By Saul Landau, progreso-weekly.com, 21-27 February 2008
Fidel decided to retire from almost half a century of leadership this week. I saw him last in April 1961. “The worst is over,” he told the person next to me in the hallway. “The issue is developing socialism.” Poking his finger into my chest, he asked about the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, and the state of poverty in the areas — far worse than anything Cubans went through.
His worldly concerns stand in stark contrast to Cubans who daily headed north for more prosperity.
Last May in Havana, some whose fathers served in Angola, asked me about life in the United States. Those in their 20s and 30s felt frustrated. Some had the PhDs and Masters degrees and worked at jobs beneath their education and skill levels. The biggest complaint was how they spent parts of their day “resolviendo” problems of material existence.