Summary Of Eric Selbin Conjugating The Cuban Revolution

On July 26, 1953, the war for Cuba’s independence began, and for 6 years many Cubans fought for their freedom. The most famous of these revolutionary icons being Fidel Castro, who led the main resistance against the Cuban government. On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro and the rest of the Cuban's succeeded. This revolutionary war went on to affect the entire world and Eric Selbin believes it is still affecting it. Throughout Eric Selbin's article, Conjugating the Cuban Revolution, he firmly states that the Cuban revolution is important in the past, present, and future. Selbin, however, is wrong.

Throughout his entire article, Selbin writes about a topic that is not only different, but very intriguing. He supplies information that many people haven’t considered and then provides just enough “evidence” to convince them that he is correct. For example, he states that the Cuban revolution had a greater impact on the world than other war's such as; the Cold War, The anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and liberation struggles in the Caribbean, or even the dissolution of the Soviet Union. All of which are fairly important world changing events,

each in their own way. He then tries to state, “...At the core of each of these, to varying degrees, is the process commonly construed as the Cuban Revolution. Both its inspiration and the fear it and the attendant radical processes it spawned are still, in profound ways, being unpacked (in Uruguay, Southern Africa, North America, and Europe), dealt with directly (in Nepal, Colombia, India, Mexico, and the Philippines), and planned for (and dreaded by) by many governments in many places.”1.
The only time that the Cuban revolution was truly important to anybody except for Cuba was right after it ended. After the revolution's success, revolution's all across South America started to happen. Many of these revolutions were led by Che Guevara, one of the major figures in the Cuban revolution. The revolution also influenced other major countries such as Britain and France. “The British and the French sought (with U.S. assistance and financing) to reestablish their colonial domination even as the United States set out to remind Latin America and the Caribbean who was in charge.”2
Selbin keeps trying to convince the reader that his ideology is one hundred percent correct and provide “evidence” to support it. He in turn falls short and displays minimal details or evidence on how the Cuban Revolution had the largest impact on the world since World War II.
Although it may have had some impact on the world in the past, it has even less of an impact on today's society. Selbin's reason's on how the Cuban Revolution affects us today are very simple. “Cuba provides a living and still vibrant example of people who rose up in the face of oppression at a time of global hostility and demanded the revolutionary right to change the material and ideological conditions of their everyday lives. It also stands as a powerful and salutary reminder that evil can be opposed and defeated in the face of daunting odds. Finally, it matters because it offers a heuristic for change; one that is as cautionary as it is salutary.”3 Selbin is attempting to convince the reader that Cuba is the first country to ever fight back against the oppression from their leaders. Next, he tries to convince the reader that Cuba conquered the “bad guys” when the odds were against them. This is more true than his previous statement. It becomes significantly less impressive if you consider that these “bad guys” were just the government and most of the enemy troops, who also disagreed with the government, didn't put up a fight and were laying down their weapons.
Lastly, he ended this section of his article by attempting to say that Fidel Castro’s Cuba explored new ways of governing and insinuated that many countries followed suit. While this may be partially true, Cuba is overly praised for doing nothing special. Once again, Selbin tries to convince us that this was the first newly developed country, instrumental in thinking up new ideas on how to govern a country, thereby, changing the world as we know it. Yet, America had done just that years before.
When it comes to how the Cuban Revolution will affect the future, Eric Selbin falls short once again.

He states, “Just as surely as France shaped our understanding(s) of Russia and Russia of China, so too has Cuba shaped how we understand and imagine the revolutions of the future. What they will look like, how they will play out, whether they will matter.” 4. In this quote alone he admits that it's just another new way wars will happen. The problem is, this is common knowledge. After every war, there is always something that will change how wars are fought, in the future. For example, World War I brought us all sorts of new technology that forever changed wars from just shooting each other, to blowing each other up. Every event changes how future events will occur. So once again Selbin uses another common occurrence to “prove his

point.”
Throughout Eric Selbin's article, he keeps proclaiming that the Cuban Revolution has shaped the world. He regretfully fails at proving how. Every example he would use would either be something that is just a rehashed idea, or it would be false. The accurate facts that actually supported him were scarce. His stating that the Cuban Revolution was important in the past, the present, and the future, in the end, turned out to be false.