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Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting reading the opinions in the comments on this thread. As a non-US person, I don't have a strong opinion on Cuba. I'd like to visit someday but don't know much about it other than the headlines. Reading the comments here it sounds like a pariah state on the level of North Korea. With 1m people leaving in a year, it clearly has its issues - but lots of the comments here are a good example of how your country's media and propaganda can significantly colour your opinions. I don't get the feeling many other countries continue to have such a negative opinion of Cuba.

Are there any countries other than the US that has a strong negative opinion on Cuba?

I'm also curious if anyone comes from a country that has a significant negative opinion on another country that others might find surprising?

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> Reading the comments here it sounds like a pariah state on the level of North Korea.

The only reason it's NOT North Korea is the fact that it "allows" its people to flee to the United States, where by law they may become American citizens.

Cuba has extremely effective propaganda - folks forget that it's actually a dictatorship which severely limits freedom of speech and brutally cracks down on protest. Wikipedia has a great page "Foreign interventions by Cuba."

Not all that much worse than China, but with the misfortune of bordering the US and not being powerful enough to stand without access to regional trade.

Comparing Cuba to North Korea makes no sense at all. You could compare it to the USSR or East Germany, but not North Korea.

North Korea is effectively a caricature of a totalitarian state, ruled by a cartoon villain. Cuba is more like an ordinary country unlucky enough to have a totalitarian government. There are plenty of equally bad countries in the world even today.

Is the propaganda really effective when a photo from an average cuban street says it all? (walking dead tier even in the heart of the capital)

For the most part, the only Americans that really care enough about Cuba to form a negative opinion are Cuban immigrants and their descendants. They happen to be a powerful voting block in Florida, a swing state, so they have an outsized effect on national politics.

If not for them, the embargo would have been dropped years ago and relations would have been normalized.

The US has by far the world’s largest ex-Cuban population (well over 1M people). Those communities are a big part of what shapes US perceptions and policy toward Cuba.

Cuban-Americans telling us what Cuba is like sounds ok to me. From what I've heard, they hate Socialists.

How much is that a selection bias (they are the ones that left and went to the US after all)

That's a fair point. One thing I will say, having lived near many in FL at one time, they are some of the most patriotic and pro USA people. I always appreciated that in a way, as I think a lot of us take it for granted.

The world would be a quite different place if the majority of people in each country made rational choices for their own good. I don't think we should single out Cubans for that

Definitely selection bias but well-founded.

The unmotivated masses tend to follow the de-facto system that entrenches the successful few. The remaining motivated and competitive people on the other hand leave for better pastures.

People who emigrate from countries whose governments micromanage the population tend to have the worst opinion about them. Not that dissimilar from people who ditch bosses who micromanage =).

The world would be a quite different place if the majority of people in each country made rational choices for their own good. I don't think we should single out Cubans for that

I think you misread my comment. I didn't single out Cubans.

Yes I meant to the reply on the sibling thread but HN didn't let me delete my comment

Cuban-Americans are literally revanchists. You might not be getting the straight scoop from this self-selected subpopulation.

If anything Cuba is heavely romanticized outside the US I believe.

Maybe it used to be, probably because the Castro and Guevara rebellion is a great story. But today I feel that everyone knows that it backfired and the country is in shambles due to terrible totalitarian leaders.

As a canadian its pretty weird. Normally we get all the same media as usa and have relatively similar opinions. However cuba has always been much more popular here and is a common tourist destination. Its sad they are having problems.

Most Americans don’t think about Cuba at all, and it definitely isn’t in the news very much (as far as I know, I cut most TV years ago). However, there are lots of Batista supporters and their descendants in Florida. They are politically influential given Florida is an important swing state.

The title of the article is literally that 10% of Cubans left Cuba between 2022 and 2023. Are they Batista supporters too?

Cubans leaving Cuba today are taking advantage of immigration openness that anti-Cuba policies pushed for. Why would they not take advantage of that? They are literally the only refugees who can come to America and get automatic asylum. Why does that exist? Political power from Florida stemming from Batista supporters.

I don’t have any interest in this argument, but the situation between America and Cuba is fairly artificial and politically related.

> Political power from Florida stemming from Batista supporters.

Last I heard Batista's daughter is homeless, support doesn't look so great lol: https://www.local10.com/news/2017/06/21/ex-cuban-leader-fulg...

It’s not unusual for right wingers to not be sentimental.

> With 1m people leaving in a year, it clearly has its issues - but lots of the comments here are a good example of how your country's media and propaganda can significantly colour your opinions.

What? 10% of a country leaving in one year tells you what Cubans think of Cuba. That's not propaganda, that's fact. On the contrary, it seems like you have some kind of preconceived notion of that life in Cuba is in fact not that bad (poor but laid back perhaps?), but if that were true people would not leave would they?

> but if that were true people would not leave would they?

Not to dig into whataboutism but the same could really be said about the US's island possessions: https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/10/census-pacific-us-territor...

Fact is populations will leave if they see chance at a better life elsewhere, even if they aren't living in an active warzone or under some some government the US doesn't like.

10y vs 1y, internal migration vs moving to a different country with a different language.

It's really not comparable.

> moving to a different country with a different language.

The US doesn't have an official language, there are areas that speak almost exclusively spanish. All government shit is available in spanish. Puerto Rico speaks spanish. Over a fifth of Floridians speak spanish at home.

I mean yes people wouldn’t want to live in a US island possession either. That doesn’t invalidate the parent’s point.

Things are not so simple as Cuba bad, USA good. Wage differentials easily explain why so many come to the USA. Maybe they like Cuba but cannot come for better wages. Cuba has its problems, but definitely the USA/cia is targeting the regime with negative publicity. Who knows maybe you work at a cia troll farm.

Maybe ask the Cubans who left the country?

People who leave a country tend to leave it for a reason. If they liked their life in Cuba presumably they would have stayed. They are probably not a neutral source on Cuba.

Who is a neutral source when asking for the opinion about a dictatorship?

Most immigrants don't have anywhere near as bad an opinion of their home country as Cuban-Americans.

The hatred towards Cuba by Cuban immigrants is much higher than most other immigrants. This indicates that Cuba is worse than most countries.

I visited Cuba several times between approximately 2005 and 2015.

The Cuban people I met were lovely and would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it, even though they might not possess many more of them.

I have not visited Cuba, but from everything that see and read, it is far more free than North Korea.

There are a lot of Cubans in the US, their experiences tend to affect the larger American perspective of the country.

> Are there any countries other than the US that has a strong negative opinion on Cuba?

It appears that Cubans have a strong negative opinion on Cuba.

On German media (including heavy left leaning Taz) you find various reports about human right issues in Cuba. It's a typical socialist dictatorship doomed to fail as its predecessors.

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