Martin Henry, Contributor
Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution is dead - but not buried yet. But long before the birth of the revolution, astute observers of socialism saw that the system was inherently unstable and destined to collapse. When the Russian Revolution was only five years old, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, in 1922, published a master-piece on the weak-nesses of socialism as an economic and political system.
It is not likely that the young Fidel and his friends, mastering their Marx, would have read von Mises' Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, or Hayek, or the other serious critics of socialism. Or if they had, they would have dismissed them out of hand as bourgeois reactionaries worthy of execution by firing squad, the favoured communist means of dispatching enemies. The Cuban Communist Party has subsequently dispatched many that way, including heroes of the revolution.
The Cuban Revolution has survived the predicted collapse of Soviet communism and the Soviet state and its Eastern European satellites and of communism in much of the rest of the word. It will not survive - for long - the departure of the 'Old Man'. That's what they call Fidel in Cuba.
Journalists jailed
Ironically, on the very day that Castro announced that he would not aspire to nor accept the posts of president of the Council of State and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, only hours before on this historic Tuesday, this newspaper carried the story, "IAPA renews call for release of jailed Cuban journalists". The story listed 25 journalists "who remain behind bars for working as independent reporters."
Jamaica, which has one of the freest media in the hemisphere, has had an ups-and-downs relationship with Castro's Cuba during our nearly 46 years of Independence, three years short of Castro's rule. On the whole, we have had more principled relations than the belligerent United States, which has singled out Cuba for the most unrelenting opposition. The USA established cordial relations with communist Vietnam in which 50,000 US servicemen died in a lost anti-communism war, but not with Cuba. Communist China enjoys Most Favoured Nation status, while nine US presidents have maintained a trade embargo against Cuba.
Cuba has been generous to Jamaica, although the prosperity which the revolution promised never materialised, a socialist situation which can be and has been conveniently explained away by the US embargo. We have had gifts of schools, micro dams, medical personnel, teachers, and, most recently, free eye care, which went far better for visually impaired Jamaicans whose own free government did not help them than a reflexively critical media would have us believe. At a certain point in time, many Jamaicans felt that Fidel Castro was an influential threat to our own cherished democratic freedoms and took appropriate action.
Cuba was a critical and sacrificial player in the liberation struggles of Southern Africa, terminating in the fall of apartheid in South Africa and the rise of Nelson Mandela, who with Fidel Castro, is a monumental figure of the 20th century and of world history. Cuban armed forces, with disproportionately black combatants, pushed back the South African Defence Force, the best in sub-Saharan Africa, in a series of historic engagements in Angola in the 1980s. In my column of April 15, 2004, "Cuba and the end of apartheid", I noted: "For 137 days in 1987/88 the internationalist forces of Cuba, fighting alongside the MPLA, engaged the South African Defence Force in Southern Angola and finally drove its troops back into Namibia which was under South African occupation."
At his inauguration, Nelson Mandela reserved a bear hug for Fidel Castro and reportedly told him, "We owe this day to you."
In a 1991 visit to Cuba, Mandela told the Cuban people on the anniversary of their revolution, July 26: "That impressive defeat of the racist army ... gave Angola the possibility of enjoying peace and consolidating its sovereignty. It gave the people of Namibia their independence, demoralised the white racist regime of Pretoria and inspired the anti-apartheid forces inside South Africa. Without the defeat inflicted at Cuito Cuanavale, our organisations never would have been legalised."
Profound tribute
When he concluded, Fidel Castro observed that Mandela's remarks constituted "the greatest and most profound tribute ever paid to our internationalist combatants."
In 1998, on his second visit to South Africa, Castro received a "tumultuous welcome". One reporter said: "As Castro entered the parliamentary chamber, African National Congress leaders jumped to their feet, clapping and chanting, 'Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!' His speech was interrupted with applause on 33 occasions. Black South Africans remember him as a firm ally of the African National Congress who backed the fight against apartheid and helped win their freedom.
Cuba eradicated illiteracy just a few years after Castro came to power and has one of the best health-care systems in the developing world. But I couldn't help noticing that the deep class and race divides of Cuban society had remained impervious to communist intervention and were very visible in a 2003 visit. And so was roaring street commerce in US dollars. Cuba manufactures its own US coins but gets dollar bills through remittances and third-party trade. Soon after that visit, the Castro regime sought to shut down the incursions of capitalism by restricting entrepreneurial activity.
But hundreds of Cubans died seeking to flee their socialist paradise, some killed by the state, others perishing at sea. Hundreds have languished in jail. Dozens have been imprisoned and executed as enemies of the state just for wanting and agitating for freedom. The Soviet Union lasted just over 80 years, Eastern European communist states a little over 50. The Cuban Revolution approaches 50 years. The Old Man, a giant of history, is gone. The revolution he built on the sands of socialism is bound to follow him sooner than later, swept away by winds of change.
Martin Henry is a communications consultant.
