By most historical accounts, Fidel Castro is cited as being
a cruel and violent dictator who slaughtered Cuban citizens who disagreed with
him, abused homosexual and Cuban citizens of various religions by forcing them
to work in camps (which most would call slavery), and sold his own people to
repay debts to other countries, but his legacy stands out as a revolutionary.
In the wake of his death, we see Cuban Americans, descendants of Cuban refugees
who fled Cuba for fear of Castro, celebrating his death in Miami, Florida.
While most media outlets reported this for what it was, which was the overdue
death of a cruel dictator, many who’s political views sway far to the left mourned,
with the general consensus being that he was a revolutionary who made Cuba
great again, and many Cuban citizens still viewed Castro as being a good leader
despite their overwhelming lack of freedoms and basic human rights that Castro himself
never denied denying. How is it that on any level the work of Fidel Castro can
be seen as positive.
To start with, Fidel Castro was well educated. Fidel’s
father, after becoming wealthy selling sugar cane, sent young Fidel to live
with his teacher where he would be baptized Roman Catholic, thus allowing him
to attend Jesuit boarding school. After doing well here, he would go on to a
more prestigious Jesuit school where he began to slack until he entered college
at the University of Havana. At this time, Castro found himself “politically
illiterate” and quickly became a young activist, going as far as traveling to
the Dominican Republic to overthrow they’re then dictator Rafael Trujillo and
then traveled to Columbia to participate in anti-government rioting. At this point, Castro is hardly any different from the social justice warriors holding up traffic. It’s also
noteworthy and surprising that around this time, Fidel joined an anti-communist
group.
Years later Castro married a woman from a wealthy family
with strong political connections that helped push Castro’s political dreams to
reality. Shortly after this, Castro began to dive deep into the communist manifesto
of Karl Marx, changing is political ideology for the worst and inspiring him to
run for a seat in congress in 1952 where a coup led by the soon to be dictator
General Fulgencio Batista stopped the election. While imprisoned for trying to
stop Batista, Castro was still in contact with the rest of his resistance, then
called the “26th of July Movement”. Even after being freed under an
amnesty deal, Castro left Cuba to plot against Batista and his government. It
was during this he met with other exiles from Cuba and reached the conclusion
violence was the only answer. At the 32 years old, Castro had become the
dominant force of Cuba, and would go on to become a full on communist, growing
close with Russia regarding oil, as well as a nationalist, implementing laws
making it illegal for foreign property ownership, leading to conflict with the
U.S and Castro’s actions becoming increasingly radical.
Castro wanted to emphasize that he didn’t need America, and
that him and his communist allies were capable of taking care of themselves and able to fend of imperialists which resulted in catastrophical failure. To
flex his power, Castro would send military force, that he was unable to afford,
to other countries to help them in their efforts resulting in thousands of
deaths. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuban citizens faced great hardships
forcing many to leave Cuba. Castro was not fond of this as being unable to care
for his people hurt his ego as a prideful leader. A notable incident involved a
vessel with 72 Cuban citizens attempting to leave Cuba, where Castro ordered
the boat be destroyed resulting in the deaths of 41 people, 10 of which were
children. All surviving men were picked up and immediately jailed. During
Castro’s reign, there were 3,615 firing squad related deaths for “Criminals”.
The difference between most criminals getting the death penalty and these criminals
was the fact that the results were predetermined and evidence was a luxury and
as Castro himself said was “unnecessary”. While these are documented, there is
evidence to suggest that were more than a thousand more firing squad related
murders permitted by Fidel Castro. Fidel also strongly supported labor camps
for those who resisted him, or for those he just didn’t like. Homosexuals, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Protestants, and even fellow Catholics made up the 30,000 Cuban
citizens Fidel Castro wanted removed from his Cuba. Today Cuba’s lightened up a
little on their human rights violations but keep just enough control to keep
Cuban citizens in the dark restricting all media on every level, and yet people
find Fidel’s Cuba to be good on it’s citizens.
A common pro-Fidel argument is the literacy rate, which is
very high. This argument shows two things. One, American culture is dangerously
dependent on social media, and two, due to the control of communist countries
people have literally nothing to do other than improve on education. Russia and
China also have literacy rates in the same range as Cuba and play the same
media manipulation games as Cuba, banning things like Facebook for fearing
users may find out new cars were made after the 50’s. Another argument
pro-Fidel is Cuban healthcare. To be clear, Cuba does have good doctors as to
be expected with high literacy rates. However, the laws regarding agreements
between doctors and patients are extremely limited if nonexistent. Privacy,
informed consent, refusal of treatment, and suing for malpractice are all
forbidden. This goes very well with the Cuban government’s quota to make the
government healthcare seem better than it is. For instance, as Katherine
Hirschfeld, an anthropology professor noted, if a baby in an ultrasound
appeared to have any defects the doctor would perform an abortion and the
patient would have, as the laws are made, no right to refuse. It’s also worth
noting that basic, non-prescription drugs common in the states may only be
found in the “black market” of Cuba.
There are two kinds of people who can review the history and
actions of Fidel Castro and honestly believe he did good for Cuba: The ignorant
and the un-American. Fidel Castro hated America and everything it stood for,
which falls in line with the ever more normal far left ideology where celebrating
Thanksgiving is immoral and America has always been a terrible place full of
racists and bigots who have done nothing but impose their will on innocent
countries. It’s this philosophy that opened the flood gates for socialists like
Bernie Sanders who, if not for tampering by the party he aligned with, could
become president of the United States and make things like “#resistcapitalism”
trend on Twitter. For the ignorant,
it’s more understandable. As stated, Cuba, prior to Castro, had an equally bad
dictator leading them dethroned by Castro, and since then have shown, according
to information given, very good statistics in literacy rates and health related
issues. But, as this Caribbean iron curtain lifts and Cuban Americans rejoice,
it’s very clear that Fidel Castro was a cruel dictator who has hurt Cuba for
years to come.