Fidel Castro's Intellectual Legacy: A Critical Look at Ramonet's Tribute

Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet chose to mark the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro's birth by posting an extensive tribute titled "My Friend Fidel Castro" on Facebook. In this piece, the former director of Le Monde Diplomatique and official biographer of the Cuban dictator extols, with almost religious fervor, the intellectual virtues of the man who led Cuba for nearly five decades, ultimately leaving the nation in ruins.

Ramonet, known for his accommodating interviews with the Cuban regime's leadership, spares no praise. What first caught his attention about Castro, he writes, "was not his uniform, nor his height, nor his beard, nor even his eloquence. It was his curiosity." According to the Spanish journalist, this curiosity was "the secret of his political longevity."

The article is filled with accolades from someone who has never experienced waiting in a food line in Havana. "His brain mechanisms were impressive. He had an astounding memory. But even more remarkable was, I insist, his intellectual curiosity, which remained intact until the end of his days. Nothing concerning the world was foreign to him," Ramonet writes, seemingly unaware of the stark contrast these words present against the reality of the island in 2026.

The author of *One Hundred Hours with Fidel* — based on conversations with Castro between 2003 and 2005 — describes the dictator as a "strategist and visionary; sometimes stubborn, often bold, even reckless, but always convinced that the people could write their own history." In Cuba's case, that history was penned by Castro alone, through orders and commands over decades.

Ramonet's Perspective on Castro's Ambitions

With an elegant turn of phrase, Ramonet concedes that the dictator's ambition "was not to build a perfect society — he knew such a thing did not exist — but to preserve national independence, which he deemed fundamental for any policy of social justice." An independence that, it is important to note, was exercised by suppressing that of the Cuban people.

The Spanish journalist also praises Castro for having "anticipated the emergence of a Global South and the advent of a multipolar and multicentric international order." This foresight is admirable for a man who failed — or chose not to prevent — his island from becoming one of Latin America's poorest performing economies, with an accumulated decline of nearly 15% between 2020 and 2025 and an estimated contraction of 6.5% to 7.2% of GDP in 2026 alone.

The Harsh Reality of Modern Cuba

While Ramonet aims to "capture the complexity of an extraordinary life without falling into hagiography," the Food Monitor Program reports that over 90% of Cubans lack adequate access to food. Nearly one in three households acknowledged that at least one person went to bed hungry in the 30 days before the survey, and most households' ability to cook was disrupted by power outages, which in 2026 last between 15 and more than 24 consecutive hours, with some areas experiencing several days without electricity.

The tribute is part of the regime's commemorative apparatus, which declared 2026 the "Year of the Centennial of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz" and organized the First International Colloquium "Fidel: Legacy and Future" at the Havana Convention Center, attended by over 1,500 delegates from 63 countries. Ramonet is also among the contributors to the book *Voices with Fidel*, alongside Evo Morales, Atilio Borón, and Willy Toledo — a lineup that speaks volumes about the type of "complexity" it aims to explore.

The Legacy and Impact of Castro's Rule

Ramonet concludes, convinced that "revisiting Fidel Castro's figure in this context is not an exercise in nostalgia; it is a way to better understand certain key dynamics of our present." He is right about one thing: Cuba's present is indeed a key dynamic. However, that dynamic has a name: collapse. Only 4.7% of Cubans blame the U.S. embargo for this disaster, according to a recent survey by an independent media alliance, while 82.2% cite the lack of civil and political freedoms as the island's main problem; something that surely does not fit into the Spanish journalist's fidelista vision.

Amid the official centennial observances for the dictator, Raúl Castro made a public appearance at the Karl Marx Theater for the closing ceremony of the celebrations, completing the family portrait of a dictatorship honoring its own legacy while the country sinks.