CUBA: Early Deification

The face in the portrait was clearly Fidel Castro’s, but the pose was a new one. A halo circled the dark curls, the lips were parted as though in prayer, the eyes were cast to heaven, the brow furrowed under a burden of sorrows. Inevitably it called to mind the picture of Jesus Christ that hangs above the bed in all proper Latin American bedrooms. Just so that no one would miss the point, Cuba’s weekly magazine Bohemia, where the picture appeared, added a block of explanatory text: “This is not the Fidel that the barbudos know. It is not a picture of Fidel as he is physically; it is Fidel as he is seen spiritually by the great portion of the people of Cuba. It is, probably, a fleeting enlightenment captured on paper of that tremendous hope of God when he wanted to make man in his image.”