Fidel Castro: A lesson for African leaders

by Akyaaba Addai-Sebo

Pambazuka News | July 06, 2017

Getty

Namibia is the only African country that conferred upon Castro its highest national honour. This is a big shame for Africa. Castro personally and the people of Cuba made great sacrifices for African liberation. The African Union should honour Castro and deliberately seek to deepen ties with the Cuban people.

 

It is not too late for African leaders to show resolve by collectively giving a deserving monumental honour to Commandant Fidel Castro and the people of Cuba at the headquarters of the African Union (AU). This posthumous honour should trigger the respective member countries of the AU touched by the solidarity and humanitarianism of the Cuban people, under the leadership of Castro, to also give due honour in their own expressive ways.

Fidel and a program that changed the lives of thousands of youth

by Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez

Granma | 28 March, 2017

Fidel in Celia Sánchez Plaza, in Manzanillo, Granma province. Photo: Juvenal Balán

MANZANILLO, Granma.–The evening of March 28, 2002, waiting in a plaza on the city’s waterfront, didn’t cause Sheila Pons Delgado the chill she felt as that tall man, dressed in olive green, approached her.

The impression left a usually talkative Sheila speechless, as Fidel peppered her with questions: “How do you feel? How do they treat you? tell me about your studies.

All she could manage to answer was: “Good, very good.”

Fidel’s humanism emphasized on 40th anniversary of his visit to Angola

The Comandante made his first trip to Angola March 23-27, 1977

by  Roberto Hernández

Granma | 24 March, 2017

Fidel, during his visit to Angola, in the company of Angolan President Agosthino Neto (right) and Celia Sánchez Manduley (background left). Photo: Joaquin Viñas

LUANDA.–Angolans and Cubans emphasized the humanism of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, during a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of his first trip to Angola, March 23-27, 1977.

“I would like to thank him for the support he gave us, which permitted us to be here in this room today,” said General Antonio dos Santos Franza, who traveled to Cuba in 1962 to study agronomy and met Fidel during his talks with students at the University of Havana.

Fidel’s ideas and example are more alive than ever

by Eduardo Palomares Calderón

Granma | 06 February, 2017

Photo: Eduardo Palomares

SANTIAGO DE CUBA.- The continual stream of visitors to the monumental rock safeguarding the ashes of Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz in Santa Ifigenia Cemetery here, including more than 150,000 Cubans and others from abroad, bears witness to the abiding relevance of his ideas and example.

Harlem Pays Tribute to Fidel, Cuba’s Revolutionary Leader

telesur | 05 February, 2017

Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban revolution, died in November 2016, at age 90. | Photo: Reuters

Over 200 New Yorkers from Harlem and other parts of the city paid tribute to Fidel Castro Sunday, as part of a ceremony convened by the New York-New Jersey Cuba Si! Committee following the death of the revolutionary leader on Nov. 25, 2016.

“All the work in his life was dedicated to making a better world,” said Cuban Permanent Representative to the U.N. Anayansi Rodriguez at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center where the event took place.

Commemorating Fidel: Few Scattered Thoughts on Future Socialism

by Anindya Sen

Frontier | 05 January, 2017

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz passed away at the age of 90 on November 25, 2016 in Santiago de Cuba. The world has lost one of the rare breed of incorrigibly optimistic leader, who pursued a dream of not only changing the world for the better but also has live through it. For last six decades, Cuba and Castro were almost interchangeable words to the world. His death most certainly has created a void in his own country, but perhaps more so in the socialist camp. Even after fall of Berlin wall, he didn’t give up the spirit of socialist internationalism and had always been the spearhead in all the struggles waged against imperialism in any and all corner of the globe in his lifetime.

However, voids are never left voids; it is filled almost by law of nature. But in order to fill them the posterity must be appreciative of the legacy of leaders like Castro. The lessons of his struggles, both political and personal, the creative motif that made him walk on thorny road life-long must be understood in proper perspective. They are perhaps the only silver-linings in the narcissistic, self-centered and self-destructive life around us, bequeathed by capitalism.

For more reasons than one Cuba, Che and Fidel are more in acquaintance among the people in India and particularly the eastern part of the country. Che is remembered and will be remembered for any foreseeable future as a leader of the youth, as an emblem of revolutionary romanticism, an ultimate protagonist of freedom and fearlessness, a hero who embraced all the earthly odds for fighting for justice and human dignity with effortless ease. The imagery built around his personality will continue to inspire many hapless, many frustrated lot back into the optimism of life. We will see many more generations of youth sporting t-shirts and caps with Che emblem.

Fidel

by Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents.org | 01 January, 2017

Fidel shows the way the world moves, and the path to be trodden. In this January day, the first day of the year, lessons from Fidel are to be reiterated, are to be spread around with renewed vigor. Revolution unrolled its flag of victory over Havana in a similar January day in 1959, and a long, arduous journey began.

Riding with Fidel

Granma | 28 December, 2016

The song “Cabalgando con Fidel” (Riding with Fidel) was written by Raúl Torres on the occasion of Fidel’s death

Photo: Radio Rebelde

They say that in the plaza these days,

Martí and Camilo have been seen

riding horseback.

And leading the caravan,

slowly with no rider,

is a horse for you.

Returning are the wounds that do not heal,

of the men and women

who will not let you leave.

The Fidel I knew

by Ignacio Ramonet

Granma | 28 December, 2016

Fidel Castro Ruz at the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) held in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: Estudio Revolución

Fidel is dead, but he is immortal. Few people have known the glory of entering into the realm of legend and history during their lifetime. Fidel is one of these people. He belonged to a generation of legendary fighters – Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, Amílcar Cabral, Che Guevara, Camilo Torres, Turcios Lima, Ahmed Ben Barka – who, in pursuit of an ideal of justice, threw themselves into political action in the 1950s, with the aim and the hope of changing an unequal, discriminatory world, marked by the onset of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and United States.

Fidel, undefeated, has left us, but his spirit of struggle will permanently remain in the conscience of all revolutionaries

by Raul Castro Ruz

Granma | 28 December, 2016

Speech by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Councils of State and Ministers, during the Eighth Period of Ordinary Sessions of the National Assembly of People’s Power VIII Legislature, in Havana’s International Conference Center, December 27, 2016, Year 58 of the Revolution

(Council of State transcript / GI translation)

Photo: Estudio Revolución

Compañeras and compañeros:

The last days of the year, as is customary, have been characterized by intense activity. This past Saturday, we held a meeting of the Council of Ministers, which approved for presentation to the National Assembly the 2017 Economic Plan and proposed State Budget, which we have analyzed here today.