For Caribbean readers, the most important chapter will be on the one on Cuba, titled An Old Love is Neither Forgotten nor Abandoned. The authors do a masterful job of dismantling the many myths of Fidel Castro's revolution, showing how Cuba had not made as much progress as left-wing propagandists claim.
"In 1953...countries such as Holland, France, the UK and Finland had proportionately fewer doctors and dentists than Cuba...," write the authors. They also easily rebut the oft-repeated claim that all Cuba's economic woes are due to the USs' embargo (often misleadingly called a "blockade" by Castro apologists).
"There is virtually no product that Cuba needs that it can't buy from Japan, Europe, Korea, China or Latin America..." they point out. "The problem simply is that Cuba produces very little because its government is extremely inefficient and therefore the country lacks products to sell or foreign currency to buy them..."
In respect to history, they note that the American government distanced itself from Cuba several months before the fall of Fulgencio Batista, declared an embargo on the sale of arms, and asked the dictator to find a political solution to the civil war that was tearing the country apart." In terms of finance, the authors point out that the 40,000 companies created by Cubans in the United States today have value several times greater than the sum of all US investments made in Cuba before 1959.
Of course, none of their arguments will convince Castro admirers because, they write, "Being a perfect idiot, he will find plausible explanations for the worst disasters created by Castro. If there is hunger on the island, the cruel US embargo is to blame; if there are exiles, it's because they are traitors incapable of understanding the revolutionary process; if there are prostitutes, it isn't due to poverty but rather because Cubans now have the freedom to use their bodies as they wish."
The introduction to the book is written by the 2010 winner of the Nobel Literature Prize, Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who writes: "No one is immune from succumbing to this type of idiocy at some time in life", pointing to a 1967 quote by himself in the book where he praises Cuba for emancipating itself. But Vargas Llosa changed his views; the same can't be said for Castro admirers here.
Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot
Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Alvaro Vargas Llosa.
Madison Books, 1996.
Review byKevin Baldeosingh