HISTORY AND IDEOLOGY COLLIDE IN CUBA

HISTORY AND IDEOLOGY COLLIDE IN CUBA
By Georgie Anne Geyer

WASHINGTON -- The welcome extended to Pope Francis in Cuba this week may
have presented an acceptable entrance of the pontiff to the communist
state, but in truth it was filled with historical discordance.

There was President Raul Castro, long the highly respected "jefe" of the
Cuban armed forces, wearing a dark, American-style suit. There was a
very small and apparently military band, which, in an island where the
wind blows music through every soul and tree, blared out embarrassing
shrills.

And, most stunning of all, when the pope unexpectedly met with Fidel the
next day, the "caudillo glorioso de la Revolucion," the strongman who
dreamed of changing the world, was wearing a blue Adidas jogging suit.

On such plebeian visions do dreams of glory end.

The start-off, for sure, was odd. The Havana airport was all but empty,
with only government men and women there. In a world where even second-
and third-tier Asian cities have stunning skyscrapers, Havana is
unrelievedly low and empty. It isn't as though Cuba were stopped in
history; it is more that it just slowly ran out of gas about 30 years
ago, along with the old American cars everywhere on the streets.

So when Presidente Raul said, as he did when he met the pope in the
Vatican some months ago, that he might become a Catholic again, and "I'm
serious," one searched in vain for what he would be forced to give up in
exchange.

As for Pope Francis, he said nothing in public about the number
(probably 90 to 100) of dissidents and critics of the regime who were
arrested, knocked down and beaten up by police during The Visit, and the
only quotes in public that made the A.P. wires were those criticizing
ideology.

During his first Mass in Cuba, in the very Revolutionary Square from
which Fidel has shouted millions of mostly angry words at the world, the
pope called for a spirit of reconciliation and human service that "is
never ideological."

"What is the most important thing?" he asked. "The call to serve," he
then answered, in his homily. But "service is never ideological," he
went on, "for we do not serve ideas; we serve people."

Later, on the final day of his visit, he again posited the question: "Do
you believe it is possible that a tax collector can be a servant? Do you
believe it is possible that a traitor can become a friend?

"If you are different than me, why don't we talk? Why do we always throw
rocks at that which separates us?"

With a little historical background, one could enter into fascinating
play over the ideologies that were crossing and recrossing themselves
during those three days in Cuba.

Both Castro boys -- Fidel and Raul, now in their 80s -- were raised
Roman Catholic by a rough northern Spanish Gallego father who made a
fortune in farming. Both boys went to the Jesuit Colegio de Belen in
eastern Cuba, but Fidel, especially, was an indifferent student.

In the 1980s, long after "los Castro" took power in 1959, I talked to
Fidel's priest, Father Armando Llorente, in Miami and asked him if,
during Fidel's years at the school, he ever saw the boy praying. He
smiled a canny Jesuit smile and said, "I would see him alone, praying in
the chapel. I knew what he was praying for -- he was praying to win."

Although both Castros destroyed the institution of the Catholic Church
in Cuba after taking power, the two boys were always different. Raul was
small in stature, and organized and logical in nature. He excelled as
head of the Cuban military, the only institution in communist Cuba that
worked. In the early days, just before and after the revolution in 1959,
Raul was a dourly devoted member of the Communist Party of Cuba,
spending hours studying Lenin & Co. and was deeply convinced. He is a
realist.

Fidel, on the other hand, lived and operated on the transcendental
level. He hated organizations and rules -- he made his own rules. He got
into his people's very souls and was to become the 20th century's most
stunning example of the charismatic leader, who dealt not with tax
collecting, but with demagogic control over his people.

As to Pope Francis, he emerged out of that same period. But as an
Argentine boy from a happy Italian family who moved to Buenos Aires, he
grew up and became a Jesuit priest during the time that virulently
anti-communist military governments were ravaging the nation. In
particular, the military was against the "liberation theology" of the
Catholic Church, in which angry young priests developed a series of
ideas that melded the church with Marxism.

This led to tens of thousands of "disappeared" brutally murdered by the
military, something the pontiff never forgot.

These two countries of Latin America -- Cuba and Argentina -- have given
us two very different visions of the development of the body and the
soul. They crossed dramatically this week, but that is still only the
beginning.

Doubtless, more drama is to come, and doubtless it will be just as
compelling a story.

(Georgie Anne Geyer has been a foreign correspondent and commentator on
international affairs for more than 40 years. She can be reached at
gigi_geyer(at)juno.com.)

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