Cuba's Fidel Castro

A ghost reappears

Fidel’s return is a mixed blessing for his brother

| Havana

As I was saying when I was interrupted

“IT WAS a surprise. A month ago I had assumed he was dead,” said Hector, an art student in Havana. He had just watched Fidel Castro speak at Cuba’s National Assembly on August 7th. It was the first appearance by the former president on live television since he underwent intestinal surgery in 2006. Mr Castro, who turns 84 this week, had to be helped to his seat at the podium. In contrast to the endless diatribes of the past, this one lasted just 11 minutes, though he stayed for an hour of debate. His theme was his latest apocalyptic vision: that conflict between the United States and Iran could escalate into nuclear war. At times he was difficult to follow. But the message was clear enough. After four years as a near-recluse, Mr Castro is back—and at a time of unusual difficulty for the regime he created.

The speech followed a string of cameo appearances by Fidel, such as visiting an aquarium and talking to biotechnologists. These began the day before the announcement last month that Cuba would free 52 political prisoners. They seemed designed to distract attention from this unusual gesture of weakness from the Communist government, to which it resorted to allay criticism abroad after the death of a hunger striker in February.

In that sense Fidel’s reappearance and recovery is a boost for his younger brother, Raúl, who took over from him and was formally elevated to the presidency in 2008. But in other ways it is a complication. The charisma gene in the Castro family missed out Raúl. Even though he has instigated some timid reforms which Cubans welcome (such as allowing them to own cellphones, and legally to buy building materials), he is not a popular president. That may in part be the result of earlier efforts by the revolution’s propagandists. Since the 1960s, Cubans have been encouraged to see Fidel as the idealist, and Raúl, long the defence minister, as the dour enforcer.

At the National Assembly the two men sat apart, and seemed to avoid eye contact. Fidel Castro, who is still the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, made no mention of his brother, or of domestic issues. These had been the subject of Raúl’s own, longer, address to the assembly the previous week. In it he made his most withering criticism yet of the slumbering economy. Whilst making it clear he had no intention of pushing the island towards capitalism, he also said he was determined that Cuba should no longer be seen “as the only country in the world where it is not necessary to work”.

Officials have decided that around a million people, or a fifth of the workforce, are “unproductive”. They may have to seek other jobs. Raúl said the government would make it easier for Cubans to be self-employed, and even to employ others in small businesses. An experiment begun earlier this year, in which hairdressers in state barbers’ shops have been allowed to work for themselves, is likely to be extended to other parts of the economy.

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Cuba of its subsidies, Fidel Castro allowed foreign investment and small businesses. But he reversed much of this opening once he found a new benefactor in Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Raúl Castro is more pragmatic, and as president has taken some steps to decentralise economic decision-making to state firms and regional party leaders. Several economists in Havana argue that Fidel, even while convalescent, has continued to slow the pace of change.

The assumption is that the brothers have worked out a division of labour, in which Fidel will expound on global issues and let his brother govern. In his public appearances he has seemed fit, if doddery and occasionally forgetful. His speech to the assembly referred to the Soviet Union in the present tense.

Fidel has long insisted that “revolutionaries never retire”. He may find it hard to resist a return to centre stage, and that would only undermine Raúl. “Our tragicomedy continues” whispered a waiter in a Havana hotel.