RESISTANCE, SOLIDARITY AND HOPE

Resistance, Solidarity, and Hope.

For more than 50 years, the US has maintained a trade, economic and financial blockade against Cuba.  We don't trade with Cuba.  We try to prevent other countries from doing so.  We attempt to cut off their access to credit and normal international markets.  Food and medicine and medical devices - heart valves, medication for children with cancer - are included in this.  The plan is to pressure the Cubans into changing their government by causing suffering.  The suffering has been real, most intensely during the Special Period  of the '90s.  It hasn't made the Cubans back down

The response of IFCO Pastors for Peace was to organize Friendshipment Caravans to Cuba.  These caravans bring aid, mostly medical equipment and supplies, which are a drop in the ocean of needs, but a sincere expression of solidarity. Solidarity isn't charity and it isn't support.  Support can be given and taken away.  Solidarity is finding and acting on the goals and interests that we have in common.  

The caravans allow us to defy the blockade and the US travel ban and see Cuba for ourselves, to share our information with others and advocate for change. As people of conscience we travel to Cuba without a license as an act of civil disobedience.  We are calling attention to the US blockade of Cuba, which uses denial of essentials like food and medicine as political weapons, and working to change that policy.  We advocate a policy based on mutual respect, morality, and justice, not domination and repression.

The Pastors for Peace Caravan is "people to people" and for me that has been true and important, not a slogan.  On my first Caravan, I went with the group to the Camilo Cienfuegos Museum in Yaguajay, and a group of veterans of the Cuban Revolution spoke to us there.  I was delighted that one of them was a woman; we began a correspondence which became a friendship. My husband and I visited her and her family the following year and I've been able to stay in touch and visit at least once a year since.  

An introduction: this is my friend Zaida Navarro Fernandez.  She joined the Young Socialists when she was in her teens, and was part of the Clandestine Struggle during the revolution - taking arms, supplies, and information to the fighters in the mountains, while pretending to ride around visiting friends on other sugar plantations.  This was desperately dangerous.  Those who were caught were tortured and killed.  Shortly before the triumph of the revolution she was at the Central Narcisa (a central is a sugar plantation, with its processing plant) which had been captured by the revolutionary forces and was under attack by Batista's army.  Many families had taken refuge there and people were hiding in the huge vat of the clarifier to shelter from gunfire.  An airplane circled overhead for a bombing run, went around once, twice and then dropped its bomb on a field nearby where there were no people, making a huge crater - it would have wiped out the Central and everybody in it.  After the victory of the revolution, this pilot was found and questioned, and he said that he had seen children's clothing strung on the line outside the central and just couldn't bring himself to bomb them.  This shows, Zaida said to me, that you can sometimes find good people in every situation of life.  She was not quite 21 when the revolution was won.

Before I come to Cuba I write and ask what I should bring and she writes back that in Cuba they are used to doing without and that she doesn't need a thing.  She owns her home, there is electricity, and some food on the rations, though it's not varied or interesting.  In terms of consumer goods and choices, her life is incredibly sparse compared to mine.  A substantial part of this is due to the US economic blockade of Cuba.  I think that it is wrong and wicked for your government and mine to try to starve and deprive my friend Zaida to force her to give up the revolution she helped make and is so proud of.  When I asked Zaida and other Yaguajay veterans of the revolution why they risked so much, they said, "Things were terrible here before the Revolution.  The plantations owned the land and they could just kick you out any time.  There were no schools, there were just a few doctors for the rich and people died all the time from diseases that could have been prevented or cured."

Zaida didn't have much, but she had the experience of helping create a revolutionary transformation of her country.  I deeply envy her that experience.  This is the hard part - she died of cancer July 16, 2013, one day before I arrived in Cuba.  She had had chemo  and surgery and had fought it out; she really wanted to live. 

Normally when we corresponded we would write about family and life events and so on.  Her last letter was different.  (My husband asked " Why is Zaida writing to you about these things; that's not the kind of things she usually writes?" and we had looked at each other, realizing that she had understood that she might not survive.)  She wrote - the translation is mine -

" About the revolution:

Everything is well, I'm not saying that it's perfect since as you know even in revolutionary governments there are those who are really opposed and who try to do damage.  Also, the CIA has its people here.  In the early years this did affect us greatly; they did a lot of big things, so I don't know how we were able to resist.  But now what they do doesn't really affect us, and as time goes on we keep getting stronger and more secure in what we have achieved.  Every day there are more countries that have diplomatic relations with Cuba and all those who come here for the first time are enchanted with Cuba, which always tries to help countries in need with what little we have.

In the United Nations Assemblies of the last few years there are only 3 countries who vote against Cuba: the US, Israel, and another that I forget; eighty-something other countries vote in favor of Cuba and for ending the blockade, but the government of the US isn't interested in truth or justice but only in taking over other countries with bombs from unmanned aircraft, using terrorists as an excuse to kill off people in those countries, whether they are children, women, or old people who have nothing to do with the affair of terrorism.  They are just interested in accumulating more millions and not in the lives of human beings.

You know that because of the blockade they can't sell anything to Cuba.  But don't be angry and upset by this because, as I've told you, we've been living like this for many years, with many unmet needs, so that it's normal for us now - it's been 50 years and we've adapted.  They thought they would get rid of the revolution in this way but now they know that this is completely impossible.  That we live happy and secure in what we have.  Here no one has died of hunger or for lack of medical attention.  All children go to school and are well cared for. There are no old beggars, for they are well cared for by the state.  Over there it's not like that.

When you get this letter I may be in the hospital since on the 21st (May) I'll be going back to the oncology clinic for the first time since my operation.  Greetings to Barry and your sons, and love  from one who won't forget you - Zaida

Zaida's daughter dressed her body in her Asociacion de Combatientes shirt and pinned her medals on,  because making the revolution  - and she continued to do so in many different ways; even in her 70s she was a poll worker for every election - was central to her life.  

Her funeral cost was 0.  Her medical bills were 0.  Her grandson's wife graduated from medical school the week after Zaida's death and her education was free.  The young doctor started her family right away - my godson Lian Carlos was born in February, and his mom is now taking the one year maternity leave to which she is entitled.  

As Zaida said, the revolution is not perfect, but it's good enough to terrify those who want you to believe that the US's savage economic mess, environmental disasters, and violence both within our country and directed at others is the only reality and the way things have to be.  I would suggest to you that you try to find a way to see this other world that is possible and that you join me in trying to end the blockade of Cuba.

Not Afraid

One of our Fresno participants in the Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba commented about his trip to Cuba: I've never felt so safe.  He was at the Black Lives Matter demonstration on August 10 when he said this; remarkably, all four Fresno area participants in this year's Caravan independently went to this action without any prior communication or arrangement.  For the Caravanistas, our most recent prior demonstration was in Mexico City on July 16 when we joined in a  Cuba Solidarity demonstration in front of the US embassy.   The large crowd listened to speakers like the Bishop of Saltillo and Rosario (Chayo) Hernandez, the head of the Organización Popular Francisco Villa de Izquierda Independiente, our hosts.  Then the police began to arrive in huge numbers, lined up shoulder to shoulder behind their riot shields, completely surrounding this peaceful gathering. Fr. Luis Barrios, of Pastors for Peace, took the mic: "I have a direct line to God and to the President of Mexico," he said, "and I told him to send all the Communist police and all the Christian police, so they could hear this message and join our ranks..."

 



  A group of us, mostly African-American women from New York via Haiti, took the Cuban flag and displayed it in the faces of the police line.  It didn't feel safe, but it was Mexico DF, not Ayotzinapa, and we're OK.  Fresno didn't feel safe with police surrounding the demonstration, but they decided on a "deferred bust" policy this time.  The bogus charges were delivered later or will be in the mail.













So what feels so safe in Havana?  

Part of it is just the general non-violence of ordinary Cuban life.  This is even more obvious for a woman: you are just not at risk out late on the street, or on the bus, or even in a  jitney cab when the other women get out.  This at first can be hard to get used to.  Why is it like this?  Not only the law but the general organization of society is protective, for fairly complex reasons like education and accountability, and the relative absence of violence used as entertainment, and the absence of drug sales.  (This doesn't mean Cuba is crime-free; keep a hand on your wallet in the bus.)

Part of it is the absence of official violence.  Police exist, and they  do "card" people and check what folks are up to, sometimes when they shouldn't.  Although there is no structural racism, attitudes may persist, and young Black men (who is considered Black in Cuba is a whole other complex subject) are most likely to get questioned by police.  But as my friend Manolo ( young, Black, male), originally from NY but now living in Cuba while he attends seminary in Matanzas, pointed out, "I'm in the demographic that has most contact with police, but I've never had a policeman in Cuba threaten me, point a gun at me, make me lie on the sidewalk, hurt or sexually abuse me.  All these things have happened in the US."  Police in Cuba are not an alien hostile occupying force in the communities.  And don't say that 'the press in Cuba is controlled; you wouldn't know if it happened.'  The press in the US is controlled and the way we know what really happens is by communicating with each other.  Ever hear of "Radio Bemba"?  Cubans have some of the loudest mouths in the  world, and not much gets past them.

Part of it is the absence of the violence of poverty.  The violence of poverty includes all the illness and deaths from preventable causes and untreated medical conditions, all the malnutrition deaths, the people who suffer from having no work and no place to live, and those who are imprisoned victims of the war on drugs.  It includes the "austerity" and "structural adjustment" that destroy public health systems and school systems and worker organizations and safety and health regulations, that throw people out of work and leave them no hope and no future.  The financial rulers of the world don't get excited about the suffering and death from the violence of poverty, and they don't want you to notice these things either.  They want you to think violence is a broken window, while their policies kill millions.  Cuba is poor enough; it's an under-developed country economically.  But it is one which has placed the highest value on the social debt - meeting the needs and demands of the people for education and health care and housing. 

So come take a look for yourselves.  Don't worry about "seeing Cuba before it changes."   Cuba has been changing ever since the Revolution, which is a work in progress.  And they've been thinking for all of that time how to deal with the US, and it never did, doesn't now, and never will include letting corporate capital take over Cuba.

Before we forget: THE BLOCKADE IS STILL IN PLACE.  It's long past time to end this cruel immoral policy.  Tell Obama, and your senators and representatives: end the blockade, and meanwhile strip it out leaving a hollow shell; support  Senate Bill 491 - Lift the Trade Embargo on Cuba, Senate Bill 299 - Freedom to Travel to Cuba; HR 664 - Freedom to Travel to Cuba, and Executive actions including instructing the US representative to the UN to vote to condemn the blockade in the yearly UN vote. 

And to end where we started: BLACK & BROWN LIVES MATTER.  Assata Shakur, living in freedom in Cuba, refers in her autobiography, ASSATA, to the Cuban people - 

"They stand with their hands on their hips, acting like they own the place.  I guess they do.  They're not afraid."

 

Assata, An Autobiography, by Assata Shakur, is published by Lawrence Hill Books.

IN CUBA ON DECEMBER 17, 2014 - THEY'RE FREE!

          

  

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Lázaro!  ¡En este día San Lázaro nos ha hecho un milagro!

I did not think I would see this day.  The US has a tendency to imprison political prisoners forever, or as close to that as can be managed. Examples are Mumia Abu-Jamal, still imprisoned after more than 30 years, Leonard Peltier - almost 40,  Sundiata Acoli still not released after 40 years, Oscar Lopez Rivera - about 33 years. 

            The Cuban 5 are five Cuban men who were in U.S. prisons, serving disproportionately long sentences, after being wrongly convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.   They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.  The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States, and other related charges.  But the Five pointed out in their defense that they were involved only in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.  For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against Cuba, and against those who advocate a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. The Cuban Five infiltrated the terrorist organizations in Miami to inform Cuba of imminent attacks. The Cuban government informed the FBI. But instead of arresting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the Cuban Five anti-terrorists in 1998.

            The release of the Cuban 5, or 5 Heroes, as they are called in Cuba, was a first priority goal - dream, I thought - for the Cuban people.  Many people internationally and some in the US have been involved in the campaign to free these political prisoners.  An effective news blackout in the US meant that few people knew about this case.  Rene and Fernando were recently released after serving their full sentences.  Gerardo, who was sentenced to 2 life terms plus 15 years, Ramon, sentenced to 30 years, Antonio, sentenced to 21 years and 10 months were released on December 17, 2014, as part of the deal involving a US intelligence agent imprisoned in Cuba. 

            I was in Cuba when the news of the release of the remaining 3 of the 5 Heroes was announced.  People were in the streets cheering, crying, hugging and kissing strangers, delirious with joy.   They had taken this personally.  Cubans are very family oriented and these men who had sacrificed their freedom, their youth, their family life, and potentially their own lives to protect their fellow citizens - they were family members who had suddenly and unexpectedly been freed.  Some religious people said that San Lázaro had made this miracle, since it was his saint's day, a major religious holiday in Cuba.  Everyone knew that it was a victory for the Cuban people. The Cuban 5, truly 5 Heroes, never gave in despite solitary confinement, deprival of family visits, and the possibility of dying in a US prison.  They never surrendered or denounced the Revolution for the sake of their own freedom, but won that freedom as a result of their own courage and the courage of the Cuban people and their supporters worldwide.

           

            What did Obama actually do?

*He "traded" the remaining 3 prisoners of the Cuban 5 for a US intelligence agent, probably Rolando Sarraff Trujillo. Alan Gross, another US agent, was freed by the Cubans on humanitarian grounds, clearly part of the deal although not technically part of the trade.

*He announced the establishment of diplomatic relations.

*He announced a policy of cooperation on specific mutual interests, like disaster response, drug trafficking, and health.

*He stated that Kerry would "review" Cuba's being on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

*He suggested that licenses for travel, commerce, telecommunications, and financial dealings with Cuba  will be easier to obtain.

What he did not do:

*The blockade of Cuba continues in force.

*US citizens still do not have the same freedom to travel to Cuba as elsewhere in the world; a license is still required.

*Guantanamo remains in the hands of the US, and prisoners who have never had trials remain imprisoned there, subject to torture.

*He did not end the overt and covert attempts to destabilize Cuba.

            What else is going on?

Cuba has proved to be too tough a bone to crack, as the Cubans have always said it would be. In Latin America some countries have organized alternatives to FTAA "free trade" agreements proposed by the US.  ALBA is an intergovernmental organization of socialist and social-democratic governments, based on a vision of mutual aid.  Venezuela is key to this alliance, as it is to UNASUR and MERCOSUR, other attempts at regional cooperation without US domination among Latin American nations.  The US sees Venezuela as vulnerable, and will intensify its efforts to destabilize a progressive government there.

Has the "new man" been developed in Cuba?

One of the aspects of Cuban revolutionary history which is often considered "failed" was the attempt to create the "new man"  This ideal of Ché, among others, envisioned a person (man was used to include humans of both genders back in the 60s, although it really did mostly mean man) who would work and sacrifice for the community in a disciplined and selfless manner without thought of reward.  It's true, there aren't many of that sort of person around in Cuba or elsewhere.  But is the "new person" an entirely failed project?  I don't know.

Ché isn't just for tourists.  He is revered in Cuba.  One finds signs of this in unexpected places.

 A car decal, a tattoo on a young nurse's hand...

Look, son, it's El Ché!

What I do know is that the streets of Havana are  enormously safer  than those of any other big city I've ever been in. (I've never been to Scandinavia, among other places.) It's routine to get a helpful response from people, even as a visitor, and it is also clear that neighbors are routinely helpful to each other and share, for example, their telephones. The large public celebrations also used to puzzle me - how was it possible for so many people to crowd together and drink so much without a fight starting every minute?     

the beer wagon at Carnaval

Obviously the Cuban reality is very complex, nuanced, and in flux, so that anything one writes is an over-simplification, and maybe temporary too.

But there are some noticeable differences, even now more than 50 years post-Revolution and about 20 after the worst of the Special Period, compared to the US.  In Cuba cooperation is the norm and fierce competitive acquisitiveness is not seen as desirable, but as deviant behavior.  (This is an over-simplification about the US also - I live in a rural community where cooperation is normal, but it is obvious that this does not reflect the economic life of the nation.)  Random hostility and violence are not common in Cuba, even in big cities.        

It has been alleged, and some studies show, that highly competitive societies promote sociopathic behavior. Since the absence of mercy and morals offers advantages in achieving business success, this becomes adaptive behavior.  Perhaps the Cuban achievement is not to have formed the communist new man but to have resisted the creation of the capitalist neoliberal new man and to have allowed people's natural humanity to remain intact.

Long time comrades, in every sense of the word.

Electricity outage (apagón) causes this woman to work in the courtyard.

These men fought under Ché's command.

restoring a car

Zaida and her combatientes medal.  The men in the photo above are also wearing these.  Not all revolutionaries have beards.

Vilda Figueroa and Pepe Lamas are the Proyecto Comunitario Conservacion de Alimentos.  The previous post is about this.

 The project is actually now rated "Triple Excelencia."

The Tercera Edad (Elders) Group eating at noon.

The community supply of drinking water is also at Martin Luther King Center.

It would be impossible to list all of Pastor Raul Suarez's achievements in a long essay, much less in a photo caption.

He has shared leadership for making a vibrant church in Pogolotti, for building the Martin Luther King Center and all its programs, for forging a connection with Pastors for Peace, for creating a Baptist liberation theology, for changing the attitude of the Cuban Revolutionary government about religion, and so much more.  He is truly one of the great men of the 20th Century.

He was also wounded at Playa Girón, where he went to aid the casualties of the failed US-sponsored invasion.

Lázaro Ostelaza volunteered for the Cuban army in Angola.  The Cuban help in defeating the forces of South Africa was important in ending apartheid.

The kids are all right.

Proyecto Conservación de Alimentos

Everyone who has gone to Cuba and is at all interested in nutrition has noticed that the  Cuban diet is not optimal.   The reasons for this are partly economic, but to a much greater extent cultural - when Cubans have more economic resources the main dietary change is to eat far more meat.  The historic reasons are complex - Cuba lacks an indigenous food tradition, the main dietary influence is Spanish, of course, but the plantation economy did not encourage peasant subsistence agriculture since people had no land to cultivate.  They worked in the cane or the coffee and ate what they were given.  So, what does the typical Cuban diet include?  Staples are congri - a rice and bean mix, or beans and rice in another form, and starchy potato-like vegetables - viandas.  Add fried bananas, and pork or chicken if there is any, and that's about it, except for dessert.  Some salad of cucumber, cabbage or avocado may be eaten sometimes.  Street snacks are bread with - ham, cheese, egg, or made into pizza, little fried bits, and ice cream, which is everywhere.  This is it for most people and furthermore it is what they want to eat, only more meat and lunch meat, please.

Making a cultural change, especially a dietary one in this situation of fixed habits, is a hard job.  Jose (Pepe) Lamas and Vilda Figueroa have been at it for more than 15 years.  Their multi-faceted Proyecto de Conservacion de Alimentos includes gardening - growing herbs, vegetables and fruits for home use; methods of canning and drying foods within the Cuban situation - Pepe, an engineer by trade has invented a solar dryer which can be made from locally available materials;  and cooking a wider variety of healthy foods with delicious recipes.  They do a radio program; publish extensively about food, nutrition, preservation methods, with many cookbooks; and train food activist "promoters" to return to their communities and teach others.  They are always experimenting with new plants, recipes, and methods; both seem tireless, although I'm sure this is an illusion.

Pepe Lamas with giant red quimbombo

Vilda Figueroa at a conference

At a book launch - the latest publication will be available in English.

What can be grown in Cuba?  How?  What methods can prevent abundant harvests from being wasted?  How can the diet be extended to include healthy food which is locally available, and how can this healthy food be made so delicious that even those closely tied to the traditional Cuban diet cannot resist it?    These are the questions which Conservacion de Alimentos asks and answers.