It has been reported that the long-term president of
Cuba
and leader of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Fidel Castro, has died. Castro shot
to global significance after he staged a coup against the established
government and instituted a socialist regime that endures to the present day. He
turned
Cuba
into a one-party state. Other political parties are permitted along with the Cuban
Communist Party, but the nation never holds elections that could depose it. Like
all Marxist societies,
Cuba
is actively atheist. Religion in
Cuba
and other such countries is usually tolerated, but always discouraged to a
greater or lesser degree, and in
Cuba
less than 5% of the population regularly attend church services. However many
sociologists claim there is an inbuilt religious instinct to humans and in the
absence of God in their lives, people transfer the feelings religious people
have into other things. In socialist nations this is usually the leader. This
is obvious in the modern world in
North Korea,
see:
http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/maggie-and-kim_20.html.
Also Lenin and Stalin had worshipful songs composed about them by Russians that
are not unlike hymns. Fidel Castro was also adored by his people like a deity;
now after his death at the age of ninety, for many Cubans it is as if, as Friedrich
Nietzsche said: "God is dead". As the BBC's Will Grant put it:
"It is hard to overstate exactly how
important Fidel Castro was to Cubans. Whether he was their beloved
revolutionary hero and liberator or if they saw him as a despot and tyrant, the
name Castro has been an intrinsic part of their lives for decades. So adapting
to the news that the ninety-year-old Fidel Castro, latterly more likely to be
seen in tracksuits than olive-green fatigues, was gone, has been difficult to
digest for some." There is going to be nine days of official mourning.
One young woman said:
"It's
shocking news. Everybody loved him. He's a man who did so much for Cuba and its people. For us he is an idol."
See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38120710.
Conversely the Cuban exiles in
Florida
who fled the island after the Revolution, living in what is known as "Little Havana",
have been celebrating in the streets. They said:
"I was raised by political prisoners and people who suffered at
Castro's hands.... He's a murderer! He's a killer! I'm glad he's died!" Cuban
people are still deeply divided over the events of 1959 and everything that
followed. See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38116816.
The thing is, I suspect Castro died a long time ago, some time in 2013 I
estimate. He officially retired in 2008 and his younger brother Raul took over
as president. However Fidel continued to make public appearances for a while,
but they stopped abruptly following an illness in 2013. News stories about him
continued, but with no first hand presence from the man himself. Is it possible
that he actually died back then yet it was not officially announced? Yes. For
somebody that important to the nation's heart, death is not the same thing as
it is for you and me. The physical life of Fidel Castro was just one part of a
mythical character whose identity was fundamentally intertwined with the body
politic and the national culture. Obviously the authorities could not keep his
death a secret forever; therefore the decision when to announce his death was
similar to that of a fiction writer knowing when to kill off one of their
characters Political considerations had to be taken into account. I suspect they
were waiting until after
US
presidential election.
Cuba's
relationship with the
USA
has always been at the centre of the foreign policy problems it has faced during
its recent history. The situation Castro created caused the Cold War to be
played out in proxy all over the
Caribbean; on other
islands too like
Grenada,
see background link at the bottom. Therefore there is probably some kind of
strategic manoeuvre going on at the moment to which
Cuba
feels it can gain an advantage. Not that the new
US
president, Donald Trump, is showing any signs of grief; on the contrary, he called
Castro a "brutal dictator". This is not the first time this kind of
thing has happened. I drafted my obituary to Nelson Mandela a few months before
he died because I had a feeling he already had, for the same reasons as I have
with Fidel Castro, see:
http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/nelson-mandela-dies.html.
