Sunday 27 November 2016

Fidel Castro Died Long Ago

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.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If he died in 2013 what would be the point of waiting till now to declare his death? Plus he has been seen in public since 2013 many times. FFS he met the most recent Pope for crying out loud. You are a pitiful blogger.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

No he didn't Raul met the Pope. I explain in the article why they waited

Tom Sullivan said...

Ever heard of paragraphs?

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Yes.