Doing justice to Castro’s memory

IT is safe to surmise, judging from the disdainful disposition of a major section of the Western press to the recent demise of former president of Cuba, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, that the West heaved a sigh of relief at his departure. But the point which that section of the Western press seems to miss deliberately is that no matter their disdain and contempt for Fidel Castro, his immense impact on his native Cuba cannot be easily wished away.

Not only did he commit  class suicide so that the Cuban society might thrive, Castro was somehow the reason for Cuba’s ascendancy on the ladder of development. Cuba’s ruler for over five decades, Castro literally stood up to the hostile and bellicose attitude of the neighbouring United States of America for as long as he lived and arguably changed the status and essence of Cuba and bequeathed to it the dignity of an independent nation. It is difficult to rationalize the almost exclusive focus on the excesses of the totalitarian regime which the late ruler of Cuba ran since 1961 when he mounted the saddle while ignoring the development which he wrought despite daunting challenges, chief amongst which was the hostility of a neighbouring western power.

Castro was in the saddle in Cuba for five decades, succeeding himself as President from Prime Minister in 1976. Previously, he had been Prime Minister from 1959. Born in Brian, Oriente, as the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of the then Cuban President, Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack in 1953.

After a year’s imprisonment, he travelled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July movement, with his brother Raul Castro and the legendary Che Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the movement in a guerrilla war against the Batista forces from the Sierra Maestra. He assumed military and political power after Batista’s overthrow in 1959 as Cuba’s Prime Minister.

The United States  naturally came to oppose Castro’s government and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade and counter revolution, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. It was while countering these threats that Castro formed an alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis which was a defining incident of the Cold War in 1962.

What probably incensed the United States further was Castro’s adoption of the Marxist-Leninist model of development, converting Cuba into a one-party state under the Communist Party’s rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies which introduced central economic planning, expanding health care and education were accompanied by state control of the media and suppression of internal dissent.

Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups and backed the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua and Grenada. He also sent troops to support allies in the Yum Kippur, Ogaden and Angolan wars. These actions, including Cuba’s medical internationalism and Castro’s leadership of the Non Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983, increased Cuba’s international profile even if it grated and riled the ego of the United States, its political major adversary. It is however heartening to note the subtle rapprochement that  trailed Castro’s final moments and President Obama’s twilight in  the White House.

But for Castro’s intervention in Cuba’s political history, the country might arguably have remained, for the most part, only a pleasure spot for the leisurely class in the United States. It is, however, fair to admit that Castro brutally suppressed the same people on whose behalf he ostensibly launched his revolution and went rather overboard in seeing capitalism as a complete anathema, a view not borne out by history and rationality. It is equally true that many Cubans who were victims of his authoritarian rule rejoiced at his transition. Asking the right to see the good in the leftist cause while failing to extend the same courtesies to the right was certainly not justified.

Still, it is imperative to put Castro’s lofty achievements in proper historical perspective even if, like many statesmen, he had severe flaws. To write him off as a dictator without any redeeming virtue is not only harsh; it is a disservice to history and a gratuitous insult to Cuba and its citizens.