Taking Note
MF
Castroika THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS FIDEL CASTRO'S face just above the tweed shoulder of the man he is embracing; his beard hangs down the back of the man's coat. The man's face is not visible, but...
...A tactic or a strategy...
...Suppose hundreds of thousands of outraged citizens descended on Washington to demand new elections...
...NE CAN CERTAINLY SYMPATHIZE WITH Cuba's need to break its isolation and with Fidel's desire to enlist Mexico's support in assaulting the debt crisis...
...Fidel's reply: "Chico, I am a businessman, but of the state...
...The year was 1982 and Fidel had just offered the military junta Cuba's unconditional support in the Malvinas war...
...At a private threehour gala affair designed to encourage Mexican investment in Cuba, he so impressed the millionaires that one of them, Antonio Madero Bracho, ended the party with heartfelt praise: "If you were in Mexico, you'd be a great businessman...
...And suppose a shrewd George Bush, aware of the groundswell of Left sentiment among the electorate, invited Fidel Castro to his inauguration...
...A cautious politician, aware of his relative weakness, Cirdenas chose to stick to electoral struggle, building for the next vote six years hence...
...Presumably the strategy he preferred was to encourage Mexico's progressive foreign policy on continent-wide issues: "I came to Mexico to achieve a greater unity among our countries in the search for solutions to the dramatic problems Latin American people suffer today...
...Mexico was the only Latin American country that refused to break relations with revolutionary Cuba...
...But suppose it had been Jesse Jackson who won the presidency and was deprived of office by massive and obvious fraud...
...Would we praise the opening to Cuba...
...Progressive foreign policy to cover regressive domestic policy is another time-honored tradition of the Mexican revolution...
...You've got the talent for it...
...By inviting Fidel and seven other Latin American heads of state, including Daniel Ortega--thereby breaking a half-century tradition of Mexicans-only ceremonies--Salinas sought to gain internationally the respectability he could not achieve at home...
...Or would we lament Fidel's decision to trade off support for real change in order to further his perception of a broader interest...
...Or does principle proscribe allying with the enemy of a friend...
...The Cuban leader's trip to Mexico was perhaps indicative of castroika's reach...
...T HE DEBATE OVER ALLIANCES HAS BEEN long and angry on the Latin American Left...
...Fidel insisted that one should not confuse strategy with tactics...
...The tactic he eschewed was to stand by Cuauht6moc Cdrdenas, who champions a progressive stance on both foreign and domestic issues...
...The photo fails to capture the signs of protest, or the empty seats left by the opposition congressmen who had already walked out on the inauguration of the man they maintain was elected by fraud...
...A few weeks after the inauguration, Cuauht6moc CArdenas, the Left candidate who many believe won last July's election, was in New York...
...In the letters columns of Mexico's opposition press, high regard for the hero of the Cuban revolution had turned to resigned disappointment...
...Below, Carlos Salinas de Gortari is being sworn in as president...
...A pale listless Jos6 Napole6n Duarte looks on...
...In December, his explanation was similar: "It was my duty to visit Mexico," he maintained, "and it would have been political cowardice not to have done so...
...And that the pragmatism of some will always dictate that the Left remain divided...
...Perhaps Fidel was swayed by Cdrdenas' refusal to capture the moment by calling his supporters into the street...
...They [Castro and Ortega] had their reasons for going," he said bitterly, "but they will pay a price...
...For 30 years, Fidel Castro has been the lightning rod around which such questions are defined...
...Salinas' intent was transparent...
...Last December, another photo: This time Fidel is talking animatedly with Honduran president Jos6 Azcona in the balcony of Mexico's Legislative Palace...
...Should the Left obey the dictates of pragmatism...
...Not only did Fidel bless the Salinas regime, but he met at length with the captains of Mexican industry...
...He was still angry...
...Perhaps the issue is not so much with whom the Left should ally in the struggle for socialism...
...How can we have the moral valor to call for unity if we do not go where we are invited...
...But where does that leave the Left...
...C ASTROIKA IS THE NICKNAME THE LATIN American press has given to Fidel's spirited defense of the traditional road to socialism, a not-so-veiled critique of Gorbachev...
...The man's face is not visible, but the caption assures us it is Nicanor Costa M6ndez, Argentina's foreign minister...
...Rather, the sad fact that revolutionary governments have more in common with other governments, than with other revolutionaries...
...Fidel was adamant: Latin American unity against British imperialism far outweighed any distaste for fascism...
...In 1982, he regarded the Argentine generals, who had brutally crushed the Left and sought to regain legitimacy through a patriotic quest in the Malvinas, as proper allies...
...Fidel was correct when he said, "I am obliged to support a government which has supported us for 30 years...
Vol. 22 • March 1989 • No. 6
