In Cuba on March 21, President Obama met with President Raul Castro and spoke of a “new day” for relations between their two countries, according to a March 21 New York Times article. While some argue that this is a historic step toward thawing decades of residual animosity from the Cold War, some — human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, in particular — demand President Castro release political prisoners before the two leaders move forward with a partnership of any kind. What do you think of ’President Obama’s actions in Cuba, and how should the two countries proceed?

Prof. Laurence Simon (HS)

A former U.S. diplomat once said that Cuba exerts the same influence on the U.S. government that the moon does on werewolves. Well, the spell is now broken thanks to President Obama. He is correct to have visited Cuba and to place normalization of relations on a steady footing. His speech to the Cuban people made it clear that the U.S. is mindful of the improvements in human rights that are still to be achieved, and we might add the need for access to the World Wide Web. But let the American people see the whole picture from a pre-revolution when Cuba was a playground for Latin American oligarchs and a cesspool for the Cuban people to a time when Cubans enjoy among the finest universal health programs and free education for all. Engagement is a better option than isolation.

Professor Laurence Simon (HS) is Professor of International Development and Director of the Center for Global Development and Sustainability.

Prof. Silvia Arrom (HIST)

Obama’s trip was the right move. It signals the end of a failed Cold War policy and the beginning of constructive engagement. In Havana, he took several steps to encourage an expansion of civil liberties, not only meeting with dissidents but also delivering a speech — broadcast throughout the island — that reaffirmed our support for human rights, freedom of speech and the right of Cuba’s people to chart their own future in a democratic way. The issue of political prisoners came up in a joint press conference with Raul Castro, who is not used to receiving open questions from the press and, when confronted, asked for a list of these prisoners and promised to release them. So the seeds of change have been planted, in a respectful way that recognizes that the U.S. will treat Cubans as equals. This approach should work better than our heavy-handed policies of the past.

Prof. Silvia Arrom (HIST) is the Jane’s Professor Emerita of Latin American Studies.

Prof. Stephen Whitfield (AMST)

Is the violation of human rights why Cuba has remained under an embargo?  Why did it take so long for a U.S. President to visit an island so close to Florida? Obama is the first to do so since Calvin Coolidge. The answer cannot be Cuba’s imprisonment of political dissidents. The U.S. enjoys full diplomatic relations with China, with Russia, with Saudi Arabia.  At best human rights has been a very erratic feature of U.S. foreign policy; and in the 1970s, for example, during spasms of outrage at the despotism of Fidel Castro, Presidents Nixon and Ford — and Secretary of State Kissinger — got along just fine with the military rulers of Chile and Argentina, who engaged with impunity in horrendous torture and murder.  The only explanation for the anomaly of a policy that President Obama is rightly seeking to end is the historic need to placate right-wing Cuban-Americans in a state with clout in the Electoral College.

Prof. Stephen Whitfield (AMST) is a Max Richter Professor of American Civilization.

Prof. Winston Bowman (HIST)

Given that the United States has held hundreds of prisoners on Cuban soil for more than a decade with scant regard for the rule of law or the judicial process, President Obama is not in a position to take a high-handed or moralistic position against the Castro administration on this issue. Disengaging entirely would give us less leverage to effect positive change in Cuba and leave the U.S. open to charges of hypocrisy.  President Obama should instead walk a fine line between building on the hopeful signs of reengagement and appearing to whitewash or endorse Cuba’s oppressive policies.  This is a difficult balance to strike, but it is one America has managed in the past in dealing with more powerful nations, including China, that have dubious human rights records.

Prof. Winston Bowman (HIST) is a lecturer in history.

Prof. Faith Smith (AAAS)

This stipulation is rooted in a moral and geopolitical accounting based on the U.S.’s perceived superior democratic principles. Dissenters in Cuban prisons have paid heavily for their opposition to the state; so have many throughout the Caribbean and in this country. The U.S. has turned a blind eye to the most gruesome treatment of political activists in the region as long as the regimes they opposed could say that they were not Communist. A sprawling U.S. carceral system sucks the life out of immigrants, debtors, poor people, non-white people; opponents of the state’s injustice. President Obama’s March 22 speech in Havana gestured toward the unequal symmetries of power undergirding the U.S.’s relationship to Cuba but also to the mutual history of slaveholding that has generated an afterlife in which citizens in both territories still struggle for economic and racial justice. Demanding that one side prove its moral qualifications is a shortsighted view of a longstanding and complicated “partnership.”

Prof. Faith Smith (AAAS) is an Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and English. She also teaches in the Latin American and Latino Studies department.