Fidel Castro is gravely ill, and the grand freedom-loving part of the human soul rejoices. It would be a facile task to make jokes, particularly about the cause of El Cabronante's intestinal bleeding.
Fidel stopped short. Hugo Chavez' head stopped a little less short. Surgeons took longer than expected owing to the fact that it was difficult to discern the end of Chavez' head and the beginning of unexcreted feces. But a statement like this would be gratuitous and self-serving.
47 years of tyranny lie infirm in a Havana hospital bed. It is not a happy illusion that Fidel dies in a quick and painless manner. To view a despot lying in torment as everything that he stood for is devastated in front of his eyes serves as a greater indication of a justice beyond that which is human. He should have to watch Holiday Inn and McDonalds marching up the Malecon, pursued by Best Western and Burger King; Comfort Suites and Taco Bell.
He should see children in the Uniform of the Young Pioneers drinking Dunkin Donuts Coolattas and dancing to reggaeton by Daddy Yankee. The third rate beisbolero should watch the Marlins move to Havana and playing the Braves and the Nationals and the Mets for a profit.
Propaganda about defending Cuba from the dreaded Yanqui should be plastered with images of Celia Cruz at the sweetest point of azucar and Gloria Estefan returning triumphantly to Cuba. The bills would be posted by men with their bellies full of a noonday meal from Colonel Sanders or Domino's.
The beautiful finned behemoths of 1950s America would return home to be replaced with Cobalts and Calibres, Focuses, Fusions and 500s. These cars would idle fat on Texaco and Mobil Unleaded as the prowess and ingenuity of Cuban mechanics aid a technical revolution that grows without the strong central planning that served to stifle it for so long.
Unable to feed a reserve of propaganda-fueled resentment among less fortunate Latin Americans, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales wither in the courts of public opinion in Venezuela and Bolivia, respectively. The underrepresented populations begin to question the press and the mechanisms that concentrate power in even fewer hands than the aristocracies despised by dictators hiding behind the pretense of populism.
As the last bastions of Fidel Castro's control structures evaporate like an Atlanta puddle in August, then the greater part of physical torment should begin, a burning, searing torture where his body is torturously racked. His arms and legs should be debilitatingly painful to move more than a few microns. And everything itches like he was anointed with poison ivy.
But Fidel should live. Oh, it is a fervent prayer that Fidel should live every day like this, suffering mutely, impotent to bring about the death that would bring him release from the consciousness and physical pain. As his beloved Revolucion crumbles in front of his impotent, unresponsive body; as exiles return to mock him and the destitution he subjected Cuba to, well intentioned tenders keep their beloved Comandante in a perpetual state of impotent consciousness.
Faith teaches not to wish death on someone. I pray that Fidel Castro be given the opportunity to repent his sins and reconcile himself with God. I pray that he is able to earn faith, the faith he denied to everyday Cubans.
And hell, yes, I want it to hurt.
16 August 2006
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