FIDEL CASTRO, Cuba’s communist former dictator, died on November 25th 2016, aged 90. After a bloody revolution in 1959, he ruled his country with an iron fist until 2008, when his brother Raúl replaced him as president. The imagery of Mr Castro—particularly his beard and green fatigues—has long stood for heroic rebellion for many. But not all: in the hours after his death, Danilo Maldonado Machado, a Cuban graffiti artist and dissident, was reportedly detained by authorities after spraying a simple message on a wall in Havana: Se fue (“He’s gone”).
It seems the regime that Mr Castro installed still understands the power of propaganda. It tightly controls all aspects of the media, even the walls of public spaces. Political slogans (particularly “Patria o Muerte”—“Homeland or Death”), combined with arresting visuals, quickly became a rallying cry from the government to its people after the revolution. Dissenting voices, such as Mr Machado’s, are quickly scrubbed away. And Mr Castro’s face has also cropped up on murals in friendly Latin American countries, from Venezuela to Nicaragua.
Read our full obituary of Fidel Castro here.
A worker in Cuba Square in Managua, Nicaragua, sweeps the floor in front of a mural depicting Castro and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega
A mural depicting American author Ernest Hemingway shaking hands with Fidel Castro decorates the wall of a car park in Havana
For 57 years, iconography featuring Castro has stood for socialist rebellion. Here, Cubans walk past a mural in Havana in 2008
A roadside billboard emblazoned with the slogan “Patria o muerte” (“Fatherland or death”) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution in 2006
The face of the leader known as “El Comandante” is central to Cuban revolutionary iconography, as in this mural in Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2007
A painting of Fidel Castro adorns a factory in Havana. The slogan “Socialismo o muerte” (“Socialism or death”) was taken up by Cuban revolutionaries in 1957
A mural of Castro alongside the late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, with a message reading: “Mejor amigo” (“Best friend”), Caracas, Venezuala
Picture Credits: AFP, AP, Eyevine, Reuters, Magnum, Zuma Press