Fidel Castro’s mark on the world

by RT Luke V Browne

lukebrowne@yahoo.com

My first public undertaking as a young graduate of the University of the West Indies was a lecture series in 2008 that began with a presentation on Fidel Castro. By then, Fidel had already relinquished leadership in Cuba and was firmly established as the most iconic revolutionary leader of our age. During the course of the series, there was also a lecture on C LR James, who in an appendix to his masterpiece, The Black Jacobins had linked the Cuban Revolution with the earlier Haitian Revolution, and thereby established a concrete connection between the two greatest revolutionary episodes in the Americas.{{more}}

For the lecture on Fidel, I tried to look the part – I grew my hair and beard and appeared on stage in military uniform, complete with the characteristic cap. The only thing I didn’t seem to have was Fidel’s trademark cigar from his early revolutionary days. Fidel Castro obviously made a mark on me. For that matter, he made a mark on the world.

On Friday, six years after our lecture series, and on the eve of a royal visit to St Vincent and the Grenadines, the world received the news of Fidel Castro’s death. This provoked mixed reactions, as one will imagine – the scenes of jubilation among Cuban-Americans, as portrayed by American media houses, stood in sharp contrast to the sad and somber faces of Cubans in mourning with grieving hearts. In the flood of early reactions to the news of Castro’s death that poured in from all over the world, I thought former cricketer and Pakistani politician Imran Khan put it best when he said that Fidel Castro liberated his nation from all vestiges of imperialism, withstood US aggression and became a global leader for anti-colonial struggles.

Fidel came to power in Cuba by overthrowing a repressive and oppressive regime that was under the imperialist control of the United States. He fought for freedom, genuine independence, equality, social justice and development in his homeland against powerful forces that spared no effort in seeking to bring about the revolution’s downfall from the very beginning.

The fact that Fidel Castro survived 50 years of assassination plots against his life, numerous attempts to overthrow his government and a US economic embargo is nothing short of miraculous. That he could have created so fiercely egalitarian and progressive a society against the strong headwinds is a wonder of the world. What Fidel Castro did in Cuba over the course of his leadership was just phenomenal, and more importantly, it was fundamentally in the interest of the Cuban people, even though he did not function in the most propitious economic circumstances.

Castro developed a strong army that undergirded national security, and which also helped to break the back of apartheid by an intervention on the African continent. When people talk about economic difficulties in Cuba, and there are difficulties, they should discuss the contribution of the cruel economic embargo or blockade to this reality. They should also point out that among Cuba’s revolutionary achievements are: the abolition of racism, the emancipation of women, the eradication of illiteracy and a dramatic reduction in infant mortality rates. Let them say too that there is no hunger, homelessness, unemployment, begging on the streets, drug addiction, drug trafficking or high crime rates in Cuba. All this and a well ordered state, despite the most vigorous foreign attempts at subversion and destabilization.

The education and health care systems in Cuba are universally acclaim­ed as exceptional achievements, replicated nowhere else. They testify most eloquently of Fidel’s clear thinking on the subject of development and stand as an enduring credit to this man that the world will soon lay to rest. Fidel admirably and most profoundly liberated his people from the bondage of ignorance and the scourge of diseases. Many Vincentian students have studied on scholarship at Cuban universities. Cuban medical teams have answered the call to humanitarian and other forms of duty in the aftermath of disasters (including hurricanes and earthquakes) and in other situations in even the most remote corners of the globe.

Say what you like about him, Fidel Castro was a visionary leader of extraordinary proportions. He knew what he wanted and pursued his vision of society restlessly and relentlessly. His passionate pursuits turned a small backward outpost of a country into a force to be reckoned with in the international arena, and in the process, he established himself as the leading light of revolutionary struggle in our hemisphere. Fidel Castro is immortal.