The end of the revolution

Posted on Wed, Aug. 16, 2006

CUBA
The end of the revolution
By JORGE CASTAÑEDA
jorge.castaneda@nyu.edu

Fidel Castro turned 80 on Sunday, and his era has come to an end. The
biological denouement in Havana is not yet discernible -- Is he dead?
Will he recover? -- but he has relinquished power, temporarily to his
brother, Raúl, but also permanently through the admission of his own
mortality.

Obsessed as he has always been with history and his role in it, Castro
has meticulously orchestrated his succession. So painstakingly have the
steps been laid out that some observers speculate that the brouhaha over
his illness is a dress rehearsal, not the real thing. Still, his
best-laid plans will probably go astray.

He may write his epitaph, but not his biography. He may control Cuba's
archives, but not everybody else's. He hopes his revolution will last
forever, but he undoubtedly knows it will not. He may try to ensure that
his legacy at home and abroad remains intact, but because his persona
and influence are inseparable, it will not.

Influence on the left

This means that the absolute, binding link that has prevailed in Latin
America since 1959 -- between Castro and the idea of revolution -- is
consigned to history. The belief in a transformative revolution has been
Castro's most important influence on the left throughout Latin America.
He placed revolution -- socialist, nationalist, anti-imperialist,
whatever -- front and center on the left's agenda.

Before Fidel, Raúl and Che Guevara entered Havana in January 1959, the
left was populist or Marxist, but in any case moderate; it had abdicated
revolutionary ambitions. After 1959, everything changed, and the Latin
American left was sundered by endless debates and tensions between its
reformist, social democratic, peaceful components and its revolutionary,
radical, often violent members. Even today, when such divisions seem
quaint and anachronistic in most of the world, in Latin America they are
present and central.

Evo Morales in Bolivia and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela see themselves -- as
do their followers -- as revolutionaries seeking to overhaul the
economic and social order that was bequeathed to them by voters.
Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil view
themselves, their goals and their strategies as eminently reformist,
maintaining the status quo but with significantly less inequality and
poverty. (That the moderates spring from a hard-line past, and the
radicals from a distinctly populist one, is just one more paradox in the
history of the Latin American left.)

Castro's failures

With Castro's fading, the hemisphere's revolutionary school loses its
inspirational leader.

No possible successor -- neither Raúl at home nor Chávez abroad -- could
ever dream of replacing him in this context. In addition, Cuba's
transition inevitably will cast light on the true record of Castro's
regime -- its failures, deceptions and disappointments, complicities and
crimes, and presumed accomplishments in education and public health. And
because that record will be largely negative, continuing to be a
revolutionary will be impossible. One needs a revolution to look up to,
after all.

Historians can argue whether injecting the idea of revolution into the
Latin American left was a good or bad idea half a century ago. But
today, it would seem that putting an end to the revolutionary chapter in
the left's history can only make it stronger, more modern and
competitive; in short, more democratic.

Latin America needs effective social democrats like Ricardo Lagos,
(Chile's former, immensely successful president) and Uruguay's President
Tabaré Vázquez. The end of revolution will make it easier for them to lead.

The best case in point is Mexico. It boasts perhaps the most pro-Cuban
and revolutionary chapter of the Latin American left, much to its own
detriment. In the dispute over the July 2 presidential election, many of
Andrés Manuel López Obrador's followers openly proclaim their
revolutionary vocation and fervor. At López Obrador's rallies, one of
the most prominent slogans is: ``If there is no solution, there will be
a revolution.''

A total makeover

The party of the left, the Democratic Revolution Party, is not demanding
a recount or a new election. It is, increasingly, calling for
revolution, for a total makeover of Mexico's admittedly flawed and
unjust society.

Fidel's temporarily handing power over to Raúl will not change anything
overnight, but the transformation of the Mexican left -- of the Latin
American left -- into an effective progressive movement cannot happen
until it lays the idea of revolution to rest.

And that cannot occur until revolution's midwife, Castro, fades away.

Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, is a professor of
politics and Latin American studies at New York University.

©2006 The Los Angeles Times

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15283335.htm