The ups and downs of history

Those of us who were born in the 1940s experienced unprecedented advances and setbacks within a few decades. I grew up during the boom of capitalism, in its long, expansive cycle, in the post-World War II era, when industrialization and urbanization promised a better, more comfortable world, with more jobs and greater global integration, where progress seemed limitless.

The decade that began with the Cuban Revolution continued with the Algerian Revolution, the barricades of May 1968, the Cultural Revolution in China, Che Guevara's legacy, the Black civil rights movements in the United States, the victory of the Revolution in Vietnam, and the victory of the Sandinista Revolution. It seemed as if the world was turning a page with no turning back, a definitive crisis, the exhaustion of capitalism and the hegemony of American imperialism, the exhaustion of the Soviet model of socialism, and the projection of the Global South as the future of humanity.

My first task as a political activist was to distribute a small leftist newspaper, which featured a photo of some bearded men who had overthrown a dictatorship in Central America – at that time, the Caribbean didn't yet exist. More or less quickly, that anti-dictatorship movement soon transformed into a nationalist, anti-imperialist, and socialist revolution, until it became, in the true sense of the word, a Revolution for my generation and for others, in the heart of Latin America.

Latin American guerrilla movements appeared as a continuation of the Cuban victory until, among other attempts, a new guerrilla victory was achieved ten years later in Nicaragua.

The same year, 1979—the year of the Sandinista victory, the Iranian Revolution, the installation of a progressive government in Grenada, another in Suriname, and Fidel's election as president of the Non-Aligned Movement—would also mark an unprecedented turning point in contemporary history. While it was the year of so many of the aforementioned advances, symbolized by the demoralizing withdrawal of the United States from Iran, it also saw two major events with negative consequences: the Iran-Iraq War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The 1973 crisis had forced the major Western countries, which were the largest consumers of oil, to seek alternative energy sources and change the way vehicles circulated, due to the enormous and abrupt increase in the price of oil. There was talk of solar energy and small cars that consumed less gasoline.

But the Western bloc's solution came from another angle: fomenting war between the two largest powers in the Middle East, Iraq and Iran. A savage war that broke the unity of the Arab world—which had led to the rise in oil prices in 1973 and the strong claim for Palestinian rights—and neutralized the political power of both countries. This action was complemented by the first Iraq war, when the United States definitively established itself in the region, guaranteeing the supply of oil at low prices.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan emerged as another controversial issue, dividing the Non-Aligned Movement and weakening Fidel's presidency.

The more moderate government of Jimmy Carter, after the fall of Richard Nixon, failed, giving way to a new Cold War, promoted by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which led to the dizzying rise of neoliberalism in the world.