Castro

Isn't this standard behaviour? Unless you started a world war or ate the hearts of your enemies, for a week or two after the moment of your death the international community agrees to ignore everything negative and praise you to the skies. The cynic in me suspects this is less a matter of respect for the dead and more an opportunity for influential people to have some informal discussions while politely ignoring the now-irrelevant mouldering corpse in the corner.

And once again, mallardo voices my exact thoughts, only more concisely and to the point, and in much better English.

Evidence for what? I said he was a HUGE world figure - and he was. And, btw, I love your disclaimer.

You said he "played a HUGE role".


Yes he got a lot of press, but history will only remember him for the bay of pigs and Cubans will want to forget him ASAP.  His influence on others is Zero. So unless I've missed it please tell me what this HUGE
role involved. 




It’s also amusing to note that the style of music that Ry Cooder drew our attention to is from the early part of the 20th C. The actual Buena Vista Social Club closed in the 1940’s. i.e. What everyone thinks of a Cuban Music was brought to us by an American. God knows how many tourists have been there because of it and the people are thankful for them.
I would wager that most young Cubans listen to Gloria Estefan and her ilk.

Here's what Corbyn said:

“Fidel Castro was a massive figure in the history of the whole planet, ever since the revolution in 1959. There are stories of his heroism while living in Mexico in exile and then the boat to Cuba, the march to Havana… For all his flaws, Castro’s support for Angola played a crucial role in bringing an end to Apartheid in South Africa and he will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice.”

Sending gay people to concentration camps must have been one of the "flaws".

Justin Trudeau, PM of Canada was even more positive:

“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President. Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation. While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

Deep sorrow. Right.

Neither of these tributes even mentions anything that might be considered a flaw - jailing people for having HIV for example. Sometimes the bad outweighs the good, when Peter Sutcliffe dies I would expect the "tributes" to at least mention he had been a murderer, though not on the scale of Castro of course.

It would be better to also condemn them and point out their crimes.

I think it's generally assumed that most people haven't been living under a rock and that everyone will understand that every bit of praise carries an implied "Shame he undermined it by being a total ****".

Castro wasn't just a brutal dictator. There are also people to whom he was a friend or family, and for them this is a time of genuine sadness and grieving. It's a bit tasteless to turn up at a funeral and go on about how happy everyone should be now he's dead, no matter how true it may be. Nothing can be gained by repeating what everyone already knows, and the only thing that can be achieved by it is to cause unnecessary pain to the mourners.