Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

The Americans preach liberty, and freedom, and democracy at home, and practice tyranny throughout the rest of the world.

“Terrible things rarely happen all at once,” she answers. “They’re incremental, so people don’t realize how bad things have gotten until it’s too late.

There are dozens of ways you can betray your country—broken promises, failed policies, the sound of a firing squad pumping bullets into flesh. And then there’s the silent betrayal—the most insidious one of all. We thought we were being smart by merely enduring Batista. We thought we were playing the long game, cozying up to power so we could keep our grand homes, and our yacht club memberships, and our champagne-filled parties. We thought the indignities of his regime wouldn’t touch us.

What does it say about a place that people will risk certain death to leave it?