by Piero Gheddo

Both are dictatorships that do not respect human rights or even religious freedom, but their development has been very different, due to the Soviet origin of the Cuban model, to Fidel Castro's extremely long reign, and to his imprisonment in anti-American ideology. Beijing, and also Hanoi, have instead entered the global market and experienced great economic growth.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Fidel Castro, the longest reigning dictator in modern history, has finally abdicated his powers of state and governance.  He is leaving to his successors a mummified regime, and to the Cuban people the hope of being liberated soon from the hardline communist leadership, in order to finally breathe and live in freedom.  The misfortune of Cuba is that Castro survived for so long.  Fortunately for the Chinese people, Mao died more than 30 years ago, and after him the regime changed, and although it did not renounce party dictatorship, it implemented radical economic reforms, throwing open its borders and initiating a virtuous process of economic development.  The same thing has been happening in Vietnam for about 20 years.  Today China is a global economic power, and Vietnam is one of the most developed countries in Asia.  They are still two dictatorships that do not respect human rights and not even religious freedom, but there is some hope that improvements in education and the standard of living could lead to greater democracy and freedom for the people.  In part because communism, paraded as the state religion and taught in the schools, no longer convinces anyone, and the supposed "ideals" of communism, if they existed in the past, no longer do.  A missionary who has lived in China since 1994 told me a little while ago in Canton: "I believe there is not a country today that is more wildly capitalist than China, where human rights and workers' rights count for nothing". And what counts on the island of Fidel Castro?

Under Castro, Cuba remained for half a century a pathetic remnant of the past. The dictatorship and the strong ideological motivations of the communist party, of which Fidel Castro remains secretary, do not permit gradually moving to a market economy and favouring private initiative with the denationalisation of property and companies.  Why China and Vietnam yes, and Cuba no? This is essentially for two reasons.  First, Cuba was structured according to the Soviet model of economy and society, entirely centralised and controlled by the state; Maoism was much more decentralised in every sense, except of course for ideology, political and military power, and totalitarian methods.  Cuba has never had a "bo doi", of which the Vietnamese have spoken since 1986, meaning the radical conversion of the economy toward free markets and the opening to economic agreements even with capitalist countries.

A second cause that explains this anomaly of communist countries that move toward greater economic development or toward even greater underdevelopment is this: Castro remained from the beginning the prisoner of an anti-American ideology; America was the absolute enemy of Cuba and of the third world.  But this was not true of China or Vietnam: China has had close commercial ties with the United States since the 1970's, and Vietnam since the 1990's. Today the two countries are integrated into the globalised world economy, and are developing rapidly thanks in part to this decision.  But Cuba has not, it has remained proudly and absurdly anti-American, and even after the failure of its attempts to install Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, it has continued in its anti-Western ideological stance, sending Cuban soldiers to support the "socialist" (or presumedly so) governments and the "wars of liberation" fought in Africa in the 1970's and '80's, as I saw in Angola, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique.  That Castro is anti-American because of the American embargo, which allegedly blocked economic development in Cuba, is one of those platitudes that are continually repeated without any foundation in the reality of the facts.  The enchanting island of Cuba has always had large open markets for imports and exports: the U.S.S.R., Spain, Canada, China, almost all the countries of Western Europe, including Italy.

But the worst damage of "Castroism" was done in Latin America and Africa.  Still today, visiting various countries in these two continents (but also in Asia), it is painful to hear it constantly repeated that the United States and Western Europe are the cause of their poverty.  After the collapse of all the communist regimes (of the 30 or so in power until 1989, not one of them produced well-being for the people), there are still some who dream of an egalitarian society in which the state takes care of everything.  I believe that the anti-Western and anti-American myth spread by Cuba in a militant faction - with many books, pamphlets, and cartoons in all languages - among the weakest and worst educated peoples destroyed their sense of responsibility (it's always someone else's fault), when they should have been working to take control of their country and instil in it honesty and respect for the rights of the people, and freedom first of all.  I was in Bangladesh in September of 2001.  On the 11th, when the Twin Towers fell in New York following a terrorist attack, I didn't hear of it immediately.  But when on the following day they drove me to the lepers colony of Dhanjuri, in the district of Dinajpur, we encountered in the villages and the cities great crowds of Bengalese who were shouting for joy, and holding a public celebration for some reason that was then unclear.  I later learned what had happened, but also, as one of my confreres told me, that about 70 percent of the budget of Bangladesh is covered by Western countries, and first of all by England and the United States! But among the Bengalese people there is the widespread idea that many of the country's ills come from the West and from the United States!

• China
• Cuba
• Fidel
• Castro
• communism
• anti-Americanism
• United
• States
• embargo
• economy
• trade
• globalization