Christians are called to be the conscience of their time, to bring eternal principles to society where a republic can be built. So, if a regime wants to undermine a strong republic, it must undermine those who are willing to sustain it. The regime needs to conflate spiritual joy with political joy. By subverting the position of those who believe in justice and free elections, the regime achieves political power by eroding the social fabric.
Cuba is an iconic example of that danger that only comes step by step.
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A recent visit by Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel to a municipality in eastern Cuba made the responses of several women go viral on state television. They expressed their admiration for the dictator in a religious key.
One said that seeing Díaz-Canel had reminded her of “the god Fidel,” another considered that the visit of the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba had been “a gift from God” and that, by placing “his blessed feet” in that town, “the local problems were going to be solved.”
The women also reported negative reactions: Two of them said they bristled at the mere mention of the meeting.
Sharing the same faith is the glue that keeps society cohesive. It is the way in which the community is generated and strengthened, and it is the means for the transmission of moral pillars. The Guevarian purpose of creating the “New Man” has a giant obstacle if faith asks that the “old” be valued, the tradition and moral knowledge accumulated over centuries.
Therefore, what totalitarianism has proposed substitutes for these elements. For God, the state; for the messiah, the leader; for faith, ideology; for the community, mass organizations; for rituals, acts of revolutionary reaffirmation.
Totalitarianism is a twist of Christianity, a corrupt and worldly copy that seeks power for men. Authors such as Norberto Fuentes have recognized “the religious idea of altruism” that surrounds (falsely) the Cuban Revolution.
Totalitarianism needs to eliminate the idea of God to, in its place, impose veneration and dependence on the state. Thus, for example, at the beginning of the revolution in Cuba, a predominantly Catholic country, little cards circulated that were addressed to chief revolutionary Fidel Castro.
According to the Cuban writer Rafael Piñeiro López, the cards read: “Fidel, save us from the scribes and the Pharisees! It continues and finishes the principles of Christ. He, your people and all the people of the world support you. Thank you, Fidel!”
“Fidel is God” can be read on a wall in Havana. Vigils are offered in his name, including one on Nov. 24, 2021. Christmas is celebrated, as the director of the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, Yailín Orta, did in 2021. Or public processions with gigantographs are carried out through the streets.
Official propaganda represents Castro contemplating the people mobilized by the Cuban Revolution from the sky, as the Ministry of Internal Trade did on Nov. 25, 2021.
Political police agent David Manuel Orrio also described the dictator in a supernatural way when remembering the day he met him:
It is as if a high-tension electric current caught you, because Fidel emits a personal energy transcendent to his political stature. You shake his hand and it is as if you connect with the history of Cuba and the planet, and that is where even your smallest cell tells you that in some way he is a chosen one.
Other religious groups also venerate the leader-messiah, such as the Yoruba Cultural Association. The leader of this group in Cuba’s Holguín province stressed that, for nonbelievers, Castro was “the Commander,” but for believers he was Olofi, “the one who directs the land,” the supreme being of the Yoruba pantheon.
In 2008, the leader of the Yoruba Cultural Association, Antonio Castañeda—who told Reuters he prayed daily for “the Commander”—did not hesitate to declare that, according to Olodumare (God), “he is the one who has to be there [in power] and, since he is there, he is untouchable.”
The vision of a Fidel Castro in the style of “chosen one” began immediately after the 1959 triumph, when a white dove landed on his shoulder during his first speech in Havana.
For Afro-Cubans, the dove was associated with Obatalá, orisha of creation. In Christian tradition, it represented the Holy Spirit and the baptism of Jesus, who was crucified at the age of 33, the same age at which the rebel leader Castro rose to power. It is said that the dove performance was a propaganda strategy to “shock” the very religious Cuban people.
What there seems to be no doubt about is that, even when Castro, educated in Catholic schools, reigned in a country that silenced Christianity, he himself practiced a religious faith and understood the manipulative force of religious feelings.
Originally published by The Washington Stand
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