Who is Castro?

I never imagined that I would ask this question until his death.

For me, and most of the baby boomer generation he was the man who symbolized the struggle against oppression and imperialism. He was the man who stood for the struggle against apartheid. He embodies how people can achieve freedom.

I knew that for many Americans he was the enemy given the Cold War divisions and national interests. But I never realized that for the younger progressive generation he was viewed as a dictator.

Some posts about his position as to gay rights surprised me. It is an anachronism. Judging people in retrospect according to issues and causes that were not current decades ago seems strange.

It is true that many of what Castro, the head of state, did go against what I stand for. In fact they go against what he stood against too. He said it himself

"Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone ... actually knew how to build socialism. ... Whenever they said. ‘That’s the formula,’ we thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician.” Castro in 2005.

But I could make the separation between the values that were behind his revolution and the compromise that smudged his life as a player in the game of nations.

“We are now being advised about Cuba by people who have supported the apartheid regime these last 40 years,” said Nelson Mandela on a visit to Havana in 1991. “No honorable man or woman could ever accept advice from people who never cared for us at the most difficult times.”

Africa is not conflicted about Fidel Castro’s legacy. When Africa was a battleground between the Cold War powers, Cuba emerged as a friend of liberation movements. Cuba’s involvement in Africa went beyond the ideological standoff between right and left to a real helping hand: sending soldiers, doctors and teachers when post-colonial Africa was perhaps at its most vulnerable.
My position is not different from Mandela and most of African leaders.
http://qz.com/846337/cuban-leader-fidel-castro-was-a-liberation-icon-in-africa-and-remained-committed-to-the-continent/

The separation in opinions I witnessed within the progressive circles seems generational, history is not read in depth and the world is viewed in black and white.

Here are some of his more memorable quotes: 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/26/a-revolution-is-not-a-bed-of-roses-fidel-castro-in-his-own-words

• I am not interested in power nor do I envisage assuming it at any time.” - In January 1959, when Castro’s rebels toppled Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista

• I began the revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I would do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.” – On the revolution in 1959
• A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” – Castro in 1959.

• The US government says that a socialist regime here threatens US security. But what threatens the security of the North American people is the aggressive policy of the warmongers of the United States ... We do not endanger the life or security of a single North American family.” -May 1961 (shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion)

• We have to stick to the facts and, simply put, the socialist camp has collapsed.” – Castro in 1991.
• Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty.” - July 1991, on the fall of communism in Europe.

• These changes [the opening to international tourism, foreign investment, some small business and family remittances] have their social cost, because we lived in a glass case, pure asepsis, and now we are surrounded by viruses, bacteria to the point of distraction and the egoism created by the capitalist system of production.” – Castro in 1998.

• Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone ... actually knew how to build socialism. ... Whenever they said. ‘That’s the formula,’ we thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician.” Castro in 2005.

• We are not a developed capitalist country in crisis, whose leaders are going crazy looking for solutions amidst depression, inflation, a lack of markets and unemployment; we are and we must be socialists.” – Castro writing in one of his “reflections,” or newspaper columns in 2008.