Fidel Castro Resigns in Cuba: Farewell to a "Monster"...Reflections Of a Cuban Born American Citizen

As a Cuban born, naturalized American citizen, I frankly never thought I'd see the day Fidel Castro would resign from office. Assassinated, as such ruthless dictators often are, perhaps, or maybe, dropping dead after one of his two to three hour speeches, bur certainly not resign. But hey, let's not quibble over the details and let's take what we can get.

Clearly there is no love lost here. Though I do have to marvel at how the mainstream media always manages to find a handful of Cuban citizens that have something nice to say about the bloody dictator. For example, Yahoo news (Fidel Castro resigns as Cuba's president) quotes a lady named Miriam as saying, "He will continue to be my commander in chief, he will continue to be my president. But I'm not sad because he isn't leaving, and after 49 years he is finally resting a bit."

Nice sentiments Miriam, though I am sure that my uncle Jose has a totally different take on the man. You see, Jose or "Chino" as he we call him, spent 18 years in a Cuban prison as a political prisoner, though he was sentenced to 15. A good portion of those years he served them in his underwear, a year of it, he served totally naked. Of the former I have first hand knowledge as I once went to see him in prison when I was five. There he was, in dress shoes and undergarments, as rats the size of small cats ran along the walls of the prison. It's the type of image one doesn't easily forget.

To compliment his stay there of course, there were the obligatory beatings, the terrible uneatable meals, and the unbearable living conditions. Perhaps, just perhaps, we could interview some of those who served as political prisoners with him to counter balance these reports that paint the man as anything short of a monster.

But you got to understand that those who say they "love" the man, probably reached that level of ignorant thinking through the efforts of a school system that did its best to indoctrinate its youth into a Marxist way of thinking. I remember getting in trouble in school every morning as a kid for having the audacity to think for myself. They wanted me, no they insisted, that I recited phrases like, "I shall be like Che' " Well, I did not wish to be like Che, or any other Communist icon for that matter, so I refused to say it, which promptly earned me some sort of punishment fit for my "wayward thinking." They also did their best to let get me to say that there was no God, there was only the state and Castro, and when I did not wish to believe that either, I was punished as well. The happiest day of my life was boarding a flight bound for the United States a year or so later. I can vividly remember waking up at the airport in Habana and getting a glimpse of the "star-spangled banner" painted on the tail of the plane. One word crossed my young mind, "freedom!"

Still, there are those who might feel that Cuba has made some progress in areas like medicine over the years. To those who feel that this may be the case, I should refer you to my other uncle Eleuterio who spent most of his career as a top brain surgeon on the island nation. He would tell you that the whole system is vastly overrated. As anything else in Cuba, it really is meant to serve the Party's elite, not its rank and file population. His son, who now also lives in the United States and practiced medicine there as well, will back him whole heartedly.

So, before we go off and glorify the man, and later on eulogize him in splendid fashion, let's gain a bit of perspective on who he really is, and what he really has done to retain the amount of power he had for the length of time he had it. If you were to ask me, the word "monster," would fall far short of the mark. There has to be a more horrific word in the English language.