A lesson from Castro

With Castro dead, the world can draw another line under the Cold War.  I have no intention of trying to comment on his life: a complex subject on which I have nothing really to say.

But the reporting of his death reveals an interesting split, between those who revered (or at least respected) him and mourn his passing, and those who hated him and danced on his grave.  The former being Cubans in Cuba, the latter being Cubans in Miami.  Plus a handful of  global Cold Warriors on either side, who will dismiss the other side with a quasi-religious fervour.

Could that split between a home population and expats in the West be the exact same phenomenon that led us into fighting and provoking so many disastrous wars, particularly in the middle-east, in recent years?  At various times, our media have presented us with articulate expats from countries we’ve openly invaded (like Iraq and Libya) or meddled more quietly in and stirred with agents provocateurs (like Syria), in support of our campaigns.  Those would be their countries’ equivalent to the Miami Cubans dancing on Castro’s grave.  And that’s where our narratives of our wars come from: when our powers-that-be want war, they can find some extreme but articulate expats and present them as the voice of ordinary people.  Only once the die is cast do some in our media start to question dodgy dossiers and claims.