Raul disguised as Fidel

Carlos Alberto Montaner

The first symptoms of the Raul Castro government are not encouraging. On Dec. 10, a mob organized by the political police and the Communist Party beat up on the streets of Havana a minuscule demonstration by peaceful citizens who were attempting to commemorate Human Rights Days, as established by the United Nations. One of the goons in the police operation (to whom we should thank his ideological honesty) shouted "Down with human rights!"

Nothing new; they've been doing just that for several decades now. The pogrom, learned from the Nazis, is one of the strategies to remain in power; they punish those who dare to protest and, by so doing, they terrorize society. However, to understand Raul Castro's behavior, his presence at an innocent children's party was even more eloquent than the monstrous street brawl.

Young Elian -- the little rafter who was saved and returned to Cuba -- celebrated his birthday and Raul showed up to mark the occasion, escorted by guards, pastries and croquettes. Why did Raul Castro attended that insignificant little party and take the TV cameras along so they could report about it? For a reason as simple as it is pathetic: Raul is trying to do the things that Fidel used to do. He's not only substituting his brother in his duties. He's also trying to imitate his behavior.

Psychologically, it is not Raul who governs with his own ideas and judgments. He's a karaoke artist. He tries to be his brother. He has glued on a phony beard and wants to be Fidel II. Opportunism? Insecurity? Political calculation? All of that. But the sad thing is that he's copying the worst features of his brother.

For almost half a century, Fidel governed through tumult. He created artificial conflicts, dragged people out on the streets to parade in strident protests, and trusted that those ceremonies of collective rage, orchestrated by the propaganda apparatus, would galvanize society behind his leadership. The revolution was an unpleasant uproar.

Elian's case perfectly enables us to understand this strategy. A dozen people attempt to flee from Cuba on a raft. Among them is a divorced woman and her 4- or 5-year-old son. She is accompanied by her new partner. The raft overturns. The boy and two other people miraculously survive. A couple of the boy's uncles, who live in Miami, lovingly take charge of him. The boy's father, who at first was delighted with the reception given to Elian by his exiled relatives -- hard-working and decent people -- is pressured by the Cuban authorities and demands his custody.

In view of this episode, which is no more than a typical legal conflict involving child custody, similar to thousands that are heard in the courts every day, Fidel Castro mounts a publicity campaign and, for a year, the local press and much of the international media engage in examining "the problem." The country is falling apart, productivity has hit bottom, there are serious problems of nutrition, the jails are full of political prisoners, and the streets are flooded by young prostitutes who sell themselves to the tourists in order to eat, but Fidel has turned "the Elian case" into the center of attention.

He has created a hubbub and stages demonstrations on the streets. Tens of thousands of Cubans march under a murderous sun to demand that Elian be returned to them. While this happens, dozens of rafters of all ages continue to drown in the Straits of Florida without deserving the least homage of a brief item in the newspapers. Castro sympathizers and assorted fools insist that Fidel is a political genius.

Meanwhile, Cuba sinks into idiocy and misery. The Fidelista method of governance is just that: rabble-rousing, an inability to set priorities, a grand gesture for the gallery, a foolish demagoguery that hides the problems under a mountain of street-rally slogans. Raul wants to walk on those footprints. Will he be able to? To Fidel, rowdyism was a natural style. That's what he began to do long ago in his university days, in the 1940s, and he never overgrew his adolescence. He became a bearded, gun-toting Peter Pan. That uniform doesn't fit Raul. You can see it's a costume.

December 26, 2006

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