By Farooq Sulehria
Fidel Castro finds beards a practical advantage: “You don’t have to shave every day. If you multiply the fifteen minutes you spend shaving every day by the number of days in a year, you’ll see that you devote almost 5,500 minutes to shaving. An eight-hour workday consists of 480 minutes, so if you don’t shave you gain about ten days a year that you can devote to work, to reading, to sports or to whatever you like.”
But having a beard is more than saving time. Cuban revolutionaries let their beards grow out also as a symbol of the Cuban revolution. Castro describes how it happened: “We didn’t have any razor blades, or straight razors. When we found ourselves in the middle of the wilderness, up in the Sierra, everybody just let their beards and hair grow, and that turned into a kind of badge of identity. For the campesinos and everybody else, for the press, for the reporters we were ‘los barbudos’ – ‘the bearded ones.’ The positive side was that in order for a spy to infiltrate us, he had to start preparing months ahead — he’d have to have a six-month’s beard growth, you see. So the beards served as a badge of identification, and as protection, until it finally became a symbol of the guerilla fighter. Later, with the triumph of the Revolution, we kept our beards to preserve the symbolism.”
But such symbolism is blasphemy in the newly founded “Emirate of Swat,” the north of Pakistan or Pakistani Tribal Areas practically governed by the Taliban Movement of Pakistan (TTM). There centuries-old Buddhist sites are being dynamited while the beard is mandatory. The standard-obligatory size is 7 cm. A man who shaves is fined Rs. 500 and twenty lashes in public. The mandatory beard in Swat or Tribal Areas (better renamed Troubled Areas) is not an attempt to gain ten days that can be in turn devoted to work or reading. Neither reading nor work is a priority in the “Emirate of Swat.” Schools are regularly blown up to save future generations from such an indulgence as reading. Work has been brought to a grinding halt so that the faithful can devote all their time to prayer.
Terrorism, assassinations, executions
Over the past forty years there have been more than 3,500 deaths in Cuba from terrorist attacks. Almost 2,000 more have been injured for life. These terrorist acts are mostly planned in Florida by groups like Alpha 66 and Omega 7. They are funded by the USA while some $68.2 million have been sent to Cuban “dissidents.” NGOs such as the National Endowment Fund and USAID pay journalists across the globe to spread disinformation about Cuba. Almost 600 plans were hatched to finish off Castro. Cuba, in turn, has never ever sponsored any terrorist activity against the USA.
In fact, Cuba even invited George Bush to Havana for a debate! Castro promised to fill the Plaza de la Revolucion with people and put up loudspeakers throughout in the county so that Bush or any other leader could convince the Cuban people. As far as the American people are concerned, Cuba’s policy, according to Castro, is: “Never has the Revolution blamed the American people, although at a certain point a vast majority of American citizens were persuaded that everything that was said against Cuba was true, that we were a threat to the security of the United Sates, and so on and so on. Cuba welcomes Americans with the greatest of respect and with no insults or affronts whatsoever.”
But in Pakistan, Americans, and even their infidel European cousins, better stay away. The Taliban made an example of Daniel Pearl (and the European Piotr Stancza), demonstrating the risk involved in visiting. To widely circulate their message, the confessional beards filmed the butchery inflicted on Daniel Pearl and posted it on Jihadist sites.
The beards twice bombed the US Consulate in Karachi (on 28 February 2003 and again on 2 March 2006). They attacked the Pak-American Cultural Centre and the residence of Consul General’s in Karachi (on May 26, 2004). The US Consulate’s Principal Officer, Lynne Tracy, was ambushed in Peshawar. After the recent attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, even South Asians are advised to think before they dare visit. The Chinese, having their engineers and technicians kidnapped, learnt their lesson to keep their distance.
Laws of war
In their guerilla struggle, the Cubans committed neither assassinations nor terrorism. No attempt was made on the life of Cuban dictator General Batista. “No war is ever won through terrorism. It’s that simple”, says Castro. His reasoning is that if you employ terrorism, you earn the opposition, hatred and rejection of those whom you need in order to win the war. But also “there are principles that are elementary in war and politics. Those who fell prisoner or surrendered were respected.” To those accusing Cuban revolutionaries of violating human rights, Castro responds: “I defy you to find a single case of execution; I defy you to find a single case of torture.”
During fifteen years of guerilla struggle, not a single person was assassinated. “Let people name a single prisoner, throughout that whole fifteen years, who was executed by Cuban forces. Not a single one! [Find one] and I will shut my mouth for the rest of my life,” Castro asserted. The Cuban guerillas shared their medical supplies, despite their scarcity, with their enemy’s wounded.