Castro’s Cuba

By Alexander Nixon

The entire world is familiar with the photograph of Fidel Castro as the guerilla warrior in military fatigues. What was to become his iconographic and never-changing image was established at the inception of the cataclysmic Cuban social experiment when Lee Lockwood’s lens captured the sweating rebel leader in signature fatigues while overseeing his soldiers, greeting his public, and wielding a machete during the annual sugar cane harvest (zafra) in the 1960s. Then and now, this same guerilla warrior image suggests an on-going war in defense of his Cuban socialist revolution.

Although vaguely familiar with the image, I began to reflect on it more intensely as a topic for study while an undergraduate at Stanford. I wrote a paper about Lee Lockwood’s famous photographs of Castro snapped when he was fighting against Batista in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Eastern Cuba --Lockwood died in 2010. Castro, who was savvy about the power of the press, did not miss an opportunity for forging positive public opinion!

Recently I began working at the Center for Cuban Studies in New York City and was surprised to learn that Lee Lockwood was the Center’s founder.

At the Center I find myself surrounded by the same early, and still mesmerizing, photographs of the young freedom fighter taken by Lockwood. Now framed and behind glass, they seem like time capsules, small windows into the past. Those and the photo portraits collected in Lockwood’s book, Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel inspire thoughts about how much public opinion of Castro has changed--and how little Fidel Castro himself has changed.

My own attitude about Castro has shifted as well--from early fascination to ambivalence. He was, I recall, uncompromising in his defense of the Revolution: “Within the Revolution everything, outside of it, nothing.” That pure and selfless battle cry now seems naïve and dated in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. At the Center for Cuban Studies I have opportunities to engage Cuban artists and thinkers who share my evolved opinion and my ambivalence. They are proud of the revolution, but confess to feelings of exhaustion!

What, we wonder, will happen to the now tedious image of Castro when relations are normalized between the U.S. and Cuba? As the current wildfire of revolution spreads across the Middle East and anachronistic dictatorships fall, visitors to the Center frequently wonder out loud if Cuba will have the same experiences.

Probably not. Ironically, the long standing U.S. Embargo serves as a nationalistic rallying cry that keeps Cubans unified and wary of the United States.

We know, of course, that Castro will die and that changes are inevitable. As I think about that future event and read about the dirty financial and personal secrets of ousted strongmen like Mubarak, I wonder if any skeletons are stored in Castro’s closet and whether or not my ambivalence towards Castro will ever be allayed?

A few years ago Forbes Magazine declared that Fidel Castro is worth $900 million, a claim based on the fact that, as the former head of the Cuban government, he has the entire wealth of Cuba to spend at his discretion.

In response to the article by Forbes, Fidel Castro took the position of consummate revolutionary, saying that he has sacrificed normal family life for the sake of preserving the Cuban socialist system. According to him, his net worth is zero and that he earns a salary of 900 Cuban pesos a month. "If they can prove that I have a bank account abroad, with $900 million, with $1 million, $500,000, $100,000 or $1 in it, I will resign," he declared in a television appearance.

If Castro has money, unlike other leaders in the news, he doesn’t flaunt it. His garb remains the same and, compared to Khadhafi’s ostentatious ensemble, he is locked into a dated look. When the Cuban government enacted sweeping land reform, thereby infuriating former citizens living in the U.S., Castro’s family’s estates were among those confiscated. Because Castro is so secretive about his personal life, it is hard to make any determination about his wealth. We do not know if a treasure trove will be found after his death.

We remain uncertain about this historic figure. If it were to be revealed that he has money, mansions, and mistresses hidden away, he knows that his reputation and all that he has achieved as a revolutionary will be tainted and re-evaluated accordingly. I think it’s more likely to be the case that, when Castro dies, there will be no surprise revelations about his financial worth. Instead, we will discover that, all along, he was steadfast in his fight to defend Cuban dignity and sovereignty.

Given Castro’s well-documented obsession with Cuban history and his emulation of Cuban martyrs such as José Martí, I suspect that Castro is much more interested in preserving his socio-political currency than any hard currency. It’s not the money, Lebowski. It’s the power, the power to preserve the Cuban socialist system.

In the end, Castro’s iconic stature may strengthen after he dies when Cuba joins the rest of the world. At that point, his enemies in the United States who were so quick to criticize him for profiting off the poor Cuban people will swoop in like carpet-baggers in search of financial gain.

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Alexander Nixon is the Organizational Development Coordinator of the Center for Cuban Studies/Cuban Art Space in New York City.