Word: fideles
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...embargo, in place for 32 years, comes across to Cubans as an attempt to starve them into bringing Castro down. As the rigors of the "special period" worsen, Fidel has appealed to Cuba's fierce nationalism and its image of itself as a David fighting Goliath. He has made Uncle Sam the scapegoat for the country's economic disaster. Sophisticated citizens may not buy the argument, but at a visceral level it has helped reinforce Cubans' siege mentality. Congress's decision last year to toughen the embargo by barring foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with the island embitters...
Travel around the island for two weeks and the lasting impression is the same: Cuba may be falling apart, but Fidel is not falling with it. Through a combination of charisma, national pride and repression, he still holds the island's fate in his hands...
...astonishing degree, people have separated their discontent with the way things are from the man in charge. Fidel can continue to count on a deep reserve of support from a populace proud that he freed the island from the foreigners who once owned the casinos and the sugar fields and the rich who exploited the poor. "He is like the godfather who will always look after you," says historian Blanco. Things may be hard now, say three elderly ladies in a party-run senior citizens' center in El Cobre, but thanks to Fidel, "somos feliz. We are happy...
Cubans take as fierce a pride in their revolutionary heroes as Americans do in the men of 1776: they are the nation's embodiments of freedom and independence. Che Guevara is their Lafayette, Fidel their George Washington. "He has a place in people's hearts that goes far beyond the Communist Party or government structure," observes mining executive McGuinty...
Bone-thin after four years of declining rations, Mario Caballero, a 52-year- old school administrator in Santiago de Cuba, is one of the older generation whose faith in Fidel is well-nigh religious. If his rhetoric recalls communist dogma of the '50s, it still reflects sentiments deeply etched in the Cuban soul. "Before, our best land was Yankee. The sugar was Yankee. The electric system was Yankee. The phones were Yankee." Never mind that the sugar crop is failing for the second year, that electricity and phones rarely work. "We may be living through a special period," he says...