Helene Cooper, a New York Times journalist, says we should avoid taking an “American-centric” view of Fidel Castro’s regime. She has a point: Ideally, we would take a Cuban-centric view of his rule, given that it was the Cubans themselves who either suffered or prospered under Castro’s rule. And on that score . . . the indications are very bad indeed. Take as one solid indicator that a good 20 percent of the Cuban population fled the country during his reign. And they often did so at great risk to their safety. They were desperate to escape what they had relentlessly been told was a utopia.
In the early 2000s, I went on a Cuban-government–run propaganda tour of the island. We hit the predictable spots: a rum factory, a coffee plantation, a hospital, the Tropicana night club. One day, as our bus passed a massive government building, one of our fellow travelers (many on the tour fit this term in both senses) asked our guide—a state employee—where Fidel lived.
“I don’t know,” the skinny young man said. “But if Fidel showed up at the door of any Cuban, they would be happy to have him inside as a guest!”
“Really?” somebody else on the bus asked.
“No,” he said.
