This is a three page paper, written in APA format. It describes a recent issue that relates to free speech and uses several media sources. The issue selected was the celebrity visit to Cuba by Beyonce and Jay-Z. The visit was controversial because it challenges directly the American embargo on the Caribbean nation. By visiting, the couple makes a powerful political statement.
Media
The issue itself and why it caused controversy
According to Hudson (n.d.) of the First Amendment Center, the United States Supreme Court recognizes that the First Amendment right to free speech includes non-verbal self-expression. This includes symbolic speech: actions that express opinions. Often symbolic speech is highly controversial. This was the case when superstars Beyonce and Jay-Z celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in Cuba, a country that Americans are officially banned from visiting as tourists. The visit to Cuba has raised a storm of political opinion and controversy, especially among the Cuban-American community. In the aftermath of the visit, some pundits claim that the policy banning Americans from visiting Cuba is "broken," and that "the whole instance shines the spotlight on one of the most lengthy failed policies in U.S. history," (Brown, 2013). On the other hand, the Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio claims that Fidel Castro staged the visit by Beyonce and Jay-Z as "propaganda," (Boesveld, 2013). Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida also criticized the celebrity couple for doing what she claims is "illegal." Therefore, Jay-Z and Beyonce's visit to Cuba was far more than an anniversary celebration; it was a bold declaration of their political views on the U.S. embargo.
The issue itself has caused controversy because of the communist regime under Fidel Castro, who has been in power since 1960. According to Brown (2013), "the intention was to suffocate the Castro regime while still young, allowing the restoration of democracy." However, embargo has not had the intended result of strangling the regime and encouraging democracy from emerging. The failure of the regime is one of the reasons why many Americans like Beyonce and Jay-Z believe the travel ban should be eliminated. Many visitors to Cuba are taking advantage of recent relaxation of the travel ban. As Peralta (2013) points out, Beyonce and Jay-Z are not the first to receive a special permit from the United States Treasury Department allowing for an "educational exchange trip."
Members of the Cuban community in exile in the United States deem visits to Cuba an insult and an affront to democratic ideals. It is basically viewed as a form of anti-democratic free speech. Representative Ros-Lehtinen commented that Beyonce and Jay-Z should have refrained from expressing their political views, instead expressing "solidarity with the suffering of the Cuban people" by obeying the travel ban (cited by Wilkins, 2013).
The travel ban to Cuba is itself controversial. Ros-Lehtinen, Rubio, and other members of the Cuban-American community appear to be in the minority, based on the media coverage of the Beyonce/Jay-Z visit. International media coverage depicts the celebrity visit as an admirable form of symbolic free speech that challenges the efficacy of the Cuba embargo. Some reporters go so far as to accuse Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American, of supporting terrorism against Cuba, given her "staunch support for Miami-based Cuban exile terrorists who have carried out deadly attacks against the Castro regime as well as against innocent civilians," (Wilkins, 2013). From this perspective, the visit to Cuba by Beyonce and Jay-Z represents a type of non-violent resistance against tyrannical American foreign policy.
Canadian news sources, such as the National Post, reflect the beliefs of a nation that upholds the strongest tenets of democracy but also does not have a travel or trade embargo with Cuba (Boesveld, 2013). Some American reporters have opted to use the high-profile visit to Cuba as a means of initiating free speech related to changing official American policy towards the Caribbean nation. One reporter for the New York Daily News rants, "Come on, let's be serious…if anything is clear, it is that the trip of the famous couple to Havana has exposed the travel ban as what it is: a senseless, anachronistic and anti-democratic policy, contrary to U.S. interests and values," (Ruiz, 2013).
What was done to resolve the controversy?
There has yet to be a clear resolution to the controversy, but the expression of symbolic free speech on the part of Beyonce and Jay-Z has deepened the discourse about the purpose and effectiveness of the Cuba embargo. The celebrity visit has caused new dialogue about Cuban-American relations and the meaning behind the ongoing travel ban Many Americans do not give much thought to the travel ban; but Cuban-Americans take the ban personally. Now that the Cold War is over, it does not seem to make much sense to have an embargo. The United States does business, and allows travel to, many nations with questionable human rights. Even the United States is culpable of human rights abuses; and ironically some of the grossed abuses are perpetrated on Cuban soil in the Guantanamo Bay facility.
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