End of an era?

 

Fidel Castro may or may not survive his current illness but, either way, he will not rule Cuba forever. The time for history to judge his half-century in power will come soon. I doubt that it will be kinder to him than it will be to the twentieth century's other dictators. He reduced a prosperous (if corrupt and crime-ridden) country where the poor were very poor to one in which everyone is very poor (and which is just as corrupt). Almost all of the country's middle class now resides in Florida. Most of its dissidents reside in the country's jails.

One of the Castro regime's very few achievements has been to maintain the excellent health and education systems that it inherited from its predecessors. Over the years it has even managed to sell these to the world as its own creation. Indeed, this is a regime that has managed to maintain an amazing degree of international support, and probably a greater degree of internal support than its disastrous rule would warrant (although this is mostly because millions of its opponents have simply made their way out of the country).

What will the future look like? I doubt if the regime will fall immediately after Castro's departure. Democracy and freedom would no doubt be the best options for the country but the system is probably solid enough to resist any moves in that direction for the time being. I think the most that Cubans can hope for in the short term is normalization and possibly a more pragmatic style of government. Nevertheless, being an optimist, I would like to think that Cuba's worst years may be behind it.