Seldom has a handshake brought so much attention and articles as the one US President Barack Obama did by shaking Cuban leader Raúl Castro’s hand on Tuesday (10) at the memorial service of former South African President Nelson Mandela. See iNews’ story today from the UK’s Telegraph –“ President Barack Obama shakes Raul Castro’s hand at Mandela memorial service”.

All sorts of speculation have been made in the World Press as to its meaning and significance.

That Obama also shook the hand of Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, and greeted Dilma Rousseff, the President of Brazil, with a kiss on the cheek, seems to have been forgotten.

At the service, Castro praised Mandela for ending apartheid, for serving as an example to Latin America, and for standing up for the “conviction that dialogue and co-operation are the paths to the solution of differences and to civilised co-existence between those who think differently.”

For his part, Obama criticised leaders who express solidarity with Mandela, but “do not tolerate dissent from their own people.”

As one commentator said, “As if on cue, Cuba arrested more than a dozen human rights activists on Tuesday during protests to mark International Human Rights Day.”

There are a lot of meanings given to a handshake. We even have new meanings for a computer handshake. It is a small gesture with a powerful message.

The handshake used to mean the person was trustworthy. It is still used to seal a deal in business.

It was a sign of friendship.

Nowadays it is a form of politeness with often little meaning past that.

If Obama had walked past Raúl Castro without shaking his hand I believe that would have made even greater news.

However, criticism of the handshake has been fast and fierce. Members of Congress, political pundits, and anti-Castro regime activists criticised the President’s handshake with Castro. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl) telling Secretary of State John kerry during an unrelated hearing, “when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant.”

As calls for a re-assessment of U.S. policy towards Cuba continue to grow and as the Cuban government appears to be loosening its grips on the economy, the magnitude of Obama and Castro shaking hands and interacting has been interpreted as having implications.

I am not reading anything like that into the handshake.

I do not believe it is going to immediately open the doors between Cuba and America.

My recent editorial, though, asking why we are not looking over our shoulder at Cuba and warning our tourism leaders to do so still, however, stands.

I would wonder if anyone I know shook hands with the Devil. Obama might have done just that.