The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, made a great contribution to the culture of political excellence and the consolidation of democracy in Cuba, according to the Canadian author Arnold August.
In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina, the renowned intellectual and a passionate expert on Fidel's work and Cuba's revolutionary process, pointed out that since January 1, 1959, the people have exercised power through a political system built after Fulgencio Batista's defeat.
In recent years, he said, I have had the opportunity to read the official transcripts of almost all of Fidel's speeches, from 1959 to 1960, from which I have gathered very useful information for my work.
'That is why, I always say that Cuba does not need any transition to democracy, because that process started after the revolutionary triumph over a dictatorship that was always supported politically, economically and militarily by the United States,' August added.
In his visits to Cuba over the past few years, August has had the opportunity to verify on site the functioning of the country's democratic system, a vision that he has enriched through many interviews and conversations with Cuban experts, officials and the people.
He added that since the students' struggles in which he participated in the mid-1960s, he has followed the examples of Fidel and the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, whose images accompanied him in demonstrations 'against the Vietnam War and to condemn imperialist policies'.
One of the main objectives of those protests was to end the myth that western-style democracy, particularly that of the United States, is the only benchmark for other nations.
An example of the dysfunctional nature of the U.S. democratic process is the presidential election on November 8, 2016, when Donald Trump defeated his Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton. I could see the way Trump´s increased presence climbed by appearing on U.S. media continuously as they repeated his name and statements, August noted. The Canadian intellectual admitted that he was wrong too, as well as many experts, when he thought that Clinton would be the winner, although there were few options for the U.S. people to choose the lesser of two evils. Against all predictions, the New York real estate tycoon was elected.
Trump's victory raised strong protests by millions of people, not only in the United States but in other parts of the world; however, those kinds of demonstrations, according to August, although they were duly justified, barely took place during the administration of President Barack Obama.
During the Obama government, Washington was involved in nearly a dozen wars, in addition to supporting, like other previous presidents, allies who were committing crimes such as Israel's genocidal campaigns against the Palestinian people.
Obama took office with support from broad sectors of the U.S. establishment that 'were interested in replacing the face of the imperialist system' with a friendly face for the black and immigrant population.
However, his administration broke the record of deportations of undocumented immigrants, and racial violence and the impunity of those responsible for those crimes against African-Americans escalated.
Regarding Cuba-U.S. relations, August pointed out that it was always clear that the policy change announced by Obama on December 17, 2014, still had as the objective to subvert Cuba's domestic order and change its political system.
He added that he is convinced that it will be President Trump's goal too: to destroy the Cuban Revolution, although there is a chance that the new head of State maintains part of the achievements that the two countries have made over the past few months.
'A change within the change' that Obama made is likely to happen, and transformations may take place in the White House's usual rhetoric regarding human rights and the search for what Trump promised as a 'better agreement' with Cuba, although it would always be aimed at destroying the revolutionary process, he stressed.
August visited Cuba in the framework of the 26th International Book Fair, at which Canada was the guest country, and participated in the panel on Fidel, Politics and Culture, as part of the tributes paid to the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution.