From: Arnold August <arnoldaugust@hotmail.com>
Sent: Oct 1, 2007 9:54 AM
To: Walter Lippmann <walterlx@earthlink.net>
Subject: Article against latest Bush statement

Hi Walter,
I have received an article from a student at Dawson College, Montreal, it may be of interest, see attachment please, have a good day. The author's name was deliberately left off.

Arnold

=====================================================

Rejection at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada
of latest insult and misinformation by Bush against Fidel Castro and the Cuban people

From September 17 to September 28 speakers from Cuba and Canada were invited by teachers as guest lecturers at Dawson College. One of the speakers was Arnold August, from Montreal, author and lecturer on democracy and the electoral system in Cuba. From September 26-28 he addressed several courses on People’s Rights and spoke to the North-South Seminar.

Once the address by US President Bush to the UN general assembly on September 25 became public, Arnold began his presentation to the 17-18 year old students and their teachers with the quote from Bush. The latter once again insults Fidel Castro and called on the UN “to insist on free speech, free assembly, and ultimately, free and competitive elections” for Cuba. The speaker found it quite ironic that Bush is trying to ally itself with the UN against Cuba.

The UN has voted innumerable times for the lifting of the more than four decade long blockade against the island. It has and is suffering so much because of this cruel attempt to economically and financially stranglehold the people and its leadership. The goal is to starve the Cuban people into submission. The latest UN general assembly vote took place last year with once again an overwhelming majority of 179 in favour of lifting the blockade, while the US mustered only 3 allies to vote with the White House to continue the inhumane policy. Once again, the US did not heed the vote by the UN, the vey body Bush appealed to on September 25 to support him in his aggressive policy against Cuba and its revolutionary leadership.

Arnold then dealt in detail with the issue of “free speech, free assembly, and ultimately, free and competitive elections”. He pointed out that in his opinion it is one of the major paradoxes in modern history that for over four decades the White House has been advising and threatening the Cuban people to adopt free and competitive elections similar to the US model. He said that the Cuban people already had their experience with a grotesque form of the American model of democracy during entire period of US imperial rule of the country from 1901 to the end of 1958.

The lecturer had just returned to Montreal from Havana after having spent some time during September doing field research and interviews on the current elections going on in Cuba. This was carried out as work towards his latest book on democracy and elections in Cuba to be published in 2008. The author introduced a most lively and unique way of explaining the Bush statement to young students who are just being initiated into these issues.

Arnold told us about the interviews he had carried out with ordinary voters who had just taken part in the neighbourhood nomination meetings last in September. He even showed us photographs he had taken of these citizens being interviewed who are about 75 years old. Why did he interview these voters as well as the younger ones? One of the reasons is that these seniors had their own direct experience with the US “free and competitive elections” during the 1950s before the 1959 revolution.

He then quoted some of the experiences that these two Cubans and their parents had in the 1950s regarding the Cuban political system under US domination. In a nutshell it amounted to this: the US organised these elections and in general tried to play off one political party against others as a charade to maintain the minority US and Cuban elite in power.

When the US and their Cuban allies could not get their way, or if there was a threat of revolutionary or progressive people being elected, what happened then? An open fascist dictatorship was imposed such through the Batista coup d’état in 1952. Throughout most of US rule in the 20th century, whether in a period of so-called free and fair elections or during the more open dictatorship, opponents of the US/Cuban ruling class were arrested, tortured and assassinated.

Progressive publications were harassed and shut down. So much for the freedom of speech and assembly according to Bush! Arnold quoted the two elderly voters as saying that the Cuban people will never accept the US model of democracy and everything that comes with it even if they have to sacrifice their lives to keep the US and their mercenaries out of Cuba.

He also showed us a photo of the vice-president of the Plaza de la Revolución Municipal Assembly whom he also interviewed in September. This man was nominated and elected directly by the citizens in the last municipal elections held in 2005. He was much younger. However, his father had direct experience with the US model. He had worked for an American company. When election time came, his father was approached by soldiers threatening him to vote for such and such a candidate, otherwise he would lose his job.

The period before the revolution, the speaker pointed out, was a democracy of the US/Cuban ruling elite. Freedom of speech and assembly was in general provided to this same ruling class. They could do as they like.

He then went on to explain the type of democracy and political system that the Cubans have developed under the leadership of Fidel Castro from 1959 to date. He was quite frank in telling us that this was a revolutionary and later socialist democracy which has as its main foundations a sovereign Cuba in opposition to US domination and a new social/economic orientation for the vast majority of Cuban people, for all those who had been formerly exploited and repressed under colonial and imperial rule.

Arnold then offered some examples of the type of freedom of assembly and speech that was ushered in by the revolution in 1959. He showed us the front cover of his first book, Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections featuring a photograph of the National General Assembly of the Cuban People held in 1962, known as the Second Declaration of Havana. We can see in this photograph the million or so people voting on the general orientation of the revolution and the specific tasks at hand confronting the people. Many other such mass meetings took place in 1959 and the 1960s. He rhetorically asked: Could the Cuban people have carried out this freedom of assembly under the rule of the US and their Cuban allies?

He then went on to explain in great detail how the nomination meetings took place in September 2007 as he had witnessed them once again, the first of several times being during the 1997-98 elections.

At this point, there were numerous questions from amongst the students, especially in the North-South Seminar. Students seemed to be so curious about this unique type of nomination procedure, very foreign to people in United States and Canada.

When he went on to explain how the elections themselves take place, he pointed out that a major incongruity in the September 25th UN Bush address stands out when the latter stated that Cuba needed free elections. Arnold’s explanation was very clear and to the point: in Cuba elections are free, in the sense that you do not need a cent to be nominated and run for elections. He gave us a full description. What about in the US? The students knew the answer. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars are needed.

As far as competitive elections, this is a very complicated point and difficult to deal with in one short course. “Competition”, like the word “democracy” itself, means one thing in the US system and another thing in the Cuba of today. He went on to explain with some examples from the Cuban municipal to the national Parliament elections of how competition operates on the island. However, what about competition in the US? He provided the example of the US policy on the war in Iraq.

This is an issue which is close to the hearts and souls of the students in Canada as well as in the US and in fact around the world. Another paradox confronts Bush’s UN statement: in the latest American Congressional elections the majority of the American people voted in favour of the competition, that is the Democrats. The desire by an ever-growing majority of the American people is to put an end to the war now. However, the war is still going on now. The situation is very complex. There are many reasons for the ongoing US-led war, but one important factor is the attitude of Bush to the elected Congress.

Before the lecture at the college, the students were not at all favourable towards Bush and his domestic and international policies and were never very impressed with democracy and electoral system in that country. After these conferences and discussions at the College the opposition was deepened even further. The insult to Fidel Castro and the Cuban people was firmly and unanimously rejected judging by the applause that followed the end of the conference and the continuing informal discussion that went into our lunch break. In fact during these discussions with the guest speaker, especially in the North-South seminar, some students said that the type of democracy and electoral system existing in Cuba would be a good thing to have in other countries such as in the US itself.