At the age of 90, Fidel Castro died in mid-2016. His death was announced on Cuban state television by Raul Castro, his brother and president of the Caribbean country:
“Dear Pueblo de Cuba: With deep pain to inform our pueblo, to los amigos de nostra América e del mundo, that today, November 25, 2016, at 10 and 29 hours of night, the Commander of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz. In compliance with the express volunteer of his partner Fidel, his remains will be cremated”.
Fidel had been sick for some time. His last public appearance was in August of last year, when he turned 90.
The President of the United States, Barack Obama, released, through his advice, a very formal and careful note, even because he worked hard to get closer to Cuba:
“In this moment of Fidel Castro's passing, we extend a helping hand to the people of Cuba. We know that this moment fills Cubans – in Cuba and in the United States – with strong emotions, remembering the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of the lives of individuals, families and the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of his singular figure on the people and the world around him.”
President-elect Donald Trump, on the other hand, was not careful. It was straight:
“Today, the world watches the death of a brutal dictator who oppressed his people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, robberies, unimaginable suffering, poverty and denial of fundamental human rights.”
In the same vein, the Republican senator from Florida, the Cuban-American, Marco Rubio, who was a candidate for the presidency, was also direct:
“For six decades, millions of Cubans were forced to leave their own country, and those accused of opposing the regime were routinely arrested and even killed. Sadly, Fidel Castro's death does not mean freedom for the people of Cuba or justice for the democracy activists, religious leaders and political opponents he and his brother arrested and persecuted. The dictator died but the dictatorship continues”.
While Obama was careful, Trump and the Republicans were direct. Directly to the liver.
It is worth reading the text by Eduardo Galeano, from the book Mirrors, an Almost Universal Story, with translation by Eric Nepomuceno. which is circulating on the internet:
“His enemies say that he was a king without a crown and that he confused unity with unanimity. And in that his enemies are right. His enemies say that if Napoleon had had a newspaper like Granma, no French would know about the Waterloo disaster. And in this your enemies are right. His enemies say that he exercised power by talking a lot and listening little, because he was more used to echoes than voices.
And in this your enemies are right. But his enemies do not say that it was not to pose for history that he opened his chest to the bullets when the invasion came, that he faced hurricanes on an equal footing, from hurricane to hurricane, that he survived 637 attacks, that his contagious energy was decisive factor in transforming a colony into a homeland and that it was neither by a spell of mandinga nor by a miracle of God that this new homeland managed to survive ten presidents of the United States, who already had their napkins around their necks to have lunch with a knife and fork. .
And its enemies don't say that Cuba is a rare country that doesn't compete in the Doormat World Cup. And they don't say that this revolution, grown in punishment, is what it could be and not what it wanted to be. Nor do they say that to a large extent the wall between desire and reality grew taller and wider thanks to the imperial blockade, which stifled the development of Cuban-style democracy, forced the militarization of society and granted the bureaucracy – which for every solution has a problem – the arguments it needed to justify and perpetuate itself.
And they don't say that despite all the regrets, despite the aggressions from without and the arbitrariness from within, this suffering but obstinately happy island generated the least unfair Latin American society. And his enemies do not say that this feat was the work of the sacrifice of his people, but it was also the work of the stubborn will and the old-fashioned sense of honor of this gentleman who always fought for the losers, like a certain Don Quixote, his famous colleague from the camps. battle. "
Here in Brazil, with his usual and consistent balance, the philosopher Renato Janine Ribeiro recalled the ambiguities of the regime and posted several analyzes on his Facebook page. Opposite opinions and favorable opinions of Fidel Castro.
The philosopher also expressed his indignation in the following text:
“You try to understand Fidel, his ambiguity: a nationalist revolutionary with a strong social concern that the US blocked, tried to kill, practically threw it into the arms of communism and with that punished an entire people. And the other side, the dictator, the repression, many things, but also ambiguous, because it was the Cuban army that saved Angola from the South African racist invasion. An ambiguous character. Then retards start saying that he was just a murderer, of evil, that the real Cubans are in Miami, – and that I am defending Fidel. Thinking is good, you know? If you don't like to think, go to the appropriate bloggers and publications.”
