World leaders are mysteries on their own. How do people tick who have made it all the way to the top? Being the leader of a country must offer them insight into the harsh realities of acting on the world stage, in interaction with other such leaders and organizations. This is true even for those who stay in power for just one term, or less. But then there are those who have managed to stay in their position for several decades, witnessing first hand the workings of the world, stripped of all the narratives and interpretations. What would such a leader have to say, especially from the perspective of a very advanced age, where his approaching death adds a good amount of honesty to his words?
This is exactly what the book One Hundred Hours With Fidel feels like reading. It is an extensive interview conducted in 2006 by Ignacio Ramonet with the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who at 80 years of age was looking back at his life, particularly at the end of half a century of being the prime minister / president / dictator of Cuba.
My wife visited Cuba in 2008 and she bought this interview as a souvenir. I immediately got a kick out of the format: the entire work came printed on sheets of colored newsprint, totaling more than twenty daily sets the size of a daily newspaper. Of course the same interview has also been published in a bound book format, but reading it this way felt way more... socialist? In any case, it added a great deal to the experience.
My overall impression of this aging statesman was his incredible mental sharpness. None of the eighty year olds I have met in my life were so good at remembering the past, including minor details. The vivid description Fidel gives of all matters discussed is simply astounding, whether it may be the early days of organizing the revolution or the challenges Cuba had to face after the fall of the Soviet Union. His recollection of numbers is another thing I have great respect for, which he offered up seemingly in passing, when discussing things like land reform, education, or the health care system. Sure, he may have arrived with piles of notes to the interview, which then was presented as if it was coming from memory. Even so, his mental coherence of relating his life's anecdotes is noteworthy.
Okay, I should mention that I've never been partial to Fidel for any reason. I don't idealize socialism (though Che Guevara does look pretty great on a T-shirt), and simply being the leader of a country raises my suspicion drastically. Reading the interview, however, I could not help empathizing with this guy in particular, and with Cuba in general. Being a Latin American country so close to the United States is already a heavy burden, as I know from living in Mexico. However, in comparison Cuba is even smaller, weaker, and more of an underdog. Unlike Mexico though, Cuba never folded, which more than anything is thanks to Fidel Castro.
Also in terms of human rights abuses of political prisoners Cuba stands relatively clean, at least in comparison to other dictators. Fidel himself displays an attitude of "no one can say a thing" unless of course you consider the entire island a huge prison colony. But according to the leader, Cubans are always free to go, as many of them do, finding one of the many ways to Miami, where their exiled compatriots - as well as the US government - receive them with open arms. Well, at least back then. Clearly, one must take everything he says with a grain of salt, but still: there is no comparison with a Maduro, an Assad, or a Turkmenbashi. Of course, what do I know, really?
If I correctly remember the history I was taught in school, I'm pretty sure the story goes somewhat like this: Cuba, having embraced Marxism and Leninism after the revolution, actively sought out the help of the Soviet Union to defend it against the United States. When reading Fidel's explanation, the picture becomes more complex. Sure, defending itself against US aggression was imperative, since the Americans - or much rather the exiled Cubans - used whatever means they had at their disposal to terrorize Cuba. But Cuba was far from needing Soviet arms, let alone nuclear missiles! Everything that led up to what became known in the US as the Cuban Missile Crisis, was allegedly an inadvertent set of action-reaction by the two superpowers, with Cuba being caught in the middle. Fidel keeps emphasizing that he never wanted those nuclear arms on his island, since even the slightest tension would have destroyed the entire region before the conflict could have escalated further. Once again, from the retrospective this all makes sense, and everyone can decide what they want to believe. Needless to say, once the fall of the Soviet Union also stopped economic aid to Cuba, this supposedly unwanted dependency on the USSR became more painful once it was gone.
I really hope my relatively positive review of this interview does not give you the wrong impression: Fidel Castro is still just a man, with the many flaws we all have. Since he has been the most powerful man in his country seemingly for ever, it may be understandable that he fell victim to his own propaganda. It can happen to the best of us. I remember, one of the questions I kept raising as we were reading about their amazing education system, is what about the freedom of the press? Exactly! So yeah, he is far from being ideal, and I don't want to portray him that way either. The interview itself, however, is definitively worth reading, if only to find more points to criticize Fidel. The picture it offers of an old man coming to the end of his life, in which he's been running the show, is truly spectacular, and full of insightful little bits and pieces.
Either way I would be curious to hear your opinions about it. Also, take a look at my other book reviews I posted, in my Bibliophilia series. Enjoy!
