Conclusion: A New Perspective
In the last two decades, behind Odd Arne Westad, Cold War scholarship has seen a growing body of literature seek to replace the outdated binary model of East-West analysis. One which deviates from the archaic Washington-Moscow axis, and which instead reframes the Cold War as a more global phenomenon full of divergent actors and convoluded ideologies that require more understanding that the orthodox view can provide. This process, as Matthew Connolly has opined, is to remove the "Cold War lens" that obscured early Cold War scholarship.
The case study of Cuba in Angola has provided Westadian scholars with a prime moment of interaction that has been thoroughly misrepresented into modernity. On the surface, it is easy - lazy - to understand Cuban motivations within a Soviet sphere of influence, refraining from exerting unnecessary energy on a superfluous topic. But it is the duty of the historian to challenge antiquated processes.
Cuban participation in the Angolan Civil War ultimately reflected deep-seeded beliefs within the Cuban cultural ethods, including a distaste for American imperialism, a curiosity of the international world, and a Romantic desire to sponsor grassroots insurgencies across Africa, the homeland of many Cuban ancestors.
Angola as a Model for the Future
Taking off the "Cold War lens" is not always easy. Especially in the Western world, it can be tempting to slide into a fallacious perspective of excellency of one's birthlands. Such is the case for Americanists who, for a half-century, could not conceive of Cuba - the nation which had once belonged to the great American Empire - as more than a Soviet puppet. As capable of making its own decisions.
But taking off the "Cold War lens" is nevertheless necessary should the historiography seek to move forward. If the Gaddesian school unlocked the doors to Cold War thought, the Westadian school has subsequently blown them wide open. There is an enitre world to reexamine outside of the Washington-Moscow axis begging to be researched. Actors whose stories have remained unheard, organizations whose efforts have gone unnoticed, and nations whose actions have been misrepresented.
The story of Cuba in Angola is only one of hundreds, perhaps thousands during the Cold War. By digging deep into archives and accumulating diverse primary sources, the Westadian model has shown us how past historiography can outright get things backwards, misunderstood, and flat out wrong in the periphery. But removing the "Cold War lens" does not just affect the periphery, but the core too. As Westad demonstrated, it was upon the third-world that imperial states sought to exert themselves the most.
Altogether, the purpose of this exhibit was to show how removing the "Cold War lens," in turn, allowed for a far deeper understanding of not just Cuba and Angola, but of the United States and of the Soviet Union as well, and how this process can be repeated throughout the rest of the periphery. Entire realities have been sitting beneath the eyes of historians for decades, swept under the dust because of Western chauvinism, but brought back to life via a reshaping of persepctive.
The Cold War was not a binary event between merely two participants while the rest of the world watched. It was a process of colonization continued across the Third World against their wishes. It contained a diverse set of participants who further held motivations far removed from each other, stemming from historical trends far before the 1950s. It was a global event. As such, it deserves more respect than to be watered down to a competition between superpowers.
Only, the question remains: who will be the next to remove the "Cold War lens"?