Billboard on the site of a collapsed building in Havana. The text reads:
The Revolution Is Working Well. Fight, Work, Advance. Continue Onward! Fidel
I swore never again to speak of that gentleman with the well-trimmed beard and the olive-green uniform who filled every day of my childhood with his constant presence. I underpin my decision not to refer to Fidel Castro with more than one argument: he represents the past; we need to look forward, to that Cuba where he no longer exists; and in the midst of the challenges of the present, to allude to him seems an unpardonable distraction. But today he once more gatecrashed my life with one of his characteristic outbursts. I feel obliged to focus on him again after his declaration to the journalist Jeffry Goldberg that, "the Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."
If my memory doesn't fail me, they expelled many Communist Party members for lesser or similar phrases, and purged innumerable Cubans who served long sentences. The Maximum Leader systematically pointed his finger at those who tried to explain that the country wasn't working. And not only were the nonconformists punished, but we were all forced to don the mask of subterfuge to survive on an island he tried to remake in his own image. Pretense, whispers, deceit, all to hide the same opinion that the "resuscitated" commander now flippantly tosses out to foreign journalist.
Perhaps it is a fit of honesty, as assaults the elderly when it comes time to assess their lives. It could even be another desperate try for attention, like his prediction of an imminent nuclear debacle or his late mea culpa for the repression of homosexuals which he came out with a few weeks ago. To see him acknowledge the failure of "his" political model, makes me feel like I'm watching a scene where an actor gesticulates and raises his voice so that the public won't look away. But as long as Fidel Castro doesn't take the microphone and announce to us that his obsolete creature will be dismantled, nothing has happened. If he doesn't repeat the phrase here in Cuba, and, in addition, agree not to interfere in the necessary changes, we're back to square one.
Note:
Yesterday, on hearing the news, I wrote a brief tweet: "Fidel Castro joins the opposition, telling the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg that the Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." Shortly after a dissident friend to whom I'd sent the same message by text called me. His words were ironic, but true: "If He has joined the opposition, I'm moving over now to the official side."
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Translating Cuba is a new compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Translator's note (10 Sep 2010): This post was previously posted missing the first paragraph. My apologies!
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez
Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 12, 1962, the closest the world had ever come to nuclear war, wrote in his cable to Khrushchev in October 26, 1962, “that would be the moment to eliminate such danger forever through tan act of clear legitimate defense, however harsh and terrible the solution would be, for there is no other… the Soviet Union must never allow the circumstances in which the imperialists could launch the first nuclear strike against it.”
Khrushchev response in October 30, 1962, “In your cable of October 27 you proposed that we be the first to launch a nuclear strike against the territory of the enemy. You, of course, realize where that would have led. Rather than a simple strike, it would have been the start of a thermonuclear world war.”
Castro, in his deep hatred against the United States, did not hesitate in asking for the launch of a nuclear strike without given a damn that such action sealed the annihilation of the Cuban people and a large part of humanity. Castro deserves everything that's coming to him.
The USA on the other hand has had an economic "carte blanche" for the last 60 years,they almost literally "owned the world" and still it has been driven into the ground economically by a small smug elite. There is no excuse whatsoever for this to happen to America.
He was right in feeling what he felt about what was going on, but wrong in the steps he took once in power.
He is a brilliant man, no doubt about it; but his personality and stubborness got on the way of his brilliance.
He is an interesting character study in leadership.
That is the way I see him.
She told The Associated Press she took the remark to be in line with Raul Castro's call for gradual but widespread reform.
"It sounded consistent with the general consensus in the country now, up to and including his brother's position," Sweig said. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/10/world/main6853855.shtml
Why if asked by the Cuban model he responds by referring to another model?
So, when he says Cuban model he means the capitalist system, and when he says we are concerned he means the U.S.
And how it is that not even one of the Castroites was able to understand the "true meaning" of the words of the tyrant, before he made this "clarification"?
He reversed his previous statement. A lapse, a slip? It happened to him what almost never happened before, he is already old. His rectification is incoherent and it does nothing more than confirm what the journalists interpreted.
You came across as a person of character, conviction and strength; I don't mind telling you this, you made this old war horse shed a tear or two.
Ten cuidado, alimentate lo mejor que puedas y cuidate mucho; personas como tu hay pocas en este mundo.
As a Cubano who has lived and fought in distant lands, I admire you for your ' Cuban Cojones ' ( please forgive the C word, but as a Cubana, I know you will understand ) in facing what you are facing .
Life is change, and soon change will arrive to the land of where time has stood still for half a century.
It will be the youg people such as you that will bring this change about; acuerdate, no hay mal que dure cien años ni cuerpo que lo resista.
Cuidate mucho mi amor, te necesitamos.
Cuba's long-time communist leader Fidel Castro has told a visiting, and somewhat bemused, American journalist that the country's communist model is no longer working. http://www.newslook.com/videos/249092-fidel-castro-cuban-model-doesn-t-work?autoplay=true
Maoists are the armed wing of the evangelical christians in India.
First off, if America had not kept those thieves running Cuba in the first place, there may not have been a Fidel.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/gardner-smith.htm
Maybe now we can dispense with ideology, and have economies that work for us.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/i-made-a-mistake-says-greenspan/story-e6frg9mf-1111117848644
Mr Greenspan said the free market ideology that had guided his life and dominated world capitalism for a generation did not work the way he thought it would.
Presumably based on the premise, that he couldn’t possibly ever be right? But the danger is not, not questioning opposing views. It is, not questioning all views.
The best service we in the US can do is to give our views on how to end the stupid system that they have now. We need to provide a friendly analysis of what can and should be accomplished to reform their system, not to simply ape the bad practices of Stalinism and pretend that everything is OK.
The objective is to transform Cuban regime in China like one and invite US businessmen and companies to the party. The same has happened in all communist countries that transformed their systems from Stalinist ones to wild capitalism with help of international capital in order to survive as tyrannies. If castrofascism achieves this goal Cuba will transforms from the poor fascist dictatorship it is today to a rich fascist dictatorship Latin-American style.
As I said in another post, I suspect Cuban CP has drawn a lessen from Eastern Europe -- when the strangle hold of the one party state is "loosened," it eventually falls off entirely relegating the party to the dustbin of history. There is no such thing as reformed Leninism. There is one party domination or there is not, and no one understands that better than a Leninist. Again, that is why I think change in Cuba will come from below, not above.
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2043%20December.htm