Fidel and Imperialist Sophistry

[Jacuma]

By Ike Nahem

Cubans came to our region as doctors, teachers, soldiers,
agricultural experts, but never as colonizers. They have shared the
same trenches with us in the struggle against colonialism,
underdevelopment, and apartheid. Hundreds of Cubans have given their
lives, literally, in a struggle that was, first and foremost, not
theirs but ours. As Southern Africans we salute them. We vow never to
forget this unparalleled example of selfless internationalism.
We wish also to record our indebtedness to Cuban hospitality. In
particular, tens of thousands of young Southern Africans have been
trained, and some are still training, in Cuban schools and
universities. Today, in many different fields - in the health sector,
in government, and in the army - there are many young professionals,
contributing to the development of our country, who owe their skills
to the generous training provided to them by Cuba.
Many people, many countries, including many powerful countries, have
called upon us to condemn the suppression of human rights in Cuba.
We have reminded them they have a short memory.
For when we battled against apartheid, against racial oppression, the
same countries were supporting the apartheid regime.They supported
the apartheid regime. And we fought successfully against that regime
with the support of Cuba.
They now want to be our only friends, and dare to ask us to renounce
those people who made our victory possible. That is the greatest
contempt for the morality and the principles which are the basis of
our relations, not only with the various population groups in this
country, but with the entire world.
Nelson Mandela

The February 18, 2008 announcement by Cuban President and
revolutionary Marxist leader Fidel Castro that he will not seek or
accept re-election of President of the Cuban Council of State and
Commander-in Chief of the island's Revolutionary Armed Forces has, of
course, led to an orgy of spin, deceit, disinformation, and wishful
thinking in the governments and media of the imperialist world.

Fidel Castro has simply recognized that he is physically unable to
carry on the day-to-day responsibilities of head of government and
state at the indefatigable level and standard he has maintained for
over five decades in a remarkable revolutionary life.

The name of Fidel Castro is at the top of the list of oppressed
humanity's most beloved champions and protagonists. The price for
such a course of one's life is the undying hatred of the tribunes of
imperialism.

No Resignation and No Retirement

Contrary to the wishful thinking of the headline-writers and spin-
masters of the capitalist press, Fidel has not "resigned" his
positions, let alone his participation in the revolutionary
struggle. "It would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a
responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am
physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama.

"This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a
soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the
heading of 'Reflections by comrade Fidel.' It will be just another
weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard. I shall be
careful." The haste with which the governments of the imperialist
powers and the world big-business press hopes to retire the great
revolutionary fighter registers their fear that he is not yet done
with them. And they are right in this. Perhaps Fidel Castro's
greatest historical contribution has been to "spread the word" about
revolutionary socialism, to popularize and make real, socialist ideas
through the practice of the Cuban Revolution for nearly 50 years. He
has done this while navigating the small island nation on a
revolutionary socialist course in treacherous international waters,
under siege by US imperialism. When Fidel says to the Cuban
leadership and people that, "I shall be careful," he is saying that
he will now speak without the necessary constraints as the head of
government and state. Fidel will be able to promote and develop
revolutionary ideas and strategies in a new and different position
and framework as the current world financial and economic crisis
mounts and the rise and deepening of class struggles that will
inexorably follow in its train.

Why Washington and Wall Street Hate Fidel Castro

The special venom and hatred preserved for Fidel Castro by Washington
and Wall Street, by all the representatives and spokespeople of world
capitalism and imperialism, and the ex-Cuban bourgeoisie - whose
hatred of Fidel Castro is of a piece with how the representatives and
beneficiaries of the Confederate slavocracy felt about Abraham
Lincoln - is of course a badge of honor for the now 81-year-old Cuban
revolutionary.

The answer to imperialist hatred - virtually an industry in more than
a few federal bureaucracies in the Washington area -- has always been
the veneration and love felt for Fidel by the oppressed and exploited
overwhelming majority of humanity in whose interests Fidel Castro has
fought with ideas and arms for his entire utterly heroic life. This
is the opposite of a fabricated and manufactured Stalin or Mao-style
personality cult in the consciousness of workers, peasants, and each
new generation of rebellious youth, particularly in the Western
Hemisphere where the Cuban Revolution triumphed ushering in the 1959
New Year. Intellectual and middle-class public opinion on Fidel has
always been and continues to be divided and harshly polarized,
invariably, but not mechanically, breaking down along ideological,
class lines.

Republicans and Democrats: No Change in US Policy

In her official statement on Fidel's announcement Hillary Clinton
asserted that "Fidel Castro announced that he is stepping down as
Cuba's leader after nearly 50 years of one-man rule." (emphasis
added) Her full statement, matched in rote, deceitful boilerplate by
those of Barack Obama and John McCain echoes the over-riding myth
propagated by imperialist propaganda over the years which paints
Fidel Castro as a "dictator" of the "absolute" kind, running a one-
man show, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men bowing to his whims,
fostering a personality cult, and holding in thrall a cowered and
servile population of suppressed sheep. Sort of a Caribbean Stalin!
This caricature has always been a pack of self-serving lies. It is
simply an imperialist line in the service of a policy with no
relation to the historical and political truth about either Fidel or
the Cuban Revolution.

Of course, Fidel Castro is an extraordinary personality, outstanding
revolutionary fighter, leader, and statesman whose world-historic
legacy is fully assured. But contrary to imperialist mythology it
must be said that one of Fidel Castro's greatest traits as a leader
has been his ability to foster, forge, and develop united team
leadership based on ideas, program, and revolutionary ethics. This is
exemplified in the history of revolutionary struggle in Cuba in such
figures as Che Guevara, Raul Castro, Celia Sanchez, Juan Almeida,
Camilo Cienfuegos, Melba Hernandez, Victor Dreke, Vilma Espin,
Armando Hart, Ricardo Alarcon, and countless others. Such human
material, capable of organizing, leading, and sustaining a mass
revolutionary struggle for power has to have within themselves the
discipline, sacrifice, creative thinking, tactical savvy, culture,
and humanity that are the opposite of sycophants and toadies. A new
generation of leaders such as Felipe Perez-Roque and Carlos Lage have
also emerged at every level of Cuban society.

At any rate it is ludicrous beyond even the most primitive logic to
think that "one-man rule" could have survived the unremitting
onslaught of US imperialism - the most powerful economic and military
counter-revolutiona
ry machine in world history - for nearly 50 years. Actually all of
the truly bloody right-wing military and family dictatorships that
Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean have been created,
sustained, and supported by Washington. It was revolutionary Cuba
that backed the fight against these US-backed regimes that crushed
working people. The Cuban Revolution could not have survived and
achieved its remarkable social and cultural conquests in public
education, literacy, health care, medical science, technology, and
services, and, above all, maintaining a foreign policy of selfless
internationalism and solidarity with the oppressed if it were not a
genuine people's revolution - without the conscious support of the
overwhelming majority, especially among the workers and peasants.

Hillary Clinton's statement further asserts, "The people of Cuba
yearn for the opportunity to get out from under the weight of this
authoritarian regime, which has held back 11 million talented and
hardworking citizens of the Americas." (emphasis added) The truth is
that the Cuban Revolution unleashed repressed and suppressed
creativity, resourcefulness, talent, and power for the large majority
of the Cuban population. This is why Cuban medical services, its
cultural and artistic depth and creativity, its world-class education
system, are universally admired. The elimination of illiteracy, huge
increases in life-expectancy and infant mortality rates that are
among the lowest in the world, and Cuba's superpower status in world
athletics are all distant dreams for the other "citizens of the
Americas," that is in the Latin American and Caribbean nations still
under the financial and economic domination of US and European
imperialism and their institutional instruments such as the world
Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary
Fund. Hillary Clinton knows all of this. She is neither stupid nor
ignorant nor unaware of Cuba's worldwide resonance and influence
across the globe as a leading political figure in US politics who has
traveled the world many times over. She is promoting a line and a
policy and the truth be damned!

If anything Barack Obama's statement was even harsher in its
tone. "Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba," Obama
blathers. He calls "heroes" those Cuban mercenaries convicted and
imprisoned after proof beyond a shadow of doubt showing them to be on
the direct payroll of US government agencies, that is, under the
direction of the foreign government openly committed for an
unremitting five decades to the overthrow of the sovereign Cuban
government. That imperialist campaign has involved terrorism, the
organization of assassination on many hundreds of occasions, economic
sabotage (including biological attacks on Cuban agriculture that also
killed human beings).

The response to Fidel's announcement from George Bush to all the
presidential candidates underlines that Washington's policy to
destroy the Cuban Revolution and its heroic example and to prevent
its extension, particularly in the Americas, has always been a
strictly bipartisan affair from the Republican Eisenhower and the
Democrat Kennedy to the current impotent posturing of George W. Bush.

Whatever differences that appear to divide them are purely tactical.
No one recognizes Cuba's sovereign right to forge its own social,
economic, and political system; all assume the right of Washington to
determine Cuba's destiny. This, of course, was one of the prime
motivations - getting out from under the big thumb of Washington's
domination and the accompanying human misery and ruthless
exploitation - catalyzing the Cuban Revolution in the first place.
The only serious and sincere argument to end US sanctions is in
defense of Cuba's sovereignty and right to self-determination.

How can anyone take seriously the sincerity of an "opponent" of US
economic sanctions when they argue that ending or "easing" the
sanctions will be more effective in overturning the revolutionary
government and Cuban socialism than the current sanctions which they
claim to oppose. This is sophistry, which my dictionary defines as
a "deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in
the hope of deceiving someone." Ending US sanctions would be a
tremendous boost to the development, productivity, and
industrialization of Cuba and would strengthen and make even more
attractive Cuban socialism.

Imperialism's problem with Fidel Castro is that, to his everlasting
credit, he and his team did not turn the other cheek, and give in the
face of imperialist subversion and aggression. Revolutionary Cuba did
not turn into 1954 Guatemala or 1973 Chile. They defended themselves
and continue to defend themselves. Washington, the European
Union "statesmen," and the big-business media and punditry call this
a "violations of human rights."

Who is Afraid of Whom?

The New York Times in an editorial stands objective reality flat on
its head, "[The US embargo has] made it easier for [Castro] to wall
ordinary Cubans off from American friendships, political ideas, and
affluent lifestyles." This is a truly astonishing case, a model
really, of sophistry. It is, and always has been, the US government
that has imposed onerous travel restrictions, for US citizens and
legal residents. It is Washington that refuses to allow Cuban
citizens, musicians, artists, athletes to visit the United States
unless they feel confident they can induce "defections." Cuba has
always allowed, welcomed, and desires to have a total end to the US
travel restrictions that in effect legally prevent ordinary US
citizens and legal residents from visiting Cuba. The limited opening
of some space for US citizens and legal residents that was permitted
towards the end of the 1990s, allowing some "people-to-people" legal
travel with approved licenses granted to some academic, cultural,
religious, and other groups, "sponsored travel" and other
bureaucratic loopholes were closed considerably in the course of the
George W. Bush Administration, always with bipartisan Congressional
approval and acquiescence. It is Cuba that invites US economic groups
and corporations to giant trade fairs and promoted economic exchange
in every possible venue and forum. It is the US that prevents the
sale of Cuban commercial products and services (The Bush
Administration famously rejected Cuba's offer for the free dispatch
and work of 1200 Cuban doctors, among the world's most highly trained
specialists in emergency medical assistance, to fight for the care of
people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.) Talk about a wall! Who is
afraid of whom!

Americans who go to Cuba find that the Cuban reality is far removed
from the horror story painted by imperialist propaganda. The limited
travel opening under the Clinton Administration, which signed the
sanctions-deepening Torricelli and Helms-Burton legislation, was
motivated as facilitating bringing down the Castro government from
another angle, so-called Track 2. Track 2 was to complement the main
line Track 1 of sanctions, subversion, military threats, and allowing
paramilitary, terrorist groups of exiled Cuban counter-
revolutionaries - in general a force with rapidly declining political
support and appeal among Cuban-Americans - to organize and attack
Cuba with impunity. (It was the Democratic William Clinton
Administration that took evidence provided by Cuba of actual and
planned violent attack by counter-revolutionary exiles organized on
US soil and used it not to stop and arrest the terrorists but to
arrest five heroic Cuban agents who had, as a result of secret
infiltration, monitored and documented violent acts and plans. This
is the case of the Cuban Five, in prison under harsh conditions for
nearly 10 years, one of the most outrageous and ongoing travesties of
justice in the modern era, a callous frame-up of wholly admirable and
courageous revolutionaries.)

But Track 2 had the opposite effect. The tens of thousands of US
citizens who took advantage of the new possibilities were actually
being more influenced by the Cuban reality they embraced - in all its
apparent and even glorious contradictions - than being the carriers
of the blessings of "freedom and democracy" (translation: capitalism
and US domination). The contrast between the anti-Cuba propaganda
generated out of Washington and the Cuban reality is always striking
to any US visitor. The real wall separating US and Cuban peoples,
including Cuban-American families, has been constructed in the US.

The Cuban Revolution and its central leader have above all
represented genuine internationalism and solidarity for the working
people of the world. Cuba in word and deed has been the leading voice
in every tribune at hand for nations and nationalities oppressed,
exploited, and plundered by the vicious, racist systems of
colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, and neo-liberalism. This
is not a question of 1960s nostalgia or ancient Cold War-era history.
The contemporary forms of imperialist domination still stamp the
framework of world economics, finance, politics, and social relations
towards the end of the first decade of the Twenty-First Century.

However that world system is today weakening, wracked by deepening
financial, economic, social, and political crises. It is in an
irreversible social and political decline engendered by the very
methods that marked its rise to world supremacy. These include:
unending war and militarism; ruthless competition over control of raw
materials and markets in every corner of the Earth; and the
hyperactive, anarchic speculation through ever-more opaque and
mystified instruments of fictitious capital that is accelerating
financial and economic catastrophe which is unfolding.

Today the conjunctural form of this crisis is a looming - if not
already loomed - economic recession. There is no question that
working people in the United States and other advanced capitalist
countries are heading for hard times in the next period. The
artificial boom of the 1990s and 2000s, based more on massive
expansion of debt and financial speculation on the casino-style
equity, currency, mortgage, commodity, and other world markets than
on real investment in public works, labor, and factory production, is
unraveling amid mounting panic and uncertainty. Bondholders, bankers
and CEOs can only move to resolve their crisis on the backs of the
working class. Over the past decade and more we saw the creation of
all sorts of opaque, mystified "financial instruments" - hedge
funds, "securitized" and "collateralized" "debt
obligations," "structured investment vehicles," "credit default
swaps," "monocline" insurance, Municipal Auction Bonds, etc. which
created the artificial, fictitious impression of actual wealth
creation. And now we are at the beginning stages of seeing all of
these Ponzi schemes and bourgeois mumbo-jumbo turn to shit.

Washington's dedication to the destruction of the Cuban Revolution
has necessarily required a vast apparatus of lying propaganda and a
sophistry that has its own pathetic logic and dynamic from which
there is no escape. Fidel has stepped down from the posts he has held
as the head of Cuba's revolutionary government. But he has not, and
will never, "resign" from his responsibilities and duty to the causes
of all oppressed and exploited peoples. Cuba Solidarity New York and
the growing movement in the United States to end Washington's
criminal economic and political war and travel restrictions against
Cuba and to free the Cuban Five send our enthusiastic and fraternal
greetings to companero Fidel and are certain that the new generation
of Cuban revolutionaries will, guided by his ideas and example, pick
up the torch and continue the struggle.

In fact today the Cuban people are emerging out of the hardships of
the harsh economic conditions of the 1990s, called the "Special
Period," following the collapse of their heavy economic relationship
with the former Soviet Union and allied Eastern European states and
the subsequent harsh tightening of Washington's economic sanctions
and pressures starting with the Clinton Administration. Today Cuba's
economy is registering steady, cumulating advances in trade,
especially with Venezuela, China, Latin America, and Asia, economic
growth, industrial production, and, medical and educational services,
and tourism - while Washington's bipartisan policy, hostile and
bellicose, becomes more isolated. In these more favorable conditions,
a large, open debate and discussion is breaking out all over the
island on how to solve many outstanding economic and social problems
and longstanding difficulties, corruptions, and contradictions.

Fidel Castro has moved to another trench to struggle for the better
world that is possible if it is fought for with the ethics,
principles, and revolutionary determination that he embodies. The
solidarity movement in the United States will continue to fight from
our trench to end once and for all time Washington's criminal
economic and political war against revolutionary Cuba and step up the
fight to free the Cuban Five. Out of this struggle we will create the
conditions for fraternal ties of friendship and solidarity between
the working people of the United States and Cuba.

VENCEREMOS!

Ike Nahem is the coordinator of Cuba Solidarity New York, a member of
the National Network on Cuba. He is an Amtrak locomotive engineer and
a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a
division of the Teamsters Union. These are his personal opinions.