LEADING
MEXICAN NEWSPAPER INTERVIEWS
SRI LANKAN AMBASSADOR DAYAN JAYATILLEKA
ON FIDEL CASTRO BOOK
The Permanent Mission of
Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva
23rd November 2007
The premier Mexican newspaper La Jornada has carried an interview with
Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, conducted by its correspondent Kyra Nunez, on
the subject of Cuban President Fidel Castro and Jayatilleka's new book
on him. Datelined November 16th and appearing in the Cultural Section
of La Jornada of November 17th, the article in Spanish carries the quadruple-decker
title (of which the English translation follows):
"He is the more relevant political
thinker born in the 20th century" says
Dayan Jayatilleka to "La Jornada"
Fidel Castro contributed an Alternative Ethic of Rebellion and Resistance
The Sri Lankan ambassador in Geneva reflects on the trajectory of the
Cuban leader in a book.
"He has never questioned the right of the oppressed
to exercise violence"
Kyra Nunez, the interviewer, has met and talked to Fidel Castro
several times since the 1970s. Her article reads as follows:
Geneva, November 16th. He has never spoken with Fidel Castro Ruz and
has only seen him in documentaries, films and on television news. Nevertheless,
from the age of six and mostly during the years of underground militancy
in his native Sri Lanka, the present Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka has
been fascinated with the personality whom he calls "the greatest
political thinker born in 20th century" who has given an ethical
and moral dimension to Marxism and mainly, to the exercise of violence.
"Castro contributed an alternative ethic of rebellion and resistance,
as exemplified in his explicit behaviour of not targeting non-combatants
because the life of an unarmed or disarmed person must be sacred to
all", argues Jayatilleka in his book Fidel's Ethics of violence:
the moral dimension of the political thought of Fidel Castro, published
in November (Pluto Press, London, 2007).
"Fidelismo is an example of modernity, rationality and militancy,"
added the author, during an interview with La Jornada at the headquarters
of the Sri Lankan delegation in the Office of the United Nations in
Geneva.
In his study of the political thought of Castro Ruz, Jayatilleka placed
it as the third platform between the pacifism of Gandhi or the tactical
violence of Mandela, and the indiscriminate violence of armed movements
which he illustrated by using the attacks of Hezbollah against the Israeli
cities as an example. He says with blunt, convincing words: "Fidel
would have never approved a similar act - under no circumstance regardless
of the gravity of the provocation." He insists that in Fidelismo,
atrocity is not even known - neither on a national scale in the armed
struggle for liberation, nor in Castro's revolutionary internationalism.
"Had it engaged a crime, for example a crime in Angola, the western
mass media would have been devoted to exposing and denouncing it before
the Human Rights Commission and the present Human Rights Council of
the UN."
The book Fidel's ethics of violence has several objectives of which
this author emphasizes two. First is the evaluation of Fidel's personality
as the greatest living political thinker and political leader, who has
had universal influence. The second is the analysis of the exercise
of violence in Castro from the strategic and philosophical standpoint.
"What differentiates Fidel, Che and the Cuban Revolution from other
leaders and armed movements of liberation has been that violence has
not been unrestricted or unpunished". We have never seen in Cuba
that which we see in the Middle East, in Lebanon, in Palestine.
Two forms of violence have been used from time immemorial: one is its
exercise without limitation, because "the end justifies the means";
and the other is dictated by ethical and moral elements.
Fidel has never questioned the right of the oppressed to exercise violence,
but always respecting the important nature of the civil and civilian;
that is to say, without causing the death of innocents, mistreatment
of prisoners, and summary executions.
This explicit moral and ethical dimension could correct the "spiritual
crisis" which runs through the ideology of revolutionary Marxism.
This ethical and moral dimension did not exist in Marxism, thus the
reason for it being Fidel's most novel scientific contribution. The
problem of the moral dimension of violence began to loom large with
the Cultural Revolution in China and Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia.
It was the Cuban [Fidel Castro], who weighed revolutionary violence
in proportion, between the good and bad, right and wrong. This active
philosophy allowed Cuba to stay revolutionary and Fidelismo to become
one of humanity's best influences. For that reason the island has not
fallen back on itself, as what happened to North Korea, nor has it converted
to capitalism.
Part of the argumentation of Jayatilleka was based on the comparison
of ethical and moral violence with both terrorist war and the 'war on
terrorism'. He insisted during our encounter, in which the comparative
examples are abundant, "9/11 makes the contrast more acute".
Jayatilleka arrived at the appointment with La Jornada with the biography
of Fidel, coinciding with the publication of his Fidel's Ethics of Violence,
but he affirmed that he is not promoting the cult of the personality
- which Castro opposes fervently, according to the book. He "presented
the leader as a great political thinker, a great political philosopher,
who will still be more relevant when he no longer exists", adding
that Fidel is most approximate to what Nietzsche called "the higher
man".
In the 200 pages consecrated to the political thought of Castro there
is no mention of the Cuban Diaspora in Miami. In this respect, the author
remembered that it is in manifestations in the streets of that city,
where the flag of the United States has been dishonoured and burned,
not in Havana! The new Cuban generation in Miami would have to revalue
the figure of Fidel, to recognize that he is part of their roots; their
patrimony.
Web link: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/11/17/index.php?section=cultura&article=a06n1cul
The interview on Fidel in La Jornada comes days after Granma, the official
organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, carried
in its National edition (digital) of Nov 12-13, a lengthy essay by Dr
Jayatilleka on the 40th death anniversary of Ernesto Che Guevara. That
essay was featured on the front page of Granma as a boxed item under
the caption 'Lo Ultimo', The Last Word, and illustrated by the iconic
photograph of Che. (http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2007/11/12/index.html)
Meanwhile, Jayatilleka's book which was released in the UK and US in
November 2007 has earned positive initial reactions from well-known
Latin American specialists in Western academia.
"Breaks new ground", "makes us sit up and take notice",
"rigour and erudition" are among the phrases used by top Latin
Americanists Prof. Tony Kapcia and Dr Julia Buxton, in their comments
which accompany the book.
'In this lucid analysis of the moral and ethical dimensions of Castro's
thought, Jayatilleka breaks new ground. His book introduces new dimensions
to our understanding of one of the most influential political figures
of our time, while providing important insights into broader philosophical
questions relating to violence, political power and morality ' writes
Dr Julia Buxton, Visiting Professor at the Centre for Latin American
Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington
DC, USA. She is also Senior Research Fellow, Department of Peace Studies,
University of Bradford, UK, and has published extensively on Venezuela,
including The Failure of Political Reform in Venezuela (Ashgate 2001).
Professor Tony Kapcia, head of the Hispanic and Latin American Studies
Department at the University of Nottingham, Visiting Professor at the
University of Havana (1999), author of Cuba, Island of Dreams (Berg
2000), President of the Society of Latin American Studies (SLAS) and
an editor of its journal the Bulletin of Latin American Research, opines
of Dayan Jayatilleka's book that:
'In the overcrowded and partisan field of studies of Cuba and of Fidel
Castro, it is not often that a genuinely new approach comes along that
makes us sit up and take notice. Thankfully, this is one such. In a
challenging argument, that is carried through with rigour and erudition,
this book takes us beyond the clichés of authoritarianism or
charisma to an analysis of Castro's thought (at a particularly significant
time) that brings in paradigms from outside the Cuban context and which
force us to address conventional wisdoms about the much misunderstood
leader.'
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