Black Radicals Owe a Great Deal to Fidel Castro

[flamingdem]

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/11/black-radicals-owe-a-great-deal-to-fidel-castro/



The Harlem audience was determined to cheer everything Nelson Mandela said, which meant that ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel had to accept that he was at a disadvantage—what he called “a hometown crowd.”

It was 1990, and black America had been in the throes of Republican leadership for a decade. The Cold War had not begun to cool. Mandela—viewed then as a revolutionary leader of the African National Congress trying to destroy the white-minority racist apartheid regime of South Africa, not the cuddly teddy bear of reconciliation of a democratic one-party state that would define him later—had been recently freed thanks to a worldwide movement on his behalf. A critic in the crowd asked tough questions about Mandela’s support of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

I remember Mandela’s words as if it was yesterday: “One of the mistakes that some political analysts make is to think that their enemies should be our enemies. That we can’t and will never do.” The crowd exploded in applause for almost a minute after the first sentence. When was the last time a black leader sounded that intellectually decolonized on national television? Since Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s?

“We have our own struggle, which we are conducting,” Mandela patiently explained, “… and our attitude toward any country is determined by the attitude of that country to our struggle.” More thunder from the crowd.

[guillaumeb]

1. Castro was demonized in the US for many years. mainly because he dared to stand up to Fulgencio

Batista, a US supported dictator who allowed US businesses to exploit Cuba. But also because Castro dared to stand up to the US Empire and make his own decisions. Cuba, like Haiti, was the unforgivable example of former slaves standing up to the masters.

[flamingdem]

2. And he was inspired by Jose Marti who stood up to oppressors and lived in the USA

that he called the entrails of the beast!

I think it's important to take out the word communist. What a shame that was used as a weapon when what Fidel was is a tremendous nationalist.

Now nationalism has it's good and bad points but in the case of Cuba it's all about IDENTITY.

I learned that after having spent a lot of time there even then I had to be told by an economist to really get it.

Their identity is not ours, and it means something, and they struggle for it to the death, literally.

[guillaumeb]

3. Well said. Many Americans, and by that I refer exclusively to US citizens,

assume that every person living in the Americas somehow shares US values and assumptions. This is especially true when talking to US Americans about Canada. Forgotten, or never learned, is that the US invaded Canada twice and threatened once. While the two countries share many things, Canadians have always known that the Big Neighbor likes to get his way.

[flamingdem]

4. The US invaded Canada?

You mean in the 1700s?

[guillaumeb]

5. And in 1812. So yes, twice the US invaded in an effort to annex upper Canada.

What is now Illinois and Indiana and Michigan was also once part of Quebec/New France.

[malaise]

6. And not just in the US or Africa

We Caribbeans and Latin Americans owe him big time.

Great post - there's a nice read on HuffPo on why Mandela loved Fidel