The first friend I made at Lawrenceville School was called Reuben Batista, eldest son of the Cuban strongman. He was older and in a ‘Circle house’, whereas I was in lower school. Being foreigners gave us something in common, the rest of the school being mostly Wasps with a few Catholics thrown in for good measure.
By the time I met Reuben in 1949 his father Fulgencio had been in power off and on for a couple of decades. Havana was a paradise if one was rich, liked easy women, rum drinks and flashy nightclubs and casinos. The ruling class was predominately white and of Spanish extraction, the poor underclass was mostly black with African roots. The disparity in wealth was shocking even back in those times, yet there was a sweetness to life in Cuba back then, one that was lost on 1 January 1959. In fact, Cuba had the highest standard of living, I think, in all of South America, and its architecture alone made the island the jewel of the Caribbean.
I had visited Cuba a couple of times before Castro and found the people among the nicest in the region. Batista was always referred to as a dictator, which he was, but it was the most benevolent of regimes. In my young and limited experience, I never got the impression that the people were afraid to voice their opinions. I had some good friends, like the Garrido brothers, both Wimbledon players who were poor but comfortable, and who had shown me around when I was in Havana.
Now, as everyone knows, there are certain things that are set in stone, for example, Batista bad, Castro good. The fact that people voted against Castro by leaving the island in their millions with only the clothes on their backs does not matter. The executions, the torture, the jailing of homosexuals, the totalitarian regime do not matter to the press nor to the academy. Castro was a man of the left, hence he was and is good. Fifty-three years later the song is still the same. Castro and his brother are still the darlings of professors and media types. One thing is for sure: Castro knew which noises to make and how to stay popular with intellectuals the world over. Take, for example, what he did in order to publicise his revolution, one that had as yet not succeeded.
It was the late Fifties, and there was a Grand Prix for sports cars in Havana. My friend Porfirio Rubirosa was then the Dominican Republic’s ambassador to Cuba, and had a hand grenade thrown into his garden early on the morning of the race. The Dominican strongman, Leonidas Trujillo, ex-father-in-law of Rubi, was a Castro enemy. Rubirosa’s young French wife, Odile, claimed afterwards that she and Rubi were making love, otherwise they would have been in the garden and been killed. Chalk one up for sex. Before the race, too. The great Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio was also racing in a Mercedes, but had been kidnapped by Castro’s men that morning.
Nevertheless the race went on. Rubi spun out early and retired. (I suppose his co-ordination was not what it should have been.) The kidnapping of the five times world champion had made headlines around the world. But then, just after the race, Fangio suddenly appeared, fresh and, in his own words, well taken care of. ‘They were very polite and asked me to excuse them,’ was all he said.
Castro knew his audience well. By treating Fangio with kid gloves he showed the world what a kind and understanding person he was; one who only sought justice and freedom and publicity for his holy cause. A year or two later he was master of the island and a hero of the left. Which brings me to the Grand Prix of Bahrain, which took place last Sunday.
Bahrain is a hellhole run by one family that is Sunni versus 70 per cent of the population which is Shiite. Inspired by the revolutions further north last year, the non-have Shiites rose up against the feudal so-called royals. In came the Saudis, with a thousand armoured personnel carriers and troops. We all know the result. The Grand Prix, needless to say, went ahead, a very bad thing as far as I’m concerned because it shows just how greedy people can be. What I was hoping for was that the protesters would kidnap not a driver, but the big chief himself, none other than my Gstaad neighbour, Bernie Ecclestone. But there was a problem. Bernie is no Fangio. I suppose he’s a hero to his family, but that’s about all. Perhaps Khalifa, the ruling camel owner, might have paid, but we all know how tight these camel drivers can be.
Mind you, the publicity would have been enormous, and it would have somehow dampened the Saudi stand as freedom lovers, one that has the Saudi ruling camel drivers posturing against Assad in Syria. It’s all so phony it makes me want to puke. The Saudis and the Qataris standing up for freedom in Syria? At least Syrian women are allowed to drive, and there is a large Christian and Druze community with full rights. Castro put homosexuals in jail, the Saudis are known to murder them. And after 53 years of hell, I’ll still take Havana over Manama and Riyadh any time.
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