Quite a remarkable day began yesterday when, during a walk out to the Havana harbour as dawn broke, I saw the front page of the Cuban ruling party newspaper Granma, with a photo of Dennis Brutus next to the lead headline (on the int'l statement of conscience circulating -- Dennis is a prominent signatory).
Unexpectedly, at 10am, Fidel came to the conference on Marx at the international conference centre, and listened respectfully to six plenary speakers on the topic of the revolutionary subject. He stroked his beard but did not comment when Trevor Ngwane did a very hard-hitting rap on the SA left. (Hopefully we get this speech up on e-debate on the weekend.)
Fidel then did two of his famous long riffs during question time before lunch, mainly covering Latin American politics. Jokes were mixed with insults about the various 'reptiles' and 'bandits' active in Argentine electoral contests, Guatamalan diplomacy and the like. He had a wonderful respect for the social justice movements, saying (roughly translated and scribbled):
'These are FIGHTERS, and that's what we must call them. They won at Seattle. At Quebec, they forced the G8 into a fortified position. It was more than a demonstration, it was an insurgency. The leaders of the world must now meet inside a bunker. They had to meet on a ship in Italy, and on a mountain in Canada. They needed police barriers in Davos, in peaceful Switzerland. The most important thing is that the fighters have created a real fear. The IMF and World Bank cannot meet properly. So I suggested to the G8 that they should have the next meeting in a space station in outer space. For some of you who feel discouraged, what the fighters are doing is remarkable, extraoradinary. In Argentina, they toppled governments, they built an awareness. The genie is out of the bottle.'
His raps on Cuba were intense, including a 2 hour discussion with a smaller group from the conference on the night before, replying to critiques of capital punishment. After lunch, he defended the foci theory of Che. He was particularly flowery about Hugo Chavez, and said he hopes that with nationalising the oil and imposing exchange controls, they will have the resources to build socialism in Venezuela.
Fidel was also humble and self-critical about Cuba's own economic failings -- apparent in the poverty amidst the dollar-dominated tacky capitalism and tourism creeping through Havana -- and turned to ask a leading Cuban economist (in a good-natured harangue that continued for hours): 'So we poisoned socialism?' -- more like a statement than a question.
His impromptu speeches probably lasted 5 of the 12 hours we met yesterday, and there's likely to be more today. Trevor and I have pages and pages of notes. A breathtaking experience, an amazing leader...