Dear Editor,
I refer to several recent news items and commentaries where legendary Fidel Castro has been praised and reviled depending on which side of the political fence one sits. But regardless of where one sits, there is a lot of admiration for a man who defied the mightiest nation on earth and survived countless assassination attempts for half a century.
Much has been written on Castro after his death and on his impact on international politics and Third World revolutions. Unquestionably, the revolution had a profound impact on international relations.
But not much has been said on his impact on academia. Every Social Science major was required to study Fidel Castro and his revolution that toppled the American backed dictator Fulgencio Batista how and why the revolution was carried out, why there was a romanticism about it in the eyes of young Turks and left-wing scholars, and how it transformed the lives of Cubans.
It was considered a model for Third World societies fighting imperialism. There were also comparative studies on the Iranian, Russian, Grenadian, Mexican, and Chinese revolutions along with the Cuban Revolution.
There was no question that the 1959 Cuban Revolution transformed politics in the Third World and the anti-colonial struggle and helped to deepen the Cold War between the USSR and USA.
The revolution led to deeper US involvement in the politics of Third World countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Africa, Asia, and islands in the Pacific where the US toppled regimes friendly to USSR or anti-American as in Guyana, Dominican Republic, etc. The Cuban revolution was an important subject matter for academic studies regardless of the university where one studied even in faraway India, Fiji, or closer to home in Mexico and Argentina.
When I was a student at City College of New York during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later during graduate studies at New York University and CUNY Graduate Center, regardless of whether the major was History, Politics, Sociology, Black Studies, Puerto Rican Studies or Latin American Studies, a course on revolution was almost mandatory. Even in Economics, in courses on Development, there were comparative references to Cuba and the effects of the revolution on the standard of living.
A perusal of the brochures of the New School (NYC), Columbia University, Harvard, Rutgers, Cornell, and Princeton shows there were courses on revolutions and some specifically on or about the Cuban Revolution.
As a student, one could not help but admire Castro and also sympathize with his cause of overthrowing the US financed dictator Batista. Castro was no doubt a dictator, which any democratic advocate like me would condemn, but he also did positive things for Cuba.
He eliminated gambling, prostitution, racism, criminality, and illiteracy. He instituted relative equality among all regardless of status or race. He provided free education and health care.
A decade after the revolution, Cuba had perhaps the best health care and educational system in the developing world. He exported health care by sending Cuban doctors to attend to the poor in Third World countries.
And he provided free training to thousands of doctors from around the world. Guyanese were beneficiaries hundreds of Guyanese were educated in Cuba. For that, Guyana and the developing world is grateful.
Because of the revolution and his defiance of the US, Castro commanded the world stage like no other Third World leader did during his lifetime. He was an unrepentant Marxist. He admired our own Cheddi Jagan for his socialist ideals and refusal to compromise his political philosophy; he also praised Grenadian Maurice Bishop.
Not many Third World leaders embraced Castro in the early stages of his revolution, but later he would earn their respect and adulation. In 1960, when Castro came to NY to address the UN, he left the expensive hotel he had been booked into, and went to a hotel in Harlem. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India as well as a number of other leaders went to Harlem to meet him. In 1979, every Third World leader descended on Havana for the NAM summit.
In 1983, in a NAM summit in Delhi, Castro went to the aid of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who was the host. Palestine Leader Yasser Arafat had threatened to leave over the fact he was given a speaking slot after Jordan, but Fidel persuaded him to stay. Castro referred to Mrs Gandhi as his “Elder Sister”.
Regardless of how he is judged, Fidel played a significant role in international politics and that is why his revolution is given prominence in academia.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
