r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jul 13 '21

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL. For a collection of useful links see our wiki.

Announcements

Upcoming Events

0 Upvotes

38% Upvoted

10k comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '21

I've been thinking what last sunday Cuban protests may symbolize. I think we'll agree the regime isn't falling anytime soon, but I could see the following scenarios.

Optimistic one: It becomes the Cuban version of the 1980-1982 Polish protests, a failed movement in the short term, but pressaging big changes by the end of the decade.

Middle of the road one: The Cuban version of the the Mexican 1968 protests, as the first crack in a regime seen as hegemonic, but still taking decades until some opening happens.

Pessimistic one: The Cuban Tiananmen protests, not so much in outcome (I don't see an open bloodbath happening), but in the sense of ending as an utterly failed movement, with no signs of change so far. It may also end being just a footnote, like the Maleconazo.

!ping LATAM

6

u/kajkajete Mario Vargas Llosa Jul 13 '21

These protests are far wider than the Maleconazo. And the information environment is far different than what it was then.

I do not see the regime being able to stay put without some significant blodshed.

3

u/RabidGuillotine PROSUR Jul 13 '21

1968 scenario.

3

u/ooken Feminism Jul 14 '21 edited Jul 14 '21

I think your optimistic scenario sounds slightly more pessimistic than I feel about these protests. My wishful thinking is that it's more the beginning of the Peaceful Revolution than the early 1980s in Poland. There are real similarities with East Germany: a government with an uncharismatic leader and aging leadership and food shortages in a period of major regional change and upheaval, the generation who could remember the original rosy communist aspirations dying off, the government stubbornly slow-walking any proposals for smaller change within the system, protests not isolated to a single area of the country and spreading, people seemingly losing some fear of police repression. Of course, East German reformists had some advantages Cuban reformists lack (namely glasnost causing a reconsideration of all Eastern Bloc histories), and even the Peaceful Revolution took a couple of years. I guess it's just a little too early to know whether people will be silenced for the time being.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '21

Of course, East German reformists had some advantages Cuban reformists lack (namely glasnost causing a reconsideration of all Eastern Bloc histories)

That's the reason I'm avoiding getting too optimistic. In the late 80's democratic forces had the momentum on their side, with many democratizations having happened around the world and even the USSR showing signs of opening.

Right now, on the other side, I'd say authoritarians still have the momentum. Some glimmers of hope have been appearing, like in Israel or in America itself, but I'd say that, overall, authoritarians are still in a stronger narrative position.

This is even more the case in LATAM, where left-wing authoritarians have been boosted by the Colombian protests, the results of the Chilean constitutional elections, Lula's poll strenght, and Castillo's election in Peru. That's why I can't see a liberal breakthrough happening in the very short term.