FIDEL Castro, a man said to have survived nearly 100 assassination attempts, had previously expressed surprise at his own longevity. Making a rare public appearance, last April, he said the idea of reaching 90 was something he “had never imagined”, adding that “soon I will be like all the others”.
In the days after his death the TV played non-stop footage of his role in history, blaring images of bearded revolutionaries hiking through the mountains, of Fidel and his brother Raul, of Fidel and Che Guevara, of him meeting Malcolm X and grinning as he hugged Nelson Mandela.
Granma, the state-run newspaper that took its name from the boat that carried Castro and his fellow revolutionaries to Cuba from Mexico in 1956, followed a similar line. It ran page after page of tributes to the late former commander and chief.
The day after Castro’s death, its headline ran Always Towards Victory, with a short item stating that with “deep sadness” it had to inform the Cuban people, their friends across the Americas, and the world, that the previous night, Castro had died.
The next day it carried first-person testimonies, with one woman describing how hard the news had hit her, saying the Cuban people had been preparing for it, but that, still, she had never imagined it would happen.
This was a common theme, at least in the state-fund press, and as Cubans expressed their shock at the news, they began to question what would come next.
On the face of it, perhaps little will change. Raul Castro has been in power since 2008, introducing a series economic reforms aimed at boosting the island’s struggling economy, while showing a greater willingness than his brother to engage with the US. Travel restrictions have been relaxed and the future for tourism shows the potential for large-scale expansion, with foreigners drawn to the island’s combination of history, culture, nightlife and landscape.
Since 2011 there has been an explosion in the number of restaurants and the area once famous for the Bay of Pigs invasion is now home to diving schools and beach resorts.
But, at present, the country is still halfway through its period of official mourning. Castro’s ashes were taken yesterday on a 1,000 km trip to the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, a journey in reverse to the one he made from the mountains to the capital during the revolution.
While the mood is subdued, there has been little public outpouring of grief on the streets. Most Cubans, publicly at least, seem quietly sad, while acknowledging Castro has a divisive legacy.
Clubs have been closed and concerts have been cancelled across Havana. Apart from a few tourist hotels, Cuba has stopped serving alcohol.
There is a huge neon sign outside the famous Club Floridita in central Havana, boasting of its history as the home of the daiquiri, but its doors are closed. Things will get going again next week but, for now, for a city normally full of music, Havana is oddly quiet.
Liam Kirkaldy is a journalist with Holyrood Magazine.
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