The Castro-Obama Handshake:What If It Was Sincere?

From paradise, with the great figures of his time, Nelson Mandela did not have to deny himself the pleasure: During the celebrations paying tribute to the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the handshake between Barack Obama and Raul Castro was one of the strong moments of a rainy and neverending ceremony. The image might induce a smile, or seem like a bluff, a simple, mundane tussle related to the circumstances. It can also be taken in light of the Cuban situation.

Raul Castro, lifetime overseer of a dying, tropical dictatorship, is desperately trying to take the country out of communism to avoid his people drowning. He dreams of a peaceful transition — one he cannot bring about without U.S. support, especially from the Miami-Cuban community. Raul must conduct this task almost secretly in order to escape the thunderbolts of the iconic Fidel, who, 50 years ago, could have been the Nelson Mandela of socialism and is now just an old, retirement-age tyrant, tired and bad-tempered, a Tirano Banderas clinging to a decaying myth.

In the Johannesburg stadium, Raul Castro jumped at the opportunity to send the world a message. The “Barack-high five” was without a doubt a very important step toward the end of an absurd cold war between the world superpower and Tom Thumb-sized* Cuba, a Caribbean satellite slowly sinking in the ocean of poverty, several miles off Key West.

This “Castrobama party” should not make us forget that Democratic U.S. presidents have always extended a hand to the Castro brothers, every time reducing a little more the embargo from the 1962 Soviet “Missile Crisis” era. For Washington, the Cuban affair is not a matter of foreign policy but of domestic policy. The island is just an appendix to Florida, which has become Cuban itself thanks to immigrants fleeing the military dictatorship and then occupying key administrative jobs related to the economy and politics of the southernmost state. Raul Castro knows this.

A bloodless transition, without trials against their own, has swept through Miami, even among those who, only 20 years ago, from the shores of Miami Beach, dreamed of an expeditious revenge against the Castros. Now, the times have changed. Mandela’s spirit could well have won over these victims of an antediluvian tyranny.

And, what if the handshake was true? What if it was a sincere gesture? What if Raul Castro, indefatigable persecutor of the defenders of freedom of expression, who led the Castro army with an iron fist for half a century, was “contaminated” by the Johannesburg ceremony “virus”? As Mandela would say, one must always hope …

Editor’s note: Tom Thumb is a fairy tale character who is small.