Fidel Castro, present and past
BY YOANI SANCHEZ
www.desdecuba.com/generationy
HAVANA -- Fidel Castro's return to public life after a four-year absence
provokes conflicting emotions here. His reappearance surprised a people
awaiting, with growing despair, the reforms announced by his brother
Raúl. While some weave fantasies around his return, others are anxious
about what will happen next.
The return of a famous figure is a familiar theme in life as in fiction
-- think Don Quixote or Casanova. But another familiar theme is
disappointment -- of those who find that the person who returns is no
longer the person who left, or at least not as we remember him. There is
often a sense of despair surrounding those who insist on coming back.
Fidel Castro is no exception to this flaw inherent in remakes.
The man who appeared on the anniversary of ``Revolution Day'' last week
bore no resemblance to the sturdy soldier who handed over his office to
his brother in July 2006. The stuttering old man with quivering hands
was a shadow of the Greek-profiled military leader who, while a million
voices chanted his name in the plaza, pardoned lives, announced
executions, proclaimed laws that no one had been consulted on and
declared the right of revolutionaries to make revolution. Although he
has again donned his olive-green military shirt, little is left of the
man who used to dominate TV for endless hours, keeping people in
suspense from the other side of the screen.
The great orator of times long past now meets with an audience of young
people in a tiny theater and reads them a summary of his latest
reflections, already published in the press. Instead of arousing the
fear that makes even the bravest tremble, he calls forth, at best,
compassion. After a young reporter calmly asked a question, she followed
up with her greatest wish: ``May I give you a kiss?'' Where is the abyss
that for so many years not even the most courageous dared to jump?
A significant sign that Fidel Castro's return to the microphones has not
being going over well is that even his brother refused to echo, in his
most recent speech to parliament, the former leader's gloomy
prognostication of a nuclear Armageddon that will start when the United
States launches a military attack against North Korea or Iran. Many
analysts have pointed out that the man who was known as the Maximum
Leader is hardly qualified to assess the innumerable problems in his own
country, yet he turns his gaze to the mote in another's eye. This
pattern is familiar, with his discussions of the world's environmental
problems, the exhaustion of capitalism as a system and, most recently,
predictions of nuclear war. Others see a veiled discontent in his
apparent indifference toward events in Cuba. Yet this thinking forgets
the maxim: Even if he doesn't censure, if Caesar does not applaud,
things go badly. It is unthinkable that Fidel Castro is unaware of the
appetite for change that is devouring the Cuban political class; it
would be naive to believe that he approves.
For years, so many lives and livelihoods have hung on the gestures of
his hands, the way he raises his eyebrows or the twitch of his ears.
Fidel watchers now see him as unpredictable, and many fear that the
worst may happen if it occurs to him to rail against the reformers in
front of the television cameras.
Perhaps this is why the impatient breed of new wolves do not want to
stoke the anger of the old commander, who is about to turn 84. Some who
intended to introduce more radical changes are now crouching in their
spheres of power, waiting for his next relapse.
Meanwhile, those who are worried about the survival of ``the process''
are alarmed by the danger his obvious decline poses to the myth of the
Cuban revolution personified, for 50 years, in this one man. Why doesn't
he stay at home and let us work, some think, though they dare not even
whisper it.
We had already started to remember him as something from the past, which
was a noble way to forget him. Many were disposed to forgive his
mistakes and failures. They had put him on some gray pedestal of the
history of the 20th century, capturing his face at its best moment,
along with the illustrious dead. But his sudden reappearance upended
those efforts. He has come forward again to shamelessly display his
infirmities and announce the end of the world, as if to convince us that
life after him would be lacking in purpose.
In recent weeks, he who was once called The One, the Horse or simply He,
has been presented to us stripped of his captivating charisma. Although
he is once again in the news, it has been confirmed: Fidel Castro,
fortunately, will never return.
Yoani Sánchez is a writer in Cuba. Her awards include the 2009 Maria
Moors Cabot Prize. This column was translated from Spanish by M.J. Porter.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/07/1765513/fidel-castro-present-and-past.html
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