Havana 2016. Flickr\/Ken Walton. Some rights reserved.Olga, a former University teacher, remembered her faithful
\ndevotion to Fidel Castro when she was growing up in Santiago more than forty
\nyears ago. \u2018Before the triumph of the Revolution I went to a Baptist private
\nschool. After I went to a state school, and I grew disenchanted with religion.
\nThis happened not only to me, it happened to my entire generation. The change
\nwas profound. Fidel replaced the God we had believed in. He was a very
\nsignificant leader for everyone, but in particular for us of the younger
\ngeneration. We threw ourselves into the struggle to make the revolution. Life
\nwas very difficult after the sugar harvest of 1970 failed. We suffered a lot,
\nbut we still had that belief, that determination, that we had to fight for the
\nrevolution. We thought of Fidel as our God the saviour, and we all closed ranks,
\nand we struggled, and we tried not to see his errors, his flaws. I did not
\nreturn to the church for many, many years.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
I first
\ninterviewed Olga (not her real name) twelve years ago, when with a team of
\nCuban and British researchers I began recording the life histories of Cuban men
\nand women living on the island. Olga and I last met several months ago, in
\nMiami, where she now lives. Our team has collected the life histories of 125 Cubans
\nfrom different generations, social positions and political views, of diverse
\nracial, gender, sexual and religious identities. Many talked with us multiple
\ntimes, recounting how their lives and attitudes have changed over the years. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cubans over the age of fifty frequently brought up Fidel in our
\nconversations. Usually they portrayed him favourably, but not always. Fearing
\ntheir criticisms might be overheard, in place of his name they tapped their
\nshoulder, [indicating his epaulets], or stroked their chin [the beard], or referred
\nsimply to He. In place of his name they tapped
\ntheir shoulder, [indicating his epaulets], or stroked their chin [the beard],
\nor referred simply to He. <\/p>\n
Like Olga, many older Cubans described Fidel as a divine figure who
\nprotected them. Salomon,
\na Communist Party official who prided himself on his sincerity, said,
\n\u2018Unfortunately Fidel cannot live forever. Fidel has been the beacon, the
\nguiding light of this process. He has extraordinary vision. He can predict the
\nfuture. When no political analyst, absolutely no one imagined an event could
\nhappen, he foretold it. He warned us. His kind of genius, for he is a genius,
\ndoes not often come into the world. Fidel made many sacrifices. He sacrificed
\nhis life to give us life.\u2019 <\/p>\n
Older Cubans enjoyed recounting amusing tales about Fidel\u2019s obsessions,
\nhis foibles. They portrayed the great Comandante-en-Jefe as a man with human
\ndefects, a relative they loved and indulged. After the triumph of
\nthe revolution my life changed. I became a person.<\/p>\n
Cubans of the elder generations frequently
\nthanked Fidel for everything they had, even for what they lacked. \u2018Gracias a
\nFidel\u2019 came naturally, especially when they found themselves face to face with a
\nstranger carrying a recorder. Yey\u00e9, an elderly Afro-Cuban woman, told us, \u2018My life had been hard. I
\nsuffered. Then came Fidel Castro Ruz who put everything right for everyone.
\nAfter the triumph of the revolution my life changed. I became a person. But I
\nhave to tell you that as a worker I did not have the opportunity to study. I am
\nilliterate. Not totally, totally, I can sign my name. But aside from that I
\ngive enormous thanks to Fidel Castro. For a poor person I have everything.\u2019
\nYey\u00e9 did not have everything. Later she told us that she did not have enough
\nfood to put on the table. <\/p>\n
Younger Cubans, women and men who came of age in the
\npost-Soviet era, often criticised Fidel. Their lives have been marked more by
\nhardship than comfort. Despite Fidel Castro\u2019s last great campaign, the Battle
\nof Ideas, which attempted to convince young Cubans to uphold the ideals of socialism,
\nmany felt that socialism was a utopian dream which belonged to a different era.
\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carlos, a custodian in a small rural town, said, \u2018they made
\nyou believe that you loved him (Carlos stroked his chin), and you applauded.
\nThey made you believe, and you jumped for joy. They made you believe you were
\nhappy. They repeated so many things that you came to believe. Now I believe in
\nmyself and nothing more.\u2019 At the end of the day
\nParty membership does not give you a house, or a car, or money: quite the
\ncontrary.<\/p>\n
Mario, a young IT specialist at a government ministry, is in charge
\nof recruiting young people into the Communist Party. Mario confided, \u2018the
\nnumber of young people who want to join the Party is falling. It\u2019s a social
\nproblem. They don\u2019t identify with the historical generation, with Fidel and
\nRa\u00fal. They\u2019re indifferent. They lack political commitment because at the end of
\nthe day Party membership does not give you a house, or a car, or money: quite
\nthe contrary.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0Several months before
\nillness forced Fidel to provisionally cede power to Ra\u00fal, he announced with
\nmuch fanfare that the period of hardship was over. Posters sprang up with a
\nsmiling Fidel next to the slogan, \u2018Vamos Bien\u2019 (We\u2019re doing well.) Esteban, who
\ntwice had tried to flee Cuba on a raft, pointed to the poster and said, \u2018Don\u2019t
\nbelieve it. The situation is getting worse, for the last year it has been
\ngetting worse. It is crude, super crude. There is less food. Less of
\neverything. He (tapping his shoulder) says \u2018Vamos Bien\u2019, but that\u2019s a lie. We
\nhave much less than we had before.\u2019 <\/p>\n
The generation gap between old and young Cubans is greater
\nthan ever. \u00a0Alina Rodr\u00edguez, a filmmaker
\nwho now lives in Mexico told me, \u2018Cuba,
\nprobably, is the last country in the world to try to create a system like ours,
\nbecause we all have learned that it doesn\u2019t work\u2026 The type of society we had in
\nCuba won\u2019t happen again because it emerged at a unique historical moment, and
\nit managed to survive, although no one really understands how. The Cuban experience
\nhas been very rich and very complicated, rich precisely because it was
\ncomplicated. Artists feel that we have lived a history that will never be
\nrepeated. I was nurtured in the bosom of Cuban Revolution. Now I ache inside
\nbecause so much of what I have seen, what I have lived through, makes me
\ngrieve.\u2019 This
\nis my historical moment and I want my life to be better right now.<\/p>\n
Luis, a medical student born in 1989, the year the Berlin
\nWall came down, didn\u2019t waste his breath talking about Fidel. He said that Fidel
\nwas an irrelevance. \u2018In school they talked about before and after the
\nRevolution. They told us before was bad, after was good. But I am living now. I
\ndon\u2019t care what it was like before, or after. I want to live in better times.
\nThis is my historical moment and I want my life to be better right now.\u2019\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fidel Castro portrayed the Cuban Revolution as a dual struggle The research has been funded principally by the The Ford Havana 2016. Flickr\/Ken Walton. Some rights reserved.Olga, a former University teacher, remembered her faithful devotion to Fidel Castro when she was growing up in Santiago more than forty years ago. \u2018Before the triumph of the Revolution I went to a Baptist private school. After I went to a state school, and I grew disenchanted with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nto end US domination and build socialism. Patria Libre o Morir, <\/em>Free
\nFatherland or Death, was his rallying cry. Fidel\u2019s motto continues to hold sway
\nwith many older Cubans. They suspect Obama\u2019s hand of friendship cloaks a new
\nstrategy to undermine what remains of the Cuban Revolution. Many younger Cubans
\nturned away from Castro\u2019s historic call. They are ready to sacrifice national sovereignty
\nand egalitarianism for economic improvement. They hope, or had hoped before
\nTrump, that Obama\u2019s overtures would bring some economic relief. <\/p>\n
\nFoundation and the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), with additional
\nfunding from the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council,
\n(AHRC), the Leverhulme Trust, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin
\nAmerican Studies at Harvard University. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"