“They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa,

Asia and Latin America?”

–Fidel Castro

Cigar was part of Fidel Castro’s personality.

This day in history, 25th November marks the second death anniversary of Fidel Castro who passed away in 2016 in Havana. The revolutionary leader of Cuba was best known for his overthrow of the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista’s regime in 1959. Soon like any other nationalist leader of a developing country, Fidel tried to reconstruct his country by nationalising American businesses. His move invited the wrath of the United States. While the US eagerly attempted to overthrow this “Los Barbados” as Fidel and his followers were called for their untrimmed beards, Fidel defied every such attempt emerging stronger than imagined previously.

Famous for his lengthy speeches and verbosity, his all-time friend and Nobel Laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez once famously said, “Fidel is addicted to words.” At one public gathering, after inflicting a crushing and humiliating defeat on the US orchestrated counter-revolution coup that was the Bay of Pig invasion, Fidel famously said, “What the imperialists cannot forgive us is that we have made a Socialist revolution under their noses.”

While the Western media spared no chance to humiliate and vilify him, he always succeeded in overturning their criticism top-down and exposing the hypocrisy of the Western media. However, he had some true admirers in Asia and Africa. The most famous of such admirers was no one else but the South African leader Nelson Mandela who made his first trip outside Africa to Cuba. It was a tribute and homage to Cuban leader’s sincere efforts in helping ANC in overthrowing apartheid regime of South Africa. It is not an exaggeration to call him the sharpest politician of the last half of the 20th century.