FIDEL CASTRO IS POLITICALLY AFRICAN

Who is Fidel Castro to us Africans? According to some revolutionary Pan-Africanists, Castro (1926-2016) was an African.

As Northeastern University professor Layla Brown explained in this video clip, Castro was politically African. That’s because Castro dedicated his life to the struggle for African liberation on the African continent and across the African diaspora.

‘Fidel Castro is a Pan-Africanist of the highest order,’ said Pan-Africanist Kwame Ture (1941-98), who co-founded the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party.

‘Fidel, at some point, mentioned that he felt himself to be a part of Africa,’ said author Alice Walker. ‘It seems to me that he has never really traded on being white. And it’s because he doesn’t have that, you know, ‘white trip,’ that we often in the Third World tend to forget [he’s European]. I mean, I don’t wake up thinking of Fidel as a white person, you know, ever.’

Castro is not the only Latin American revolutionary to be labelled African. ‘Che Guevara is also African and Burkinabé,’ said Burkina Faso’s revolutionary president, Thomas Sankara (1949-87), of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, who was born into a European settler family in Argentina. ‘He is Burkinabé because he participates in our struggle.’

The ongoing Cuban revolution is an ontologically African process rooted in African and Afro-Caribbean values, culture and ideas. Cuba’s African characteristics took centre stage so the revolution could triumph, requiring Cuba’s class-conscious elite to sacrifice their status to Africanise their national identity.

Agree or disagree? Let us know in the comments.

Video credit: Black Liberation Media (@blackliberationmedia on IG and @BLM_edia on X)