Is Justin Trudeau totally clueless about Castro’s Cuba?

[Blackleaf]

It’s unclear whether Trudeau is ignorant or indifferent to the fact that mourning is the only expression allowed for ‘the people of Cuba’ at the moment. In real Havana and across the Caribbean island, the regime has imposed a nine-day period of official grieving. That means no jokes, no celebrations, no public displays of any kind save for the official funeral and other state-organised events. Alcohol sales are currently banned in both restaurants and shops...

Coffee House

Is Justin Trudeau totally clueless about Castro’s Cuba?

Anne Jolis

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Getty)

Anne Jolis
28 November 2016
The Spectator

In Miami’s Little Havana, champagne fizzed all weekend. Meanwhile, the rest of us in the free world amused ourselves comparing the barmiest political reactions to the death of Fidel Castro. Jeremy Corbyn is strong in the running for the ‘Despot Hagiography Award’, though top honours must go to the national statesmen remembering a tyrant as a saint.

‘A giant among global leaders,’ Irish President Michael D Higgins gushed, ‘whose view was not only one of freedom for his people but for all of the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet.’ His statement went on to praise Cuba’s health system as ‘one of the most admired in the world’. Yes, the same one where patients reportedly must bring their own sheets, pillows and medicine to hospital and where, Andrew Roberts notes, ‘doctors earned more moonlighting as tourist guides’.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Corbyn a run for his money in his tribute, in which he highlighted his family ties with the ‘controversial figure’:

I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.

On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.

His statement has sparked a diverting game on Twitter, #TrudeauEulogies:

@MelissaLantsman ‘Mr. Stalin’s greatest achievement was his eradication of obesity in the Ukraine through innovative agricultural reforms #TrudeauEulogies’

@FowlCanuck ‘Today we mourn painter and animal rights activist, Adolf Hitler. His death also highlights the need for suicide awareness #TrudeauEulogies’

‏@SohrabAhmari ‘Though he didn’t shy away from controversy Pharaoh will be remembered for enhancing labour productivity in Egypt #TrudeauEulogies’

It’s unclear whether Trudeau is ignorant or indifferent to the fact that mourning is the only expression allowed for ‘the people of Cuba’ at the moment. In real Havana and across the Caribbean island, the regime has imposed a nine-day period of official grieving. That means no jokes, no celebrations, no public displays of any kind save for the official funeral and other state-organised events. Alcohol sales are currently banned in both restaurants and shops. And in ‘non-tourist neighbourhoods,’ according to 14yMedio, the streets are empty:

There are no old people reselling cigars, people queuing for the newspaper, comadres talking on the corner, children running along the sidewalk. It’s as if there was an unspoken agreement to stay inside the house until you see what happens.

Irish President Michael D Higgins

Not for everyone, mind you. Cuba’s ‘Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas’, the Communist Youth league, dispatched themselves in convoys around Havana to ‘reaffirm their adherence to Fidel Castro,’ 14yMedia reports. Meanwhile, the state began a round-up of democracy activists and rights campaigners, according to the US-based Centre for a Free Cuba. In its email to supporters, the centre adds that ‘relatives are told to remain indoors or they will also be arrested’. The detainees include artist Danilo Maldonado, known as ‘El Sexto,’ who spent ten months in prison after spraying ‘Fidel’ and ‘Raúl’ on a pair of pigs in 2014. He was arrested again on Saturday, ‘after painting several graffiti related to Castro’s death,’ per 14yMedia. ‘His whereabouts are unknown, according to relatives close to the artist.’

This blog keeps citing 14yMedio, by the way, because it’s the only digital media outlet in Cuba that is not controlled by the state. The organisation, launched in 2014, has no office to raid. Reporters upload their stories using wifi at hotels and public hotspots. Even so, most Cubans can’t see their coverage: internet access remains illegal in private homes and the 14yMedio site is restricted at state-run cybercafes.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

Little wonder, as the site reports, that Cubans are burning up their telephones ‘seeking truthful information’. For all the empty streets, Cuban phones have been ringing off the hook. The island’s most-repeated telephonic phrase over the weekend, according to 14yMedio, is ‘¿Esta vez es verdad?’ – or ‘Is it true this time?’. On her personal blog, Havana-based artist Rebeca Monzo Mieres says she’s heard word of government officials ‘visiting the premises of private rental rooms to find out if, among the guests, there are any journalists lodging.’

Outside of Cuba, the likes of Higgins, Trudeau and Corbyn have no excuse for their cluelessness. Martin Bright wonders how many Labour voters ‘will be ripping up their membership cards after Corbyn’s comments on Fidel Castro.’ More than a few, one hopes, lest Corbyn ever have the opportunity to embarrass Britain as badly as Higgins and Trudeau have Ireland and Canada.

Is Justin Trudeau totally clueless about Castro's Cuba? | Coffee House

 

[Machjo]

Trudeau might have been trying to be diplomatic. Fair enough. But he could have toned down the praise. For example, cut out the phrase 'on behalf of all Canadians.' Sure, highlight his legitimate accomplishments, but don't make the speech 'in behalf if all Cabadians.' Then, let Cubans interpret that as they list. If they take offence to the lack of making the speech in the name of all Canadians, tough.

I get being diplomatic, but there's a limit.

For example, when the North Korean president dirs, we could throw in some niceties like 'he might have loved some of his family members, and might even have soared some innocent lives from his wrath. For this we are thankful.'

 

[Mowich]

Trudeau's turn from cool to laughing stock

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Ever since his election as Canada’s Prime Minister last October, Justin Trudeau has revelled in global tributes, raves and swoons. He’s the Disney prince with the trippy dance moves, the groovy Haida tattoo and the gender-balanced cabinet. He’s the last best hope for globalization, the star attraction at the Pride parades, the hero of the Paris Climate Summit, the guy everyone wants a selfie with.
Trudeau made himself synonymous with Canada. He made Canada cool again. It was fun while it lasted.

By the early hours of Saturday morning, Havana time, Trudeau was an international laughingstock. Canada’s “brand,” so carefully constructed in Vogue photo essays and Economist magazine cover features, seemed to suddenly implode into a bonspiel of the vanities, with humiliating headlines streaming from the Washington Post to the Guardian, and from Huffington Post to USA Today.


It was Trudeau’s maudlin panegyric on the death of Fidel Castro that kicked it off, and there is a strangely operatic quality to the sequence of events that brings us to this juncture. When Trudeau made his public debut in fashionable society 16 years ago, with his “Je t’aime, papa!” encomium at the gala funeral of his father in Montreal, Fidel Castro himself was there among the celebrities, as an honorary pallbearer, lending a kind of radical frisson to the event. Now it’s all come full circle.

Times have changed, and the Trudeau family’s bonds with the Castro family, first cultivated while Pierre Trudeau was prime minister and carefully nurtured during the years that followed, now seem somehow unhygienic. Greasy, even. Definitely not cool.



And so, from far-off Antananarivo, Madagascar, where he was attending the 80-government gathering of La Francophonie, Trudeau’s lament for the last of the Cold War dictators ended up confirming every wicked caricature of his own vacuity and every lampoon of the Trudeau government’s foreign-policy lack of seriousness.

Twitter lit up with hilarious mockeries under the hashtag #trudeaueulogies. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wanted to know whether Trudeau’s statement came from a parody account. The impeccably liberal Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, called Trudeau’s praise of Castro “a sad statement for the leader of a democracy to make.”

More..........

Trudeau's turn from cool to laughing stock - Macleans.ca

 

[Blackleaf]

As for the Irish, they have form in this regards. The then Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Éamon de Valera was the only world leader, other than Japan's, to sign a book of condolence upon the death of Adolf Hitler. And Ireland's treatment of Jews during World War II was disgraceful.

 

[Machjo]

Had Trudeau intended to be polite due to intrafamily ties, which I can understand, he also had the option of expressing but the briefest of public ondolences to the people of Cuba and then a private one afterwards.

 

[DaSleeper]

Like an old penny, the shiny pony has "officially" dulled!

 

[MHz]

Former heads of State don't get much attention and why should they?

 

[Blackleaf]

Trudeau might have been trying to be diplomatic. Fair enough. But he could have toned down the praise. For example, cut out the phrase 'on behalf of all Canadians.' Sure, highlight his legitimate accomplishments, but don't make the speech 'in behalf if all Cabadians.' Then, let Cubans interpret that as they list. If they take offence to the lack of making the speech in the name of all Canadians, tough.

I get being diplomatic, but there's a limit.

For example, when the North Korean president dirs, we could throw in some niceties like 'he might have loved some of his family members, and might even have soared some innocent lives from his wrath. For this we are thankful.'

I don't know why politicians often think they should speak on behalf of everyone in their country.

 

[Machjo]

I don't know why politicians often think they should speak on behalf of everyone in their country.

If I were PM, I would never speak in the nanm of all Cabadians. I woukd speak in my name and, when appropriate (i.e. through an Act of Parliament), in the name of the government. Even if I sincerely believed the people of Canada would agree with me, I'd leave it up to them to confirm it and not presume that they agree.

 

[Blackleaf]

If I were PM, I would never speak in the nanm of all Cabadians. I woukd speak in my name and, when appropriate (i.e. through an Act of Parliament), in the name of the government. Even if I sincerely believed the people of Canada would agree with me, I'd leave it up to them to confirm it and not presume that they agree.

So would I.

65 million people (one for every year since the dinosaurs became extinct), so there's bound to be some loonies who disagree with my politics and views. And I don't want to speak for them.

 

[MHz]

Now that Cuba can be visited does that mean the snowgeese will end up there rather than Miami??

I don't know why politicians often think they should speak on behalf of everyone in their country.

That's ironic coming from a country that has a Government and a Monarchy

 

[Remington1]

It was embarrassing and made many Canadian ask: "What the F$#k was that"? I remember stopping at a bridge where a man was fishing (they fish with strings that they wrap around their palms, I've seen some pretty bad cuts, but rods & reels are out of the questions there); and he had caught a few lobsters. As I was buying the lobster from him, we saw a police car coming, he got pale and I'll never forget the look of terror, I gave him the money and he ran like a rabbit. I learned that fishing is only for the Castro's. One story, but Cuban's have many many stories about their control and total repression regime.

 

[MHz]

Now try the version where there were no sanctions against Cuba to the extent no companies from any nation could do any business with her. The US even stopped supplying spare parts for farm tractors so it is no wonder that manual labor became the only means to grow food.
Ignore that part and pretend Castro was responsible for all the hardships. Wow, too bad that is typical of what happens when liars are in charge of recording the history.

 

[Blackleaf]

That's ironic coming from a country that has a Government and a Monarchy

Much rather a constitutional monarchy than a republic.

 

[MHz]

Complacent rather than anxious in either case.

 

[EagleSmack]

Is Justin Trudeau totally clueless about Castro’s Cuba?

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/justin-trudeau-totally-clueless-castros-cuba/

In short... yes.

 

[Ludlow]

Now try the version where there were no sanctions against Cuba to the extent no companies from any nation could do any business with her. The US even stopped supplying spare parts for farm tractors so it is no wonder that manual labor became the only means to grow food.
Ignore that part and pretend Castro was responsible for all the hardships. Wow, too bad that is typical of what happens when liars are in charge of recording the history.

No you tell whoppers

 

[Mowich]

I don't know why politicians often think they should speak on behalf of everyone in their country.

I don't consider our PM to be speaking on behalf of everyone in the country, rather he speaks on behalf of the entire country.

 

[Machjo]

I don't consider our PM to be speaking on behalf of everyone in the country, rather he speaks on behalf of the entire country.

He speaks on behalf of the government if the state, so the Government if Canada, when he has the official backing of Parliament.

 

[Dixie Cup]

I think he does admire the Castros; look at what he stated about China - about how they are able to "get more things done". I believe he, like his father, admire dictators because they are in control and JT would like nothing better than to have that kind of control. Problem is we're a democracy so that kinda puts a kink on things.


JMHO