Why the world mourns Fidel Castro
When he dismissed Fidel Castro as a “brutal dictator” Donald Trump again showed how out of touch he is. Most of the world is mourning the death of Cuba’s revolutionary leader.
Fidel was widely admired for resisting every attempt by America to overthrow his revolutionary government in a small country situated just 125 kilometres south of Florida. As Mikhail Gorbachev said in his tribute, “Fidel stood up and strengthened his country during the harshest American [economic] blockade” and took “a path of independent development.” French president Francois Hollande took a similar tack, saying Fidel “represented, for Cubans, pride in rejecting external dominantion.”
America wasn’t trying to depose Fidel because he was a “brutal dictator”. In the first few decades of the Cuban revolution, the United States was supporting right-wing military dictatorships across Latin America. Fidel’s “crime” was to nationalise American firms in Cuba and set out on a socialist path.
The good outcomes for Cubans have been widely recognised by world leaders. Ireland’s president, Michael Higgins, said “Cuba achieved 100% literacy many years ago and built up a health system that is one of the most admired in the world. With economic growth rates similar to many other Latin American countries, inequality and poverty are much less pronounced in Cuba than in surrounding nations.”
Higgins said Fidel Castro also sought to offer an alternative global economic and social order. He recalled Fidel “speaking of how it was possible to eliminate global hunger and the enormous burden international debt was placing on impoverished nations” saying: “Let us pay the debt to humanity, not the debt to the banks.” Such talk didn’t go down well in New York or Washington.
British Labour leader Jeremyn Corbyn referred to “Cuba’s record of international soldidarity abroad. Castro’s achievements were many. For all his flaws Castro’s support for Angola [which included troops] played an crucial role in bringing an end to Apartheid in South Africa.” South African president picked up the same theme, saying that Castro “inspired the Cuban people to join us in our own struggle against apartheid.”
Cuba is appreciated by most governments for its sacrifices to help others, including sending thousands of doctors to many less well-off nations, including in the South Pacific.
Recognising Cuba’s achievements and helping it end the US economic blockade will also improve its democracy. Some of the political restraints evident in Cuba today are in reaction to the blockade and reflect Fidel’s long-standing fear of division when Cuba confronts threats from its northern neighbour.
At time of writing I haven’t found a NZ government tribute to Fidel Castro. It would be a shame if they can’t say something good about him, a couple of weeks after National rammed through Parliament a motion welcoming the election of Donald Trump.
Perhaps John Key say something similar to the Irish president Michael Higgins, who said: “Fidel Castro will be remembered as a giant among global leaders whose view was not only one of freedom for his people but for all the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet.”
100% 🙂
One of the biggest crimes anyone is capable of in the eyes of the fascistic capitalists who control the western industrialised nations is to oppose fascistic capitalists who control western industrialised nations; hence the demonization of Putin in recent years and the vicious assaults on the opponents of the Dakota pipeline in recent months etc.
Not generally known was Cuba’s development of permaculture, power-down and non-pharmaceutical medicines following the US blockade and the fall of the USSR, resulting in one of the most sustainable complex societies anywhere on Earth.
Sadly, the last phase of Cuba’s history will be the embracement of capitalism via tourism and consumerism, and the exploitation of off-shore gas and oil fields in the short period before the global economic system goes kaput and the global environment goes kaput.
As a mouthpiece for, and promoter of, rapacious fascistic capitalism, Trump is behaving much as expected. And I think we can also expect Trump, in the short period before the global economic and environmental systems go kaput, to revitalize American support for brutal dictators, which has characterized US foreign policy since the end of WW2.
Everything is ‘cooking up nicely’ at both ends of the planet now, with Arctic and Antarctic ice cover both well below average:
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent
and
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent
And atmospheric CO2 is surging, of course:
Daily CO2
November 26, 2016: 405.40 ppm
November 26, 2015: 400.79 ppm
Since permaculture, power-down and sustainability are an anathema to global capitalism, they will be stamped on and stamped out wherever global capitalism’s tentacles reach. Including NZ, of course.
Yes and the monthly rate is now predicted to accelerate even faster than before and could double to 8 or 10 points annually so in five years we will be involved with catastrophe with failing crops and animal losses plus human impacts felt on a global scale of a lack of health and increased disease due to declining oxygen levels as CO2 uses up the oxygen levels far quicker than previously.
Health conditions involving cancer and immune dysfunction will occur from “oxidative stress” and breakdown within our cellular systems.
Not going to be very pretty in future as we enter the final planetary collapse.
It is true that Castro did help Cuban literacy; did help build up their medical services and did help generously with aid around the world.
Unfortunately it is also true as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have pointed out, that Castro hated freedom of expression – especially when it was against him. And lots of people went to jail for daring to express their opinions. And there were executions.
No justification Keith, as you well know, for executions.
Keith you seriously believe that the people of Cuba have freedom? They have freedom of speech? they have freedom of assembly? They have freedom to vote? they have freedom not to have rationed food? They have freedom to join a trade union”? freedom to join a political party? freedom to be openly gay? I bet they cant even read your post in Cuba as the internet is censored!
Sure, let’s talk about Cuba’s many achievements, such as “the legacy of a caudillo who spent the first decade of his rule rounding up gay people for “re-education” in labour camps.” And let’s do it without “glossing over the many things Cubans have every right to complain about”:
“Any political activity outside the Communist Party of Cuba is a criminal offence. Political dissent of any kind is a criminal offence. Dissidents are spied on, harassed and roughed up by the Castros’ neighbourhood vigilante committees. Freedom of movement is non-existent. Last year, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) documented 8,616 cases of politically-motivated arbitrary arrest. For all [the Canadian] prime minister’s accolades about Cuba’s health care system, basic medicines are scarce to non-existent. For all the claims about high literacy rates, Cubans are allowed to read only what the Castro crime family allows.
“Raul Castro’s son Alejandro is the regime’s intelligence chief. His son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, runs the Cuban military’s business operations, which now account for 60 per cent of the Cuban economy. The Castro regime owns and control the Cuban news media, which is adept at keeping Cubans in the dark. It wasn’t until 1999, for instance, that Cubans were permitted to know the details of Fidel’s family life: five sons they’d never heard of, all in their 30s.
Independent publications are classified as “enemy propaganda.” Citizen journalists are harassed and persecuted as American spies. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cuba at 171 out of 180 countries in press freedom, worse than Iran, worse than Saudi Arabia, worse than Zimbabwe.”
Good outcomes? Really? And that’s without even mentioning all those he tortured, murdered, or drove into the sea.
There is certainly someone here who is out of touch, Keith, and to my eyes he wears green (or used to).
Peter, if you’re going to copy and paste someone elses’ work, attributing the source is always a good idea.
I thought I had: from Terry Glavin’s piece in ‘Maclean’s’ magazine, ‘Trudeau’s turn from cool to laughing stock’: http://www.macleans.ca/news/trudeaus-turn-from-cool-to-laughing-stock/
Clearly, I recommend it.
He was no saint, as others have pointed out. But the BIG difference between Batista (and other right-wing dictators; Noriega, Pinochet, etc, etc) and Castro is that Batista served the Mafia and Washington while Castro did what he had to for his people.
Bastista or Castro? I know which one I respect, and which one will be remembered in history for all the right reasons.
Well said – me too.
anyone heard of the Cuban missile crisis that nearly started world war 3,or those little things called democratic elections
As much as I wished that Keith Locke was correct with his assessment, I fear he is rather out of touch with reality himself, when it comes to Fidel Castro. MOST people in the world will know stuff all about the man, as they are much younger, will not even have lived in 1959 or the 1960s and are distracted by other “more important” distractions of our modern days, dominated by biased and false information, via MSM, social media and what else there is.
And therein lies the challenge, which most politicians are struggling to deal with.
Perhaps Trump knows more than we do:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/12/06/fidel-castro-of-the-cia/