Fidel Castro - Ignoring Him is the Best Punishment

Fidel Castro: Ignoring Him is the Best Punishment / Juan Juan Almeida

Juan Juan Almeida, La Voz del Morro, August 15, 2006 — Humans eat meat;
cattle feed on forage and in their own way find the nutrients in the
soil populated by worms, which probably eat other bugs that I don't know
about; but I'm sure they occupy a major place on the food chain that
today Fidel Castro signifies for the youth of the island.

It's a shame that the incapacity and non-existence of leadership among
the ranks of the Government, the dissidence and the opposition make many
insist on eternalizing the shadow of a ghost that now doesn't exist even
in the Cuban imagination.

The national press gave him headlines that managed to surpass, amply,
the sick local humor.

The journalistic indigestion was like this:

"Workers of the Coppelia ice-cream parlor congratulate Fidel." An
ice-cream parlor where they barely, without a fuss, offer only one
flavor of ice cream, and the workers don't earn much, even though they
don't work.

"Eternal santiaguero [originally from Santiago] born in Birán."

A drooler with an absence of geography. Birán belongs to the province of
Holguín.

"Fidel inspires confidence."

Please, if anyone has been deceptive without being accountable for more
than a half-century in Cuba, it's Fidel.

"They recognize Fidel's contributions to gender equality."

Total disconnection. Fidel is the macho creator of the UMAP [forced
labor camps for homosexuals], and he never in 50 years legislated
anything on domestic abuse.

The opposition, for its part, also repeated itself with colossal
nonsense, pounding on the social networks with the aged and incoherent
slogan, "Down with the tyrant, Fidel," and giving an injection of life
to a dead subject.

It's true that both proclamations, for and against, don't let up, and
with superfluous boldness, they delivered to the ex-comandante, by name,
a flood of attention. The food of longevity.

There's nothing better for Fidel than that, during his 90th birthday,
ancient and out of power, and with his screws loose, his name would
prevail among the first posts on the list of trending topics.

Shameful. None of his "enemies" manages to surpass the first of his
challenges, to change their own way of thinking and stop competing with
a fossil who, incredibly, at the age of 90, has exceeded everyone in his
capacity of attraction, in the art of manipulation, political wisdom,
egocentrism, strategy, charisma and absolute knowledge of his island's
geography.

I imagine that the detractors as well as the adulators don't know that
on the night of August 13, after having attended the gala offered in his
honor at the Karl Marx theater, Fidel Castro returned home. They blew
out the candles — he couldn't blow them out for lack of lung capacity —
and the invitees, sick of hearing the same stupidities about the Sierra
Maestra, the coming end of the world and the plans of the past, left him
alone, in his babble, on his only faithful companion, the beige armchair.

In his house, Fidel is less important than a filet mignon on the table
of a vegan. Loneliness is his punishment. It would be better to not feed
his ego so much, and to abandon the apparent incapacity some have to
begin living without his presence.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Source: Fidel Castro: Ignoring Him is the Best Punishment / Juan Juan
Almeida – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/fidel-castro-ignoring-him-is-the-best-punishment-juan-juan-almeida/