last sunday thousands came out in cuba to protest against the government. it was the biggest such demonstration in decades. yesterday the government responded with what it called a revolutionary reaffirmation rally held near the u.s. embassy. government supporters were heard chanting down with the yankees. what happens next in cuba? will anything change? ada ferrer joins me now. she s a cuban-american historian and professor at nyu. welcome. so the first question, professor, is will this lead to anything other than a further crackdown and more oppression? thanks, fareed, for having me. first of all, as a historian, i always have to start off by warning you that it s way too soon to tell what the result and what the legacy of these unprecedented protests will be. i think there are three things that we have to watch for.
we saw videos of plainclothes security forces, of uniformed security forces arresting people, beating people. and one of the things that i found most interesting in watching the videos of that is that you could see the people, the witnesses express their disgust and their repudiation of those strong-arm tactics. and it s interesting, as a historian, i can think back to the 1950s and the original cuban revolution. in that movement against the dictatorship, young people were very mobilized. students were very mobilized. and one of the things that turned a more general public opinion against the government was watching the government repress and beat and enact physical violence on young protesters. so it will be interesting to see whether that happens in this case. government repression can be a very, very effective tool. the cuban government knows that. but it could also feed sources and the forces of discontent on
democratically elected presidents. the troubles at the top have only added to haiti s other problem. it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. on a host of indicators from literacy to life expectancy to infant mortality, haiti is by far the worst off country in latin america. its neighbor to the east with whom it shares the island, the dominican republic, has more than six times haiti s per capita gdp. so how did haiti get here? the answer like most lies in history. haiti was once saint doming, the richest colony in the caribbean. it was the jewel in france s imperial crown. and by the late 18th century it supplied half the world s coffee and 40% of its sugar according to the historian david bell. the french shipped a huge number of slaves to the colony to work its plantations. they were literally worked to death. according to the guardian, these slaves had an average life
bureaucracies to learn from countries that got it right and to put in place new policies, procedures, frameworks, to ensure better performance during the next pandemic which will surely come. the vergence between the last crisis and this one has been most stark on the global level. as daniel dresner wrote in his excellent book the system worked people used to think of global governance the way woody allen joked about food at catskills resorts, so bad and yet such small portions. in fact as he documents global governance functions surprisingly well during the financial crisis. countries cooperated, central banks worked together and a downward spiral was averted. he noted even china was remarkably willing to go along with major international initiatives. washington played the central role of course, nudging countries to get in line, but also acting in ways that helped other. the economic historian adam tuus