Fidel's Ethics of Violence

Dayan Jayatilleka

Description

Fidel Castro's most original contribution to revolutionary and radical thought has been his development of an explicit ethical position on one of the most controversial issues of our time: violence. This book explores the evolution of Castro's political thinking - and in particular how he philosophically reconciles violence, political power and morality.



This book makes a timely intervention into the question of Castro's historical role and contribution. The author argues that Castro's doctrine of armed struggle is the logical development of his idea of the ethical liberation fighter. At its core is an unremitting emphasis on the ethical use of violence.
Dedication

Acknowledgment

Preface

PART I: BACKGROUND

1. The Ethics of Violence

2. Comparative Historical Perspective

PART II : HISTORY OF FIDELISMO AS ETHOS

3. Evolution of Castro's Ethics of Liberation

4. Defending the Revolutionary Regime

PART III: ANALYSIS

5. The Moral High Ground

PART IV: REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION

6. The Achievement of Synthesis

7. The Contemporary Relevance of Castro

Conclusion

A Personal Postscript

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Political Ideologies
• Political Science
• Communism
• Socialism
• Post-Communism

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849643702
• Langue: English

Extrait

Fidel’s Ethics of Violence The Moral Dimension of the Political Thought of Fidel Castro

DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

P Pluto Press LONDON • ANN ARBOR, MI

First published 2007 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Dayan Jayatilleka 2007

The right of Dayan Jayatilleka to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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Acknowledgments Preface

PART I: BACKGROUND

Cont

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Introduction 1 The Ethics of Violence 2 Comparative Historical Perspective

s

PART II: HISTORY OFFIDELISMOAS ETHOS

Introduction 3 Evolution of Castro’s Ethics of Liberation 4 Defending the Revolutionary Regime

PART III: ANALYSIS

Introduction 5 The Moral High Ground

PART IV: REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION

Introduction 6 The Achievement of Synthesis 7 The Contemporary Relevance of Castro

A Personal Postscript Notes to the Text Select Bibliography Index

vii ix

3 13 27

63 64 92

115 116

165 166 183

197 201 223 226

This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Mervyn and Lakshmi de Silva. Journalist, editor and broadcaster, Mervyn wrote and talked of Fidel and Che, introducing them into my life. He was at Che’s press conference in Colombo in 1959 and took me, still a primary schoolboy, for lunch at the Harbour room of Colombo’s Hotel Taprobane, with Armando Bayo, Cuba’s ambassador to Ceylon, 1960–65. Bayo was the son of the legendary General Alberto Bayo, veteran of the Spanish Civil War, who trained Fidel, Che, Raul and the Granma expeditionaries in Mexico. While he turned fifty my father witnessed Fidel Castro taking over the chairmanship of the NonAligned Movement at the sixth summit in Havana in 1979 and featured Fidel on the cover of his magazine, theLanka Guardian, that month. After his death in 1999 I discovered that Mervyn still had in an old briefcase the personalised invitation to the conference, signed Fidel Castro Ruz.

Acknowledgments

My warm thanks to Roger van Zwanenberg, Chairman and Commissioning Editor of Pluto Press, who responded positively and promptly to my proposal for this book. I would also like to thank Professor John Kane of the Department of Politics and Public Policy of Griffith University, Brisbane, for his encouragement, critique and constructive suggestions, and Dr Jeffrey Minson, formerly of the Department of Arts, Media and Culture of Griffith University and presently with the University of California San Diego, for his continuous engagement and close critical scrutiny. Back in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Professor Nira Wickramasingha and Ms T Gunasekara read through an initial (proto) draft and made revisions. Without the dedication, support, effort and active contribution of my wife, Sanja de Silva Jayatilleka, an impassioned extended polemical essay may never have made it into this book. She helped give it structure and shape, transforming it qualitatively, just as she did my life.

vii

Preface

A little over half a century ago, a brilliant, passionate, Jesuiteducated young lawyerpolitician led a group of rebels on an attack on the Moncada army garrison in the Oriente province in Cuba. The aim was to seize the weapons, distribute them and trigger an uprising in the province, which would then become generalised throughout the country. The goal was to topple the military junta of Batista, which was supported by the United States. The attack failed, the rebels were arrested, tortured, murdered. Thanks to luck, the integrity of a military officer and the intervention of an archbishop, a few survived. That should have been the end of the story, like that of so many rebellions in Latin America. Yet it was not. Brought to trial in what was presumed to be an openand shut case, the young rebel leader conducted his own defence and made an oration that ranks in the annals of the finest emancipation literature in human history. Itemising and denouncing the unjust structures of his society, drawing on the literature of human freedom and injustice (including the Bible), and unfailingly dignified and fair to his judges, he concluded with a phrase that has become part of the consciousness of modern humankind: ‘Condemn me if you must. History will absolve me!’ It is by his deportment in defeat and by turning a material defeat and disaster into a moral victory that Fidel Castro entered History. Revolutionary Cuba was born six years later. Cuba has remained revolutionary, antiimperialist and socialist despite the longest running economic embargo in known history, and despite the collapse of its ally, the Soviet Union, more than a decade and a half ago. It has remained defiant despite being located on the doorstep of the mightiest power the world has ever known, and despite the active hostility of that power. The survival of Revolutionary Cuba issues from the specificity of Cuban socialism – and that specificity derives not only from the history and culture of the Cuban people, but also from the specific theory and practice of Fidel Castro. The global scenario today is polarised between the sole superpower and terrorism of Islamic provenance. Might there not be, however, a third way of being as represented by Fidel Castro? The most visible

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x Preface

resistance to unipolar hegemony and interventionism by the US (and/or Israel) tends to take the form of terrorism and suicide bombing. This book argues that Castro provides an alternative ethic of resistance and rebellion, one in which violence in the cause of liberation consciously eschews the targeting of noncombatants. The present global polarisation is commonly represented as the struggle of the forces of antimodernity and parochialism against those of modernity and reason. There is a need for an ideal and ideology of resistance and rebellion, which springs from the wellsprings of modernity and universalism but stands for an alternative modernity. Castro’s ethic, I suggest, is such an ideology and he constitutes such an example of modernity, reason and militancy, not in the interests of the status quo but of progressive change. The study teases out the values that Castro stands for, thereby setting forth an alternative way of being for the rebel, including the violent rebel. However, Castro’s ideas and example are relevant not only for rebels. TheFidelista ethic of violence, in which the moral high ground is permanently retained, is of relevance both to resistance/liberation movements and to states. It is hoped that the study would contribute to the setting out of a moral and ethical third way and sketch the contours of a different kind of hero: modernist, rational, internationalist; fighting fullscale wars when necessary, but never resorting to targeting of noncombatants, physical torture and execution of captives. The study is marked with what may appear as a surfeit of quotation and quotations of excessive length. This, however, is necessitated by its character. Firstly, it is an inquiry into Fidel Castro’s political thought, and therefore cannot but rest upon his words. Secondly, it makes a radical and original claim about his thought and strategy, and therefore seeks to prove that contention through extensive recourse to his words. By drawing directly upon his words I attempt to demonstrate that these ideas were not occasional, fleeting references and that the themes in question were crucial to his ideology. Apart from those quotes from Castro, secondary sources are also given, sometimes at some length, in order to set evaluations of his political and military practice against his ideas and to assess whether or not there has been a unity of theory and practice.

A rebel asked Castro what should be done with the prisoners, and Fidel replied, ‘Treat them humanely; don’t insult them. And remember that the life of an unarmed man must be sacred for you.’ Tad Szulc,Fidel: A Critical Portrait, p. 256

‘We must have our feet solidly on the ground, without ever sacrificing the greatest reality of principles.’ – Fidel Castro Tad Szulc,Fidel: A Critical Portrait, p. 318

Part I Background