{"id":292206,"date":"2023-11-27T11:52:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T16:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=292206"},"modified":"2023-11-27T11:52:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T16:52:15","slug":"fidel-seven-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/in-plain-words\/fidel-seven-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Fidel seven years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is hardly a more predicted event in the last seventy years than the death of <\/span>Fidel Castro<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

They said that he had been killed when he attacked the Moncada Barracks; when he landed on that muddy coast at the head of a group of castaways (Che dixit), without having the remotest idea where they were; when the army surprised him in a wrong cane field called Alegr\u00eda de P\u00edo; when Batista sent 12,000 soldiers to hunt him down in the summer of 1958.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was rather a miracle that he survived all of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The CIA and a powerful counterrevolution <\/span>put all their force into eliminating him<\/b><\/a>, starting in 1959. At that time, he would go to eat fried rice in the early morning on Infanta Street or to drink a chocolate milkshake in the cafeteria of the Hilton Hotel, almost without an escort or \u201csecurity agents\u201d to thoroughly check the kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n

They placed <\/span>shell bombs<\/b><\/a> where he was going to go deep-sea fishing, they sent him <\/span>cigars with explosives<\/b><\/a>, and they recruited agents from among those close to him to kill him. Some of them came very close to doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my experience giving lectures and classes in the United States about Cuba, the most common question was \u201cWhat will happen when Fidel Castro dies?\u201d My reply, trying to explain the stability of the Cuban system beyond him, began by saying \u201cIf he ever dies\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only did he survive, but he became a world figure, who would speed up the second half of the 20th century. Just nine years after failing in his attempt to take over the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, he was the protagonist of world events such as the <\/span>Missile Crisis<\/b><\/a>, when for the first time the courage of a revolution in a small Third World country could be measured in the balance of all humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

His leadership went through periods as adverse as the failure of the <\/span>ten-million-ton sugar harvest<\/b><\/a> in 1970 and the economic and ideological collapse that accompanied the end of Soviet socialism in the 1990s. He suffered setbacks such as the failure of the Cuban guerrillas in Venezuela and in Bolivia in the 1960s, tensions such as the fifteen years of transatlantic war campaigns and battles against the powerful South African army, the defeat of its Sandinista allies in Nicaragua in the 1980s, the death and imprisonment of Cuban collaborators during the invasion of the marines to Granada, the loneliness and helplessness that followed the debacle of the Soviet Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

During all that time, he maintained a mind-boggling daily work schedule, with barely three or four hours of sleep, dealing with every national and international problem imaginable. At 80 he began to fight what was predicted to be his last round, this time against the onslaught of his age.<\/span><\/p>\n

What was the image of him among Cubans? What did his ideas, his leadership, his person mean to them?<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember that before the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship, his supporters were \u201cthe Fidelistas\u201d and he was simply \u201cFidel.\u201d Calling him Castro marked, in the ears of any Cuban, a contrary position, a rejection. \u201cCastroism\u201d does not circulate in Cuba except as an imported term, foreign to Old Havana or Palma Soriano.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have said before that it was a contradictory relationship, since \u201cthe Cubans,\u201d that heterogeneous group of argumentative and opinionated people, did not support or approve of all his policies. Those in Cuba or outside of it found everything he did or said wrong, as well as those who agreed with him on everything or disagreed occasionally, had a personalized bond with Fidel Castro, a representation that is not the usual one with politicians.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this brief space, a list of the stereotypes with which he has been represented, and is still evoked, would not fit.<\/span><\/p>\n

To explain Cuban politics in the 1980s, the <\/span>Rand Corporation<\/b><\/a> produced a psychopathological diagnosis of Fidel Castro, with syndromes taken from Greek mythology, hubris (disproportionate arrogance) and nemesis (righteous revenge). Numerous works of investigative journalism (some based on stories collected in Miami) were published about his life. Others designed exit scenarios for the imminent disintegration of the regime he presided over. They all had the merit of their imaginative impulse, let\u2019s say, a Catholic Church to which the role of mediating in the internal conflict was attributed, like that of Pope Karol Wojtyla in Poland; or a Cuban transition inspired by the models of Spain (1975), Chile (1989), Czechoslovakia and even German unification (1989). In all these variants the hypothesis was assumed that he was not there, because he had died, or had gone to enjoy his millions on a Mediterranean island.<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be worthwhile for a specialized bibliographer to record this kind of political literature genre of recent decades around the Cuban Armageddon, dedicated to imagining a future without Fidel Castro.<\/span><\/p>\n

The vast majority of those who identified with Fidel and the program of reforms and social justice, and aligned themselves with the radical conflict unleashed by the upper class and the United States, did not have the slightest idea of what socialism was, or communism, and even less so \u201cthe post-capitalist society\u201d (a more recent, even more nebulous).<\/span><\/p>\n

Those who in 1960-61 did not know what socialism was, but supported his reform program, moved in favor of the changes that Fidel embodied. Those changes \u2014 and not his charisma or his beard, as those at the CIA thought \u2014 were the cement of the political consensus.<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be necessary to differentiate this cement and this consensus from the sentiment that prevails today among those who, with good reasons and better desires, want the best of previous socialism and the best of \u201cpopular\u201d capitalism. That was a social and political force; this is just \u2015 to be said with all due respect \u2015 a letter to Santa Clause.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to another widespread stereotype, Fidel Castro was hunting windmills in lands beyond the seas, like Don Quixote. If he had been Don Quixote, his archenemies would have caught him with one of the numerous traps they laid for him in almost fifty years. There are examples of his alliances and strategic cunning that I do not have space to repeat. I just want to point out that he was not a prisoner of his own dogmas, nor can his career be explained simply by ideological parameters. He was a politician, not a philosopher or a professor of Marxism-Leninism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under his command, there was a circulation of elites and even renewed political lines. Although the political scientist <\/span>Mario Conde<\/b><\/a> (Tusquests, 2013, p.24) does not agree with me, this generational renewal is not identical to the period in which Fidel Castro was at the helm. When he left power, in 2006, other generations that came after the \u201chistoric\u201d one were already governing in each province, including <\/span>D\u00edaz-Canel<\/b><\/a>. Not to mention <\/span>Ra\u00fal<\/b><\/a>\u2019s decade. So it wasn\u2019t a sixty-two-year cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n

And in 2016, <\/span>Fidel\u2019s death came<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten years ago, when he became seriously ill, his enemies celebrated his death, once again anticipated in vain. When he died, he had survived by almost a quarter of a century a best-seller from the 1990s written by a Miami journalist, Andr\u00e9s Oppenheimer, titled <\/span>La hora final de Castro<\/i><\/b><\/a>, \u201cthe definitive book on Cuba,\u201d according to the <\/span>Dallas Morning News<\/span><\/i>. Fidel did not die a victim of any of the risks he ran or of the attacks planned by his enemies, but in his bed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day, I went to Parque Central to see <\/span>how things were in the street<\/b><\/a>. Some passing tourists approached a group engaged in an intense discussion near the statue of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed. One of them asked the discussants if the topic was the event announced the night before. One of the group responded from the bench: \u201cNo, friend, we\u2019re talking about baseball, you know.\u201d I remember the look of bewilderment on the visitor\u2019s face. Along Neptuno and San L\u00e1zaro streets, towards the hill of the University of Havana, the routine of traffic and pedestrians resembled that of a normal day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although, according to government guidance, educational and work activities were maintained, many who mentioned what had happened had a sad look. Only on the eve of the start of the funeral were activities suspended, so that everyone who wanted to do so <\/span>could accompany him<\/b><\/a>. Hundreds of thousands, old and young, went to the Plaza de la Revoluci\u00f3n and mourned his death. The reasons for this were varied, like the population itself, and equally mixed, inside and outside the island.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fidel Castro\u2019s funeral cortege on route to Santiago de Cuba<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n