huê in 1904) used to say she should have been a Viêt Minh. I don't know how serious she was (she married a foreigner after all & various cousins were priests, she thought they were mad) she was v interesting about life in Vietnam... she told me a lot as I was sent off to stay with her in Nice for at least 1/2 the summer holidays & she didn't die until I was 31. My French family didn't live in France full-time until the early 50s.
Friday, 28 March 2008
Cubans are to be allowed unrestricted access to mobile phones for the first time, in the latest reform announced under new President Raul Castro.
In a statement in official newspaper Granma, state telecom monopoly ETECSA said it would offer mobile services to the public in the next few days.
Some Cubans already own mobile phones, but they have had to acquire them via a third party, often foreigners.
Cuba's rate of cell phone usage remains among the lowest in Latin America.
Now Cubans will be able to subscribe to pre-paid mobile services under their own names, instead of going through foreigners or in some cases their work places.
However, the new service must be paid for in foreign currency, which will restrict access to wealthier Cubans.
Reforms
ETECSA says the revenues will be used to fund telecommunications development in Cuba.
Two weeks ago, a ban on a wide range of consumer electrical appliances was lifted, after Raul Castro said in his inaugural speech as president that he would act to ease some of the restrictions on Cubans' daily lives.
Tight restrictions remain in place on internet access in homes and on foreign travel.
Raul, 76, was selected as president in February, after the retirement of his ailing older brother, Fidel.
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There is a corresponding Internet story from when restrictions were relaxed. Travel restrictions are also far less strict. Always be careful about the age of selective news snippets before being smart!!
Anyone who has anything to do with the Left is fully aware of the role of "useful idiots". Please don't be patronising Cate.
But then anything that is pink to any shade of red gets slammed by you Cate! Have a good day!
Interestingly, I have more deep respect for them both and their followers as well. Having worked in Viet Nam on and off for eight or nine years, I profoundly love and respect the country and what they went through under both colonial powers, which they were unquestionably. My colleague is part of the former royal family, her father an intellectual and overt royalist at that and yet they have never been 'persecuted', imprisoned or whatever. It is a generally open and tolerant society, which was one of Ho's legacies despite the bad guy commie image constructed to describe him by some who remain unnamed...
Ho Chi Minh and General Giap are also on my list but then I'm just showing my 60's prejudices. Must be careful though as Uncle Ho and the General stuffed the French as well as the Yankees.
Fair enough, why not?
After a quick glance at all the posts I see all the heroes are public figures, but it was a quick glance so forgive me if I am wrong!
My heroes tend to be more personal, my sister who is living with terminal cancer but gets up every day with a smile and sucks every last drop of joy from every day, my friend in Canada who has been her husbands nurse for 15 years despite his abusive behaviour, my mum who at 91, almost, lives on her own has no wish to do other wise, goes out every day does her own housework and gardening, these are the people who impress me, who despite the odds get up get on with and smie and occupy themselves with others, they may not change the world but I believe it takes courage and strength, I wish I were like them!!!!!
If Senate had played, Jimmy Carter could have ended the deadlock. Oh well, but then today there is release of info kept 'secret' and Thatcher wanted a settlement with Argentina over the Falklands/Malvinas. But then she revelled in 'her' victory.
As for human rights, and being in that business broadly speaking, I would like to see everybody allowed to see careful, objective analysis of their own countries. Please tell me that the USA has a good human rights record, so that I can defend myself by saying the UK is better. But I believe we both know that neither is an especially good example for the world, so let's quit there. If we do the rounds and try to decide Cuba, France, UK or USA as our sample for who has the best record then I think we would throw up our hands in horror and say we would rather look at another planet, this one is a terrible disappointment. For me Castro is a hero because of what he has always stood for and is still doing now in anything but the best of health. I do not like the notion of people in office for as long as he was and then a brother allocated the job, no ma'am I do not, but the man sought freedom for his people and had the USSR vs USA game been in the way, he might well have achieved it. Now those who dislike and oppose him read one version of history and other folk go to the other extreme and all but worship hi. I simply see the good he stood for, what he has done that is good, that there is bad but none of which is worse than anybody else is doing, and that he is still committed to world peace and the conservation of the environment, the latter he began in the late 1960s before being 'green' became fashionable. So, he has all of the qualities required for being a hero for me.
Life in Cuba is good and bad and home is always home. I'm sure that there are some Cubans who miss their home but there are also many Cubans who are happy to be in the US and send money home to their poverty stricken families The cold war in my eyes was equal. I grew up feeling that we were threatened by Russia. Cuba is only fifty miles away. I'm no political expert either. I don't have all of the details on Batista and James Ellroy's American Tabloid trilogy is too full of disjointed facts for me to make any sense of it. I wouldn't call either Kennedy nor Eisenhower heros. I agree that America has had it dark times during the McCarthy era and Hoover. I'm open to other peoples opinions but I can not sit quietly when I hear that Castro is a hero. Cuba is on the top of the list of countries where human rights are the least respected. It is still one of the most repressive gouvernments today where Journalists end up in prison for expressing their points of view. I'm happy to see that relations between Cuba and the US are improving. We're neighbors and we have much to share.... I'm speaking about culture and not finances.