Belated jubilee greetings

to El comandante en jefe himself - el maximo lieder of the Cuban Republic, revolutionary legend and statesman; Fidel Castro

80 mas!!


- - -


Wait a minute! Before you feel an urge to lambast my salutations:

I could have written some critical accusations towards Fidel, but I won't. I highly respect this elderly statesman, although I acknowledge that he has made mistakes. Which revolution hasn't? His intentions were good, but as he went along and had to adopt to internal structures and cultural conditions, and not least to international realpolitik, he had to leave quite a few of his movements' high ideals along the roadside. No revolutionary regime has ever fully succeeded, and as the saying and the Goya-artwork goes, "The revolution will eat its children".

If theres any one criticism I'd still want to highlight, it is the lack of democracy his reign in Cuba has been marred with. Only time will tell whether his notions that the Cuban people needed his protection against themselves, were correct or fallible. I believe he was right for a while, but that he by now should have long-since let his country evolve into a full democracy. Maybe it was the fear of being assasinated by oppositionals that kept him from doing it (some of the Miami-residing, Cuban exiles certainly seem erratic and fanatic enough to be up to the task), maybe it was political pragmatism, or maybe he just forgot his youthful democratic ideals along the way. In any event, Fidel has not become an archetypical latin dictator-chliché. He did not run away with a lot of the country's money. He has not had statues of himself erected. One gets the notion that Fidel genuinely loves his people, and is dedicated to serving them. It's only too bad that he can't trust them to take their collective fate completely in their own hands; be this lack of faith either a realistic take on Cuban machismo and culture in general, or simply a product of Castro's wanting to stay in power indefinitely.

An estimated 600 attempts on his life or health by the CIA, surely couldn't have helped either.

In any event, I wish to congratulate him on his birthday. Still being alive at this high age, considering the previous paragraph, is an achievement in and by itself.

And being highly defiant by nature, I believe that there has been too much low-brow criticism of his persona in the last weeks, not least in Norwegian blogs, and from the ever-erratic, neo-liberalist community of Cuban exiles in Miami (and elsewhere in Florida and along the US east coast), that there need be one more overly critical (if not down-right toolish) milestone-post against the jubilant.

I sincerely wish him 80 more good years, although he should make good on his promise to the Cuban people, that he will not reign until he is a hundred years old.

For those of you needing more information about the amazing revolutionary and internation statesman Fidel Castro, one need only click on the subject-line overhead. This will lead you to a Wikipedia-page that sadly has had to be moderated lately (since he was taken ill and operated on on the 27. of July - only a day after the national celebrations of the "Movement of 25th of July"; his original revolutionary outfit, featuring also Che, Raul, the iconic Camilo Cienfuegos, and others) - due to vandalism (no doubt in part stemming from the more erratic among the violently anti-Castro Miami-Cubans).

There have also been many biographies, most of which you will find references to in said Wikipedia-article. The one by Tad Szulcs is said to be among the better. The one by Robert Quirk, although reputedly over-critical of its subject, is the most informative and the lengthiest. As an intro-volume, I'd recommend the short, reader-friendly and enthusiastic pocket biography of Fidel by Clive Foss - I personally have thoroughly enjoyed this one.