No Ballgame for Cuba

I haven't had the time to post on the U.S. government's decision to ban Cuba from participating in next spring's World Baseball Classic. Fortunately, my fellow Cubano bloggers have posted their thoughts here, here, here, and here.

Before I get to the meat of the post, I'll state that I am not happy with the decision to ban Cuba from participating, even though if it means I have to swallow hard to agree with despicable NY congressman Jose Serrano. It plays right into fidel's hands, and seems like a whimsical decision since Cuban sports teams have recently participated in the United States. We keep on losing the PR battle. What do we (the US) have to lose by allowing Cuba to participate?

Having said all that, I can understand and even respect the basic motivation for not allowing any Cuban sports teams and artists from performing in this country even though I don't agree with that policy. The motivations behind this belief is simple: Cuba is an enemy of the state (!), the castro regime is selective in who they send abroad, and last and definitely not least, basic human rights violations are routine there.

As an idealist, I feel a strong tug to act on those basic motivations and fall in line with those who advocate a strict no-participation policy. I also feel an inclination to ignore the PR loss. After all, we're on the side of freedom and democracy, aren't we?

A column by Ana Menendez in the Miami Herald over the weekend brought some of these arguments back into the fold. She also feels Cuba should participate. However, and to her credit, she interviewed Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who of course is against Cuba's participation. Here's an excerpt from the column:

"Like others, Diaz-Balart often compares the isolation of Cuba to the boycott against apartheid South Africa. Setting aside moral equivalencies, the glaring practical difference is that the South African regime was universally condemned. Fidel Castro, on the other hand, remains the world's sentimental favorite.

How did this happen? 'The media is lazy,' Lincoln says. No argument there. But manipulating world opinion seems to require a level of skill that so far only Castro has been able to manage."

I was extrememly pleased to read Lincoln's comparison to the South Africa boycott of the 1980's. It's not often that a Cuban-American makes this kind of statement in the MSM. After all, the South African boycott is the holy cow of leftists everywhere. What's even more rare is for a left-leaning journalist like Menendez to fail to come up with a hearty dismissal of Lincoln's South Africa comparison.

Not only is the media lazy, but it's also biased. It's not like castro has done such a good job of hiding the numerous human rights violations and other atrocities, it's that the MSM conveniently turns the other cheek. castro is a master of the evil, backhanded PR, but he's no magician.

In an ideal world, the international community would view South Africa and Cuba with similar (but not exactly the same) lens and exert the same pressure on Cuba that was placed on South Africa. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. We have to be somewhat pragmatic, that means agreeing with those we don't usually agree with.

Perhaps having Cuba send its baseball team for the tournament won't make a bit of difference in the international community's perception of castro and his regime. Not much has worked in the past 47 years. Sometimes you have to play the devil's game, and that's what has been lacking all these years. The U.S. plays it straight while castro lies and deceives.

Perhaps it's time for the U.S. to play a litte cat and mouse with castro. Doing what castro doesn't expect would be a good start. In this case, that would be to allow Cuba to play ball.