Cuba: Castro vs the World - BBC2: Tues 4 August

[Serial_Apologist]

9pm - Programme 1 of 2: The Armed Struggle
In this history of modern Cuba, spies, revolutionaries and diplomats reveal how the Cuban revolution of 1959 enabled Fidel Castro to establish a communist country on the USA's doorstep and cause political ripples that spread across the world. After the US tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Castro he turns to the Soviet Union for protection, which leads to a terrifying nuclear stand-off between President Kennedy and Premier Khruschev in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Thereafter Castro starts an independent strategy of supporting struggles for liberation around the world, including Algeria. Meantime, his close comrade Che Guevara dies at the hands of the CIA while leading a guerrilla mission to Bolivia. Episode two will also be available on iPlayer after tonight.

Will this be as objective and informative as the programme preceding it on Wild Cuba? We shall see. Most programmes about Cuba which are not about its music turn out to be more about its consequences elsewhere in the world. Alan Whicker was I think the last to show us Cuba from its people's perspective.

I can remember, that warm sunny day of the standoff in '62, all over the news, and hearing a distant explosion, probably an aircraft breaking the sound barrier, and looking up from our back garden to see the blue sky littered with vapour trails, and thinking, is this the end of the world?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lj6l

[johncorrigan]

Will this be as objective and informative as the programme preceding it on Wild Cuba? We shall see. Most programmes about Cuba which are not about its music turn out to be more about its consequences elsewhere in the world. Alan Whicker was I think the last to show us Cuba from its people's perspective.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lj6l

Not much from the perspective of Cuba's people in there, S_A; and, apart from the narrator, not many women in there at all. I found the programme pretty interesting, especially the comment from a former Central American ally: 'Fidel had no time for you if you were not a warrior.' Also the coverage of the Angolan peace talks, where 'Cuba was ramping up the war while talking peace!'

[Serial_Apologist]

First thoughts are rather as I had feared for this programme, given that its sequel deals in terms of isolation and disempowerment following the ending of the Soviet bloc. One would have so much liked to know more about what the Cuban revolution came to mean for its own people, how, and why. Nice though to get some of the protagonists on various sides reminiscing: together, their stories back up the line supported on our part of the left that Cuba had a very different take on the role of post-capitalist governments in furthering capitalism's demise from the Soviet Union's, which had effectively pursued peaceful co-existence since WW2, as leading lights in the Pentagon later to become the Neo-Cons would later admit to Pilger - the Soviets' intention being little more than nominal support for liberation movements.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not much from the perspective of Cuba's people in there, S_A; and, apart from the narrator, not many women in there at all. I found the programme pretty interesting, especially the comment from a former Central American ally: 'Fidel had no time for you if you were not a warrior.'

That comment and how it was presented was no surprise, given the programme's neglect of domestic policy. Castro's own speeches devoted inordinate amounts of time (literally!) on plans, programmes and implementations.

Also the coverage of the Angolan peace talks, where 'Cuba was ramping up the war while talking peace!'

There was only one mention of the fact that the Cubans were helping the MPLA in driving out the apartheid régime, which had the support of the West, and that by a retired Cuban government minister.

Two thing that imo are worthy of mention in such a programme should be Cuba's help to African countries, in particular, in health care; and its gift to its own people in bringing literacy to the majority, and in a remarkably short period of time.

[Bryn]

That comment and how it was presented was no surprise, given the programme's neglect of domestic policy. Castro's own speeches devoted inordinate amounts of time (literally!) on plans, programmes and implementations.



There was only one mention of the fact that the Cubans were helping the MPLA in driving out the apartheid régime, which had the support of the West, and that by a retired Cuban government minister.

Not only did the Cuba forces fight against the apartheid regime, they went on to engage against UNITA. I recall claims from UNITA at the time that within the Cuban forces, the majority of the front-line troops were black, while their officers tended to be white. How acurately that claim reflected the truth, I do not know.

[johncorrigan]

Two thing that imo are worthy of mention in such a programme should be Cuba's help to African countries, in particular, in health care; and its gift to its own people in bringing literacy to the majority, and in a remarkably short period of time.

Fidel was a remarkable character, S_A. There had always been a suggestion in propaganda that they were the puppy dog of the Soviets, but this programme went to some lengths to suggest otherwise. I also liked the bit when the Cubans were coming home after Angola - the emphasis was quite firmly on: 'They were not interested in stripping the Country of its wealth, as the Americans or the South Africans would have done. The Cubans only wanted to return the country to the Angolans.'

[Serial_Apologist]

Not only did the Cuba forces fight against the apartheid regime, they went on to engage against UNITA. I recall claims from UNITA at the time that within the Cuban forces, the majority of the front-line troops were black, while their officers tended to be white. How acurately that claim reflected the truth, I do not know.

Unita were set up by the apartheid régime and were their proxies until S Africa invaded to stop them being wiped out, from what I remember. I'm ready to be corrected on this, as my memory is somewhat faulty. Perhaps I should do some reading up! Charlie Haden was arrested for speaking out in support of "the national liberation movements of Mozambique and Angola" at a concert by the Ornette Coleman band in Botswana, and had to be rescued by US diplomats! One of the tracks on Haden's "Dualities" LP of 1976 found him improvising solo against a pre-recording of MPLA combatants in action.

[Bryn]

Unita were set up by the apartheid régime and were their proxies until S Africa invaded to stop them being wiped out, from what I remember. I'm ready to be corrected on this, as my memory is somewhat faulty. Perhaps I should do some reading up! Charlie Haden was arrested for speaking out in support of "the national liberation movements of Mozambique and Angola" at a concert by the Ornette Coleman band in Botswana, and had to be rescued by US diplomats! One of the tracks on Haden's "Dualities" LP of 1976 found him improvising solo against a pre-recording of MPLA combatants in action.

Savimbi, who lead UNITA, made alliances with whoever he thought might serve his (and as he saw it, a free Angola's) interests. After effectively being rejected by the MPLA he went to China for political and military training. He basically sided with China against the then Soviet influence in the MPLA. The USA saw him as someone they could support in their proxy war with the then Soviet Union and Cuba. He was happy to accept that support. He also made a deal with the Portuguese government to accept their support in his fight against the MPLA. He continued to fight the MPLA until his eventual death in combat as late as 2002. The Angolan civil war was brutal on all three sides. The MPLA, FNLA and UNITA, all of which Savimbi had, at one time or another, been associated on some level, each had the ultimate aim of leading a free Angola.

[richardfinegold]

That comment and how it was presented was no surprise, given the programme's neglect of domestic policy. Castro's own speeches devoted inordinate amounts of time (literally!) on plans, programmes and implementations.



There was only one mention of the fact that the Cubans were helping the MPLA in driving out the apartheid régime, which had the support of the West, and that by a retired Cuban government minister.

Two thing that imo are worthy of mention in such a programme should be Cuba's help to African countries, in particular, in health care; and its gift to its own people in bringing literacy to the majority, and in a remarkably short period of time.

I know Cuban exiles who claim the “gift of literacy” is a Castro myth, that the Island had high literacy levels before the revolution. Certainly there is a huge difference in the literacy of the exiles I know vs that of Haiti, the D.R., etc