Fidel Role In Africa: Warned Consumerism Will Destroy the Planet

Fidel Castro’s role in African liberation and his prophetic critique of consumerism.

Fidel Castro died on this day in 2016. His passing marked the end of a life that reshaped Cuba and reverberated across the Global South. People remember him for many things—his defiance of U.S. power, his fiery speeches, his revolutionary charisma—but one truth is undeniable: Castro was the man who led the struggle that toppled the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship, a regime that turned Cuba into a holiday playground for Miami elites while Black Cubans lived under conditions resembling apartheid.

Yet Castro’s vision stretched far beyond Cuba’s shores. He believed that liberation was not a national project but a global one.

Castro and Africa’s Liberation Struggles

In the mid-1970s, southern Africa was a battlefield of freedom. Angola had just won independence from Portugal, but apartheid South Africa and its allies sought to crush the new nation. In response, Castro sent tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers—at the height, around 36,000—to Angola.

▪︎ Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (1987–1988): Cuban forces, alongside Angolan and Namibian fighters, helped halt the advance of the South African military. This battle is often described as a turning point that weakened apartheid’s regional dominance.
▪︎ Impact on Namibia and South Africa: Cuba’s intervention accelerated Namibia’s independence in 1990 and pushed South Africa toward negotiations that eventually dismantled apartheid. Nelson Mandela himself later acknowledged Cuba’s decisive role, praising Castro for standing with Africa when few others would.
▪︎ Solidarity in practice: For Castro, sending Cuban troops was not about conquest but solidarity. He saw Cuba’s struggle against imperialism as inseparable from Africa’s fight against colonialism and racial domination.

Castro the Thinker: Warnings Against Consumerism

Castro was not only a military strategist; he was a relentless critic of global capitalism. More than 30 years ago, he posed a haunting question:

“What would happen if everyone in Africa, Latin America, and China owned a car?”

He was not opposed to development. What concerned him was the model of development imposed by capitalism—one that equated progress with endless consumption, regardless of ecological limits.

▪︎ Extraction without limits: Castro argued that the global system was built on exploiting natural resources with no concern for sustainability.
▪︎ Consumerism as destruction: He warned that the obsession with owning more than we need would eventually burn the planet to the ground.
▪︎ Relevance today: With over 1.4 billion cars on the road, choking cities, polluting air, and draining finite resources, his words feel prophetic.

A Vision for the Global South

Castro never denied Africa, Latin America, or Asia their right to develop. What he rejected was a model that equated dignity with consumption. He insisted that true liberation meant breaking free from systems that enslave both people and the planet.

His legacy, then, is twofold:
▪︎ Liberator of nations: From Havana to Luanda, his solidarity reshaped the balance of power.
▪︎ Prophet of sustainability: Long before climate change became a mainstream concern, he warned that consumerism was humanity’s greatest threat.

Fidel Castro’s life was a paradox of power and principle. He was a revolutionary who fought dictatorships abroad while building one-party rule at home. Yet his role in African liberation and his critique of consumerism remain undeniable contributions to global history.

Today, as the planet faces ecological collapse and inequality deepens, his warning echoes louder than ever: consumerism is destroying the Earth, and liberation must mean more than the right to consume—it must mean the right to live sustainably and with dignity.