A second chance in Cuba

If the much-heralded meeting between Barack Obama and Raul Castro was hardly to be equated with the meeting in mid-Africa between Stanley and Livingstone, at least some nice phrases were exchanged.

One certainly came from President Obama, never a slouch on knowing how to express a deeply felt emotion, when he explained his feelings about his "opening to Cuba" at the Latin American Summit in Panama, saying, "The United States will not be imprisoned by the past - we're looking to the future.

"I'm not interested in having battles that frankly started before I was born. The Cold War ... has been over for a long time."

Cuban President Castro was never the man of 5,000 words, as was his "this-will-take-your-whole afternoon" brother, Fidel. Raul has always spoken sparingly and as though he were giving military instructions, which most of the time, as Comandante of the Fuerzas Armadas, he was.

It was amazing enough, given the last 55 years of warfare of one kind or another between the big island of the U.S. and the small island of Cuba, with only that famous 90 miles of differences and sea between them, that the two longtime "enemies" were talking at all.

Even more amazing, Raul gave the ultimate compliment when he said he had read Obama's books, praising his background as "humble" and his decision to move against the American trade embargo as "brave." And he thanked the American president for vowing a "rapid decision" on removing Cuba from the list of sponsors of international terrorism.

Still, an hour together is better than an hour apart (usually), and the other Latin American countries, particularly shifty and failing governments such as Venezuela's, were watching carefully to see what the impossible "yanquis" and the equally impossible "cubanos" would do now.

In fact, President Obama and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, though he came loaded down with 10 million signatures blasting Washington, even spoke briefly and respectfully.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, the respected newspaper El Universal editorialized optimistically. "The world of diplomacy is, in good measure, one of grand symbols," it wrote in an editorial headlined, "A New Era in the Americas!"

But what could that "new era" be?

Cuban-Americans judge it will be one of two extremes - either an American cultural "takeover" of Communist Cuba, or a dirty trick played by that old vaudeville team of Castro & Castro to stay in power while keeping the "americanos" at bay. Fully 95 percent of Americans in general approve of the opening, and therefore almost certainly believe a happy future between Bacardi Cuban rum and American Kentucky bourbon is in the cards.

There are the naysayers in all the camps, believing that the Castro brothers, even in their 80s, can still outfox the best player on the block. Then there are the pragmatists - groups that simply feel it will be inevitable that American politics, culture and especially economics will overtake the impoverished and hungry island. (Notable for their presence at the summit, and not by accident, were billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Carlos Slim.)

Actually, small businesses have been permitted to exist almost since the day of Raul's ascension to the presidency, and he has freed Cubans in many positions, although usually small ones, to work on salaries. Whether these kinds of freedoms will spawn into the political sphere is doubtful, at least for many years.

But one must always remember that the 83-year-old Raul and the 88-year-old Fidel are two very different people, and it is only to be expected that they would have very different ways of governing.

"Fidel el Magnifico," as he was seen across the world in the years between 1959 and Raul's recent ascension, was, and is, the most superb charismatic leader of the 20th century - better than Hitler, Mussolini or Peron. The Cuban people - "el pueblo" - glue themselves to him psychologically and politically. He seems to be telling them what they already were searching for inside themselves.

But Raul is small in figure next to Fidel's mammoth size. Raul is "antipatico" or basically unpleasant, while Fidel is "simpatico," or charming. Raul's talents, which are major ones, are in the realm of the military. It was no accident that Fidel made him "Comandante-en-Jefe" of the armed forces, or that he excelled in this position. Cubans know that Fidel never cared a whit about his children, but they repeat over and over that Raul was the "family man," even to Fidel's young.

Raul could be defeated, whether in elections or by coup, by another politician. Fidel could only be defeated in the hearts of his people by another great love.

In the days, weeks and years ahead, however, the most important thing the United States could gain would be to realize how it created the Fidel we have known. From 1898 onward, the U.S. treated Cuba as a fifth-class Latino dependency; the generation of the Castros, resenting this terribly, set out to rise above and beyond the Florida Straits.

They now have another chance, but then so do we.

Georgie Anne Geyer can be reached at gigi_geyer@juno.com.

© 2015 Universal