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'To
discover Fidel Castro the person'
'…the most intense
moment of my professional career'
Manuel Alberto Ramy
talks briefly with Ignacio Ramonet
"It was two o'clock in
the morning and we had spent hours chatting. We were in his private office. An
austere room, large, with high ceiling, with large windows covered by
light-colored curtains that opened onto a large terrace from which I could see
one of Havana's main boulevards. ... On the shelves or on small tables at both
ends of the sofa were a bust in bronze of the 'Apostol' José Martí, as well as a
statue of Simón Bolívar, another of Sucre and a bust of Abraham Lincoln. In a
corner, a wire sculpture of Don Quixote atop Rocinante."
Thus begins the
introduction to the book "One Hundred Hours With Fidel," by the French-Spanish
writer and journalist Ignacio Ramonet, editor of the prestigious newspaper Le
Monde Diplomatique. "One Hundred Hours With Fidel" is a thrilling book, weaved
by the hands of the mythical Cuban leader and an inquisitive and sharp
intellectual -- Ramonet.
I take advantage of the
writer's visit to Havana to participate in the celebration of his interviewee's
80th birthday and steal a few minutes of his time to satisfy a very personal
curiosity: "One Hundred Hours With Fidel" consists of letters in chronological
order, beautifully written paragraphs, hitherto-unknown anecdotes, historical
precisions, revealing answers. But beyond the words themselves, how much of
himself did Fidel Castro leave in Ramonet?
Ignacio Ramonet (IR):
He is a personality with an immense political experience, a personality with an
immense understanding of international politics. On the other hand, it was an
occasion for me to reconstruct with him his life and reconstruct 60 years of
international history. To me, that was indisputably the most intense moment of
my professional career.
Manuel Alberto Ramy
(MAR): From the human point
of view, what impacted you the most?
IR:
Well, maybe I knew Fidel intellectually,
although I knew his discourse quite well and knew that behind that political
intelligence stood a person, a sensitive person. But perhaps one of the most
important impressions was to discover Fidel Castro the person, through all that
experience. His persona, his personality, his humaneness, his sensitivity when
broaching a subject. And I think that, in the book, that becomes transparently
clear, to a degree.
In other words, when a
reader plunges into this long conversation, I think he or she will get the
feeling of conversing with him. And the reader will be conversing with a
sensitive person, not with someone in stratospheric heights who is beyond
anybody's reach. Just a very sensitive and very simple person.
MAR:
My last question: Do you believe that Fidel Castro already has transcended into
history?
IR:
Well, I think that any person who reads the book will see that it deals with one
of the most important and most aware actors in contemporary history. I think it
is very difficult -- in the political-intellectual field, in the
political-international field -- to be able to talk about so many different
subjects dealing with politics, with economics, with the ecology, with society,
with culture, and in that sense I think that Fidel is in a category of political
leadership that has few peers, that has had few peers. In other words, he is a
great intellectual and a great political leader. That also has contributed to
the exceptional aspect of my experience as a journalist.
Manuel Alberto Ramy
is bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa in Havana and editor of Progreso
Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
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