The picture that shows why Obama is right to visit Cuba | Jonathan Jones

An image of Air Force One coming in to land in Havana represents a hope for engagement and the end of fear

Air Force One descends like a chariot of hope over a decaying and deprived street in this powerful image of President Obama’s arrival in Cuba, hoping to end one of the cold war’s strangest stories. A chubby man in a white T-shirt looks up at the vast yet elegant craft, easily identified as the world’s most famous personal plane. The cars beside him are ancient and decrepit emblems of a society frozen in time, one of the last communist societies on earth. It is like the classic American tale of Rip Van Winkle, as Obama’s customised Boeing 747, a symbol of the wealth and power that the United States has continued to accumulate since the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959, roars above this sleepy corner of Cuba that seems not to have changed in decades. Or is that a ridiculously pro-American reading of this picture? Does it in fact show a benign socialist society about to be swallowed up by the capitalist Leviathan that this plane represents?

Related: Where now are the earthly paradises from which an idealist can take hope? | Tim Bale

Related: Obamas tour Old Havana as Cubans catch a glimpse of city's future

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