What’s been striking is not so much the content of what he’s said but the fact he can say it at all
The semi-retired Cuban leader got some attention and aroused a good deal of surprise in recent weeks with intemperate remarks about Iran and Korea, suggesting that the United States was pushing the crises headlong toward all-out war. What’s prompted the press to take notice, of course, is not his opinion of the twin nuclear crises, which is ridiculous. (Could Castro have been imagining that Obama was going to emulate Putin, who seized on Georgian provocations to attack just as leaders were assembling in Beijing for the Olympics?) What’s interested reporters and commentators is that Fidel still has the strength and wit to closely follow world events, and to comment on them trenchantly, however perverse his perspective may be.
I for one was not surprised–but only because last December, shortly after the Copenhagen climate conference ended, a friend forwarded a scathing commentary on the final accord by Fidel. It, as it happened, was not ridiculous. Speaking for all those who felt left out and neglected by the paper-thin agreement, Castro denounced the Copenhagen conference for failing to produce a binding accord, for bypassing the Kyoto Protocol and Rio Framework Convention on Climate Change, and for not yielding greenhouse gas reduction requirements consistent with what scientists generally deem necessary. He castigated the United States of having tried to railroad the conference–which it most certainly did–and lauded the Group of 77 for standing up to it and refusing to do anything more than “take note” of the final accord.
Though my own take on the Copenhagen Accord, which I produced the Tuesday after the conference ended, three days after returning from Denmark, was considerably more sanguine, Fidel’s complaints were all valid and no doubt better reflected wide world opinion than my own wimpy words did.
What what particularly impressed me, however, was Fidel’s speed and acuity as a blogger. He posted his commentary on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 8:17 pm, less than a day after the conference ended. He didn’t wait to find out what everybody else was saying or spend days poring over conference documents; like lightning, he sized up what had happened in Copenhagen and immediately produced a credible take on the outcome–exactly what a blogger is supposed to do.
It took this humble blogger until the following Tuesday, at 1:22 pm, to post his much weaker take.
That said, the life of the blogger extraordinaire has its risks. This time around, Fidel has been blaming his faulty prediction that war would break out in Iran or Korea before the World Cup ended on his over-reliance on an outdated report from the Cuban mission to the United Nations. Spoken like a true blogger.
