6 Questions with Fidel Castro’s Worst Nightmare (Part I of II)
May 22, 2008
What exactly is the bearded dictator’s worst nightmare? Free speech and dissenting opinion. He despises it. In fact, he’s killed and abused countless Cubans merely for speaking out against the 1959 revolution over his nearly fifty 50 year reign of terror. Fortunately, modern technology and the blogosphere are making it more difficult for dictators to reign supreme. And writers like Henry Louis Gomez are more than happy to fan the flames of dissent. Here are questions 1, 2, and 3. Stay tuned tomorrow for the rest of the interview.
RHM: What inspired you to start blogging about Cuba?
Henry Louis Gomez (HLG): Actually I was invited to blog at Babalu by its founding editor, Valentín Prieto. The first blog I wrote for was another that I got invited to join, CubanAmericanPundits.com. Since then we have remade CubanAmericanPundits.com into less of a blog and more of a site with essays. But to answer your question I started writing on the net because I had a story to tell. Well, it wasn’t my story it was my grandfather’s story. He was a captain in the Cuban army when Castro’s revolution took place and was aboard the Tren Blindado (Armored Train) that was captured by Che Guevara’s men in Santa Clara in the waning days of the Batista Dictatorship. I did a lot of research and decided the best way to tell the story was to publish a web site. TrenBlindado.com began simply as the story of the armored train but quickly grew in scope and has become a resource where people can learn about who Guevara really was. In order to get the word out there about my site I began commenting on blogs and soon I was blogging myself.
RHM: With Raul Castro taking over the day-to-day running of Cuba, do you think we will see drastic changes in human rights conditions and freedom? Or do you think change will be incremental?
HLG: Raul has been running the day-to-day aspects of Cuba for almost two years. His recent “election” is nothing more than theater for external consumption. The problem for Raul and others in the regime is that even if they want to liberalize Cuba’s political system they can’t because they know that eventually they’ll be made to account for their crimes against the Cuban people. It’s in their best interests in other words to lead Cuba through a slow transition that somewhat appeases the popular will without losing political control. The repression still exists in Cuba; it has just gotten a lot more subtle. My hope is that expectations will continue to rise among the Cuban people and that it boils over at some point into a quick transition to a true democracy like we saw in some countries in Eastern Europe.
RHM: Fidel Castro’s popularity throughout Latin America is alarmingly high when you take into consideration how much he has oppressed his own people over the past 50 years. How do you account for his popularity? And what about the near-canonization of Ernesto “Che” Guevara?
HLG: Fidel’s popularity is based on one thing: anti-Americanism. While the U.S. hasn’t always been Latin America’s best friend, a lot of the bogeyman arguments against the U.S. simply are overstated. Latin America unfortunately suffers from a lot of political corruption which has been handed down for generations. Latin American caudillos simply place the blame for their shortcomings on “Yankee imperialism.” Also, Fidel has been a master propagandist. You can’t underestimate how much his anti-American rhetoric has been accepted as truth by many educated and uneducated Latin Americans. Guevara was a fluke. His story is compelling and he died young. He’s locked in time as a “young revolutionary” like James Dean is locked in time as a “Rebel without a cause.” But most everything that is accepted as fact about Guevara is a myth. Starting with his reputedly being medical doctor and culminating with his prowess as a guerrilla warrior. The only success he had as a guerrilla was in Cuba. He could not reproduce it in the Congo or in Bolivia where he was eventually captured and killed by Bolivian Army Rangers. In Cuba, his success wasn’t attributable to military genius as much as it was to the incompetence and unwillingness to fight among the officers and men of the Cuban Army.
Henry Louis Gomez blogs regularly at Babalu and CubanAmericanPundits.com. In addition, he recently published a very cool article about Cubans who risk it all by blogging from Havana.
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VOTE FOR THECANDIDACY.COM
you tell them henry.
liberation with cellphones!
Great interview.
It’s interesting that he says that Raul Castro has been running the country for nearly 2 years already; Fidel must have been in pretty rough shape for that to happen, I can’t imagine the shape that he’s in now.
I’m going to check out part. 2 right now.