View Message

This is a reply within a larger thread: view the whole thread

What's wrong with Havana?
in reply to a message by Gia
Do I hear someone blaspheming about Che Guevara? I think Cuba being a communist country has little to do with a lady wanting to call her daughter Havana. You don't hear people saying they wouldn't call their daughter Paris because France is a capitalist country.Sorry if that sounded rude, but I just don't like people socialist-bashing.
Archived Thread - replies disabled
vote up1

Replies

Havana isn't exactly a great city. Poverty and political oppression are are both prominent in Havana and in the rest of Cuba.
vote up1
I don't know, I think poverty and political oppression are pretty prominent the world over, "democratic" countries being no exception. I think Havana is a lovely name!
vote up1
Your right. Just last week I got arrested for not being a member of the ruling party, going on the internet without asking and reading an unapproved book. That happens all the time in other countries.Besides that, Cuba is one of the most impoverished countries in the world. They earn less than twenty dollars a month and proper food (especially meat) rarely available or of bad quality.You say that "poverty and political oppression are pretty prominent" in other places, but you need to put that into perspective and realize just how bad it is in Cuba.
vote up1
Sorry to butt in, but while it's true Cuba is impoverished and undemocratic, I've heard many people who've travelled to Havana that it's an attractive and interesting city. So not everything associated with Havana is necessarily negative.This said, I don't think it makes a good name for a child, for the reasons I've stated in my response to the OP.
vote up1
Well as long as the tourists are having fun . . .
vote up1
Hmm, my point wasn't so much that it's all ok because it's a kind of amusement part for tourists, just that it's not necessarily some totally apalling place with only bad associations because it's undemocratic and poor. The person who wants to use it as a name presumably was struck positively by the city.
When I think about Havana I think about a place with a history, a place in literature and interesting shoreline architecture, as well as thinking of the economic and political problems it has. If all places that are poor and undemocratic are unreedemably horrid, then a whole lot of the world is unreedembly horrid, including quite a few places we generally consider beautiful and interesting.
vote up1
I never said "unredeemably" horrid. (It should be irredeemably, by the way.) It is, frankly, an unpleasant place to live and it shouldn't be romanticized. There are many other place that have history, literature and interesting architecture without low standards of living and overbearing governments, so there is no reason why the former three characteristics make it a nice place.
vote up1
English's not my first language btw.I just happen to think it's good to be able to see the various different nuances and aspects of a given situation, but nevermind.
vote up1