‘Fidel and Religion’ by Joe McVeigh

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‘Respect existence or expect resistance’. This slogan is written on a wall in Warsaw where I visited last year. It seemed like it was written there during the protests against Communist rule. It looks like the slogan has been repainted year after year as a reminder to those in power. It could have been written on any wall on any country where there was long term oppression of the poor.  So often governments fail or refuse to respect the people they govern, their basic rights and their culture. It could have applied to Cuba under Batista which is why Fidel Castro came to prominence and to power nearly fifty years ago. He was seen by the Cuban poor as the liberator from the US backed Batista regime which was corrupt. Along with Che Guevara he began a guerrilla war to topple Batista and succeeded in 1959 when he was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba. The US President Eisenhower refused to recognise him or meet him because he was a Communist -Marxist. He turned to the USSR for support. In 1962 his friendship with the Soviet Union almost sparked a major war with the USA. President John F Kennedy issued an ultimatum to the Russians to retreat from Cuban where they planned to install nuclear missiles. After a tense few days the Russians retreated.

After Castro became President for life in 1976 there was continuing tension with the USA and as a result Cuba depended for survival on the USSR. When that superpower collapsed in 1989 there was yet another economic crisis in Cuba. They somehow managed to survive. Their health system is the envy of the rest of the world.

After his retirement in 2006, his brother Raul Castro took over as President. Relations improved with Washington under President Obama and there is now normal diplomatic ties and frequent travel between the two countries. How this works out under Donald Trump remains to be seen.

I once read a fascinating book which was an interview by a Brazilian missionary priest in the Dominican Order, Fr Frei Betto with Cuban President Fidel Castro. The book was called ‘Fidel and Religion’. Castro came across as a deep and critical thinker about religious and spiritual matters. He was not at all dismissive of the Catholic or Christian faith but was most interested in recent developments in the Church in Latin America especially with the emergence of liberation theology in the 1970s. (He himself had received a Jesuit education.) While he was very critical of the Catholic Church’s past alliance with the rich and powerful he was sympathetic to the new efforts by members of the Church in South and Central America to take up the cause of the rights of the poor and oppressed. It is said that this book led to an improvement in relations between the government and the Catholic bishops in Cuba leading to the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1998.

There are mixed views about Fidel Castro as there are about most political leaders. There are the admirers and the detractors. Whatever about his reputation as a dictator while in power and the abuses he is often accused of committing, he will go down in Cuban history as the liberator of the people of Cuba. Those who opposed him will always regard him as the enemy. It will take much longer for the truth to emerge.

 

 

One Response to ‘Fidel and Religion’ by Joe McVeigh

  1. Donal Kennedy November 27, 2016 at 3:36 pm #

    I don’t think Castro was a communist during his guerilla days. Certainly “TIME” Magazine,
    fiercely opposed to Communism and even mild Socialism seemed sympathetic to him.
    The late Desmond Greaves, a card-carrying Communist used say that the most feared words in the American lexicon were “NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.”

    It seems the Americans owned (amongst many other things) oil refineries in Cuba and when
    Castro asked them to refine oil he’d bought from the USSR they refused and he nationalised
    them. Uncle Sam played the bully and Castro took a Communist line.

    It’s hilarious to see those who practise or support torture in Guantanamo, Abu Graib and wherever the USA and the UK have allies, agents and proxies throwing stones at Castro.

    As for Charlie Flanagan’s heritage, (polite) words fail me!