Georgie Anne Geyer
Thursday, January 8, 2009
World history is filled with dramatic, often heartbreaking and
occasionally redemptive stories of great marches.
There is Moses, prophetically leading the Jewish people through 40 years
of wandering in the desert. There is Mao Tse-tung's Long March of
communism in China in the 1930s, not to speak of the tragic westward
marches of many American Indian tribes, pushed from their lands by the
likes of us.
But this week, we should be seriously noting another march, one of the
most powerful and strangest in history - a pulsating movement of
guerrillas conquering a small and exquisite island exactly a
half-century ago with tactics and intentions never seen before. We talk,
of course, of Cuba and about Fidel Castro and his men, moving
systematically across a supine country that first week of January in
1959 to change the world.
Editor and journalist Carlos Franqui, one of the finest writers of that
revolution, recalls the singular moment as the "guerrilleros" of the
revolution came down from the mountains. "Night falls as we, the
'barbudos' come down from mountains looking like the saints of old," he
recalled afterward. "People rush out to meet us. They are wild. ... This
was a real New Year's party, and a charge of collective joy ran through
the rebels. One of them, though, felt nostalgic, as if he had left the
one thing that mattered most to him back in the Sierra: Fidel Castro."
Before this march, the world had seen Fidel as either a communist or
simply another, if unusually charismatic, democratic reformer. But as
his bedraggled, but victorious, mountain men marched across the island
to take Havana, he was revealed as something new: the supreme new-style
revolutionary of the 20th century, a man who could manipulate the Cuban
people's hatreds and guilt with a masterful hand not seen since Adolf
Hitler or Josef Stalin, and a leader who would systematically cause more
problems to the hated "Americanos" next door than any leader on Earth.
It was a strange week. The first day after the dictator Fulgencio
Batista fled that early New Year's morning, Fidel's men, in a raging
frenzy, attacked the parking meters in Havana - the symbol of privilege
of the "ancien regime." French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called them
"peasant soldiers ... who carried into the cities their warlike
austerity and country moralism." Fidel, playing on the guilt of Cubans
who had not taken part in the revolution, told them, "Now, we are going
to purify this country."
But by the end of that week, Fidel was in Havana and many began to see
him for what he really was: a mystical, magical, punishing, unscrupulous
leader. And the crowds - his "masas"- were everywhere, shouting as in
collective orgasm that seemed never to stop, "FIDELFIDELFIDELFIDEL!"
To John Topping, the political officer at the American Embassy in
Havana, "That guy knows how to press the button."
Today, Fidel is unquestionably an invalid, but still he rules the
country through his smaller, quieter, less charismatic brother, Raul.
Probably roughly a third of Cuba is still emotionally pro-Fidel, about a
third is very anti-Fidel and the other third is in the middle.
The country is falling apart, saved for the moment by 100,000 barrels a
day of subsidized oil from Fidel's leftist counterpart in Venezuela,
President Hugo Chavez, and recently by a renewed interest in Cuba on the
part of Vladimir Putin's anti-American government in Russia.
Hope? That extravagant and emotion-ridden march of half a century ago
was literally exploding with hope. Yet, for the 50th anniversary, Fidel,
who has not appeared in public since major and still mysterious surgery
more than two years ago, only sent a brief greeting to the Cuban people.
Even today, although he never goes there anymore, his office remains
unchanged. He remains the icon, the caudillo, the saint, remote and
still untouched.
It was left to Presidente Raul to soberly deliver the latest bad news.
"Let's not kid ourselves," he told the Cuban people, "by believing that
from here on it's all going to be easy. Maybe from here on it's going to
be more difficult."
As to any future relations with the United States, he has left that
question far more open than his brother did. In a recent interview in
the Nation by actor Sean Penn, Raul noted that, "We've had permanent
contact with the U.S. military, by secret agreement, since 1994." But
only issues related to Guantanamo Bay are discussed, he said. The two
countries also conduct joint emergency-response exercises.
Any hope for a change in relations with President-elect Barack Obama?
What would be his first priority should a meeting take place there?
"Without a beat," Mr. Penn related, "Castro answers, 'Normalize trade.'
" Again, and not surprisingly, the U.S. embargo on sales to Cuba,
imposed at the height of rage with Cuba in 1962, is primary.
But Raul Castro also tells Mr. Penn something new. Mr. Penn relates Mr.
Castro as saying: "Let me tell you something. We have newly advanced
research that strongly suggests deepwater offshore oil reserves, which
U.S. companies can come and drill. We can negotiate. The U.S. is
protected by the same Cuban trade laws as anyone else. Perhaps there can
be some reciprocity." So, yes, there are whispers of change, which an
Obama administration could explore.
With his march across the island, Fidel consolidated a mesmerized Cuban
people and bound them to his charismatic figure in a manner history has
seldom seen. But today there are no more marches in Cuba, only the
suffering that almost inevitably comes after such grandiose and
dangerous expressions of fealty to one man. "Maybe when Fidel dies ...
." That's what everybody says now.
One hates to be optimistic about Cuba and the United States after so
many misunderstandings and so much suffering between them, but my
feeling is that, with Raul's more reasonable temperament, that's a
"maybe" that may be closer and more possible than we think.
Georgie Anne Geyer is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author
of "Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/08/change-stirring-in-cuba/
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