Dear All,

As Cuba’s official nine day mourning period comes to a close, the personality it is mourning, the commandante Fidel Castro, continues to polarise world opinion.

The news of Fidel Castro’s death late on Friday November 26, prompted rejoicing among the Cuban exiles in the US, and expressions of derision and relief from many in the so-called ‘Free World’. American and British commentators alike held forth on how evil and repressive Castro’s regime was and how his rule encouraged the torture and execution of dissidents.

The US president elect Donald Trump’s reactions summed up this view: after an initial tweet in which he exclaimed excitedly "Fidel Castro is dead!" Trump came up with a statement denouncing Castro’s legacy of "firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights."

But in marked contrast to this sort of reaction was the reaction of many from the third world -- especially African countries. From there came respect and appreciation of the support that the revolutionary leader had extended to Africans seeking their independence.

Voices from other quarters praised what Castro achieved in Cuba in terms of healthcare and social uplift. Still others expressed admiration at the way he had stood up to America and outwitted the CIA repeatedly.

For over half a century Fidel Castro was ‘the scourge of the west’: an enemy of the US and an enemy of capitalism.

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His very presence was a taunt to 11 US administrations -- he was the neighbourhood communist that the CIA tried unsuccessfully to assassinate. Chemical exposure, exploding cigars, poisoned toothpaste, poisoned pen… none of the plots succeeded, Castro remained alive -- and defiant.

But what I have found truly remarkable about this polarisation of world opinion is the angry response of his ‘Free World’ critics to anybody daring to praise or euologise the man. These critics have shouted out in the media and on social media, and been quite offensive in their self-righteous outrage, railing against opinions expressed by anybody who might have had a different view from them. Right wing critics have gone on and on about how Castro was just evil whose "rule meant torture, oppression and poverty."

Why all the anger? Well apparently, ‘the tyrant’ Fidel had resisted capitalism and espoused communism. According to this school of thought he was a diabolical and ruthless dictator whose deprived people were yearning to be able to shop till they dropped. Which could, quite possibly be true, as human greed and acquisitiveness seems to know no bounds.

The very day of Castro’s death was ‘Black Friday’ -- that insane shopping event pegged to Thanksgiving weekend in the US and which is spreading like a disease to other parts of the shopping world. I witnessed this lunacy on central London’s Black Friday -- there was hardly place to walk on Oxford Street as a mob of people, fuelled by the promise of ‘bargains’, spent and spent and spent…

About a decade ago, a friend who’d visited Cuba told me that while in Havana she had been troubled by a sense of something being very different, very odd, about the surroundings. She finally figured out that what was different -- and hence disturbing -- was the total lack of advertising: no billboards dominating the city, no invitations to buy into a lifestyle by acquiring digital TVs or toothpaste or shampoo or luxury cars….

Castro’s Cuba was possibly an improvement on pre-Castro Cuba. The very rallying cry of egalitarianism resulted in a society discouraging of white supremacy and which provided top notch, free healthcare for its citizens.

On balance, should that merit opprobrium or praise?

Best wishes,