Even on his way out, Castro imposes his singular will

26.01.2007 19:49

Rafael_70
#1 Even on his way out, Castro imposes his singular will

Sehr aufschlussreicher Nachruf der Castro-Biografin Georgie Anne Geyer, die Castro seit Jahrzehnten kennt. (man lese ihre Castro-Biographie "Guerilla Prince. The Untold Story ...)

Gedacht als Gegengewicht zu den "Flachmann"-Artikeln aus "Freitag")

In Antwort auf:
EVEN ON HIS WAY OUT, CASTRO IMPOSES HIS SINGULAR WILL

WASHINGTON -- There is little question that Fidel Castro, the "immortal revolutionary," is dying. But being Fidel, he is not doing it in the way most people would expect.

He is not doing it on time. Since he is now 80, Cuban-Americans in Miami have had years to await his ascension to revolutionary communist heaven. Surely his 80th birthday in August would have been a neat time to say, "Adios, companeros!"

Neither is he doing it on the fair and square. The "renowned Spanish surgeon" rushed to Cuba in the last few weeks, Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, an intestinal specialist, turns out to be a personal friend of the Castro family. He was called in to give an upbeat report -- Castro does not have cancer, he attested -- apparently to buy some time for the transition to Raul Castro.

Nor does Fidel intend to be buried in any simple, dignified manner, befitting the man who turned the Third World around in the wake of the decolonializing processes after World War II. The first week of January 1959, as the Cuban Revolution took power like a rolling thunder, Castro and his men marched victoriously for five days from the eastern Oriente Province, where they had fought in the Sierra Madre, on to Havana. Cubans put symbols of Fidel in their windows, signs of guilt for those who had not taken part in the great fight.

Now, we hear from Havana that when -- and, of course, if -- the "Lider Maximo" decides to leave us, they will carry him from Havana back to the Sierra Madre, to be deified all along the way before he is buried on one of the mountains from which he, like Moses, descended. But don't think for a moment that it will be over then.

Once Fidel does die, there will be plenty of time to look forward. But for now, as he hovers in that half light that often incongruously clarifies, let us take a last look at this exceptional, ultimately destructive man.
As his biographer, I think of the man I interviewed five times and knew many years ago, in 1966 in Cuba. Oh, Fidel is surely the big, earthy, sensual, cold, authoritarian man that most people think of, but he is much more.

Essentially, Fidel is incoherent. In my many long interviews with him (they would start at midnight and end at 9 in the morning), in Spanish, he never moved rationally from one subject to another. One minute it was Soviet aid, the next minute his new yogurt, the next his new brand of cows, the next the revolutions in Africa and Central America. Afterward, I'd always wonder, "Where's the lead?" (was meint Chaval hierzu?)

Fidel was not a politician, although he was brilliant at controlling other human beings. Negotiation, mediation, exchange of favors: These were political forms unknown to Castro. He was somewhere else, living in a realm of his own where his mind and spirit intertwined with others' minds and spirits. He was a conjurer, an alchemist, a modern magician with the gifts of the ancient shaman. He ruled through capturing the life spirits of his people and holding them under his spell, for good and for evil. They weren't looking for coherence in his speeches; they were looking for soul.

He tried all kinds of environmental changes, believing himself to be, along with everything else, a kind of rainmaker. He mixed breeds of cows, but the new breed failed. He planted coffee trees all around Havana, and they failed, too, because the soil was wrong for them. He built pyramids for special crops, and they withered. Behind his back, they called him the "dictator of the cows."

But at one thing, Fidel -- this angry son of an angry Gallego from Galicia in the north of Spain who came to Cuba to fight for Spain in 1898 -- was unusually adept. All things military were like second breaths to him. He had an uncanny instinct for danger, a polished personal radar for enemies closing in, and a hatred so ferocious it burned like a banshee's flame against the United States, whom he saw always and ever as Cuba's colonizer.

How a man like this, from a tiny island with no intrinsic power of its own, l) made little Cuba a power in the world, and 2) extended that power so that Fidel Castro Ruz became the emblematic Third World leader of all of Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa (and much of the developed world) is a dramatic story indeed.

When he came to power, all of these new decolonialized countries needed less traditional political leaders than men who would engage their spirits in creating new societies. There were others who did it also, but none so well as he. The Cuba he formed was less a nation than a Brigadoon floating on the wreckage of colonialism and on the wings of charismatic rhetoric.

When Fidel dies, that will die, too. In the 21st century, the magic of revolution in 1959 seems a long while ago. Today's world looks to pragmatic leaders, to economists, to men and women who know what to do. Doubtless, Cuba will fall to less interesting and more bourgeois people like this when Fidel finally does die -- if, of course, he does.