There is a particular kind of weariness that settles over you when watching anti-West radical activists on tour. It is the predictability of watching chic revolutionaries attempting to cosplay as ‘resistance fighters’ or Che Guevara, while maintaining their strictly non-negotiable requirement for a good air con system, functioning minibar and high thread Egyptian cotton bed linen.
It was a masterclass in five-star solidarity, a perfect bit of radical chic
The latest troupe to tread the boards of this weary theatre is the Belfast rap trio, Kneecap. Fresh from their triumph of ‘beating the British empire’ (a reference to Liam Og O hAnnaigh’s success in having terror related charges against him dismissed) they decamped to Cuba as part of the ‘Nuestra America Convoy’ to ‘break the siege’ and stand in solidarity with the Cuban people against the evil West.
The highlight of their visit was a high-octane concert, a spectacle that required an impressive array of tech, amplifiers, strobe lights, and mixing desks. After the gig, the crumbling Cuban grid gave up the ghost. Never mind, Kneecap chirped on X, ‘even with the power cutting out shortly after our gig, the message of solidarity to Palestine remains the same.’ Never mind that Palestine is 5,000 miles away from the poverty-stricken island of Cuba where families are struggling to cook a meal.
According to a multitude of on-the ground Cuban journalists and international news outlets, some of the Convoy stayed at the Gran Hotel Bristol, a luxury five-star hotel, reportedly with its own electricity generator. It features a heated rooftop pool, multi-choice breakfasts and a host of five-star services to satisfy even the most discerning revolutionary.
Multi-millionaire Turkish-American streamer, Hasan Piker checked in to ‘witness the poverty caused by the US embargo’ while sporting a look that cost more than the average Cuban earns in a decade.
Piker posed in his luxury suite, dripping in designer gear and blaming US President Donald Trump for his opulent discomfiture. ‘I had to stay here,’ he lamented. The US government, he claimed, insisted on it, something to with ‘sanctions’. You truly couldn’t make this stuff up.
Meanwhile, the Kneecap trio posed for pictures outside the iconic former Mafia-owned hotel, the National, looking suitably revolutionary against the dramatic Caribbean backdrop. It was a masterclass in five-star solidarity, a perfect bit of radical chic.
The Nuestra Convoy numbered 620 activists from various countries, carrying food and medicine. They travelled from the airport in ten open side shuttle buses, cameras poised, snapping poor unfortunates huddled in doorways or slumped on sidewalks, as though were specimens in a zoo. The suffering of Cuban people served as a gritty backdrop for their ‘Free Palestine’, ‘Fuck Trump’, ‘Fuck Isreal’ message – poverty porn for the TikTok generation. But when you strip it bare, it is not so much what these cosplaying Che Guevarra’s support, it is what they virulently oppose: US President Donald Trump in particular and the West in general.
What these misery tourists are doing is utterly grotesque, as Cuban journalists were quick to condemn. ‘They embrace those who gag us, take photos with those who repress us, and smile alongside those who destroy our nation’ said journalist Yoani Sanchez. She was scathing of Kneecap’s concert saying: ‘they claim to want to break the energy blockade, but they spend on a meeting at the Convention Palace the electricity that would light up several buildings in my neighbourhood, plunged into darkness.’
Cuba is bankrupt. Its Soviet-era power grid is collapsing, plunging Havana into a sweltering socialist darkness. Rubbish is piling high on the streets. Disease is spreading. Protesters are taking to the streets in what is the worst economic crisis since Castro’s military dictatorship took over in 1959. But the five-star solidarity safari absolves the Cuban government of all blame. Veteran socialist Jermey Corbyn was photographed with the Cuban President, the latter togged out in a sharp, powder blue blazer, looking like he had never missed a meal.
Labour MP Richard Burgon, who also joined the trip, posted pictures of his contribution to the crisis, a suitcase case of plasters and CME medical devices. Helpful, but he mustn’t have realised the devices appear to have been manufactured in Israel.
But back to Kneecap. One moment they are geopolitical heavyweights breaking a decades old siege, the next they are mere strummers, remarkable incurious about the history of their hosts. ‘We’re not politicians, we’re not diplomats… we’re musicians’ they told a Channel 4 interviewer who queried their lack of criticism of the Cuban regime.
Their new album ‘Fenian’ is being released in April and there are rumours of a second biopic in the offing. What better way to inject a whiff of revolutionary sulphur to the promo shots than a foray into the bastion of anti-imperialism?
Ultimately, the trip was a perfect microcosm of the radical left; loud on stage, pampered in the hotel and fundamentally reliant on the very systems they claim to despise.
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