Dictatorship Tourism – Amazingly The Observer Doesn’t Mention Cuba

That we might not take our summer hols in places where the local population are oppressed by the government seems a reasonable enough take on moral values. It’s not something we have to agree with, not something we have to disagree with, it’s just a valid enough method of thinking about the world and our actions in it.

That Turkey is becoming decidedly less free is true and to be abhorred. That Duterte’s kill all the druggies isn’t a good idea for the Philippines can be seen as a degree of a similar decline in civil liberty. Burma’s treatment of the Rohingyas – sure, we can and possibly we even should consider these things when we decide were to go.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]How repressive does a country have to be before it becomes a guilt trip for tourists?
Catherine Bennett[/perfectpullquote]

Guess where isn’t mentioned? Cuba. Yup, the place where the HIV positive are interned, opposition to the government leads to jail time, government food supply is a handful of beans every month, that’s not a place we should be concerned about. It’s socialist, d’ye see, such things are to be expected. Applauded even, as so many of The Observer’s readers and writers have done over the decades.

In fact, the sister paper, The Guardian positively encourages travel to Cuba. Odd that really, isn’t it? Oppression of the people isn’t a moral issue if it’s done by socialists.