Raja, Shahzad. “The Cuban Revolution 3/5.” YouTube. February 28, 2011. Video, 10:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3sZi9h_cwU.

The beginning of the video pans across the fighters. The men range dramatically in appearance and stature, which depicts the normality of the individuals and warfare in Cuba. The appearance of the men do not instantly evoke the image of war and revolution, because of their relaxed and composed posture. 

It shows the destruction that the Batista regime subjected their civilians too; how the overthrow by Che Guevara is a very welcomed response by the people of Santa Clara. The sheer amount of people on the streets in the video depict the rejoicing the civilians had over the revolution taking hold of Cuba.     

Near the end of the video, there is a reunification of people who have been fighting and were exiled in the Batista regime. The joy and positivity that can be seen on the individuals faces convey the sense of achievement and pride in the fighters. It is interesting how there is a sense of a familial relationship in the individuals meeting together again. I think that this portrays the closeness of the Cuban fighters and population in general.

This source will be useful as it shows the impact and scale of the military revolution that began the revolutionary process. It will provide a good starting point for the timeline of our project, as it will set the scene of the environment in Cuba and how this later on affected the revolution. The footage seems to focus on the instantaneous joy that the revolution caused to the people of Cuba. This will be interesting to question whether there is an underlying tension of what is next for Cuban society after the military revolution?

Also I think that it would be interesting to question the intentions of the source. Personally, my first thoughts on the source was that it seemed to be a rather biased source because of the overt positivity on the military revolution for the people of Cuba. Almost as if the footage was glorifying the revolution. There is only a very specific kind of information that the video portrays to the audience. But I think that this is necessary in order to depict how the success of the military revolution was interpreted as an end to the chaos that had plagued Cuba for so long. However, how this was actually just the end of the beginning, as the revolution in Cuba was an extremely long and tedious process.