Cuba despite them

Hey! Senores Imperialistas!

No les tenemos absolutamente ningun miedo!

Fidel Castro is dead. He died today aged 90. R.I.P. Fidel. 

I visited Cuba 20 years ago. It was just coming out of a very difficult period after losing the Soviet Union as a customer for its sugar cane exports following the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was able to talk to many people who were critical of the government and yes, the situation wasn't perfect. 

But I have never been to a supposedly poor country with such happy, friendly, healthy, beautiful people, with such exemplary universal health care and education systems, with such acknowledgement and support for culture and the arts. 

And the music! I cannot even begin ...

And every barman wants you to try a mojito just the way he makes it, because his is the best! And lessons in humility can be found in each of the chess clubs that fringe the plazas. 

And despite everything, the people are *proud* of their revolution, and you can stand on a street corner sharing a beer and a barbeque around an oil drum brazier with that street's Committee for the Defence of the Revolution.

Our criticisms are utterly impertinent given what they have achieved under the circumstances they find themselves in.

Cuba despite them! No les tenemos ningun miedo, senores imperialistas! We're not afraid of you, imperialists!

Let us all take courage from their defiance.