think we may have gone off topic on the other thread so thought it best to start a new one.


Originally posted by LordChaverly
Disco_Cat,

I am very pleased to be able to oblige. As you say, the point I was making was in relation to percentage improvements in literacy rates in Latin American countries since the 1950s. On this criterion, almost all Latin American countries have higher percentage scores than Cuba (see page 5 of the attached article). The key point here is that literacy rates have improved markedly in the whole region since the 1950s, not just in Cuba. Moreover, as the article makes clear, not only are the health care claims of the Castro regime exaggerated, but also the regime's performance on virtually every socio-economic indicator you care to name has been abysmal (e.g. food production, industrial production, quality of infrastructure, provision of public utilities, exports, balance of payments, GDP per capita, quantity and quality of food and consumer goods, levels of FDI etc). The article below by Smith and Llorens is a good starting point, although there are others which make essentially the same points - i.e. that the Castro regime has been a disaster for Cuba. If Castro was so confident about the support he has amongst the Cuban people he would have held free elections - but of course he won't for obvious reasons.


http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba8/30smith.pdf



An interesting article that clearly nails it's colours to the mast with it's opening quotation but it's very clear that comparing Cuba's literacy rates to the Dominican republics is an invalid comparison.

However I think the statistics used for literacy rates are not conclusive to your argument. The authors themselves concede that the Cuban improvements in literacy are 'impressive' but the improvements are even more impressive if the article used the most up to date statistics. For example in 1995 (A very bad period in Cuba's history) Argentina had a literacy rate of 96%, the same as Cuban's, however recent statistics show that Cuba has now overtaken Argentina by achieving a more then impressive 99.8% literacy compared to Argentina's still impressive 97.2%

To use percentage increase since 1950 Cuba has doubled Argentina's achievements with a 23.8 increase compared to a mere 10.2 from the regions former leader.

This boom in literacy would explain why the UN bestow comments such as this upon Cuba:

"Nor is funding necessarily a prerequisite for quality education. In a 1998 study which compared reading and mathematics skills in Grade 4 students in thirteen countries, Cuba scored the best performance - although it is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Cuban students scored roughly 100 points more than their counterparts in the other countries studied (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic and Venezuela). "Cuba’s high performance is no accident," says Juan Enrique Froemel of the Latin-American Laboratory for Evaluation and Quality in Education at UNESCO Santiago that conducted the study. "It stems mainly from the fact that education has been a priority in the country for over forty years and this results in the literacy and learning levels that are above the regional average."

Also to refer back to the article you quoted it holds up Panama as an example of a country in the region matching Cuba's increase in literacy, and indeed a decade ago they were both on 19% however since then Panama's growth has remained static, it's literacy rates are still at 1995's level of 91% while Cuba has increased growth to the levels detailed above.

http://www.uis.unesco.org/TEMPLATE/html/Exceltables/education/Literacy_National_May2005.xls

With all due respect, you really are clutching at statistical straws here. The article cited does indeed nail its colours to the mast, but it also produces a wealth of very credible evidence derived largely from official UN sources concerning the abysmal performance of Cuba with regard to a wide range of development indices. I am pleased that you now acknowledge that comparing Cuba’s literacy rates to the Dominican Republic is not particularly useful. I hope you won’t mind me pointing out the fact that the comparison was initially made by you, not by me (I argued that a more useful comparison would be with the Latin American region as a whole).

You then point out that the authors concede that Cuban improvements are ‘impressive’. But your quotation is both incomplete and highly misleading, because in the same sentence the authors go on to qualify this statement in a way which completely nullifies the meaning you bestow on it. What they actually say is this: ‘This improvement is impressive, but not unique, among Latin American countries. Panama – which ranked just behind Cuba in this indicator during the 1950s – has matched Cuba’s improvement when measured in percentage point terms. In fact, a review of the UN statistics below reveals that the whole hemisphere has made enormous strides in literacy over the past 40 years. We will show that these other countries making significant progress in this area have done so with far less degradation to other measures of human welfare than socialist Cuba has’ (p. 5).

Both the Castro regime and its apologists abroad have trumpeted the regime’s achievements with regard to health care and education for decades (as in fact did the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe). The apologists abroad set great store by these ‘achievements’, as if they compensated for the regime’s shocking human rights record or for its abysmal economic performance. Indeed, specious apologias of this kind are on a par with ‘Mussolini made the trains run on time’ or that ‘Nazi Germany had zero unemployment’.

The evidence supporting these apologias in the case of the Castro regime is also highly questionable. We can quibble over specific percentage points, but the evidence regarding the general trends with regard to literacy in Latin America since the 1950s is clear – rates have improved markedly in the whole region and therefore Cuba is not as unique in this regard as its apologists appear to believe. It should also be noted that the percentages used in global comparative tables can only be rough estimates, because the criterion for measuring literacy (even the definition of it) varies from country to country. In fact, if you read the UNESCO summaries of the criteria used in different countries, you will see that measures of ‘literacy’ are actually set very low (usually meaning the ability to read and write simple sentences). Moreover, the measuring is done by the countries themselves (using various methods of self reporting) rather than by a single centralized body using exactly the same standard measure. This is why your comparison between Cuba (at 99.8%) and Argentina (at 97,.2%) is to my mind so underwhelming as a ‘killer’ statistic. Furthermore, the history of communist regimes has thrown up abundant evidence that much of the statistical evidence in support of the ‘achievements’ of these regimes has been based on fraud and deception of one kind or another – as was also of course true of the sporting achievements of the GDR). This was conclusively proven after the fall of these regimes between 1989 and 1991. But the regimes need these statistical ‘achievements’ – quoted ad nauseum in official publications and propaganda (and in the case of Castro also in his nine hour speeches) in order to distract attention from the very tangible and obvious measures of the regime’s failures (such as shortages of various kinds and the very low standard of living)..


Literacy of course should not be viewed an end in itself: it is a means to an end – i.e. to self expression and understanding and personal development. Literacy is a means of communication or as a means of accessing information. It is ironic, indeed rather amusing, that you quote from the UNESCO site to in order to support your claims. You may be aware that UNESCO is currently running a literacy campaign (2003 -2012) under the slogan of ‘literacy is freedom’. Well, not in Cuba it isn’t. Cubans may be able to read and write, but what they are not able to do is criticize the regime or to gain access to information which challenges the regime propaganda to which they have been perpetually subjected for almost half a century. UNESCO has also strongly criticized the state repression and persecution of Cuban academics and journalists who dare to step out of line (see the attached urls). Indeed, throughout its history, the regime has engaged in brutal repression of anyone who challenges the roles assigned to them as bit part players in Castro’s revolutionary fantasies. This brutal repression includes executions or long jail sentences under extremely harsh conditions.

I am still mystified as to why you go to such lengths to implicitly defend a regime of this kind – a regime which has denied its people a wide range of basic human freedoms (including the right to free elections and freedom of expression) for almost half a century - by pointing to its ‘positive’ aspects. There is abundant evidence about how vile this regime is and how its survival depends ultimately on brute force. In its history, Latin America has had more than its fair share of brutal megalomaniacal dictators. Mercifully, with one exception, these have been consigned to the dustbin of history. I am disappointed that you are concerned to find reasons to defend the regime of the last of this breed.

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=8979&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=16551&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=-473.html

[QUOTE]Originally posted by LordChaverly
[B] the evidence regarding the general trends with regard to literacy in Latin America since the 1950s is clear – rates have improved markedly in the whole region and therefore Cuba is not as unique in this regard as its apologists appear to believe. QUOTE]

I think you are misunderstanding my position on this I have at no point defended the regime in it's entirety and have infact criticised it's abysmal record on human rights.

The issue of Cuba seems to polarise peoples opinions more then any other, but I can't see why people who legitimately criticise the regimes failures cannot bring themselves to even acknowledge it's achievements. I was in error when I compared Cuba to the Dominican republic and I fully accept that.

The article you referred to did not raise any concerns regarding the validity of it's statistics the only failure with those statistics is they are now out of date. In 1995 I agree that the evidence shows that Cuba was developing it's literacy faster then countries such as Argentina but on par with Panama. I am sure their are discrepancies within these statistics so I agree their is no point quibbling over one or two percentage points, however in the decade since the article you base your opinions on was published, Cuba's growth in literacy has vastly outstripped Panama's and the regions growth. Not by a few percentage points but by more then double. Relax, admitting this fact will not turn you into Stalin.


The data in 1995 supported your argument but I cannot find any recent work which does, if you could suggest further reading I would be very grateful.

Originally posted by Disco_Cat
[QUOTE][i]

The data in 1995 supported your argument but I cannot find any recent work which does, if you could suggest further reading I would be very grateful.

I am pleased to oblige. As I mentioned in my previous post, the evidence provided by Smith and Llorens shows that several Latin American countries (not just Panama) had records on literacy rates which were as good as or superior to those of the Cuban regime. You concede that the evidence up to 1995 may well support this argument (indeed it does) but qualify it by stating that that there have been significant developments since this date which undermines it. You state that in the last decade 'Cuba's growth in literacy has vastly outstripped Panama's and the region's growth'. In fact, the available statistical evidence actually supports the opposite conclusion. The latest figures I have seen relate to 2002 (see attached url) and are, like the ones for 1995, based on UN data. If you compare the two sets of data, you will see that regardless of the time period selected (e.g. 1950-53 - 1995; 1950-53 - 2002; 1980 - 2002; or 1995 to 2002), improvements in Cuban literacy rates are neither as unique nor as remarkable as the Castro regime and its apologists would have us believe. Thus updating the Smith and Llorens figures by replacing those for 1995 with those for 2002 in no way invalidates their conclusions. In fact it reinforces them.

I have no interest in quibbling over percentage points. Indeed, as I have stated earlier, statistics relating to national literacy need to be treated with caution and a healthy scepticism, not least because of variations in the definition of literacy and also because the evidence derives from self reporting of one kind or another. As with all statistics, there is the danger of falling into the trap of number magic, i.e. the assumption that figures precisely reflect empirical realities. They most assuredly do not. Nevertheless, they may provide useful insights into general trends – and the trends in relation to literacy in Latin America and the Caribbean show that Cuba is by no means the unique paragon exemplified in the eulogies of its propagandists and (witting or unwittng) proponents.

Moreover, statistics of any kind emanating from Cuba need to be treated with particular scepticism because of the inherently mendacious nature of the Cuban regime. Following the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, we now know that the economic indicators produced by these regimes derived from processes of systemic falsification – indeed these regimes were much better at producing superficially impressive, but bogus, statistics than anything else (apart from shortages and would-be escapees). A key reason for this is that there is a cumulative process of statistical inflation, meaning that figures tend to be massaged at every organisational level. Moreover, since the regime has a vested interest in producing positive figures, and in the absence of a free press or other checks and balances to provide independent scrutiny, there is an inherent bias towards producing figures which show the regime in the most positive of lights. There is no reason to believe that either Cuba or North Korea are any better in this regard than the communist regimes which have already been consigned to the dustbin of history (a fate long overdue for Castro and Baby Kim).

I would like to reiterate two further points. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, literacy is not an end in itself. The Cuban regime has not only denied its citizens the basic human rights of freedom of expression and association, but has also used Cuban schools as vehicles for political indoctrination, thereby subverting the purposes of education and indeed of literacy in any free and open society. Secondly, I will agree that praising Cuban literacy rates (however misguided and undeserved that praise may be) will not turn a person into a Stalin – but it does to some extent turn that person into a (possibly unwitting) partial apologist for a vile and repressive dictatorship. The 'yes but' argument is a dangerous one in relation to dictatorships, because it carries with it the inherent folly of muting justified criticism of, and indeed partially legitimising, these regimes. Thus the 'yes but' qualification has been used by apologists, secret admirers, credulous romantics, fellow travellers and 'useful idiots' (to use a Leninist phrase) to qualify condemnation of particularly unpleasant dictatorships since time immemorial -along the lines of 'Hitler may have been a megalomaniacal tyrant, but at least he achieved full employment and built the autobahns' etc.

Unfortunately, the Castro regime tends to have a more favourable image abroad than it deserves (I suspect because of the David and Goliath element to its relationships with the US ). Since the Castro regime was formed, it would be possible to fill a very large book with 'yes but' or other positive statements about Cuba by a motley assortment of credulous Che wannabees, teenage Trotskys, frivolous leftist posers, posturing Fidelistas and unreconstructed and morally bankrupt Stalinists in the West (most of whom would not last a week in Castro's socialist paradise, except as cosseted dupes of his well-oiled propaganda machine). Those who indulge in partial eulogies of the Castro regime have a tendency to give it a much easier ride, and tend to be much more tolerant of its faults, more indulgent of its excuses and more willing to believe its claims than they would be if the regime was classified as a right wing dictatorship. It is interesting that you mention Stalin: similarities between Castroism and Stalinism abound (e.g. a preposterous cult of personality; ruthless suppression of dissent; an elaborate machinery of repression etc). But if anyone is in any doubt about the vile, repressive and thuggish nature of the Castro regime, I would recommend a visit to the Human Rights Watch website (see url below), which is damning in its criticism of the systemic abuses of human rights in Cuba. As it says,

'The Cuban government systematically denies its citizens basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and a fair trial. It restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent, and uses police warnings, surveillance, short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment as methods of enforcing political conformity....Political prisoners who denounce poor conditions of imprisonment or who otherwise fail to observe prison rules are frequently punished by long periods in punitive isolation cells, restrictions on visits, or denial of medical treatment. .. There is only one official labor union in Cuba, the Worker’s Central of Cuba (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, CTC). Independent labor unions are denied formal status and their members are harassed'.

http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/data_tables/pop3_2003.pdf

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/10/cuba10306.htm

The World Summit on the Information Society currently being held in Tunis has indirectly shed light on another aspect of the Cuban regime's repression of its own citizens - i.e. the denial of free access to the internet and indeed to ownership of computers. To quote from the report given in the url below:

'In Cuba, only people with government permission can access the Internet, owning computer equipment is prohibited, and online writers have been imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based free speech watchdog group'.

So even if the Cuban regime's exuberantly fanciful claims about literacy rates were correct (claims which i have vigorously disputed above), it would merely confirm that the regime's policies regarding literacy have absolutely nothing to do with the values of freedom of thought or expression.

http://news.com.com/Cuba%2C+Iran+lash+out+at+Internet+freedom/2100-1028_3-5960298.html