Abstract
In this study, I analyse an exceptional case of international political communication, in which the President of one nation writes directly to the people of another, outside the normal diplomatic channels. I study two missives addressed by Cuban President Fidel Castro to the Mexican people during a situation of conflict between their two countries. They take the form of letters published through the Mexican press. After analysing the context in which Castro’s letters appear, I examine the main discursive characteristics of the texts. The analysis includes speech acts, modality and the persons mentioned in the text. My findings reveal the political intent of these messages: to influence the Mexican political agenda, repositioning Cuba both with respect to the Mexican authorities and leftist politics in Latin America.
Introduction
It is not a common practice for the heads of state to address in writing the people of another nation with which their country maintains relations, thus bypassing normal diplomatic channels. 1 On more than one occasion, however, the Cuban President Fidel Castro (1976–2008; Prime Minister 1959–1976) sent written messages to the people of Mexico, which have appeared in the Mexican press. This happened at moments of political crisis between Cuba and Mexico. These messages, while infrequent (we are conscious of one published in the Mexican press in 1998 and another in 2004, as will be discussed) have been highly effective in terms of their political resonance, specifically through their presence in the media. The two messages constitute a special kind of discursive practice of rare occurrence, applied to political discourse in the media, a practice which requires very specific pragmatic conditions. Both messages resolved political crises arising from earlier speeches by Castro (henceforth referred to as FC) concerning Mexico, in which he took a stance against US imperialism. In this article, I analyse the discourse of these messages in order to more clearly understand their political characteristics and which objectives they achieved in the relations between these two countries of the global South. 2
Theoretical and analytical considerations
At a pragmatic level, I look at the conditions of production of these messages, which in turn require consideration of the media: at the time, the press was the instrument which ensured wide distribution of the messages, thereby fulfilling their desired objective. At the textual level, the structure and form of the discourse generate the intended meanings which circulate either globally or locally and will be interpreted in various ways. In the discourse examples that I consider, these levels work together to construct communicative episodes emerging from the discourse and the communicative situation (Van Dijk, 2008).
Pragmatic conditions
The heads of state address usually their own people. When they mention international issues in public, they generally do it on home ground (in a press conference, for example), or on the occasion of a state visit, or in an interview. To the degree that their message is considered relevant in the country referred to, it will have repercussions in the press and government of that country. In proportion to the political and economic power of a given country on the international stage, the speeches and addresses of its figures of authority will merit greater or lesser attention in other countries. The words of the US Presidents, especially when they refer to international issues, are extensively reported and commented upon in the international media.
The enemies of the United States and of the established world order also receive attention in the Western press to the extent that they are perceived as threats. Thus, during more than half century since the revolutionary government of Cuba took power (1959), Cuban politics has warranted special focus in the Western world. Cuba became an actor and an important factor on the international stage originally as the only member of the Socialist bloc in the Americas. Cuban politics became international news particularly in the United States and Latin America.
The extent to which a head of state’s address to another nation is effective and favourably received is related to its content and to extra-discursive circumstances: the balance of power between the two countries and the prevailing image of the head of state in question. In the case of Mexico and Cuba during the period we are concerned with, the balance of power did not lie in Cuba’s favour, but rather the contrary. Nevertheless, we must remember that the image of FC, who had governed for almost five decades, had a considerable historical impact, and he was still seen as a figurehead for revolutionary causes throughout Latin America. He enjoyed the political image of a popular leader, an enemy of the United States and a victim of the policies of that country.
The ‘people’ of a nation is a preferred audience for the public discourse of figures of authority. As a denotative term, it is broad and general. As we know, the term has a long tradition in political discourse, whether revolutionary, democratic or civic in character, and whether rightist or leftist (Bolívar, 2009; Charaudeau, 2009; Fairclough, 2001). Addressing the ‘people’ helps legitimate the figure of authority. In addressing a people different from his own, the only channel of communication open to FC was the media. 3
The main discursive act, or macro speech act, of a speaker places speaker and addressee(s) in a specific relationship of power. A threat or a warning establishes a different power relationship than an apology. Both of FC’s messages are expressly addressed to the Mexican people as an apology, thus placing the Cuban leader in an ostensibly subordinate position. 4 An apology is a recognition that a mistake has been committed, which on the one hand affects the speaker’s image; on the other hand, it also serves to vindicate him.
The impact and repercussions of a head of state’s address to another country will of course depend on its coverage and treatment in the media. In various studies on the way one country’s press represents the political discourse of another, we have noted how this discourse is habitually transformed to adapt it to, or bring it into line with, a different enunciative scene with a different set of cultural values, ideology and agenda (Fonte and Williamson, 2008). What FC achieves through addressing the Mexican people (through the press and other media, of course) is a much more direct access to the Mexican discursive scene.
Textual analysis
Political discourse has been characterized as an exercise of power in which speakers try to promote their own position over and above those of their opponents. For this reason, political speakers tend to attack others at the same time as they present a positive image of themselves (Van Dijk, 1998). They have to achieve this, though, in a persuasive manner, protecting their own image, which normally entails the use of indirect strategies (Chilton and Schaffner, 2011). Discourse analysis must be able to reveal such strategies and the linguistic resources used to express them; that is, what the author of the text is doing and how he is doing it.
My analysis focuses on both global and local levels of discourse. I will concentrate on the following aspects which have proven to be the most revealing: (1) speech acts, (2) modality and (3) persons named in the text, either referred to by FC or addressed by him. I begin by analysing the overall structure of the text in terms of the functional stages of its parts, as well as the main verbal action or macro speech act performed in each. The verbal actions in the text show a hierarchical structure. Though a paragraph can express several verbal actions performed in the utterances of which it is composed, as a general rule we find a single macro-action per paragraph. I follow the division of the text into paragraphs as proposed by FC.
Modality has traditionally been defined in linguistics as the grammatical expression of speaker attitudes (Palmer, 1986). Halliday and the systemic functional school of linguistics view modality as part of the interpersonal metafunction of language. Here I adopt a social semiotic approach (Hodge and Kress, 1993; Van Leeuwen, 2005), according to which the diverse semiotic structures which express modality convey the differing degrees of assertiveness with which speakers make their utterances, as well as the relationships of power or solidarity that they establish with their addressees. Social semioticians consider modality to be high, medium or low according to the greater or lesser affinity of the utterance with reality. At a medium level of modality, utterances are made without markers of increased or diminished assertiveness or factuality. This is the most neutral and thereby apparently objective form.
Modality allows more problematic meanings to be expressed indirectly. Among the most important grammatical structures used to express modality is negation, which usually marks conflicts and competing meanings. Texts with an abundance of negation usually contain problematic meanings (Hodge and Kress, 1993). Furthermore, given that modality is the linguistic expression of subjectivity, an important area of modality that we should take into account is the evaluative use of adjectives and adverbs.
Since the two messages I study here mention the addressee in their title, I observe the enunciative position taken by FC, both in respect of himself and his addressee, as well as the others who are part of his topics of discourse. This position is not only defined in part by modal resources but also through the use of first-person forms and others. In both texts, which as we mentioned, FC intends as apologies, there is, as we might expect, a predominance of first-person singular forms, but in the presentation of the conflict other persons appear. It is interesting to analyse how the author of the text and the various other persons mentioned are given greater or lesser prominence in the text through a variety of linguistic means; whether they figure as sentence subjects, for instance, or are buried in syntactic structures in which personal reference is elided or omitted.
The following table summarizes some major characteristics of FC’s two messages to the Mexican people: 5
Historical context and precedents
Cuba and Mexico have a long history of close economic, political and cultural ties going back to the colonial period. After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution (1959), relations were affected but not interrupted, since Mexico never broke ties with Cuba. In official Cuban discourse, Mexico has always received praise for not following the line of conduct of other Latin-American countries who severed relations with Cuba after its expulsion from the Organization of American States in 1962. For the United States, Mexico has been a useful mediator in dealing with its broken relations with Cuba. Mexico, for its part, has used its close relations with Cuba as a way of showing its independence in moments of tension with its northern neighbour, and ties with Cuba have given the country a politically progressive image both at home and abroad. And for Cuba, the support of Mexico has clearly been of overriding importance in various international fora, above all during its years of greatest international isolation. Cuban-Mexican relations have had their ups and downs over the decades since the revolution. Davidow (2004) makes the pertinent observation that FC ‘is a symbolic and political force in Mexico’ and as such he is a figure on the Mexican national political stage who from time to time assumes a leading role.
The crisis between the two countries which the 1998 message sought to solve arose from a meeting of the Latin-American Economic System (SELA) held in Havana. FC participated in the closing session of the event. In his speech, he expounded on the topic of the necessity for Latin-American integration and among other points he made, he criticized Mexico for having (4 years earlier) turned its back on Latin America and signed the North-American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada. According to press reports, FC had commented that Mexico had joined the rich men’s club, and that American influence was now so great that Mexican children were more aware of Mickey Mouse than their national heroes.
Castro’s comments as reported in the Mexican media sparked official outrage. The Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs called in the Cuban ambassador and asked for an official apology. The Cuban Embassy released a note giving an explanation, but that did not satisfy the Mexican government. In the atmosphere of friction that ensued, and 16 days after FC’s intervention at the SELA conference, the Cuban Foreign Minister travelled to Mexico to read FC’s message to the Mexican people and the press in an event held at the Department of Foreign Affairs. This message was a formal apology to the Mexican people. Given its length, it did not appear in its entirety in the press. After this message, normal relations were re-established between the two countries, though with a degree of tension.
The next crisis, which has been the most serious to date, and which occasioned another message from FC to the Mexican people, happened in May 2004. Mexico had voted in favour of censuring Cuba at the UN for its human rights record. In his customary May Day address, FC attacked Mexico’s policy towards Cuba. The Mexican press reported on the speech, which emphasized how Mexico’s traditional pillars of foreign policy had been undermined and subordinated to the interests of Washington. In retaliation, Mexico expelled the Cuban ambassador and withdrew its ambassador from Cuba, accusing the Cuban government of interference in its affairs. At the same time, another even more sensitive affair between the two countries was unfolding. Ahumada, a businessman who had worked for the Mexico City government (run by the leftist PRD party, while the conservative PAN party ruled at the national level) had secretly filmed some videos showing bribe payments to a high-level representative of the city government. These videos were shown on television, creating a big scandal. The mayor of Mexico City at that time (López Obrador, current President of Mexico) accused the federal government of being behind this plot to discredit him. Ahumada, facing fraud charges, fled to Cuba. After Mexico’s vote against Cuba at the UN, the Cuban government announced that it did not want to become involved in Mexico’s internal affairs, revealing at the same time that the businessman had undergone thorough questioning. Throughout the conflict, Cuba brandished the threat of revealing Ahumada’s declarations on the production and publication of the videos.
At the height of the crisis, announcements by both governments were made through the press, since communication through normal diplomatic channels had been interrupted. But matters were not taken to the final extreme and Cuba did not reveal Ahumada’s secrets. The turning point was indirectly propitiated by the United States which, at the most bitter moment of the conflict, announced new economic measures against Cuba to encourage regime change. Fox, the Mexican President, took advantage of the situation to state that Mexico did not support such measures. He went on to say that FC was invited to the meeting of Latin-American, Caribbean and European heads of state to be held in Mexico in late May. Naturally, it was not in Mexico’s interest to host the Latin-American summit in the midst of a political crisis with Cuba. The invitation created much expectation regarding FC’s attendance, which would have been the best way of ending the conflict. This is the situation in which FC addresses his message to the Mexican people, explaining his reasons for declining the invitation, but announcing that his Foreign Minister would attend the meeting. In both occasions of conflict with Mexico’s government, FC emphasizes the anti-imperialist stance characteristic of his political discourse.
Analysis of the ‘Fraternal Message to the Mexican people’
The ‘Fraternal Message’ (FM) was not published in full in the press because of its length. The original version (obtained through internet) 6 is 35 paragraphs long, and can be divided into the following six parts (not counting the title):
Presentation of the topic and purpose of the message (clarification).
International context: the United States’ attack on Iraq.
Self-defence: denial of blame for offending the Mexican people.
Praise of Mexico’s historical tradition.
Proposal for a Latin-American political agenda to oppose the US aggression.
Concluding remarks. Apology in case anyone has felt offended.
I will now describe each of these parts in terms of their discursive action, major topics and the enunciative position of the speaker. I will quote some illustrative examples (the English version is our own personal translation). The part analysed in most detail is part 3, in which FC expounds the central argument of his message.
The title specifies the addressee of the message and the speaker-addressee relationship. It is a commonplace in Cuban political discourse to describe Cuba’s relationships with other Latin-American countries as ‘fraternal’. In qualifying his message in this way, FC announces the interpersonal stance he will adopt throughout the text.
Part (1) Paragraphs 1–3. FC summarizes the origin of the conflict, describing it as an unclear and confused media event. He refers to the incident in the third person, thereby distancing himself from it: ‘a [news event] of particular interest to Cubans and Mexicans was hurriedly circulated over the cable networks. A singular event: an incident in Cuban-Mexican relations. The cause: a few reflections of mine at the end of the SELA meeting . . . ’.
He presents the meaning and the verbal action of his message as a clarification, and in paragraph 3 he switches to first person singular: ‘I preferred to wait patiently (. . .) for tempers to calm. A few things at least inevitably had to be explained’.
Part (2) Paragraphs 4–5. He describes the prevailing international situation, specifically the US bombardment of Iraq, in order to criticize the ‘world order’ established by the United States and minimize the importance of the conflict between Cuba and Mexico: ‘It is the world order established by a neighbour very close to us that both Mexico and Cuba share. Is it worth our while to speak at a moment like this of real or simply imaginary differences between Mexicans and Cubans?’ He goes on to reveal himself as a first-person subject, writing his Message in a real enunciative situation. His precise identification of the moment at which he is writing creates a certain proximity and intimacy with his audience: ‘At the time I am writing these lines, at 4.12 in the afternoon on the 17th December . . . ’.
Part (3) Paragraphs 6–15. FC sets out his defence, arguing that he is free from blame. He creates a new context in which his words at SELA should be interpreted. His argument is essentially that the prevailing spirit among those attending the meeting was one of friendship and trust and that his intentions were good; thus he cannot be accused of offending the Mexican people. He puts the blame on the journalists present, who misinterpreted his words. I will focus on the parts which seem to me to best illustrate FC’s authorial strategy. In the analysis that follows, paragraph numbers refer to their position in the original text, and likewise each sentence is numbered.
7) (1) It is impossible to list all the diverse reports and interpretations published. (. . .) (4) (. . .) there is an article in the journal Proceso from the 6th December 1998 which gives a fairly accurate account of the details, incidents and words said. (. . .) (6) Since this is a journal which on no few occasions has been critical of, and not always fair to, Cuba and its Revolution, It is all the more useful for me to refer to this article by Homero Campa. (7) I cannot perceive in this article any intent to distort the facts or to publish insults or lies about what the author observed or was told about in fairly objective terms. (8) I would just like to point out that the figure I gave for daily commerce between Canada and the US is 1 billion dollars, and not the figure published in paragraph eight in the first column of page 10 in the number of the journal referred to. (9) I take responsibility for the direct quotations of my statements given by the author. (10) Naturally, there are statements of mine which, due to the brevity required by an article, do not appear. (11) For example,when I spoke of the cultural invasion and its effects on children, I said that the same was happening throughout Latin America.
The macro speech act in this paragraph is a statement presenting (and initiating indirect criticism of) the article in Proceso on which the author/speaker will base his line of argument. Use of the first person predominates. FC utters his statement with the authority he derives from referring to his own words as quoted in the press. We find here an enunciative situation with peculiarly recursive characteristics, since the speaker assumes responsibility for the textual quotation of his words by another person, which in turn gives him the authority to discuss them. The persons referred to in the paragraph are FC himself and the author of the article being criticized, with whom FC establishes a virtual dialogue which is antagonistic in tone. However, FC refers almost exclusively to the article itself, mentioning its author only once.
Modal resources used in the paragraph allow the author to criticize in an indirect manner. For example, in (6), the adjective critical is preceded by the negation of the attenuating adverb in no few, while modality in the opposite direction applies to the adjective fair, whose positive connotation is attenuated by the negation in not always. Instead of expressing his meaning directly (the article is critical and unfair), this kind of indirect expression typical of political discourse (Chilton and Schaffner, 2011), and here achieved through negation and attenuating expressions, allows the author to adopt a tolerant and benevolent stance in his counter-criticism. The author (and locutor here) is preparing the reader/audience here for his next discursive act, with which he will continue his criticism of the article. In (7) he speaks of the intentions of the article under consideration. The negation used cancels the possibility of bad intentions, but at the same time by mentioning them, he raises the possibility of distortion of the truth and the publication of insults or lies.
8) (1) This said, I should add that the author of the article gives exclusive voice to his own subjective appraisal. (2) On occasions, in mentioning words of mine referring to Mexico, on some matter which might appear to be a criticism, he starts by saying ‘With an ironic smile, Fidel Castro made a slight gesture with his hands and from the presidium said: . . . ’ (3) (Here he includes the words of mine in which I refer to Mexico’s entry into the OECD, in which indeed, as I tend to do only in situations in which I enjoy the confidence and friendship of, and familiarity with, my audience, in this case the members of the Mexican delegation, I cracked a joke with them saying we had ended up in a shanty town). (4) If we add that this statement was followed by a general round of laughter coming from the audience, we will appreciate the disastrous effect that this can have for a Mexican reader who is not aware of the atmosphere of friendship and total absence of formality which prevailed throughout that intimate meeting.
In paragraph 8, the main speech acts are a criticism of the author of the Proceso article and the description of a context model (Van Dijk, 2008) different from the one given by the Mexican press for the conflict. If in the previous paragraph, FC’s criticism was centred upon the inaccuracies and partiality of the journalist’s quotations, now it focusses on his subjectivity. In (4), FC partially justifies the negative reaction in Mexico. His reference to his own speech act of presumed criticism of Mexico (2) is modalized with lesser assertiveness (low modality: a modal verb introducing the main verb appear). In (3), he refers to his words as quoted in the article. This sentence is placed in parentheses, as if to indicate an incidental item of lesser importance for the development of the topic. This punctuation can also be considered as modalizing, in the sense that FC is indicating to the reader how the text should be read. FC summarizes the topic of his utterance, and refers to his speech act with greater assertiveness as well as to the situational context, and in particular, his attitude towards the members of the Mexican delegation. Sentence 4 is very complex, with six verbs in different tenses and modalities. The modality in the first part is one of low assertiveness. The main verb in the future tense expresses possibility; the action is not asserted as fact. In the first relative subordinate clause (‘that this can have’), the action is modalized as possibility. The second relative has a verb in the subjunctive (in the original Spanish), and is negated. Up to this point, the author is treating, as merely hypothetical, the negative impression that his words as reported in the article could create for some Mexican reader unaware of the true situation. The truth that this projected reader is unaware of is the thesis that the speaker wishes to defend: ‘the atmosphere of friendship’ mentioned at the end of the paragraph. This phrase, along with the accompanying relative clause ( ‘which prevailed’), has high modality. To sum up, the criticism of the journalist, as well as FC’s words at the meeting, are modalized as less assertive, while the alternative ‘truth’ that FC now wishes to construct appears with high assertiveness as the conclusion of the paragraph.
The enunciative situation is complex, since FC is referring to the quotation of his own words. While any quotation recontextualizes the original message by framing it in a new discourse with new communicative intentions and evaluations, here we have an interesting case of double recontextualization: FC sets the Proceso article in a new context by quoting the journalist who quotes him.
14) (1) I very much regret that my words should have been used to try to sow discord between two peoples so fraternally united through a centuries-long shared history, since the same people who conquered us left Cuban shores to conquer Mexico. (2) Today we are a mixture, by blood and by culture, of the conquerors and the conquered; (3) today we share a glorious and heroic history of independence and revolutionary struggle at different stages and in different epochs.
This paragraph opens in the first sentence with a first-person singular subject in a performative verb of the expressive type, which is intensified by the quantitative adverb ( ‘I very much regret’). This expressive is also a modalization: the speaker refers explicitly to his emotions. This beginning allows him to present as a presupposition the proposition which follows in the subordinate clause, in which FC assigns to some vague other (implicit in the passive construction) the responsibility for starting the conflict. We may surmise that these others are the journalists who reported and misinterpreted his words. The main speech act in the paragraph is to blame others; in so doing, he exonerates himself. He also creates a displacement in the representation of the conflict: it is no longer portrayed as a matter of FC criticizing Mexicans but as discord between two fraternally united peoples. The fraternal union is presented as a matter of historical fact in the modally neutral assertion about a common conqueror in (1): ‘since the same people who conquered us . . . ’. Modality then increases slightly in (2) with the first-person ‘we’ and a little further in (3) with two expressive adjectives. However, this is no longer the explicit assertion of a single first-person subject. As regard the grammatical person, there is an overall shift in the paragraph from the first person singular to the plural. The pronoun us in ‘who conquered us’ refers to the Cuban people. The we subjects of (2) and (3) refer to the Cuban and Mexican peoples alike. Apart from the displacement in temporal reference, from the time of the Conquest to the present, personal reference is also displaced by uniting in the same verb form two peoples who were facing an attempt to separate them. The topic of the paragraph has thus moved from FC’s self-descriptions to a less personal register.
15) (1) For this reason, I wish to state categorically that at no moment did the idea or intention occur to me of offending or causing hurt to Mexico. (2) Mexico was not, not in the least, the main topic of my reflections. (3) Only incidentally did I mention the country on occasions. (4) Nobody has a right to attribute to me such an unjust intention (. . .). (5) ‘The respect of the rights of others’ – including theirsovereignty and ideology – as proclaimed by one of Mexico’s most illustrious sons, has been an unvarying norm for our reciprocal attitudes between this country and ours.
The macro speech act in this paragraph is a self-exoneration, achieved through the succession of sentence-level speech acts. In (1), FC denies any possible intention of offending Mexico. He does this by uttering his expressive speech act as a wish: it is simultaneously an expressive speech act and an assertion. While the paragraph before began with the performative regret, now FC is in a position to state with maximum assertiveness: ‘state categorically’. The first person singular is present throughout the paragraph, either as a subject or a complement.
Modality is high in this paragraph, reinforced by the adverb categorically. Three sentences are negated. In the sentence introduced by ‘I wish to state . . . ’ FC denies the accusations directed against him in the Mexican press following the meeting. Sentence 2 adds a further negation which extends the earlier one. This negation is, in turn, modalized by the phrase ‘not in the least’, which has the effect of further diminishing the negated phenomenon. Sentence 4 also has high modality negation. Now FC is defending himself from a firm and secure position. The quotation of one of Mexico’s most venerated national figures (Benito Juárez) with which he brings the paragraph and this section of the message to a conclusion further reinforces his authority.
The analysis has shown that FC’s macro speech act in this section is one of self-exoneration from the accusations levelled against him. To achieve this, the first paragraphs of the section are a criticism of the article he refers to. He then proceeds to give a positive account of himself and redefine the context of the SELA meeting. He concludes by explicitly exonerating himself from all blame and characterizing himself as respectful of Mexico. The progression of speech acts is also developed through the variety of persons mentioned as discourse topics, beginning with the journalist who is criticized. The first person, mostly first-person singular, predominates throughout nearly all of this section of the message. From paragraph 11 onwards, FC speaks mainly about himself, but in paragraphs 14 and 15, highly assertive, introduces the additional topics of the Mexican and Cuban peoples. Mexico will be the major topic of the next section.
My analysis of modality has afforded a view of the variability in the assertive force with which FC utters his statements. In his criticism of the journalist, modality tends to be low, leaning towards indirect expression. At moments when FC defends himself and presents himself in a positive light there is variability but a greater tendency towards high modality. The abundance of negation reveals the dynamic of self-defence and rejection of the accusations against him; in other words, it underlines the polemical character of this section of the message.
Part (4) Paragraphs 16–26. FC praises Mexico’s heroic tradition, from the struggle against the Spanish conquistadors up to Mexico’s solidarity with the Cuban Revolution at various moments. He gives his historical summary from a personal perspective, sometimes using the first person singular and at other times speaking for the Cuban people, and always with personal warmth:
‘I have never admired any country more than Mexico, since my schooldays (. . .) I cannot help but feel profound indignation each time I recall the aggressive expansionist campaign of the United States, in which over half of Mexico’s territory was seized’.
Castro is referring here to the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848, implicitly contrasting the heroic Mexico of the past with the present, of which he speaks in the next part of his message.
Part (5) Paragraphs 27–33. FC returns to the content of his words at the SELA meeting to reaffirm the important issues, thus announcing a political agenda. He refers to the issue of Mexican migrants dying in their attempt to cross the Mexican–US border. He reaffirms his position in the face of those who criticized him for meddling in the internal affairs of Mexico. He makes particular reference to one of the topics which received most coverage in the press, namely his assertion that Mexican children were better acquainted with Mickey Mouse than their national heroes: ‘I have just one more point to deal with: the infamous accusation that I offended Mexican children’. He states that the spread of US culture in Latin America is a firmly established and well-known phenomenon, to which he himself fell victim during his childhood: ‘I learned the value of spinach from Popeye the Sailorman (. . .) which perhaps served a useful purpose. But I also saw a lot of Tarzan films, a barely disguised way of spreading racial prejudice . . . ’.
Part (6) Paragraphs 34–36. Concluding remarks. FC brings his message to a close returning to the actual moment of enunciation, mentioning the time and place, and using the first person. He changes from the register of public leader to a more personal and affectionate one, designed to create a sense of nearness to his audience, as he did at the beginning of his message. In the final paragraph, he refers to the verbal actions which guided the course of his message. Apart from giving explanations, he explicitly offers not only an apology but asks for forgiveness, albeit hypothetically, in a conditional sentence: ‘It is almost twelve midnight here in Cuba. (. . .) I have spent many hours writing. I did it with pleasure for you (. . .). If, despite all my efforts to explain to you directly my thoughts and feelings (. . .) there is any single child who still feels offended (. . .) I humbly ask for their forgiveness’.
In sum, FC introduces his message as a clarification, and towards the middle of the text expresses regret for the misinterpretation of his words, defends himself, and finally asks for forgiveness. This final expressive speech act colours the whole text. Asking for forgiveness implies that he was at fault with the recipient. The reparation of this fault justifies his incursion onto the Mexican discursive and political scene. Since he was accused of having offended Mexico and the Mexican people, his direct address to the Mexican people is justified. And throughout his message, FC avails himself of the opportunity to express his anti-US stance.
FC’s message was well received by the press. The La Jornada newspaper, from its distinctly leftist position, published it as front-page news in an article of 24 paragraphs, many of which directly quoted FC’s message. The main title read: ‘Castro apologizes to the Mexican people’. The sub-title quotes a sentence from the message and reports FC’s speech act against racism: ‘I learned the value of spinach from “Popeye the Sailorman”’; he criticizes the racism of Tarzan. La Jornada casts FC in a positive light for its readers: humble, asking for forgiveness, but reaffirming his position against US racism. Furthermore, the textual quotation creates a humorous tone, showing FC remembering the cartoons he saw in his childhood, just like any common person. The topic of the cartoons relates back to the origin of the conflict now resolved: Mexican children and Mickey Mouse. The lead paragraph carries the apology and request for forgiveness, as well as a move in the opposite direction: the reaffirmation of his stance against US cultural influence.
The message ‘to the Mexican people’ (27 May 2004)
This message is published in its entirety by La Jornada. FC’s text contains 11 short paragraphs, seven of which list his reasons for not attending the summit. Unlike the ‘Fraternal Message’, the brevity of this one may suggest that FC wanted to make it easy to publish it in its entirety in the Mexican press.
1) (1) I offer you my apologies for my absence from the so-called third summit of heads of state and government of the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union. (2) I reflected for several days on the advisability of attending or not. (3) Finally I decided not to attend, for several reasons. (4) The main ones are:
In his opening sentence, FC presents the speech act of his message as an apology. Using the first person singular as the subject pronoun and a second plural pronoun to refer to his audience, FC establishes the enunciative frame of his message, a close relationship between the people of Mexico and himself. He continues in the first person in the following sentences. The recipient of the message appears only once, in the first sentence. The modality in the paragraph is highly assertive. The single-clause sentences express their content in direct fashion. We should note the modalization in the first sentence, ‘the so-called third summit’: in referring to the official nomenclature for the summit as ‘so-called’; FC distances himself from it and from everything it implies. The main negation in this paragraph comes in sentence three.
2) FIRST. (1) The complicity of the European Union with the crimes and aggression of the United States against Cuba, through its despicable and hypocritical conduct in Geneva and its shameful collusion and connivence with the Helms-Burton law, ignominious and unacceptable in its invasion of sovereignty, make it unworthy of being taken seriously by our people.
The main speech act here is an attack on the European Union, which FC accuses of complicity with the United States against Cuba. When he begins to enumerate his reasons, syntax becomes more complex in an attempt to synthesize facts, opinions and evaluations into a set of concrete points. This also makes for complexities in meaning. The paragraph comprises a single sentence with a long subject noun phrase including a series of nominalizations, which results in a lack of grammatical agreement with the main verb ( ‘The complicity . . . make it unworthy . . . ’). There is an abundance of negative evaluation of the European Union. FC speaks in the name of the Cuban people, to whom he refers as ‘our people’.
3) (1) Concerning the concentration camp in the illegal naval base at Guantanamo, in Geneva they did not dare to say a word. (2) One cannot even imagine the European Union accepting at this conference the denunciation of the acts of murder, mistreatment and humiliation that are committed against an incalculable number of inhabitants of Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America in general whoare trying to escape from the underdevelopment and poverty imposed by the thieving, genocidal international economic order which controls the world today, from which it also derives benefit itself.
FC continues with his criticism of the European Union in a negative sentence expressing what the latter did not do and thereby establishing what they might have been expected to do. In (1), the action of saying something is modalized, suggesting cowardice and servility on the part of the agent. Sentence (2), notably complex in its syntax, formulates a hypothetical action. The sentence begins with a modalization, also negative. The complexity of so many actions strung together in the syntax obscures the agency of some of them; thus we have a string of nominalizations and the agentless passive with the impersonal pronoun se in Spanish (straight passive in English). Since this is all framed in a hypothetical principal act of denunciation, we do not know exactly who would be doing the denouncing, although it is clearly possible to imagine the agents of the actions mentioned. The subject pronoun personalizes the representatives of the European countries in the UN meeting in Geneva. In (2), it is the European Union itself which is personalized.
5) SECOND. (1) The disgraceful conspiracy of various Latin-American governments, and their betrayal of Cuba through their shameless attitude of subjection to the United States, are deeply hurtful to our people and (2) it is not possible to accord the slightest degree of seriousness or respect to their judgments and decisions.
FC attacks the Latin-American governments that are subservient to the United States. The attack is made in part through adjectival modalization, pejorative in tone, belonging to the semantic field of honour and dignity. The first sentence presents the Cuban people as the recipient and victim of the betrayal. FC also uses modalization in the verb and its adverbial modifier, which situates the expression in an affective register. Once again, FC speaks in the name of ‘our people’. However, in (2) the agent of the action to accord is not mentioned. One can infer that it is FC and his people, placed through this verb in a position of authority.
7) FOURTH. (1) Our ambassador was unjustly expelled from Mexico a few days ago and, (2) there are serious unresolved issues pending because of the false and dishonest accusation that our country has interfered in the internal affairs of Mexico.
The discursive action here has the force of a complaint with accusatory overtones. The assertion is categorical with medium-level modalization. The speaker’s evaluation appears in the adverb and adjectives. FC thus turns Mexico’s accusation of Cuba back against the accuser. Castro does not explicitly mention the Mexican government as agent of these actions. The first clause of the compound sentence is an agentless passive and the second (an impersonal one) refers to the act of accusing through a nominalization.
In the next three paragraphs, FC deals with topics which might have remained undeveloped or implicit in his exposition. He mentions by name some Latin-American Presidents he considers as friends, unlike those subservient to US interests referred to in earlier paragraphs. This personal treatment contrasts with the impersonal and passive constructions used in referring to hostile agents. He criticizes the summit and its organizers, using some irony. The last paragraph reads: 11) (1) Cuba feels most honoured and optimally represented by her brilliant young Minister of Foreign Affairs who, in the few seconds that he will have assigned to him in some corner of this meeting will find a way to express some essential truths. (2) I continue to firmly believe that a better world is possible.
The speech act in (1) is expressive. FC speaks on behalf of Cuba, which he personalizes in referring to her feelings. The modalization here includes the positive evaluative adjectives with which the foreign minister is praised. FC suggests a hypothetical discrimination against Cuba in his ironic reference to the time and space to which his minister will be relegated. The second and concluding sentence of the paragraph is highly assertive (‘I continue to firmly believe that a better world is possible’). First uttered by Castro in Argentina in 2002, that sentence or variants of it became a motto for the World Social Fora in Brazil and social reformers and activists around the world.
The Mexican press did not interpret FC’s message as an apology, despite the explicit formulation of the initial line. The headers in La Jornada contain textual quotations. The main header reproduces FC’s words directly between quotation marks in an utterance referring to his non-attendance at the summit. The sub-headers reproduce two speech acts explicitly (‘refuses’, ‘deplores’) in a summary of FC’s criticism of the summit meeting: ‘
The El Universal newspaper, which during the crisis gave proportionately more space to the voices of Mexican officialdom, did not take FC’s message as an apology either. Its header reads: ‘Fidel Castro is not coming; he utters accusations’. El Universal summarizes the content of FC’s message in three short paragraphs.
Conclusion
FC’s texts reflect the form of a personal letter to a certain degree: for instance, in his use of the first person singular, mention of the addressee, the expression of affect, and the closing line. With this form of message, FC creates his own personal variant of political discourse. Within it, he can express the content he desires, which would certainly not be appropriate in an official communiqué.
The two messages share characteristics which we have noted in the analysis. The variation in modality reveals an alternation between a direct, authoritarian presentation of reality (the establishment of certain facts, for example) and a more indirect, hypothetical or potential mode (in certain criticisms of politicians or journalists, for example). Modality also reveals variation between a more or less subjective perspective and a greater or lesser distance with respect to what is being said. The abundant use of negation is a characteristic of both texts, and a sign of FC’s polemical position in his discourse.
In both messages, FC adopts an enunciative position of authority, both because he directly addresses the Mexican people and because he speaks on behalf of Cuba and its people. He defines a position for himself as an interlocutor of peoples rather than their governments. Although in both cases related here, FC manages to heal the wound caused by the political incidents and restore Cuban-Mexican relations to their normal state, it is clear that he avoids direct interlocution with both Mexican Presidents (Zedillo in 1998 and Fox in 2004), which would have been the expected course of action to calm tensions in a crisis. During the 1998 crisis, the spokesperson for the Mexican government was the Minister of External Affairs and in 2004 the foreign ministers of both countries intervened. The only presidential involvement was President Fox’s invitation to FC to attend the summit. The silence of the Mexican presidency on both occasions would seem to indicate a wish to avoid escalation of the conflict, just as FC’s avoidance of official channels in the first place might be seen as a way of avoiding the serious consequences of a head-on clash. Both countries seem to see their relationship with the other as too valuable to allow that to happen.
The apology, the stated purpose of both messages, was a strategy to achieve other ends. The messages marked the end of episodes which began with insulting words from FC and caused political crisis. These political-discursive manoeuvres allowed FC direct access to the Mexican discursive and political scene and to stay there for a considerable time, placing Cuban-Mexican relations as a prominent item on the Mexican national political agenda.
The 1998 conflict was, however, less serious than the 2004 one. We could call it a game of words, in which FC gave proof once more of his political dexterity. He knew how to exploit the circumstances of a meeting which was perhaps not too important in itself, and bring up the playful issue of cartoons, which was what in fact caught the imagination of the public through the press. The 2004 crisis, however, was more serious and involved conflictive problems and actions which went beyond the domain of simple words, with a greater political cost. This is why we have in 1998 a long text with broad persuasive moves. The 2004 message, though, gives a portrait of an angry FC, with his terse list of reasons, his accusations, an abundance of negative evaluations of adversaries, and bitterly ironic comments. We perceive a certain distance and wounded pride in his discourse. With this letter, FC brings about a certain easing of tensions, but only a partial easing, making it clear that relations will continue to be difficult. The tradition of good relations between the two countries had deteriorated over the years, but FC’s incursion onto the Mexican discursive and political scene created benefits which outweighed the cost: a rejection of Mexican politics, and a public revindication of the political and ideological image of Cuba for the broad sectors of public opinion which favoured a relationship of active solidarity between the two countries.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
Author biography
Irene Fonte Zarabozo’s main fields of research and publication are discourse analysis, political discourse and conversational analysis. She has worked specifically on Cuban and Mexican press discourse. She is a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.