Ariel Hidalgo. Published Wednesday, January 24, 2001, in
the Miami Herald
Havana sneezes, and Miami catches a cold. Thus recent statements by Cuba's
second-in-command about the future post-Fidel Castro era made many here think
about the possible death of the Cuban leader, and columnists, politicians,
scholars and radio commentators discussed nothing else.
The image before us now is that of an opposition bloc that places its hopes
solely on the natural death of its powerful adversary, believing that the only
way to achieve the transition they desire is to leave it in the hands of time
and natural biological processes.
They don't care to remember that Lenin's death in Russia was followed not by
the collapse of the regime he founded but by a successor -- Stalin -- who was 20
times more repressive. Stalin canceled his predecessor's New Economic Foreign
Policy, unleashed the purges and built countless concentration camps.
Nor was there any political change in China after Mao Zedong's death, or in
Vietnam after Ho Chi Minh's death, or in North Korea after Kim Il Sung's death.
And don't bring up the example of the Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo,
because Castro's Cuba cannot be compared with the traditional Latin American
dictatorships patterned after oligarchical, bourgeois models.
In Cuba's case, we're dealing with the so-called real-socialism model, in
which the political and economic powers, concentrated in the hands of the state,
leave very little wiggle room for other possible social factors.
Even so, the instances of political change generated by the death of a chief
of state are very rare. Haiti didn't change with the death of Duvalier pre.
Neither did Nicaragua with the deaths of the first two members of the Somoza
dynasty.
Nevertheless, those who crave for the death of the principal figure of a
regime paradoxically consider themselves "radicals'' -- considering that
assassination is the most superficial of all methods. The only Eastern European
country to commit tyrannicide -- Romania in 1989 -- also was the only country
where the old regime lived on for several years under the leadership of an old
communist.
To paraphrase Czech President Vaclav Havel, we reject violence and
particularly tyrannicide, not because they are too violent but because they're
not radical enough. Explaining why dissidents in regimes such as Cuba's don't
adopt such methods, Havel said that "they realize that the roots of the
problem lie deeper.''
We should remember Fulgencio Batista's 1952 Camp Columbia coup and ask
ourselves why the Pentagon never has tried a military coup against the White
House. Is it that all politicians in this country are saintly folk lacking in
ambition? Not at all. Is it perhaps proof of the excellence of this nation's
laws? Again, no, because we Cubans in 1952 enjoyed the most advanced democratic
institutions in the hemisphere.
The answer lies elsewhere: True strength resides not in the will of any
single individual or in the perfectibility of institutions but in the civic
conscience of the people, which places democratic institutions -- imperfect
though they may be -- above any personality.
Once in World War II, Japanese and U.S. soldiers found themselves in
opposing trenches. One American began loudly to insult Emperor Hirohito, an act
that so incensed the Japanese, they made a suicidal rush on the U.S. trench,
suffering countless casualties.
Learning from the experience, the Japanese began loudly to insult President
Roosevelt. After a brief silence, a voice rose from the American trench: "You're
right. Because of that bastard, I'm here.'' And his comrades, laughing, shouted
their accord.
Fanaticism, the cult of personality, hatred, indolence toward democratic
institutions and other ills of the soul always will turn immature nations into
fodder for tyrannies. The revolution yet to come will be fought not on the
streets or on the mountains but in our own hearts.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 