Cuba is no Egypt

Opinion: February 16, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Cuba is no Egypt

Miami Herald: Somewhere in Havana, Fidel Castro is probably laughing out loud to see Hosni Mubarak lose his grip on power after 30 years of undisputed leadership. In Castro’s eyes, no doubt, the octogenarian Mr. Mubarak brought a world of trouble on himself by trying to mollify Western critics through the creation of a phony democracy that would give his regime a veneer of respectability.

Mr. Mubarak was never a softie. Egypt’s intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, is justly feared throughout the Middle East for its inhumane treatment of anyone perceived as an enemy of the state, well documented in a 95-page report issued recently by Human Rights Watch on its use of torture and repression.

But there was an attempt to create a kind of fictional democracy to give the state the appearance of legitimacy. Thus, Egypt’s citizens had access to the Internet. Opposition (closely watched and within strict limits) was allowed in the media. The anti-regime Muslim Brotherhood was officially banned, but its underground survival tolerated. Rival political parties exist, at least on paper. Until now, foreign reporters have operated freely and with little fear of harassment. Uncensored TV news from sources like al-Jazeera was widely seen.

In Cuba, none of the trappings of democracy have existed for half a century. It is not part of the Castro playbook to permit any activity that would nurture an aspiration for liberty.

Access to the Internet for everyone — are you kidding? There is no opposition press, real or make-believe, no opposition parties, foreign reporters are closely monitored and the average citizen has practically no access to independent sources of information. Egypt’s business class is reported to be in anguish over the turmoil because it’s hurting the economy. In Cuba, there is no business class — the military runs the economy.

If the streets of Havana do not burst forth with protest, it is not because Cuba’s people are less thirsty for liberty than people in Cairo. But, unlike Mubarak — and Sadat and Nasser before that — the Castro brothers have foreclosed every avenue of rebellion and taken every conceivable step to stifle the longing for freedom. Like the Sun King, Louis XIV, Fidel Castro has been able to proudly proclaim that he is the state.