00:00And today, August 13 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the historical leader of the revolution, Fidel Castro,
00:06an international key symbol of resistance against imperialism to help us analyze the impact of Fidel Castro.
00:13We welcome now our political scientist and analyst and also specialist on job politics, Eduardo Menezes.
00:19Hello, Eduardo. Welcome to From the South. It's a pleasure to have you here.
00:24It's a real pleasure for me to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
00:27And thank you for all the people who are listening.
00:32Well, our first question goes like, from a geopolitical standpoint,
00:37how did the figure of Fidel Castro help to redefine the balance of power between small nations and small sovereign
00:46nations and also then imperial hegemonies?
00:51Well, I do believe that there are many levels of that can help to answer that question.
00:58The first one is obviously the example of Cuba.
01:02I mean, Cuba became the proof that imperial domination could be challenged.
01:08The Cuban revolution became a symbol of national liberation for all the people around the world,
01:16proving that a small Caribbean country could recover its sovereignty and resist all the sustained pressure from the United States,
01:24which was an aggravating factor in terms of being the naval just some miles away from this political process.
01:34I think that that was the first big light that illuminated a lot of processes all around the world.
01:42But this inspiration did not just stand in this level.
01:48There was a clear understanding from Fidel Castro of the fact that there should be something beyond just political solidarity
01:57and internationalism,
01:59like a merely diplomatic support.
02:01It needed to become a material internationalism, a practical obligation.
02:08We have all of us, we have in mind all the military support that the Cuban revolution gave to the
02:16struggles of many peoples in Africa and Latin America.
02:20But even before that, there was a whole material internationalism through Cuba's actions,
02:28sending doctors, teachers, engineers, disaster response teams to countries that needed this kind of support.
02:36Cuba was also training and Cuba gave a lot of scholarships and trained thousands of professionals from Africa, Asia, Latin
02:45America, and the Caribbean.
02:47And this was creating an alternative model of international relations,
02:50an alternative model that was based into South-to-South relationships.
02:56And all of this was obviously backed with all the military and material support that Fidel gave to, for example,
03:08all the African liberation processes.
03:09We know that the Cuba's support of the African liberation movement was one of the most important expressions of Fidel
03:18Castro's internationalism.
03:19We know that, for example, Cuban forces supported Angola against invasions by the apartheid state of South Africa.
03:27You know, we know that the Cuban victories alongside the Angolan and the Libyan forces altered totally the regional balance
03:35of power in Africa.
03:37And that contributed to the negotiations that led to the Namibian independence and accelerated the crisis, the prices also of
03:45the apartheid regime in South Africa.
03:47Nelson Mandela himself, he repeatedly acknowledged that Cuba's contribution was crucial to its victory, his victory, and the victory of
03:58the South African people against the apartheid regime.
04:01We can think of all the anti-colonial struggles across all the global South, not only in Angola and Namibia,
04:10also in Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, South Africa in general,
04:12but also the Palestinian cause was some of the main axis of internationalism of Cuba, the same as the solidarity
04:21with Vietnam.
04:23We know that all of this helped to shape the three continental relationships that became more and more
04:35a strong basis for the non-allied movement, for example, I would say that at third level, part of these
04:42other two levels,
04:43but it's very important to recognize, is all the impact that the Cuban revolution had, obviously, in all the neighbors
04:51in Latin America.
04:54Fidel, restore and brought back this idea that the Latin America and the Caribbean constitute a historical and political community.
05:02The idea of the integration of all the Latin American and Caribbean was really one of the main contributions to
05:11the integration process of Latin America.
05:13that is still continuing, till today, main horizon for all the processes of the progressist movements, the social movements,
05:24the liberation processes that we see in Latin America that have this very strong axis interaction till today.
05:34I hear you were talking about the liberation process in Africa, because as a matter of fact,
05:40Fidel is a key figure in this process, and I want to delve deeper a little bit in how crucial
05:47is Fidel figures in this anti-colonial struggle, specifically in Africa.
05:55Well, I do believe that something that was very important, how the Cuban revolution and the Fidel's perspective of internationalism
06:08contributed to
06:10the anti-colonial struggles and the anti-colonial struggles and liberal liberation processes in Africa.
06:15I mean, this is very important in the way that Fidel pushed a vision that was stating that
06:25we cannot understand each country's problem in isolation from the global process of accumulation of capitalism.
06:35What he was pushing through his perspective was that national liberation would not be ended without a question of the
06:47general global capitalistic system.
06:51One of the main victories that had the Cuban revolution was that the national liberation process that they led in
07:02Cuba
07:05was confronted to that question of what to do in front of the capitalist system of the United States,
07:13the imperialist system of the United States, and Europe, the colonial system that it took in place.
07:18And in a certain way, they showed that there was not a possibility of making only a national liberation process
07:26without questioning this whole global system.
07:29So that was kind of the historical path that many of those countries and all the movements in Africa,
07:38the liberation movements were following when they were understanding that it was not only a matter of national liberation against
07:47colonial power,
07:48but just the next step after this process was the step of questioning how the process of integration, for example,
07:56from the liberated countries could lead to a different voice from the global South that was questioning the whole global
08:05system.
08:06That's what I was mentioning.
08:07For example, the contribution to the non-aligned movement where there was this idea that the global South countries and
08:15I think that Fidel being chair of this movement,
08:19he defended this, the fact that the collective interest of developing countries should sit in this idea that it's not
08:29only a national liberation process,
08:30but a process that question the capitalist domination of the United States and all the capitalist system that was expanding
08:39all over the world through the different agencies like the agencies for development,
08:47the help for development, the help for development that were created by the United States and they were using all
08:54this narrative about help for development, cooperation for development.
08:58But what was really behind this process was a process of fighting against the influence of socialism and communism in
09:08the countries that were liberating themselves.
09:10So I think that that counterweight that Fidel was playing in that moment of history was crucial because it helped
09:19to create a whole process of understanding what really development could mean for global South countries.
09:27And for example, all the dependency theories were created through that light that was illuminating all the world from Cuba
09:37and from Fidel's thinking.
09:38And I think that that's one of the main contributions that he brought to the African liberation movement.
09:46Of course. Thank you so much for your relevant analysis in the matter of the 100 years of the birth
09:52of Fidel Castro.
09:53Key figure not only for Cuba, for Latin America and for the whole global South.
09:58It was a pleasure to have you here in front of the South, Eduardo. Thank you so much.
10:03Oh, thank you. Thank you to you. The pleasure is all mine.
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