Fidel’s true legacy

The death of Fidel Castro has resulted in the unfortunate, but entirely expected, repugnant coverage of his passing from the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States. The reporting conforms to established historical norms in which Fidel is but a one-dimensional figure who did no good for his country. With Fidel gone, Cuba can now get on with charting its free path towards the future, so proclaim the commentators in the media who know so little of what they speak.

The media, by intentional design, has to ignore the most important aspect of Fidel’s legacy — providing Cuba true self-determination for the first time in its history. For 400 years the country was a colony of Spain, for almost 60 years, from 1902, a neo-colony of the United States until the Revolution of 1959 swept away all aspects of foreign control and gave the population the power to run their own country. Cuba for Cubans was Fidel’s most important revolutionary declaration and everyone, those who supported the revolution and those who did not, understood what that meant.

As the Revolution was aimed primarily at ending United States hegemony, it should come as no surprise that the American media deliberately ignores its nationalist foundation. To recognize what Fidel’s movement was based on would be to accept the fact that the United States control over Cuba was of such negative proportions that only a revolution would solve it; a historical reality that is all but impossible to acknowledge within elite political and media discourse.

So it’s much easier for the media to portray Fidel as the bloody dictator, the despot who controlled the minds and bodies of all Cubans for more than 50 years. All the perceived failures of Cuban society are laid at his feet, ignoring or diminishing the accomplishments, without ever having to examine the complicated history of U.S.-Cuba relations, the origins of the Revolution and the unrelenting efforts of American policy to destroy the Cuban people for having the audacity to support Fidel’s idea of self-determination.

Fidel’s legacy is a system that has been built by Cubans for Cubans. All the faults, and the achievements, are the result of Cuban efforts in shaping a society they felt best served the purposes of the majority. Health care, education, housing and all the other social constructs were designed and implemented from the foundation of Cuban self-determination. Without the establishment of true sovereignty, the social gains would not have taken on the Cuban characteristics that remain relevant today. And without Fidel Castro, the parameters for the new society would never have been shaped. He became the leader whose determination established the rules and who tolerated little deviation, knowing the Americans would use weakness to try to bring down the Revolution. Debate can be made as whether Cuban sovereignty has been more positive than negative (that’s up to the millions in Cuba to decide) but there is no debate that there is a definitive Cuban identity thanks to Fidel. And that is anathema to mainstream media coverage of the man and the system.

The ability to be intentionally ignorant regarding the Revolution’s national characteristics makes it extremely convenient for the media to criticize Fidel Castro, as there is no need to bring context into that perspective. They are a pack of barking dogs, making noise without reason or understanding, only in compliance with the inherited misconceptions and lies that have been levied against Fidel and the Revolution since the earliest days.

That is to be anticipated. What is a somewhat more unfortunate development since Fidel’s passing is the lack of focus of the nationalistic nature of the Revolution among some pro-Cuban voices. That coverage has tended to be reactive in response to criticism; acknowledging the shortcomings in the social justice programs but using their mere existence as some sort of counterbalance to the atrocious things said about Fidel. When confronted with the standard rhetoric of civil rights restrictions in Cuba, many of those sympathetic to the Revolution often fail to put into context the pressures the Cuban government has faced in order to deal with national security issues as a result of American regime change policy. The few in the mainstream media who actually try and present any framework to Cuba-U.S. relations are usually ignored or denigrated.

There should be no apologies made for Cuba’s efforts to establish its own social system, or the consequences of protecting itself from American aggression. Providing health care, education, food and housing is a remarkable achievement for a small developing nation. And made ever more noteworthy because of the country’s ability to survive and overcome America’s ongoing destructive influence on Cuban society as a result of its unceasing economic blockade and policies of regime change. Something that also gets ignored by the media.

The United States has done its best to destroy Fidel Castro and the Cuban population. American strategy has made it clear they want to make things so bad for the Cuban people that they will rise up and overthrow their own government, and with it any further thoughts of Cuban self-determination. Keeping the impact of regime change policy removed from media analysis prevents discourse on the matter and eliminates most of the U.S. population from even considering the subject. Without that context, it becomes a simple matter to blame all shortcomings on Fidel.

The all-encompassing embargo prevents companies from other countries to do business in Cuba, prohibits Cuba from accessing world banking investment funds, the hundreds of acts of terrorism that have killed 3,000 Cuban civilians, dozens of attempts on the lives of the Cuban leadership, and of course the non-stop propaganda war where nothing the Revolution has accomplished has any worth. These attacks are all aimed at terminating Cuban sovereignty, and it’s the media’s job to make sure as few people know about this history and the negative affect it has had on Cuba society. With that information closed for discourse, specific criticism against the Cuban system and Fidel allows the media to absolve themselves from addressing the issue of what the revolution was really all about — national determination.

Rarely does American policy of regime change, which has continued even under President Obama’s normalization policy, elicits serious coverage in the mainstream media. And under Trump, the normalization process is in danger of being dismantled with the promise of a return to the days of punishing the Cuban people under increased economic sanctions.

The Western media’s shallow and specious condemnations of Fidel effectively deflects serious analysis of the Revolution’s purpose to bring self-determination to the Cuban people. As well as ignoring the negative impact America’s hostile policy of regime change has had on Cuba’s economic shortcomings and the government’s need to restrict civil rights in order to protect itself and its citizens, it comes as no revelation as to the nature of how the media has covered Fidel’s passing. It is so much less complicated to focus on the man, to demonize his history, than it is to actually offer a thoughtful investigation of the source of the Revolution, the process that led to it, and the part American plays in continuing to punish the Cuban people for their choice of self-determination.

Fidel’s ability to provide Cuba with true sovereignty has never been recognized, or forgiven by the mainstream media — a truth evident during Fidel’s life, and now in his death.

Keith Bolender is author of Voices from the Other Side (Pluto Press 2010) and Cuba Under Siege (Palgrave 2012).