Abstract

This paper explores the role of communications technology in the U.S.-Cuban relationship. It argues that the idea that anti-government dissidents will use the Internet, cell phones, and social media to foment a popular uprising on the island, modelled after the ‘Arab Spring’ is flawed because it fails to take into account the uniqueness of the Cuban situation. The paper then explores how it has become possible for this idea to have gained such traction in certain discourses in the United States. In doing so, the paper considers the history of paternalism and imperial hubris that has dominated U.S. policy toward Cuba, with an emphasis on the relationship during the Castro era. The paper demonstrates that current U.S. policy rests on fallacious assumptions about Cuba, the Cuban state and the relationship between the Cuban state and the Cuban people. The belief in a ‘Cuban Spring’ and in the idea that the United States could engender revolution in Cuba via communications technology is part of this larger narrative.

Highlights

  • When Republican primary candidate, Newt Gingrich, called for the United States to provoke a ‘Cuban Spring’ in January 2012 he was echoing a popular idea that technology, especially social media, could ignite revolution

  • THE ‘CUBAN SPRING’ FALLACY 141 that anti-government dissidents will use the Internet, cell phones, and social media to foment a popular uprising on the island, modelled after the ‘Arab Spring’ is flawed for a number of reasons

  • The idea behind the notion of a ‘Cuban Spring’, that anti-government dissidents will use the Internet, cell phones, and social media to foment a popular uprising on the island, modelled after the ‘Arab Spring’, is predicated on a particular understanding of Cuba that portrays an imminent collapse of the Cuban experiment

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Summary

Introduction

When Republican primary candidate, Newt Gingrich, called for the United States to provoke a ‘Cuban Spring’ in January 2012 he was echoing a popular idea that technology, especially social media, could ignite revolution. This idea makes for interesting headlines it rests on a number of problematic assumptions about Cuba and does not take into account the uniqueness of the Cuban situation, in particular the state of communications technology in Cuba, the presence of civil society, the strength of the opposition movement, and political opinion on the island.

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