“There are few contemporary figures have been so vilified as Fidel Castro. Both worship and vilification distort the true image. Fidel is one of the most extraordinary men of our times, but he is neither saint nor devil. Take him for what he is.”
-Herbert Matthews
Fidel Castro is a name that many know - be it for its power to strike fear in the hearts of liberal U.S Americans or be it to cause hearts of patriotic Cubans to pulse and tremble with passion at the sound of the name of their country’s hero. Fidel Castro was a man of strong character and beliefs - but what set him apart that made him the iconic figure of the Cuban Revolution? Was Fidel Castro a man born of circumstances, or a revolutionary that was shaped by the social, economic …show more content…
Raised in a family of Spanish ancestry, Fidel Castro could ask for nothing more. His was a world of delight - a childhood of bliss on daddy’s plantation, naive and childishly unaware that the people around him, his friends and his “family” culture of plantation workers were often underfed and poor. Although not mentioned very frequently, Fidel’s rise to power may have been inspired in a way, but definitely and distinctively not lead, by his religious teachings as a child - in one interview about his childhood, although Fidel does deny that religion had a key role in his personal ideology, he does admit that he has thought to have developed his moral and ethical values rooting from the strong Catholic views imposed on him as a child which caused him to rebel against the thought of the “abuse, injustice and the humiliation of a fellow human”. 1 As Castro matured mentally and physically, he grew a certain awareness of the ongoing inequality between the social classes- and growing up as an observer, he began to understand that the plantation fields were not sowed with sugar canes but instead sowed with the blood and the sweat of Cubans, and that the figurative whip and reins that belonged to his father, the plantation owner, would soon become his to hold and …show more content…
Trained to become a lawyer and educated in the art of politics, Fidel was more interested in sports and student activism than studying. This was also a vital turn point in Fidel’s life as he was exposed to the teachings of Jose Marti, the infamous martyr who had a key role in the liberation of Cuba from the rule of the Spanish Empire, and in Marti's teachings, Fidel found kinship with the thoughts and ideas of a man long dead but who had suffered through the same oppression that the Cubans were now facing under the US Americans. Fidel used his icon’s philosophical and more importantly, his political ideas as his own; “A true man does not seek the path where advantage lies, but rather the path where duty lies, and this is the only practical man, whose dream of today will be the law of tomorrow, because he who has looked back on the essential course of history and has seen flaming and bleeding peoples seethe in the cauldron of the ages knows that, without a single exception, the future lies on the side of
-Herbert Matthews
Fidel Castro is a name that many know - be it for its power to strike fear in the hearts of liberal U.S Americans or be it to cause hearts of patriotic Cubans to pulse and tremble with passion at the sound of the name of their country’s hero. Fidel Castro was a man of strong character and beliefs - but what set him apart that made him the iconic figure of the Cuban Revolution? Was Fidel Castro a man born of circumstances, or a revolutionary that was shaped by the social, economic …show more content…
Raised in a family of Spanish ancestry, Fidel Castro could ask for nothing more. His was a world of delight - a childhood of bliss on daddy’s plantation, naive and childishly unaware that the people around him, his friends and his “family” culture of plantation workers were often underfed and poor. Although not mentioned very frequently, Fidel’s rise to power may have been inspired in a way, but definitely and distinctively not lead, by his religious teachings as a child - in one interview about his childhood, although Fidel does deny that religion had a key role in his personal ideology, he does admit that he has thought to have developed his moral and ethical values rooting from the strong Catholic views imposed on him as a child which caused him to rebel against the thought of the “abuse, injustice and the humiliation of a fellow human”. 1 As Castro matured mentally and physically, he grew a certain awareness of the ongoing inequality between the social classes- and growing up as an observer, he began to understand that the plantation fields were not sowed with sugar canes but instead sowed with the blood and the sweat of Cubans, and that the figurative whip and reins that belonged to his father, the plantation owner, would soon become his to hold and …show more content…
Trained to become a lawyer and educated in the art of politics, Fidel was more interested in sports and student activism than studying. This was also a vital turn point in Fidel’s life as he was exposed to the teachings of Jose Marti, the infamous martyr who had a key role in the liberation of Cuba from the rule of the Spanish Empire, and in Marti's teachings, Fidel found kinship with the thoughts and ideas of a man long dead but who had suffered through the same oppression that the Cubans were now facing under the US Americans. Fidel used his icon’s philosophical and more importantly, his political ideas as his own; “A true man does not seek the path where advantage lies, but rather the path where duty lies, and this is the only practical man, whose dream of today will be the law of tomorrow, because he who has looked back on the essential course of history and has seen flaming and bleeding peoples seethe in the cauldron of the ages knows that, without a single exception, the future lies on the side of