Raúl's psychological dependency on Fidel

CUBA
Raúl's psychological dependency on Fidel
Posted on Tue, Jul. 22, 2008
By CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com

What is Raúl Castro doing nowadays? It's important to keep track of him.
Everybody, including Cuba's ruling nomenklatura, knows that communism is
condemned to disappear from the island. It is the unfinished chapter of
the Cold War, and the system, as happened everywhere, will eventually be
replaced by a more rational, humane, pluralistic and efficient way to do
things.

The problem lies in how we get to that point. On a recent trip to
Brazil, one of the most prominent Cubans in government confessed it, in
private and away from microphones: ``We know that this has come to an
end. What we wish is to transform the regime ourselves, a little at a
time, to prevent major upheavals and to keep the Americans from
hijacking the process.''

The Brazilian who told me that (the same man who assured me, when nobody
believed or knew, that Fidel Castro had incurable intestinal cancer),
added an important bit of information: The rapprochement with Brazil is
designed for precisely that purpose. Raúl is seeking alternatives for
Venezuela's huge but unreliable support, in an effort to steer a smooth
change of course in stages.

A little later, however, Raúl addressed the Cuban Parliament. In Cuba,
expectations were huge. It was a very disappointing speech, even for the
Castroites themselves, who expected bolder announcements.

From what he said, the only really important statement was that he
decreed the death of egalitarianism and finally admitted that, because
all human beings are different and create wealth in accordance with
their particular attitudes and aptitudes, they deserve rewards that
match their labor.

In other words, after half a century, Raúl discovered the ethical basis
for the market economy: a system based on the existence of legitimately
obtained private property, even if that leads to the creation of social
classes defined by different standards of living.

Why such timidity in launching reforms when the government itself keeps
issuing data about the enormous material disaster afflicting the
country? Eighty-five percent of the buildings are falling apart, and
more than half of the fertile land is covered by a useless bush called
marabú, suitable only for firewood. Cubans have to import almost all the
food they eat -- and the United States is their leading food supplier.

Cuba's per-capita GDP is on a par with Bolivia's, the poorest country in
South America. The volume of exports is ridiculous. The Cubans have no
money to pay off their debts to businessmen who made the mistake of
giving them credit.

In sum: Cuba is a nation in absolute bankruptcy, which produces very
little (half of what Dominicans produce) and whose economic and
political system is believable only to Fidel, the doddering and stubborn
comandante fossilized in his rantings and willing to die clinging to his
mistakes.

The clue that explains why Raúl does not dare to institute the changes
the country needs, even though he knows that the people clamor for them,
lies in his emotional relationship with Fidel. That could be seen
clearly in the above-mentioned speech. After reading it, he added
proudly that he had sent the text to his brother for his approval and
that Fidel returned it without a single correction. Raúl, radiantly
joyful, sent a half-humorous, half-obsequious message to Fidel: ``Do you
know why I am so intelligent? Because all I know I learned from you.''

Raúl is governing to please Fidel, not to solve the country's
never-ending woes. His overburdened psychological biography can be
summed thus: a whole life trying to get his admired older brother to
value and praise him. Ever since childhood, and especially since
adolescence, when his parents placed him under Fidel's tutelage, Raúl
has tried to gain Fidel's appreciation.

Psychic subordination

But Fidel is narcissistic, the kind of person emotionally incapable of
admiring other human beings. Other people exist only to applaud, not to
be applauded. In addition, Fidel knows that Raúl's psychic subordination
guarantees that his work, even if it is a monstrous failure, will not be
dismantled as long as he lives. The invisible rope he placed around his
younger brother's neck, a rope Fidel will never loosen, is a guarantee
of the prolongation (albeit temporary) of a regime that no one believes
in any longer.

What will happen when Fidel dies? Will Raúl continue to please his
brother's corpse, or will he manage to throw off the yoke? I don't know.
Raúl is 77, and very few people that old are capable of changing. His
personality disorder fits perfectly within the broad syndrome of
''co-dependency,'' and shaking off those chains is not at all easy. Deep
down, Cuba's problem is closer to psychiatry than to politics. Perhaps
it has always been thus.

©2008 Firmas Press

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