A tribute to Fidel
Source: A Tribute To Fidel from a Child of the Cold War – PravdaReport
Category: Cuba
In the wake of Fidel Castro’s death, many people are writing about his revolutionary legacy for the Left and socialism on the whole. The most important part of this legacy is the following 10 serious mistakes he made which should not be repeated by socialists if they hope to contribute to social progress.
Source: Ten of Fidel Castro’s Mistakes which Socialists Shouldn’t Repeat – Havana Times.org
My rebirth from being a US Dreamer to an internationalist occurred because of the Cuban revolution, because of what Fidel and Che taught me when I was an airman “defending” the United States against all the bad guys.
Source: Reflections on Fidel, Cuba, Internationalism and Tamils – Havana Times.org
VANGUARD – For an independent Australia and Socialism
From the Bay of Pigs invasion to a historic visit by President Barack Obama to Havana, Cubans have known for generations that whenever the United States turns its face to Cuba, Fidel Castro would be staring right back. But the death of “El Comandante” has added to worries among Cubans that US President-elect Donald Trump will slam the door shut on nascent trade and travel ties, undoing two years of detente with the United States under Mr Obama. Many Cubans believe they could do with their late leader’s charisma and way with words to counter Mr Trump’s bombast.
Source: Ordinary Cubans fear life after Fidel Castro with Donald Trump next door | The Independent
Mr. Castro brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere, bedeviled 11 American presidents and briefly pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Source: Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90 – The New York Times
Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro was a “brutal dictator”, US President-elect Donald Trump says.
Source: Donald Trump calls Fidel Castro ‘brutal dictator’ – BBC News
President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter initially on Saturday to react in only four words to Fidel Castro’s death before issuing a longer statement condemning the “brutal dictator” and yearning for a free Cuba.
Source: Donald Trump: Fidel Castro is dead! – CNNPolitics.com
This August 13, Fidel Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban Revolution and international inspiration for people struggling for a better world, turned 90. His age alone is a remarkable achievement, consid…
All previous socialist revolutionaries had seemed grimly puritanical; by contrast, Castro’s barbudos appeared almost to be bohemians with guns. Democracy and radical reform were poised to replace dictatorship and social misery.
Source: Steve Wasserman: Reflections on the Death of Fidel – Truthdig
Designing a Humanitarian Culture: An Analysis of the Cuban Experiment
Also, American visitors can bring back as much tobacco and rum as they want.
Jose and Leo ply the streets of Havana with a vegetable cart in a daily game of urban hide-and-seek with the police.
Source: Game over: Havana through the eyes of two food vendors – News from Al Jazeera
As the former leader turns 90, he is seen as both a totalitarian dictator and an anti-imperialistic humanitarian.
An intimate look at the pleasures and struggles of six different people’s Cuba.
Source: My Cuba – Al Jazeera English
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/mycuba/cuba-160804105544014.html
Cuba is a nation facing rapid change. Researchers Shannon Brincat and Samid Suliman found a people proud of their past, and optimistic about their future. The 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba was recently held amidst a profound period of change for the Cuban people. The most significant outcome was the promise ofMore
Source: On Their Own Terms: Remembering History in a Changing Cuba – New Matilda
Property developers are queuing up to pounce as Cuba opens its doors to the world. Proposals for Havana’s old harbour are described as ‘Las Vegas meets Miami in the Caribbean’. So can the city cope with the commercial storm ahead?
In Cuba people talk about the enormous significance of D17, the day when both U.S. and Cuban presidents addressed their nations and explained that they planned to re-open diplomatic relations. Thes…
Cuba has been shielded by urban development for more than 50 years, largely as a result of a trade embargo imposed by the US.
Most of the capital Havana was built in the first half of the 20th century, and the city’s unspoiled, historic urban character – often described as being frozen in time – is not only beloved by the Cuban people but also closely interlinked with the nation’s identity.
| When you talk to people, … and you ask them, Why are you visiting Havana? The common answer is, I want to see it now. … I want to see the real Havana. … So they share the fear that Havana could be gone and all this magic could be gone. |
But now, Cuba finds itself in uncharted territory.
Al Jazeera’s Nick Clark travels to Havana as the country prepares to normalise relations with the US, encountering a mix of optimism, nervousness and concern about what the impact will be.
He speaks to Miguel Coyula, an urban architect, who is consumed by the question of whether his Havana will survive. Can it handle the potential onslaught of tourists and investments that are lining up? And should everyone who wants to come to Cuba be allowed to?
Coyula discusses the crossroads that Cuba finds itself at – will the country’s rich culture, which includes a tradition of ballet and opera, and its urban identity become something unrecognisable, or will it be preserved through improvement?
He talks about how the embargo acted as an unexpected filter for the kind of tourists who visited over the last five decades and takes us through the streets of Havana to point out how small investments have already started changing the face of the city.
For over 50 years Cubans have endured enmity and a trade embargo, and are now set for closer US ties.
Havana, Cuba – The United States of America has finally revived diplomatic relations with the neighbouring island nation of Cuba after more than five decades.
The communist nation was kept on a tight leash by the world’s most powerful nation, since severing of diplomatic ties in 1961 nearly two years after the Cuban revolution brought Fidel Castro to power.
Cuba, a nation of about 11 million people, endured nearly half-a- century of enmity, crippling trade embargo, and American spy plots.
It was cut off from international trade but Cubans learned to live with limited resources.
Despite the odds, the country developed one of the finest healthcare systems in the world.
Art and culture, particularly music, also flourished under communist rule. In spite of sanctions, Cuba managed to attract international tourists on the back of its rich cultural heritage and pristine beaches.
Nearly two million tourists visited the island in the first six months of this year, bringing billions of dollars into the country.
Booming tourism has offered Cubans an extra income that they could not have dreamt of with low-paying government jobs. Waiters are one of the biggest earners compared to much-respected professions of medicine and teaching that pay as low as $40 a month.
Cuban revolutionaries, including Fidel Castro (far left) and Che Guevara (center), in Havana in 1960. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Unless you have been violently evicted from your country’s presidential palace, you are already having a better new year than Cuban president Fulgencio Batista was having at this point in 1959. Revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro, had been fighting against the corrupt, virulently anti-Communist Batista regime since 1953. At the time of the 1959 revolution, it was not yet clear that the new regime would declare itself Communist. In “Revolution Without Generals” (January 17, 1959), The Nation’s Carleton Beals reflected on the prospects and perils of the revolution.
The hero comes into power at the head of seasoned young veteran guerrilleros whose ranks were augmented only at the last moment by adhesions of rank-and-file soldiers and minor officers. He comes in at the head of a youth movement inspired with the ideal of a new free Cuba—youths recklessly willing to face torture and death, who have fought in the streets of every city and hamlet in Cuba for six long years. He comes in at the head of a student movement which has seen Cuba’s schools closed for years, which lost leader after leader to Batista’s police. He comes in at a time when every professional and civic group in Cuba—from sports clubs to the Rotary clubs—had broken with Batista. He comes in with the good will of a large sector of the Church hierarchy and certainly with the active backing of the Catholic Youth movement, the two leaders of which were recently taken out of their homes, brutally tortured and killed. He takes over a war-scarred country that yearns for peace, in which tens of thousands of homes have lost loved ones or seen them driven into exile….
Much of the course of events in the near future will depend upon the official American attitude toward Castro. Will our government be as lavishly helpful with him as it was with Batista? That has never happened before in similar circumstances. Maybe this time it will be different. And will Castro himself measure up to the great tasks that await him?
Unlike previous upheavals in Cuba, largely determined by military elements, the prolonged struggle to get rid of Batista has awakened the people and released deep and violent social forces. A revolution has been set in motion and there is little likelihood that it can be stopped short of its objectives either by outside interference or by incompetent or recalcitrant leadership. Thus far Castro has shown the finest qualities of true leadership: self-sacrifice, dedication, patience, confidence and ready pliability in meeting the most difficult situations. He may indeed come to rank with that other great Cuban, José Martí, who carved out the shape of Cuban independence.
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