Nov 26, 2025
3 min read
A close-up portrait of the Cuban leader, a symbol of the generation of rebels who fought for the social revolution
Whether his detractors like it or not, Fidel Castro has secured a central place among those who fought hard for social justice and showed the greatest solidarity on behalf of the world's oppressed peoples.
I met him in 1975 and spoke to him on several occasions, but for long periods of time, in a very professional and very precise manner, on the occasion of reporting on the island or my participation in congresses, seminars or events.Then our relationship became even closer.Sometimes he would invite me to dinner in the privacy of his office in the Palace of the Revolution and we would talk for hours on world progress.At other times he assigned me a clever "mission", such as meeting with leaders of the Latin American left whom he was suspicious of, so that I could give my personal opinion.He was the first person who spoke highly to me about Hugo Chávez (who was then "suspected" by most of the world because he was accused of leading a February 4, 1992 coup attempt against Carlos Andrés Pérez, the social-democratic president of Venezuela and leader of the Socialist International).Fidel advised me to see him, get to know him and help him.
In 2003 we decided to write the book "One Hundred Hours with Friends" He invited me to accompany him for several weeks on various excursions, both in Cuba (Santiago Holguin, Havana) and abroad (Ecuador). In the car on the plane while walking with lunch or dinner, we talked for a long time.About all the possible topics of the day, your experiences and past concerns are present, which I have rebuilt from time to time in my notebook.
That's how I found a close Fidel.Almost shy.Very polite.Listen carefully to each interlocutor.Always respect others, especially his collaborators.I have never heard one word louder than another.Never an order.With manners and gestures of old courtesy.A true gentleman.High sense of honor.From what I could see, who lived in a Spartan way.Furniture, healthy and frugal food.Monk-soldier way of life.
His work usually ends in the morning, when daylight breaks.More than once, he interrupted our conversation at three o'clock in the morning because he was busy with some "important meetings" ... he slept only four hours;More, an hour or two at any time of the day from time to time.
But it was also great to get up early.And relentlessly.Trips, trips, meetings were connected without respite.At an unusual pace.His assistants - all young and bright in their 30s - were, at the end of the day, exhausted.They slept standing up.Sold.You can't keep up with the relentless giant.Fidel asked for notes, reports, dispatches, news, statistics, summaries of television or radio broadcasts, telephone calls... He could not stop thinking, thinking.Always alert, always in action, always at the head of a small staff - made up of his aid and aides - fighting battle after battle.Always with ideas.You think the unthinkable.Imagine the unthinkable.With spectacular and unprecedented mental bravery.
Once the project is defined.There are no physical barriers that stand in his way.His death sentence was clear, he would do it."Logistics will continue," Napoleon said.So did Fidel.Their spirit attracts collective unity.It drives his will.Almost like a magical phenomenon, an idea becomes a reality, becomes a fact, a reality, a clear event.
His rhetorical skills are often described as amazing.Extraordinary.I'm not talking about his famous public speech.It was just a simple conversation after dinner.Fidel raved.An avalanche.A waterfall.He made amazing movements with his beautiful hands.
He likes precision, fit and vice versa.And he, there is no estimate.Good memory, of famous precision.Overwhelming.Being rich sometimes seems to prevent him from thinking sensibly.His thinking is arboreal.Everything is connected.Everything should be done by everyone.Digansi Diggurated.another, and another.Thus moving from the central theme.Just like a fearless interlocutor, for a moment, he lost the thread.But then he retraced his steps and came back, using a betok shock.To the central theme, the main idea.
At any time during the hundred-hour conversation, Fidel did not limit the issues to be addressed.An intellectual and of impressive caliber, he was not afraid of debate.On the contrary, it was needed, it was encouraged.Always ready to get into an argument with anyone.With great respect for each other.It was disgusting.
Few knew the glory of bringing legends and history to life.Fidel was one of them.He belonged to that generation of legendary rebels who, following an ideal of justice, launched themselves into political action in the hope and hope of changing the world of inequality and discrimination marked by the "Cold War" between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1950s.
At the time, in more than half of the planet, in Vietnam, in Algeria, in Guinea-Bissau, the oppressed people rebelled.Humanity at that time was still largely subject to colonialism.Almost all of Africa, part of the Caribbean and much of Asia were still dominated, subjected to the old Western Empire.Although Latin American countries, free in theory for a century and a half, remain the subject of social and ethnic discrimination, are exploited by privileged minorities, and are often identified by the bloody dictator rule, which is protected by Washington.
Fidel withstood attacks from more than 10 American presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr.).Khrushchev, Olaf Palm, Ben Bella, Boumediene, Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Salvador Allende, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Francev, Francev II) had political connections.He met personally with the major intellectuals and artists of the time, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Arthur Miller, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Amado, Rafael Alberti, Guayasamin, Cartier-Bresson, José Saramago, Gabriel García No, and Eduarde.
Under his leadership, in his small country (100,000 km2, 11 million people), he was able to implement great power politics on a global scale, even with the United States and leaders who could not overthrow him, and he had the opportunity to fight the United States, which could change or change the path of the Cuban revolution.Finally, in December 2014, he was forced to recognize the failure of his Cuban policy, his diplomatic victory and begin normalization.
In October 1962, the third World War began due to the actions of the US government, which opposed the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, which prevented the military forces in 1961 or others led by the US military to suppress the Cuban Revolution.
For more than sixty years, Washington (despite the restoration of diplomatic relations) has imposed economic, commercial and financial power in Cuba (reinforced by 243 measures adopted during the first term of Donald Trump) with a negative impact on the inhabitants of the island.Washington also continues to wage a permanent ideological and media war against Havana through social media to flood Cuba with hostile propaganda like the worst times of the Cold War.
On the other hand, for many years, albon of terrorists - Omega 76, has the headquarters of the American authorities, but the American commanders are attacking.Cuba is one of the troubled countries (about 3000) and has suffered from terrorism in the last sixty years.
In the face of endless attacks, the Cuban authorities expand, at home, and at all costs.And they used in their own way the old Jesuit Motto of Ignatius of Oyoya: "A fortress that is under siege, all practices rebellion."But there was not - Fidel was not expressly forbidden - any human religion.There are no official paintings, no photographs, no images, no sites, no coins, no streets, no roads, no monuments with the name or figure of Fidel, or one of the living leaders of the Revolution.
According to genetic therapy, a small country under the leadership of its sovereign, exclude women in general, eliminate women in general, exclude women in general, eliminate women in general, eliminate women in general, eliminate women in a group of well-performing countries.
Its diplomacy remains one of the most active in the world.Havana, in the 1960s and 1970s, supported guerrillas in many countries in Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua) and South America (Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina).The Cuban armed forces participated in major military campaigns, particularly in the wars in Ethiopia and Angola.Its intervention in the latter country, there fifty years ago, resulted in the defeat of the elite divisions of the Republic of South Africa, which undoubtedly hastened the fall of the racist apartheid regime and promoted the independence of Angola and Namibia.
CUB Convolution, Field Castro is the drive, expertise and leadership of the people, thanks to him, despite his problems, for delivering a great show to millions of people around the world.In Latin America and elsewhere around the world, women and men are protesting, fighting, and even dying of the Cuban model.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the historical failure of the model of state socialism and centralized economic planning in Eastern Europe did not change Fidel Castro's dream of building a new society in Cuba that is decolonial, more just, healthier, more equal, more feminist, more ecological, better educated, without any discrimination and with a comprehensive global culture.
N until the day before his death on November 25, 2016, he will continue to be an environmentalist from the 90s at the age of 90, against climate globalization and climate change and neoliberal change.He is still in the trenches, on the front lines, leading the war for the ideas he believes in and no one is giving up.
