Cuba’s dissident artists are challenging not just the communist state’s repression, but also its claim to be the socio-cultural guide for the nation.
Tag: communism
WASHINGTON — During the coronavirus pandemonium, the voice of Slavoj Žižek is an essential one. The renowned Slovenian philosopher is there when you need him: decoding a mind-boggling event, explaining a new phenomenon that is shattering global society, connecting the dots, filling in loose ends, shedding light on the unknown. There isn’t anybody else on […]
The island nation hasn’t had a free election for more than 70 years. And yet, as millions take to the streets across the region, the Cuban regime keeps getting a pass.
MUNICH — The past snuck up on Adidas last spring when it issued a retro jersey for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia that copied the last Soviet Union national team shirt. It included the USSR lettering and breast emblem with the hammer and sickle. Given the millions of victims of the Soviet dictatorship, […]
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Watch: OneShot — Back From The Gulag
He was born three years before Russia’s October Revolution, and served in the Red Army during World War II. But in 1945, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested for criticizing Stalin, and spent eight years in a labor camp. The experience reshaped his political opinions and inspired his most famous works, including The Gulag Archipelago (1973). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, but was hounded by the KGB, stripped of his citizenship, and expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974. He remained in exile for 20 years, before being allowed back in Russia in 1994 — after the fall […]
Built on a soggy bed of sand, the German capital isn’t an ideal place for underground infrastructure. And yet, there’s a relatively unknown maze of tunnels, bunkers and other surprising spaces down there.
With Castro’s retirement as Cuban President, Cuba is left to face ongoing issues of the communist party — primarily the shambling economy.
An Afro-Caribbean religion dating back to the days of slavery, Santería has adapted to both Catholicism and Socialism and is a major contributor to Cuba’s particular cultural identity.
Much has and hasn’t changed in Poland since the fall of Communism. But while the country’s economy is rolling, sharp differences in ideology bring real risks for the future.
-Essay- BOGOTÁ — A theology teacher I knew used to tell me, a mocking grin on his lips, “you’re the last communist left,” to which I would reply, smiling, “and you’re the last evangelist.” In today’s upside-down world of thieving politicians and self-righteous saints, corrupt and holy men, such concepts as communism have lost their […]
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — One of the biggest lies in modern politics is the belief that freedom is a universally-shared passion. It isn’t. Freedom implies a burden of responsibility not everyone is willing to bear. In this school of thought, I believe Thomas Hobbes was right: People fear violence, scarcity and death. The majority, therefore, […]
BEIJING — In Xi Jinping’s China, it is again a risky proposition to openly criticize Mao Zedong. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thought it had resolved the discussion in 1981 when it decreed that the reign of Mao, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, had been 70% good and 30% bad. But since […]
Enough with the praise the Left has shamelessly heaped on Fidel Castro. He was simply a dictator who deprived Cubans of their basic human rights. Looks the same from the right.
Why do we refuse to admit that discrimination and poverty help the spread of Islamic fanaticism? Understanding is not justifying, explaining is not forgiving.
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Soviet Tenacity
The Georgi Dimitrov mausoleum in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, was built in 1949 to contain the embalmed body of the country’s first communist leader. After the fall of the USSR, some members of the government started thinking the monument was an embarrassing nod to Bulgaria’s totalitarian past, and in 1999, they decided to blow […]
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Cuba, Where May Day Spirit Holds On
Granma, May 2, 2016 While violent clashes marred May Day celebrations across several countries, the official Cuban Communist Pary Granma instead praised “the strength of a people” on the front page of its Monday edition. The Havana-based daily described the International Workers’ Day marches, pictured on the front page, as the “unwavering support of our […]
VIZCATÁN DEL ENE — Deep in the Peruvian Andes, a valley dominated by the drug trade now finds itself at the heart of a resurgent Marxist insurgency. The valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro rivers, known as the Vraem, was the scene of an April 11 attack by the Shining Path that left eight […]
The renewed relations with the U.S. may have been prompted by the Cuban revolutionaries’ connection with Pope Francis.
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February 20
It is not the first time Lech Walesa, Poland’s revered first president of the post-Communist era, has been accused of being a spy for the old regime, having been cleared by a court in 2000. But new accusations yesterday that the now 72-year-old was a paid informant for the Communist authorities in the 1970s, before […]
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Letting Lenin Be
This is Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow“s Red Square, where the communist leader’s embalmed body is on public display. I preferred taking pictures of the marble and granite tomb from the outside.
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French Prestige
There wasn’t much to see in this remote and destitute Bulgarian village. And then, around the corner, there was this huge advertisement for the local communist party, in Bulgarian and … French. This defied logic in a town where not a soul seemed to speak French.
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China Reflections: From Mao To Xi
NEW YORK — For some years now, I have been observing China from a distance, never going back to the country that I called my third home for many years. Back then, during my long stays in China, I learned a lot about the country and its culture. In the past, foreigners had to travel […]
The Mexican government’s recent actions suggest the ruling party yearns for the days when it governed unchallenged through cronyism. But order comes at a price.
The unlikely tale of how a young Colombian’s communist convictions led him to leave his family in Spain to fight with Ukraine’s Putin-backed separatist rebels.
HAGUE ISSUES GENOCIDE RULINGAfter years of investigation, the Hague’s International Court of Justice has ruled that Serbia did not commit genocide against the Croats during the Balkan wars in the 1990s. While acknowledging that crimes had been committed, the court argued that Croatia failed to prove that Serbia had intended to “destroy in whole or […]
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Extra! Fidel Castro Resurfaces
Granma, February 3, 2015 HAVANA — Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper Granma has published the first photos of Fidel Castro in months, amid rumors that the health of the 88-year-old former Cuban leader has recently deteriorated. Granma“s front page Tuesday reads “More than three hours with Fidel.” In an article entitled Fidel es un fuera de […]
Havana — Photo: Angel Chevrestt/ZUMA HAVANA — When Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced the two countries would “normalize” relations between the two countries, most observers were quick to point out that this unexpected move would eventually benefit the Cuban economy by boosting the tourism industry, among other sectors. And according to Folha de […]
And it will happen sooner than you think…
The imminent injection of wealth into Cuba as the U.S. embargo ends, and the measure of prosperity that should follow, may be the first steps toward its eventual democratization.
The Castro regime’s about-face to restore ties with the U.S. signals the communist economic system’s shameful failure. But politics is another matter.
Egypt is forcing civilians to move to create a buffer zone after terrorists hit again in the Sinai. From Vietnam to Algeria, such tactics have caused as much hardship as they’ve prevented.
A full 25 years after the fall of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the brutal commandant of a labor camp for political prisoners is finally being tried for alleged atrocities.
The Polish Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner offers a combative vision for how Europe can stand up to Moscow. He speaks from experience.
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Stalin’s Cursed Statue
It took more than five years to build Prague’s gigantic Stalin Monument, which was eventually unveiled in 1955. And only seven years later: BOOM, the Soviets dynamited what they thought was an outrageous display of Stalin’s cult of personality. We were lucky enough to see it in all its might when we went to then […]
Protesters from the political far-right denounced the funeral honors bestowed on the last Polish communist dictator, General Jaruzelski. But with him gone, their cause may disappear too.
BEIJING — A friend of mine recently made an appointment for his heart problem at the cardiac unit of a very well-reputed hospital. When he finally managed to see the chief physician, the doctor’s first question wasn’t “What’s the matter with you?” or “How long have you been feeling unwell?” but instead, “What guanxi have […]
China tries to come to terms with its not-so-distant past.
-Editorial- SAO PAULO — It’s the image that became the symbol of Nelson Mandela’s memorial in Soweto: the handshake between U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro. And it’s only fitting that this is the image that remains. The United States and Cuba have been living in open animosity since the Cold War. […]
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governed Mexico, at times with an iron fist, for 70 years until it lost the presidency in 2000. It returned with Enrique Peña Nieto’s victory in this year’s presidential elections. But have politics changed in Mexico? Will the PRI resort to its old ways, asks Luis Rubio,* or will it […]