Goodbye Castro, Hello . . . ?

Well, I guess we're all waiting to see if brother Raul will hold off on opening the floodgates until Fidel actually bites the chorizo. So while the old guy is still alive, perhaps it's time to get a bit nostalgic.

Last year Foreign Policy Magazine published a debate between two Cuban scholars (one is in American "exile") as to whether or not Castro has been good or bad for Cuba. We all know the charges levied against Castro falling on the negative side: forbade competition and caused imposition of embargos by alliance with Soviet Comintern; prohibits freedom of speech and freedom of assembly; and, worst of all, banned elections and made himself pres. for life. Those are pretty bad allegations, especially if one heavily favors the United States' ideological and strategic position during the Cold War. Which reminds me of another bad point not included in the scholar's own list: Castro allowed the Soviets to put nuclear warheads on his island, knowing full well that if the Soviets ever used one of them against the US, fired from Cuba, that Cuba would be utterly destroyed. That was perhaps an instance of taking too much liberty with his population's security.

On the positive side: The Revolution and Castro's government prioritized medicine, education, and egalitarianism, such that Cuba now has one of the finest medical systems in the world and some of the best trained doctors (of whom there are more deployed per capita doing international aid work than any other nationality), such that Cuba boasts one of the finest education systems in the world (to which students travel from all over Latin America), and such that race does not exist as a factor in daily life for most Cubans, who are overwhelmingly mestizos of one sort or another. Racism still exists institutionally, in the sense that dark black comrades are less likely to advance to high party posts than "whiter" comrades, but racism as such does not exist -- so I'm told -- in the way that it does in the United States. Cuba's advanced mestizo culture was an ideological selling point for Castro during the Cold War, when the United States preached freedom and democracy to the world while turning dogs and firehoses on peaceful black protesters in Alabama, when the United States still demanded that a citizen have white skin in order to vote.

And Castro's government accomplished all of these positive things while under embargo from the US, and thus suffering from a lack of US investment and export trade. So the pro-Castro scholar suggests that had Castro's Cuba been able to profit from a trade relationship with the United States, it would have been the lone successful communist project in world history (by successful I mean that the standard of living for all comrades would have approached, dare I say, "middle class," without, of course, ever becoming bourgeois). So it was the US, for all of those years, that kept Cuban children shoeless and living in dilapidated tenements, not Cuban communism.

It's an interesting thing to think about, and I'm sure the truth about Castro's influence -- as always -- lies somewhere between our two arguments. Certainly, however, Castro was no villain and his vilification in the United States has been an embarrassing reminder of our own national insecurities rather than a declaration of legitimate disapproval from on-high.

So, I guess I say, "Viva la revolución!" But I also say, to all of those farmers, landowners, and businesspeople whose lands and livelihoods Castro seized in the name of the revolution, I'm sorry. I hope that you are able to finally find the justice you've been looking for after Castro.