they don't represent popular opinion in the country. trudeau should stick by his comments, which were reflective of the broad understanding in this country that castro was not perfect but that he did far more good than he did harm.
that's the historical narrative that will stick. the tory media is, as usual, completely wrong.
trudeau did not win the election by caving to the media. and, he should not cave to the media, now.
a lot of the people in the tory press that are criticizing trudeau today for his comments on castro were no doubt supporting apartheid south africa while castro was fighting it. they were on the wrong side of history then, and they are on the wrong side of history, now.
these are the same people that declared mandela a terrorist and stuck to it.
their opinions are wrong. they have always been wrong. and, if their media parent companies had any concept of social responsibility, their microphones and pens and keyboards would have been taken away from them years ago.
you don't have to be an advocate of historical materialism to realize that you can't expect a primitive society to respect queer rights. my understanding is that the reality was less that castro was an opponent of queer rights and more that he chose not to prevent their persecution. the ultimate problem stemmed from centuries of colonial rule by the catholic church. it was something that he couldn't overturn quickly, and fighting against it too strenuously may have put the whole thing in jeopardy.
the same thing is true today in russia. putin does not care about gay people one way or another. but, he knows that standing up to the church, which is what is actually leading the persecution, would put his own position in jeopardy.
i'm not trying to whitewash putin or castro. you can call putin weak, and be right. and, you can question castro's judgement. but, let us attribute the problem, correctly - in both cases, the problem is religion. and, on the left, we know how careful we have to be about religion and striking the right balance in letting it die out slowly.
it's not that queer rights are not important. of course, they are. but, they are a second-generation concern.
there is consequently something deeply bourgeois and distressingly haughty in these upper class tories and liberals looking down on these developing societies and criticizing them for not overturning their colonial brainwashing fast enough.
queer rights are a deduction, and not a premise. a certain framework must come first.
and, in time, castro's society did become more free for queer people - once it had time to undo the effects of catholicism.