Fidel...Absolved?

With Fidel Castro’s sudden illness and the huge controversies and speculations that immediately erupted, the focus sharply turned towards Cuba and the man who has come to symbolize everything Cuban for the last half a century.

Among the various responses, which were needless to say, sharply polarized ones, I found this following article which truly spoke in the way I felt.

Though an admirer of Fidel as a man and an admirer of his courage, his honesty, and his charisma and the sheer pull on imagination that he has exerted ever since he triumphantly entered Havana in December 1959, I detest people who act as apologists for the regime….Che Guevara died young and handsome and instantly became an iconic martyr but Fidel, undoubtedly more able of the two, grew old and has perhaps, in many people’s eyes, betrayed many of the ideals that his revolution stood for….we would not rendering those ideals any service if we desist from criticizing him or his methods. If a better way is to be found, it in fact, must be done…..

Of course, of the other kind of response, the Miami-Cuban-in-exile type of response, an ill-informed point of view expectorated with an almost fiendish glee, tainted with an absolute incomprehension of the history of the region and denial of the positives of the revolution is almost too absurd to point out here….

So cutting long story short, here is the article by Fred Halliday (which appeared on Open Democracy) that really reflects what I feel…..

Click here for the article

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