A esquerda, o "paraíso" comunista cubano e a globalização

Excelente texto de Perry de Havilland: The poster children for what they claim to despise

Right in the centre of the large shopping area called The Stables is a Cuban Restaurant called rather unambiguously The Cuban. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I stuck my head inside as for all I knew the place was owned by some Cuban refugee who had fled Castro's communist dictatorship. But no. The first thing I see is a large image of Che Guevara. The outside of the building has a sign saying this place brings "The Spirit of Havana in the heart of Camden"... ###

...which presumably means that criticizing the restaurant gets you dragged off to jail by uniformed thugs as that is truly the spirit of Havana.

(...)

But it got me pondering. I wonder how many of the anti-globalisation activists who probably regard areas like Camden as 'home turf' and perhaps even eat at The Cuban realise how the area only looks the way it does because of the global movement of goods within a market economy. Do they seriously think that there is a place like Camden anywhere in Cuba? Do they think the new Age crystals, the fetish shops, the Goth gear purveyors, the mountain bike shops and, hell, even the clothes they wear, the mobile phones they all carry, the iPods they lsten to, would all be available in a politically directed command economy? Please, show me such a place.

The thing is, their own lifestyles and environments are examples of the benefits of what they profess to reject. Quite funny really if you think about it.