Skip to main content

Fidel´s Legacy

by Atilio Borón

The passing of Fidel causes the heart and the brain fight to control the chaos of feelings and ideas this catalyzes. Memories emerge in a whirlwind and overlap in a mix of images, words, gestures (Fidel’s gestuality was amazing), intonations, irony, and, above all, ideas—many ideas.

He was a true follower of José Martí’s ideas. He firmly believed in the precept of the Cuban revolutionary: “trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stones”. Undoubtedly, Fidel was a great military strategist—something that he proved not only in the Sierra Maestra battles but also in his careful planification of the great battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which was fought in Angola between December 1987 and March 1988, which precipitated the fall of the racist South African regime and ruined the plans of the US in the southern part of the continent.

But he was also an accomplished politician, with a phenomenal ability to interpret national and international scenarios, a talent which allowed him to lead Cuba to play a key role in some of the biggest international conflicts that shook the twentieth century. No other country in the region achieved something remotely similar to what Fidel did.Cuba gave decisive support to the consolidation of the Algerian revolution and defeated French colonialism in its last bastion. Cuba was with Vietnam since the very beginning, and the help it provided was enormously valuable to its people, that was being slaughtered. Cuba was with the Palestinians and never doubted about which side was right in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Cuba was decisive, Nelson Mandela said, to redefine the socio-political map of the south of Africa and to end Apartheid.

Countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, which have bigger economies, territories and population, have never had a comparable impact on world affairs. But Cuba had Fidel…

He was not only follower of the ideals of José Martí but also of Simón Bolívar. To Fidel, the unity of Latin America and of all the peoples and nations of the then-called “Third World” was essential. That’s why he held the 1966 TriContinental Conference in Cuba, to support and coordinate the struggles for national liberation in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. He knew that unity was indispensable to contain and defeat US imperialism. That the lack of unity was the greatest vulnerability of the tyranny of the United States, and that it was urgent and indispensable to enact the proposals made by Simón Bolívar in the 1826 Amphictyonic Congress, which he had already outlined in his famous 1815 Jamaica Letter.

Honoring his ideas, Fidel was the main strategist of the process of supranational integration that began to grow in Latin America in the late twentieth century, when Hugo Chávez Frías appeared—the field marshall he needed to bring his ideas to life. The alliance of these two giants of Latin America opened the doors to an unprecedented process of changes that brought to its knees the most important and geopolitical plan of the empire for this subcontinent: the FTAA.

And in addition to his military and political accomplishments, we mustn’t forget that Fidel was also an intellectual. It’s uncommon to see a Head of State so willing to listen and debate, and never being overcome by the arrogance that clouds the mind of some leaders.

I was fortunate enough to assist to an intense but respectful debate between Fidel and Noam Chomsky on topics such as the 1962 missile crisis and Operation Mongoose, and not for a moment did the host stop carefully listening to what the North American visitor had to say.

There’s also the unforgettable image of Fidel participating in the numerous events that Cuba hosted: the summits on Globalization held by the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba (ANEC), the ones by the Office of Studies on José Martí or of the Latin American Social Sciences Council (CLACSO). There, sitting in the front row, armed with a little notepad and a pencil, he listened to speakers for hours and dutifully took notes. From time to time, he asked for the floor and amazed the audience by masterfully summing up what had been said in the previous four hours or so, or drawing surprising conclusions that nobody had imagined. That’s why he used to tell the Cuban people: “don’t believe, read”—a clear example of the respect he felt for intellectual work.

Like Chávez, Fidel was a very cultured man and a voracious reader. His passion for precise and detailed information was inexhaustible. I remember that, in one of the preparatory meetings for the 2003 CLACSO Assembly, he said: “remember that God doesn’t exist, but He is in the details”, and that nothing, no matter how insignificant, shouldn’t be left to chance. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, he warned, before the skeptic looks and ironic smiles of his mediocre colleagues (Bush Sr., Fujimori, Felipe González, Carlos Menem), that humanity was “an endangered species” and that the phenomenon we now know as “climatic change” was a death threat. Like an eagle that flies high and sees far away, he saw, twenty years sooner than everybody else, the seriousness of this problem that is now omniscient in the global agenda.

Fidel has passed, but his legacy (like the legacies of the Che and Chávez) will live on forever. His call for unity, solidarity, anti-imperialist internationalism—his revindication of socialism, of Martí’s principles—his creative appropriation of Marxism and Leninism—his warning that those peoples who dare to create a new world must be prepared to be crudely punished by the right and that they must therefore be quick to carry out the fundamental tasks of the revolution—his teachings, in sum, are an essential treasure for the future of the world’s struggles for liberation.

Source:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Oct. 7 Reports Implode: Beheaded Babies, NY Times Scandal, & More

Glenn Greenwald    

Israel’s Descent Into Madness & the Holocaust Comparison

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany and associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, to discuss Israel’s descent into genocidal fascism. Prof. Amar addresses whether it’s useful to make Holocaust and Nazi comparisons and the real reason behind the West’s unshakeable loyalty attitude when it comes to Israel’s barbarism.   

Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

globinfo freexchange   As the genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is about to be completed with an act of unprecedented brutality by the Zionists and butcher Netanyahu through the bombardment of about 1.4 million civilians in Rafah, it seems that they have already set their next primary goal. Which, in short, is to grab the natural gas resources off shore Gaza, together with their US imperialist buddies whose contribution to the genocide has been undoubtedly critical.     As already reported , in 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub. At that moment in time, that is 2022, Russian oil and gas were sanctioned.

Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland Ends Her Reign: Exposing a Catastrophic Career

Glenn Greenwald    

Το σκάσιμο της φούσκας Μητσοτάκη με νέα επίσημη χρεοκοπία και οριστικό τέλος της μεταπολίτευσης

του system failure   Τα αποτελέσματα των εκλογών της 25ης Ιουνίου ήταν λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενα όσον αφορά τις πρώτες θέσεις με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης κάλπης του Μαίου. Αν συμπεριλάβουμε και το ποσοστό της αναμενόμενης αποχής, δεν μας έδωσαν κάποια ιδιαίτερη έκπληξη. Αυτό όμως που φαίνεται να αιφνιδίασε ακόμα και το συστημικό κατεστημένο, είναι η είσοδος των δύο υπερσυντηρητικών, ακροδεξιών κομμάτων Νίκη και Σπαρτιάτες, με το τελευταίο να έχει ξεκάθαρες διασυνδέσεις με τον πρώην Χρυσαυγίτη, Ηλία Κασιδιάρη. Παρά τη μεγάλη νίκη Μητσοτάκη, οι μιντιακοί ινστρούχτορες της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας εμφανίστηκαν σε γενικές γραμμές "μουδιασμένοι" και αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το συστημικό κατεστημένο (δηλαδή τα μεγάλα οικονομικά συμφέροντα που ελέγχουν και το σύνολο των μεγάλων ΜΜΕ πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας), πέτυχε μόνο έναν από τους τέσσερις μεγάλους στόχους που είχε θέσει εξ'αρχής. Μιλώντας με ποδοσφαιρικούς όρους, ουσιαστικά έχασε με σκορ 3-1.   Ο μεγάλος στόχος πο

Τυχαία γεγονότα στην τριτοκοσμική μπανανία των Βαλκανίων

failed evolution   1) Συμβαίνει το μεγαλύτερο σιδηροδρομικό δυστύχημα στην ιστορία της χώρας. 2) Γίνεται αστραπιαία επιχείρηση μοντάζ των συνομιλιών του σταθμάρχη από μηχανισμό του καθεστώτος, πριν ακόμα φτάσει στα χέρια των αρχών, προκειμένου να αποδοθεί η τραγωδία αποκλειστικά σε ανθρώπινο λάθος και να βγουν από το κάδρο οι πολιτικές ευθύνες ανώτατων κυβερνητικών αξιωματούχων. 3) Αναπαράγεται το παραποιημένο υλικό αστραπιαία από ναυαρχίδα της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας. 4) Τοποθετείται επικεφαλής στην επιτροπή-παρωδία πρωτοπαλίκαρο του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη που εργάζονταν παλιά στην ίδια αυτή ναυαρχίδα. 5) Η επιτροπή κλείνει άρον-άρον την υπόθεση αποκλείοντας ουσιώδεις μάρτυρες που είχαν προειδοποιήσει επανειλημμένα τον αρμόδιο υπουργό για τον κίνδυνο μεγάλου δυστυχήματος. Σταματάει έτσι και η όποια σε βάθος διερεύνηση για την τσιμεντοποίηση του χώρου και την απόπειρα συγκάλυψης της τραγωδίας.  

The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - A Lesson From History   The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West. Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried

How the CIA oversees the Ukraine proxy war on Russia

Geopolitical Economy Report   Several reports in mainstream US media outlets show how the CIA has helped to direct the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and played a role in causing the conflict in the first place. Ben Norton examines the evidence.   Related: Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

Israel Carries Out Most Sadistic Massacre, Opens Fire On Gaza Aid Convoy

Richard Medhurst  

The real reason behind TikTok ban

Glenn Greenwald /  Richard Medhurst