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RIP Fidel Castro August 13, 1926 – November 25, 2016

Gramsci said:
I didnt get that from reading "The War at the End of the World". He portrays the poor peoples community with great deal of sympathy. They set up a society that worked. Where everything was held in common and all provided for.

The same goes for the Brazilian army. Many of whom really believe they have to put down the rebellion in order to build a new progressive Brazil.

The novel does not provide provide any clear cut answers.
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I have read the book too. Read a bit about the author, he is a really nasty piece of work.
 
Raheem said:
I can only speak for my own posts, but I think they have at least been less shrill than yours. And, if I picked up a book that began and ended with "Fidel Castro killed and imprisoned anyone who didn't agree with him, such as gays and communists", I'm not sure "good standard history" is what I would think.
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Why the fuck not? Is terror against the working class and homosexuals a price to pay for brilliant education that produces zero aspiration for those who manage to not end up dead? Hitler did good shit too for those willing to shut their eyes to the rest of it you fucking muppet.
 
Have we had this one yet?

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phillm said:
To be fair to the man he seems to have deeply regretted his homophobic past.

LGBT rights in Cuba - Wikipedia

Fidel Castro takes responsibility
In his autobiography My Life, Fidel Castro criticized the machismo culture of Cuba and urged for the acceptance of homosexuality. He has made several speeches to the public regarding discrimination against homosexuals.

In a 2010 interview with Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Castro called the persecution of homosexuals while he was in power "a great injustice, great injustice!" Taking responsibility for the persecution, he said, "If anyone is responsible, it's me.... We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death. In those moments, I was not able to deal with that matter [of homosexuals]. I found myself immersed, principally, in the Crisis of October, in the war, in policy questions." Castro personally said that the negative treatment of gays in Cuba arose out of the country's pre-revolutionary attitudes toward homosexuality.[46]
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Whilst I was aware of the discrimination, I was not aware of Fidel's owning up to this. Good on him, takes a proper leader to admit to such a thing. Reminds me (very briefly and in passing) how Ian Paisley moderated his views in his later years. Still don't like him, mind.
 
It's certainly true that Cuba under Castro did more in terms of real internationalism than most larger powers ever dreamed of - or would be willing to do.

And yet at the same time it's a slightly different story at home: Cuba's ruling party continues to be disproportionately white and all forms of political or social associations based on race are banned - which has obvious consequences for Black Cuban historians, sociologists, social workers and so on.
 
I am not going to link, but the Hopkins in the Mial has now decided upon a verdict & has proclaimed hat castro was actually OK and should not now be dismissed as a dirty commie bastard.

2016 truly is a very strange year
 
After a visit to Havana in 2014, the director-general of the World Health Organization Margaret Chan called for other countries to follow Cuba’s example in health care. Years before, the World Health Organization’s ranking of countries with “the fairest mechanism for health-system finance” put Cuba first among Latin American and Caribbean countries (and far ahead of the United States).
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Cuba has long had a nearly identical life expectancy to the United States, despite widespread poverty. The humanitarian-physician Paul Farmer notes in his book Pathologies of Power that there’s a saying in Cuba: “We live like poor people, but we die like rich people.” Farmer also notes that the rate of infant mortality in Cuba has been lower than in the Boston neighborhood of his own prestigious hospital, Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s.

All of this despite Cuba spending just $813 per person annually on health care compared with America’s $9,403.

In Cuba, health care is protected under the constitution as a fundamental human right. As a poor country, Cuba can’t afford to equivocate and waste money upholding that. This pressure seems to have created efficiency. Instead of pouring money into advanced medical technology, the system is forced to keep people healthy.
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It’s largely done, as the BBC has reported, through an innovative approach to primary care. Family doctors work in clinics and care for everyone in the surrounding neighborhood. At least once a year, the doctor knocks on your front door (or elsewhere, if you prefer) for a check-up. More than the standard American ritual of listening to your heart and lungs and asking if you’ve noticed any blood coming out of you abnormally, these check-ups involve extensive questions about jobs and social lives and environment—information that’s aided by being right there in a person’s home.

Then the doctors put patients into risk categories and determine how often they need to be seen in the future. Unlike the often fragmented U.S. system where people bounce around between specialists and hospitals, Cuba fosters a holistic approach centered around on a relationship with a primary-care physician. Taxpayer investment in education about smoking, eating, and exercising comes directly from these family doctors—who people trust, and who can tailor recommendations.
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How Cubans Live as Long as Americans at a Tenth of the Cost

Sounds like a system that all our countries should emulate.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
Why the fuck not? Is terror against the working class and homosexuals a price to pay for brilliant education that produces zero aspiration for those who manage to not end up dead? Hitler did good shit too for those willing to shut their eyes to the rest of it you fucking muppet.
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Fuck up , running dog

Comparing Fidel to Hitler..just give over.
 
Brainaddict said:
As I've already referred to in this thread, there is a very problematic and simplistic 'anti-imperialist' stance that permeates the Latin American left. You can see it clearly in the work of Eduardo Galleano, who I don't rate very highly because of this. We see the remains of a similar simplistic anti-imperialist stance in the UK when people feel they have to support Assad because he's fighting the good fight against the West.

There is a failure to come to terms with the history of colonialism that founded Latin American states. I think there are cultural reasons why Latin America has been so dogged by authoritarian regimes (of the left and right), that go well beyond the problem of US intervention. We have to think about the fact that Spain, a country that went on to develop home-grown fascism (and in the case of Argentina, Italy), provided much of the basis for Latin American urban culture (rural areas can be more mixed, with more indigenous or sometimes African influence), and also the fact that to colonise is a fundamentally authoritarian and violent mode of governing. This is the history of the Latin American states. It's very problematic and complex. But the vast majority of the left there, ranging from liberal left to Marxist-Leninists, doesn't talk about this. They talk about how Europe and the US have oppressed little old them, and anyone who resists Europe/US is a hero. There is a partial truth in the narrative of US intervention curtailing democracy of course, but it is so incomplete it becomes dishonest.

Perhaps it seems strange for an outsider like me to feel I can challenge this, but I do think it needs to be challenged. Just as I might be willing to judge conservative Islam for its treatment of women, I'm prepared to judge parts of Spanish and Spanish-derived culture for its love of (violent) paternalism.
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It isn't complicated . You've never been a victim of colonisation . It isn't just often brutal , it's utterly humiliating for a people . A slave mentality is a very real thing , it destroys countries and people's . Renders them utterly wretched and compliant . You sound like you've no conception of how it actually feels . They aren't being dishonest, they're being totally honest . To fight back and resist empowers them , makes them more human . Thats why those who do so are admired . Colonised peoples need to have a pride in themselves and a belief in themselves . It's got fuck all to do with Spain. The same phenomenon is global right across the post colonial world . It's only complicated for you because you've no comprehension . Despite the likes of Fanon and Saeed explaining precisely why over the years, you don't understand why they just don't think and react like you with your superior logic and intellect . Naturally, as a European .

These people also know precisely what happened to Allende when he followed the nice non violent path . The very same thing would have happened in Cuba had there not been a strong leader like Fidel . No doubt about that at all .
 
littlebabyjesus said:
You say unfortunately, but there is some truth behind it. The Europeans were kicked out (by forces led by local elites of European descent!) and as soon as they were gone, the US stepped in to meddle and control. I'd agree that the official stories told of independence are wildly one-sided and ahistorical, but the neo-colonialist meddling of the US in Latin American affairs is historical enough.

ETA:
And nowhere has that been more keenly felt than in Cuba, clearly, right back to their wars of independence, when Martí warned against the danger from the north.
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They aren't gone. Las Malvinas remain occupied . Great pity the Argentinians turned down Fidels offer to send Cuban troops there to support their liberation in 82 . he'd have done to Maggies minions precisely what they did to her apartheid South African allies . And that would have been the end of her . As it was for them .
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Hard to attempt a counterfactual here. What if Castro hadn't intervened? What would have happened? I don't know. But at the same time that he was dedicating resources to this, he was neglecting the boring stuff at home. Stuff like maintaining roads, renovating dangerous housing, fixing gas supplies, small stuff that actually really matters. I hate to think how many Cubans are killed or maimed every year by exploding gas supplies. His regime neglected these things during a period when they had resources to do more.

Just looked up Cuba's military expenditure and during the Angola years it was around 10 per cent GDP. Even if every soldier in Angola had been there out of free choice (which they weren't), this is an enormous sum that could have gone elsewhere. One of Castro's legacies is a crumbling country where little works.
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Maybe they reckoned militarily confronting and defeating the apartheid regime and all the evils that supported it was more important than their own immediate material needs . And made the calculation that some potholes were a price worth paying to liberate their oppressed fellow man . That they actually believed in what they stood for and backed it up at a cost to themselves .

Also I've never heard yet of a national army were people go off to war by choice. Soldiers tend to get ordered to do stuff no matter who they are .
 
Casually Red said:
They aren't gone. Las Malvinas remain occupied . Great pity the Argentinians turned down Fidels offer to send Cuban troops there to support their liberation in 82 . he'd have done to Maggies minions precisely what they did to her apartheid South African allies . And that would have been the end of her . As it was for them .
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I won't defend the British presence in the South Atlantic, and you're right above that few Europeans quite understand how South Americans feel about it. However, let's put this in proper perspective. 'Two bald men fighting over a comb' is an apt description.

If Cuba had got involved, that would have merely led to more poor fucking conscripts getting killed over that useless fucking comb. No thanks. Argentina won that war - it provided the space to overthrown a nasty murderous dictatorship. Pity the poor fuckers slaughtered to bring that about.
 
Casually Red said:
Maybe they reckoned militarily confronting and defeating the apartheid regime and all the evils that supported it was more important than their own immediate material needs . And made the calculation that some potholes were a price worth paying to liberate their oppressed fellow man . That they actually believed in what they stood for and backed it up at a cost to themselves .

Also I've never heard yet of a national army were people go off to war by choice. Soldiers tend to get ordered to do stuff no matter who they are .
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Ostensibly, it was a choice. But in reality, having spoken about this with veterans of that war, it really was not. One of the men I spoke to about it, someone I knew well and the only one who spoke about it at length, believed that he and others were chosen because they were black and so wouldn't stand out.

And don't underestimate the human cost of the neglect of infrastructure when the shit hit the fan in 1992. Crops rotted in fields while people starved in cities just a few miles away.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Ostensibly, it was a choice. But in reality, having spoken about this with veterans of that war, it really was not. One of the men I spoke to about it, someone I knew well and the only one who spoke about it at length, believed that he and others were chosen because they were black and so wouldn't stand out.

And don't underestimate the human cost of the neglect of infrastructure when the shit hit the fan in 1992. Crops rotted in fields while people starved in cities just a few miles away.
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The pretty obvious example of black troops militarily defeating the white master race, on an african continent were they we're a very tiny minority plainly hasn't occurred to either of you . That and the entire history of African colonisation we're black multitudes were enslaved by a small white minority .who depended upon the Africans regarding them as their natural superior . A higher breed . Black troops kicking their arses puts a rather massive dent in that psychological stranglehold imperialism , racism and apartheid depended on . Bit more at stake in Angola ..and the entirety of Africa itself...than merely blending in . A tad more .
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I won't defend the British presence in the South Atlantic, and you're right above that few Europeans quite understand how South Americans feel about it. However, let's put this in proper perspective. 'Two bald men fighting over a comb' is an apt description.

If Cuba had got involved, that would have merely led to more poor fucking conscripts getting killed over that useless fucking comb. No thanks. Argentina won that war - it provided the space to overthrown a nasty murderous dictatorship. Pity the poor fuckers slaughtered to bring that about.
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It would have lead to the defeat of British imperialism in Latin America . And an end to the humiliation of an entire continent being scoffed at by some little shithole from thousands of miles away . It would have empowered LAtin America, and very much so CUba itself . The mere attempt to assist when the rest of them sat and did fuck all was very important for reintroducing CUba to the LAtin American political scene during the 80s . A British defeat would have had profound political implication for the continent had Cuba been instrumental in it while the rest did nothing .
 
Yet there are numerous misconceptions on the left about Cuban foreign policy. While it is true that Fidel Castro maintained his opposition to the U.S. empire to his last breath, his Cuban foreign policy, especially after the late 1960s, was moved more by the defense of Cuban state interests as defined by him and by his alliance with the USSR than by the pursuit of anti-capitalist revolution as such. Because the Soviet Union regarded Latin America as part of the U.S. sphere of influence, it applied strong political and economic pressure on Cuba to play down its open support for guerrilla warfare in Latin America. By the late 1960s, the USSR succeeded in this effort and that is why in the 1970s Cuba turned to Africa with a vigor that came from knowing that its policies in that continent were strategically more compatible with Soviet interests, in spite of their many tactical disagreements.
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This strategic alliance with the USSR helps to explain why Cuba’s African policy had quite different implications for Angola and South African apartheid where it was generally on the left, than for the Horn of Africa, where it was not. In this part of the continent, Fidel Castro’s government supported a “leftist” bloody dictatorship in Ethiopia and indirectly helped that government in its efforts to suppress Eritrean independence. The single most important factor explaining Cuba’s policy in that area was that the new Ethiopian government had taken the side of the Soviets in the Cold War. It was for the same reasons that Fidel Castro, to the great surprise and disappointment of the Cuban people, supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, although it was clear that Castro’s political dislike for Dubcek’s liberal policies played an important role in his decision to support the Soviet action. Fidel Castro also supported, at least implicitly, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, although he did it with much discomfort and in a low-key manner because, as it happened, Cuba had just assumed the leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement, the great majority of whose members strongly opposed the Soviet intervention.
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Maybe Idris2002 knows something about the Horn of Africa stuff mentioned?
 
Casually Red said:
The pretty obvious example of black troops militarily defeating the white master race, on an african continent were they we're a very tiny minority plainly hasn't occurred to either of you . That and the entire history of African colonisation we're black multitudes were enslaved by a small white minority .who depended upon the Africans regarding them as their natural superior . A higher breed . Black troops kicking their arses puts a rather massive dent in that psychological stranglehold imperialism , racism and apartheid depended on . Bit more at stake in Angola ..and the entirety of Africa itself...than merely blending in . A tad more .
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If only it were true that Cuba aspired to, let alone lived up to, such lofty ideals.
 
butchersapron said:
Maybe Idris2002 knows something about the Horn of Africa stuff mentioned?
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On my phone, so that limits my reply. Short answer is, yes - Havana played some dirty games in the Horn. And it was down to Cold War power politics, alright. The liberation fronts in Eritrea and Tigray were far closer to Cuba in terms of ideology or ideological anti-imperialist rhetoric than the military junta in Addis Ababa. But it was the latter Havana helped.

To put it in Casually Red's terms, what Cuba did in Ethiopia was the equivalent of helping London carpet bomb Glasgow and Belfast.
 
Casually Red said:
The pretty obvious example of black troops militarily defeating the white master race, on an african continent were they we're a very tiny minority plainly hasn't occurred to either of you . That and the entire history of African colonisation we're black multitudes were enslaved by a small white minority .who depended upon the Africans regarding them as their natural superior . A higher breed . Black troops kicking their arses puts a rather massive dent in that psychological stranglehold imperialism , racism and apartheid depended on . Bit more at stake in Angola ..and the entirety of Africa itself...than merely blending in . A tad more .
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You talk some awful shit, and I bet you're a horrible cunt in real life, but you've got a point about Angola at least.
 
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