FIDEL CASTRO’S NAME will forever be etched in history.
The former Cuban leader, who died on Friday at the age of 90, was a contradictory figure over his near five decades as leader of the largest Caribbean island nation. He was loved as much as he was despised.
A lawyer from a well-off family who could have easily upheld the status quo in Cuba, he saw as his mission to enhance the life of the poor and oppressed. His opponents will reflect on his one-party rule as being dictatorial in that it denied the opportunity for plurality of choice and curtailed civil liberties.
Much of the antagonism Castro encountered outside of his country and in “Little Havana” in Florida stemmed principally from his ability to survive much of what the Americans and his opponents placed in his path. There was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the numerous documented attempts on his life, the economic blockade and the efforts to ostracise Cuba internationally. Yet he grew stronger. The bond he developed with the then Soviet Union would only have created deeper hardline positions in the United States against him.
Despite Castro’s death, it is evident that the relationship between the US and Cuba is in for a rocky ride given the comments of president-elect Donald Trump at the revolutionary’s passing. The rapprochement between the two nations initiated under President Barack Obama could face some challenges. The significant hindrance for the Trump administration is the opportunity for significant economic gains for American businesses and the non-hostile position of the majority of younger Cuban-Americans towards the island 90 miles south of the US border. Trump cannot be anything but pragmatic in this situation.
Even Fidel Castro’s fiercest critics cannot deny he was a charismatic figure, whose brand of socialism made him an iconic figure not only across Cuba, but the entire Caribbean and Latin America where left-wing politicians, thinkers, students and clergy adored his ideological stance and lauded his achievements. From Jamaica, which tried its own brand of democratic socialism, to Grenada with Maurice Bishop and his short-lived People’s Revolutionary Government, the influence of the late Cuban leader was evident.
Castro’s inability to transform Cuba’s economy and his refusal to institute the system of governance which has become the norm in the Western Hemisphere, will be negatives against his name. But the contribution made under his leadership to health care and education systems of many other nations was simply remarkable. For a poor developing country subjected to economic hardships imposed on it to undertake what Cuba did was an unrivalled and magnanimous gesture. Equally as important was its active role in the liberation movements of Southern Africa and in helping to end apartheid. For a dictator these were qualities which should never be forgotten.
Time will tell whether history will absolve him.
