Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Osvaldo and Fidel
My best friend in high school was Osvaldo Marti. Osvaldo's family had come to New York because they weren't big fans of Cuba at the time. Osvaldo said Castro “couldn't be worse” than Batista — a violent dictator who ran an incompetent, corrupt government. Osvaldo said his father had been in an accident in Cuba — a public bus had injured his father's leg and the Cuban government refused to pay any compensation.
Now Castro seems finally to be falling from the scene — 47 years later — no doubt to the benefit of the Cuban people; centralization and nationalization don't work; it would be sad if Castro's absolutist control lives on after he is gone. Remarkable that this Communist dictator lasted so long after the fall of the Soviet Union. Castro's reign didn't result in his land prospering; a living example of Isaiah Berlin's reminder that any absolute idea eventually becomes oppressive, whether good or bad in its original intentions.