I first came across the name Fidel Castro in January (or February, I don’t exactly remember) 2010, when I was 12 years old. It happened because I went to Kolkata International Book Fair and bought 2 books on the Cuban revolution — one of them being The Bolivian Diary by Che Guevara. Not that I understood everything I read, but whatever I comprehended was enough to picture Fidel Castro as one of the good guys fighting the bad guys.
Years later, around 2014, I would move away from mainstream communism. I would no longer worship Fidel Castro as a hero, would only look at him as one of the once-major players in the international political arena. But in the winter of 2010, that is still a future I am not aware of.
The first few months of 2010 was politically significant in the city I grew up — Kolkata. It was still the reign of the longest running elected communist government in the world — the penultimate year of what would be a 34-year rule of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led alliance in West Bengal. Growing up in a left-leaning family, I was indoctrinated to the ideology of the ‘great Fidel Castro’ in casual family dinners.
But the year 2010 was also significant for a number of other reasons. I created my first Facebook account in 2010. The same year Mark Zuckerberg became Time magazine’s Person of the Year. And THAT has a lot to tell about the world that would shape up in the the next 6 years to the 26th of November 2016 when Fidel Castro would die.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, better known as Fidel Castro, was born in 1926 in a small Cuban village named Birán. He was born at a time when the world has witnessed only one World War, India is still a British colony, and the device called television is yet to be invented.
When he died on 26th November 2016, the news of his death reached most people (including me) through a new ‘thing’ called Facebook, which people access using devices called ‘computers’. ‘Hashtags’ emerged to celebrate and mourn his death. World leaders ‘tweeted’ their responses.
This is a drastically different world of today, which a person living in a sugarcane plantation in 1926’s Birán could not have imagined even in their wildest dreams. And yet Fidel Castro’s death became trending on Facebook with more than 1 million people talking about him.
How will I remember this towering figure of world politics ? A revolutionary hero and a liberator of the oppressed, or a mass murdering tyrant and a ruthless homophobic dictator, or “I don’t care”.
But as I introspect, it is more important to ask, whether I will remember him at all? ‘I’ - the individual ‘I’, myself; and the collective ‘I’, millions of people of my generation across the globe. The answer, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, is tilted towards the negative.
How did I react to Fidel Castro’s death? I wrote a couple of posts on Facebook, shared a couple of memes. Then I went back to my usual routine. But then again, THIS IS my usual routine, so I did not actually go back to anything. I remained in the loop I exist - surviving, posting on social-media, surviving again.
My response to Fidel Castro’s death was not anything different than my response to David Bowie’s death, or Alan Rickman’s death or Harambe’s death. A couple of posts, a couple of memes. The loop. My loop. Our loop.
Then a few hours later I went back to the Netflix TV show Black Mirror. “Oh man, the last episode was fucking awesome.” I mean, Fidel Castro is cool, but I am not going to sacrifice the safe nest I have in the middle of this nice little consumer-centered world. US imperialism? Common man, nobody talks about that kind of stuff anymore except Sassy Socialist Memes and articles on The Economist whose headlines are the only part I read when they appear on my newsfeed. But you should totally listen to this awesome meme I came across about Fidel Castro: After 638 assassination attempts, CIA finally finds a weapon that killed Castro —OLD AGE.
From tomorrow, Fidel Castro will move down the trending chart. On Facebook, on Twitter. By the end of this week, he will disappear. The internet will move on to other things. In other words, the internet will continue to become the internet. Kim Kardashian’s boob size. Taylor Swift’s breakup. Donald’s Trump’s new rant. New robot that can behave like humans. New hashtag challenge.
Fidel Castro will continue to live in mentions in the comments section wars. The ‘Fidel Castro regime’ will be talked about in op-eds and political analysis articles. College activists and campus hipsters will continue mentioning him sometimes. Not much beyond that.
But the Fidel Castro-esque idea of revolution will fade away into a different notion of revolution.
I will not stream a new TV show. My revolution would be to illegally download it from a torrent sharing site. I will not seek to radically destroy the world order. My revolution would be to create a new successful startup and then proclaim in a TED Talk that a great résumé is not necessary the change the world. I will not stop participating in a conference sponsored by a company that fuels the war in Middle East. My revolution would be to share posts of empathy for Syrian refugees and “ISIS have lost, humanity have won”.
Every once in a while I will break free from this loop to write article like this. Maybe more than just once in a while. But that is a part of a greater loop. I will not become a part of Fidel’s plan for liberating/destroying the globe. I will not pose any significant threat to authority. I will only pose a minor threat. Not even a threat. Common man, I too love Netflix and chill.
I will watch Netflix. I will watch Christopher Nolan. I will watch a porn every two days maybe. I will Sometimes argue with friends and parents on the need for greater individual liberty. By that I actually mean how to get laid in an easier way. I will need to check my notifications everyday, because I sometimes preach nihilism but goddammit I gotta check my notifications. AND the memes. That is life. Don’t try to destroy that sense of well being by texting me Game of Thrones spoilers.