Fidel Castro, An Indelible Icon In My Eyes.…

For all that which has been attributed to Castro both negative and positive , nothing resonate more with me than his decision to send Cuban troops to fight to end apartheid and white hegemony on the continent of Africa. He did so while western nations threw their support behind the racist despotic apartheid régime which as a minority group terrorized the legitimate majority black population in their rightful homeland.
Gracias-el-Presidente.….…

Recognizing the life and work of Fidel Castro is not a zero sum game .
It is per­fect­ly okay to dis­agree with the com­mu­nist ide­ol­o­gy the for­mer rev­o­lu­tion­ary so dear­ly embraced ‚while acknowl­edg­ing the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion he made when sup­posed friends did not see fit to stand on principle.
He did !!!

Scratching the sur­face of the life and times of Fidel Castro does not give an ade­quate reveal of whether the for­mal­ly trained lawyer start­ed out as a com­mu­nist sym­pa­thiz­er as some with whom he attend­ed col­lege seemed to believe .
Or whether he was forced into embrac­ing the Soviets as a last resort after been rebuffed by the Americans.
The much report­ed-on repeat­ed attempts on his life , not the least of which was the bay of pigs débâ­cle. could cer­tain­ly not have endeared him to America and capitalism.

As trib­utes pour in after his pass­ing, those opposed to the Cuban leader line up in unright­eous indig­na­tion to his very existence .
Like the true Pharisees they are , the say they are Christians, their lips drip­ping with the lies and decep­tion of perdition.
No-ones world­view mat­ters but theirs. Those who see things dif­fer­ent­ly are ridiculed and demeaned.
True to form these blink­ered purists are focused on the sin­gu­lar issue which defines their out­look of this con­tro­ver­sial leader, the exile Cuban com­mu­ni­ty in Miami Florida.

His incred­i­ble accom­plish­ments on edu­ca­tion and health-care for the Cuban peo­ple are lost on his crit­ics. Never mind that every­thing he accom­plished has been done while fac­ing half a cen­tu­ry of strin­gent American eco­nom­ic blockade.
Standing on prin­ci­ple by putting Cuban troops in Angola to fight the oppres­sive racist inter­lop­ing apartheid régime in South Africa was sin­gu­lar­ly momen­tous to this writer. He did so while west­ern pow­ers stood in sto­ic sup­port of a racial régime which sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tor­tured raped and mur­dered black Africans on their own soil.
For that Fidel Castro is an Indelible Icon in my eyes.

One does not have to be a sup­port­er of all of what has been attrib­uted to Castro. One does­n’t even have to sup­port or believe in com­mu­nism to speak to the brave pro­gres­sive stance President Fidel Castro took when oth­ers wouldn’t.
One does­n’t have to agree with every­thing some­one ever did in order to cred­it them for that which was com­mend­able. Unless the good they did is not what you would have want­ed . If that be the case then we under­stand, but please step aside so that those who have been pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed may pay their respect.
Like President Barack Obama who began a thaw with Cuba , Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued the fol­low­ing state­ment on the death of his fam­i­ly’s friend.

“It is with deep sor­row that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serv­ing President”. “Fidel Castro was a larg­er than life leader who served his peo­ple for almost half a cen­tu­ry. A leg­endary rev­o­lu­tion­ary and ora­tor, Mr. Castro made sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments to the edu­ca­tion and health­care of his island nation. “While a con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure, both Mr. Castro’s sup­port­ers and detrac­tors rec­og­nized his tremen­dous ded­i­ca­tion and love for the Cuban peo­ple who had a deep and last­ing affec­tion for “el Comandante”. “I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real hon­our to meet his three sons and his broth­er President Raúl Castro dur­ing my recent vis­it to Cuba. “On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends and many, many sup­port­ers of Mr. Castro. We join the peo­ple of Cuba today in mourn­ing the loss of this remark­able leader.”

The ink on the Prime Minister’s state­ment was­n’t dry before two Hispanic US sen­a­tors jumped on it to gain attention.
I found the indig­na­tion of these two par­tic­u­lar­ly galling, in light of their sup­port of Donald Trump a racist xeno­phobe who is infat­u­at­ed with the like of Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Un despot­ic murderers.

Marco RubioVerified account‏@mar­coru­bio

Marco Rubio Retweeted.…CanadianPM “Is this a real state­ment or a par­o­dy? Because if this is a real state­ment from the PM of Canada it is shame­ful & embarrassing”.
Shameful and embar­rass­ing to whom?

Ted CruzVerified account‏@ted­cruz

Ted Cruz Retweeted… Ted Cruz..Obama & Trudeau, before slob­ber­ing adu­la­tion on tyrants, take a min to look into the eyes of vic­tims of communism.

I say in your blink­ered idio­cy take a look into the eyes of mil­lions of Africans whom were freed from the ten­ta­cles of racial oppres­sion , maybe you will learn some humil­i­ty and self worth.
In the eyes of these two right wing zealots, noth­ing mat­tered but their nar­row mind­ed world-view. Of all those who could com­ment , these two who rose to the near pin­na­cle of polit­i­cal pow­er only to kick away the lad­der so oth­ers like them­selves may not climb up are par­tic­u­lar­ly repugnant.

I pay atten­tion to the lives of those who stood for more than their own per­son­al ambi­tions . Those who defied the odds and stood on prin­ci­ple. Those who stood on the strength of their convictions.
I have zero regard for those who stand on the shoul­ders of oth­ers for per­son­al enrich­ment and polit­i­cal pow­er. Scant regard for those who do not see wrong in rape and mur­der on the twist­ed notion of racial superiority.
Yet have the nerve to open their mouths to crit­i­cize those who have strug­gled and sac­ri­ficed for what is ulti­mate­ly right.
I have no evi­dence of what they accused Castro of doing. I speak to what I saw. The courage to stand against oppres­sion and racial big­otry. To build schools in oth­er coun­tries so that chil­dren can have access to edu­ca­tion they nor­mal­ly would­n’t. To put doc­tors in for­eign hos­pi­tals so that lives may be saved .
To me that’s humanity.
RIP El Presidente.……We dis­agreed on a lot . I hate com­mu­nism but I do not judge you .
You will live on into pos­ter­i­ty , your work will absolve you.