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Fidel's Epiphany

He says he is concerned about nuclear war, yet he is the man who took the world closest to the brink of nuclear annihilation. He claims to be concerned for the human rights of Gypsy refugees in France, yet he has driven millions of refugees out of his country. He has spent years criticizing Israel, yet now he claims he "was never anti-Jewish." He says the Cuban government's treatment of homosexuals has been "an injustice," yet he is the one who led the Cuban government.

When Cuban dictator Fidel Castro tries to remake himself, he even might tell you that Cuban communism "doesn't work."

Even if later he tells you that he meant to say the opposite, everyone can see that Fidel is trying to write himself a better place in history. He has spent more than five decades trampling the lives of the Cuban people, assuring himself a reservation in history's hall of shame, but now that his brother Raul is running the dictatorship, he wants us to believe there is a new Fidel, one who is kinder and gentler.

Ever since Fidel came back out in public in July, after remaining mostly secluded because of a gastrointestinal illness, the 84-year-old retired dictator has been saying things that contradict everything he always stood for.

Is it dementia, a newly found conscience or a monster attempting to undergo a makeover?

The man who once brought Soviet missiles to Cuba and urged the Russians to launch them against the United States now is issuing warnings of an impending U.S.-motivated nuclear war between Iran and Israel. The man responsible for the genocidal drowning of thousands of Cuban refugees while they were trying to reach freedom in Florida now is hypocritically charging that France's expulsion of Gypsies back to Bulgaria is a "racial holocaust."

The man who has been a consistent enemy of Israel and the Jewish people now is criticizing his ally and fellow despot Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and promoting anti-Semitism. The man who sent homosexuals to labor, or "re-education," camps recently told a Mexican newspaper that he takes responsibility for decades of repression against gays — as if that would erase decades of atrocities.

Of course, the most extraordinary effort by Castro to remake himself was when he was trying to impress American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic during a Sept. 1 interview in Havana. When Goldberg asked Castro whether Cuba's model is still worth exporting to other countries, in a rare moment of honesty, the dictator readily admitted that "the Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."

Fidel's epiphany was so remarkably honest — and so damaging to his regime and his allies — that he had to take it back.

"The reality is that my response means exactly the opposite," he said later.

But imagine how that moment of honesty must have felt to Cubans living in exile all over the world and to those who have spent years in Castro's prisons for merely suggesting that the Cuban model doesn't work and for seeking the freedom to suggest dissenting ideas.

By ruling with an iron fist, Castro outlasted nine U.S. presidents — coming to power during the Eisenhower administration and stepping down during the George W. Bush administration. Imagine the generations of Cubans whose lives have been altered or destroyed because Fidel insisted that his Cuban model would work. Imagine how Fidel's epiphany must have been received by demagogues such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who idiotically claim that the Cuban model should be emulated.

As Castro tried to take his foot out of his mouth at the University of Havana, he claimed that his sarcasm was lost in the translation when he was interviewed by Goldberg and that when he spoke about a model that doesn't work, he was actually referring to capitalism.

"My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious," Castro said.

Of course, "crisis to crisis" would be a much more accurate way to describe the Cuban economy under the 48 years of Fidel and 2 1/2 years of Raul. To compare the Cuban model against capitalism, all one has to do is look at South Florida's thriving Cuban community in contrast with the shameful quality of life he has provided for the people of Cuba. It's like looking at East Berlin and West Berlin before they tore down the wall and threw the communists out of power.

Since Fidel returned to the limelight and began making public appearances in July and August, analysts have been trying to figure out why the dictator seems to be changing his tune. Some say his communism-doesn't-work confession is a long-overdue rejection of that bankrupt ideology. Others say it was a signal of support for the economic reforms being implemented by Raul. Some believe that Fidel is no longer rational.

"I have not changed," Castro wrote in an article published by the government-controlled Cuban media last week. "I will be faithful to the principles and ethics that I have practiced since I became a revolutionary."

Indeed, there are reasons to believe that senility is creeping in. The only revolutionary thing Fidel has done recently is to admit, quite frequently, that he was wrong!

Recognizing that he bashed homosexuals: Revolutionary!

Pretending to be a friend of Israel and the Jewish people: Revolutionary!

Standing up for the human rights of immigrants: Revolutionary!

Expressing concern for the threat of nuclear war: Revolutionary!

Admitting that Cuban communism doesn't work: Priceless!

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.