Bread, Salt, and Everything Else
Bread, Salt, and Everything Else
Published: Thursday 27 February 2020 | 11:48:01 pm. Updated: Friday 28 February 2020 | 12:16:12 am.
By Yoerky Sánchez Cuéllar
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The pressure valve resonates and they keep adding fuel to the fire. Let the pot explode. This is what the American circles of power want every time they announce a perverse measure against this small archipelago which, at the cost of sacrifice and resistance, pays the price of being independent.
My generation was born under the effects of the blockade. Perhaps at that time its economic impact was not so visible, thanks to the mutually advantageous relations and agreements established with the socialist camp. Until I was seven years old I fully enjoyed my childhood, playing bowling or watching dolls and adventures in an old Krim 218 at the house of my friends in the neighbourhood. But then the 1990s came and the scene took a traumatic turn.
The fall of Soviet socialism cracked our economy and left it without 80 percent of its foreign trade. Transportation collapsed, factories were shut down, “gossip” lamps replaced incandescent bulbs during long hours of scheduled blackouts.
In the face of the irresistible heat, people slept on the rooftops, with their mattresses uncovered. Publications disappeared. Juventud Rebelde, for example, changed its daily frequency to a weekly newspaper. Faced with a shortage of soap, I remember my mother washing with maguey fibres. Chinese bicycles became fashionable… At that age I couldn’t really understand what was going on around me.
In the book No hay que llorar (Let’s not cry), Santa Clara writer Aristides Vega Chapú compiled testimonies from 34 Cuban authors about this period. About the difficulties of that time and how we overcame the onslaught, each Cuban can tell his own story of ingenuity and resistance. The work would be a book of many volumes.
During all this time, what was the “help” of the American rulers? Was their intention to extend their hand so that the people would overcome the crisis?
In July 1991, months before the “de-escalation,” the U.S. Senate passed several amendments imposing a number of conditions on the Soviet Union to be eligible for U.S. foreign aid. These requirements included the cessation of military and economic assistance to Cuba.
And in 1992 the US government, led by Bush senior, signed the Torricelli Act, after the Democratic candidate, William Clinton, publicly endorsed it as a result of an agreement with Jorge Más Canosa, president of the Cuban American National Foundation. The objective: to asphyxiate us economically in order to provoke social chaos and, consequently, to overthrow the political order established on the island. Illusioned by a supposed domino effect, they openly proclaimed “the end of history” for the “Castro regime”.
In that same year, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) prohibited third-country nationals from introducing tobacco and rum from Cuba into the United States, even when these were for personal consumption. They had not yet approved the unfortunate Helms-Burton Act of 1996.
In their speech on humanitarian aid to the Cuban people, they always put one condition in advance: “If Cuba holds totally free and fair elections under international supervision, respects human rights and stops subverting its neighbors, we can hope that relations between our two countries will improve significantly,” are the words of the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, in March 1990.
Thirty years later, the goals remain the same. We are asked to make political concessions as a condition for taking the pressure off the pot. In the face of Cuba’s dignified and unchanging stance, they resort to arrogance and overkill. These incluse the 85 aggressive measures of various kinds that they applied only in 2019 and which have been rejected by our people and by many in the world, who also suffer the consequences of imperial arrogance.
The writer Eduardo Galeano illustrated this act of genocide with an emphatic and sentimental style: “The blockade against Cuba has multiplied over the years. A bilateral affair? So they say; but nobody ignores that the US blockade implies, today, the universal blockade. Cuba is denied bread and salt and everything else. And it also implies, although many people ignore it, the denial of the right to self-determination. The asphyxiating siege around Cuba is a form of intervention, the most ferocious, the most effective, in its internal affairs.
In the face of this policy of permanent aggression, made worse by the Trump administration and his perverse advisors, aim9ing to make the pot explode, the best response from every Cuban is to do things right. And that the result of daily work neutralizes every plan that the enemy cooks up. In short, “emancipate ourselves by ourselves and with our own efforts,” as Fidel explained it to us in his concept of Revolution.
The Cuba Embargo Needs To Go
Hillary Clinton: The Cuba Embargo
Needs To Go, Once And For All
July 31, 2015
Hillary Clinton makes a speech on Cuban relations at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, on Friday. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters
In Miami today, Hillary Clinton forcefully expressed her support for normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba and formally called on Congress to lift the Cuba embargo. Hillary emphasized that she believes we need to increase American influence in Cuba, not reduce it — a strong contrast with Republican candidates who are stuck in the past, trying to return to the same failed Cold War-era isolationism that has only strengthened the Castro regime.
To those Republicans, her message was clear: “They have it backwards: Engagement is not a gift to the Castros – it’s a threat to the Castros. An American embassy in Havana isn’t a concession – it’s a beacon. Lifting the embargo doesn’t set back the advance of freedom – it advances freedom where it is most desperately needed.”
A full transcript of the remarks is included below:
“Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to thank Dr. Frank Mora, director of the Kimberly Latin American and Caribbean Center and a professor here at FIU, and before that served with distinction at the Department of Defense. I want to recognize former Congressman Joe Garcia. Thank you Joe for being here – a long time friend and an exemplary educator. The President of Miami-Dade College, Eduardo Padrón and the President of FIU, Mark Rosenberg – I thank you all for being here. And for me it’s a delight to be here at Florida International University. You can feel the energy here. It’s a place where people of all backgrounds and walks of life work hard, do their part, and get ahead. That’s the promise of America that has drawn generations of immigrants to our shores, and it’s a reality right here at FIU.
“Today, as Frank said, I want to talk with you about a subject that has stirred passionate debate in this city and beyond for decades, but is now entering a crucial new phase. America’s approach to Cuba is at a crossroads, and the upcoming presidential election will determine whether we chart a new path forward or turn back to the old ways of the past. We must decide between engagement and embargo, between embracing fresh thinking and returning to Cold War deadlock. And the choices we make will have lasting consequences not just for more than 11 million Cubans, but also for American leadership across our hemisphere and around the world.
“I know that for many in this room and throughout the Cuban-American community, this debate is not an intellectual exercise – it is deeply personal.
“I teared up as Frank was talking about his mother—not able to mourn with her family, say goodbye to her brother. I’m so privileged to have a sister-in-law who is Cuban-American, who came to this country, like so many others as a child and has chartered her way with a spirit of determination and success.
“I think about all those who were sent as children to live with strangers during the Peter Pan airlift, for families who arrived here during the Mariel boatlift with only the clothes on their backs, for sons and daughters who could not bury their parents back home, for all who have suffered and waited and longed for change to come to the land, “where palm trees grow.” And, yes, for a rising generation eager to build a new and better future.
“Many of you have your own stories and memories that shape your feelings about the way forward. Like Miriam Leiva, one of the founders of the Ladies in White, who is with us today – brave Cuban women who have defied the Castro regime and demanded dignity and reform. We are honored to have her here today and I’d like to ask her, please raise your hand. Thank you.
“I wish every Cuban back in Cuba could spend a day walking around Miami and see what you have built here, how you have turned this city into a dynamic global city. How you have succeeded as entrepreneurs and civic leaders. It would not take them long to start demanding similar opportunities and achieving similar success back in Cuba.
“I understand the skepticism in this community about any policy of engagement toward Cuba. As many of you know, I’ve been skeptical too. But you’ve been promised progress for fifty years. And we can’t wait any longer for a failed policy to bear fruit. We have to seize this moment. We have to now support change on an island where it is desperately needed.
“I did not come to this position lightly. I well remember what happened to previous attempts at engagement. In the 1990s, Castro responded to quiet diplomacy by shooting down the unarmed Brothers to the Rescue plane out of the sky. And with their deaths in mind, I supported the Helms-Burton Act to tighten the embargo.
“Twenty years later, the regime’s human rights abuses continue: imprisoning dissidents, cracking down on free expression and the Internet, beating and harassing the courageous Ladies in White, refusing a credible investigation into the death of Oswaldo Paya. Anyone who thinks we can trust this regime hasn’t learned the lessons of history.
“But as Secretary of State, it became clear to me that our policy of isolating Cuba was strengthening the Castros’ grip on power rather than weakening it – and harming our broader efforts to restore American leadership across the hemisphere. The Castros were able to blame all of the island’s woes on the U.S. embargo, distracting from the regime’s failures and delaying their day of reckoning with the Cuban people. We were unintentionally helping the regime keep Cuba a closed and controlled society rather than working to open it up to positive outside influences the way we did so effectively with the old Soviet bloc and elsewhere.
“So in 2009, we tried something new. The Obama administration made it easier for Cuban Americans to visit and send money to family on the island. No one expected miracles, but it was a first step toward exposing the Cuban people to new ideas, values, and perspectives.
“I remember seeing a CNN report that summer about a Cuban father living and working in the United States who hadn’t seen his baby boy back home for a year-and-a-half because of travel restrictions. Our reforms made it possible for that father and son finally to reunite. It was just one story, just one family, but it felt like the start of something important.
“In 2011, we further loosened restrictions on cash remittances sent back to Cuba and we opened the way for more Americans – clergy, students and teachers, community leaders – to visit and engage directly with the Cuban people. They brought with them new hope and support for struggling families, aspiring entrepreneurs, and brave civil society activists. Small businesses started opening. Cell phones proliferated. Slowly, Cubans were getting a taste of a different future.
“I then became convinced that building stronger ties between Cubans and Americans could be the best way to promote political and economic change on the island. So by the end of my term as Secretary, I recommended to the President that we end the failed embargo and double down on a strategy of engagement that would strip the Castro regime of its excuses and force it to grapple with the demands and aspirations of the Cuban people. Instead of keeping change out, as it has for decades, the regime would have to figure out how to adapt to a rapidly transforming society.
“What’s more, it would open exciting new business opportunities for American companies, farmers, and entrepreneurs – especially for the Cuban-American community. That’s my definition of a win-win.
“Now I know some critics of this approach point to other countries that remain authoritarian despite decades of diplomatic and economic engagement. And yes it’s true that political change will not come quickly or easily to Cuba. But look around the world at many of the countries that have made the transition from autocracy to democracy – from Eastern Europe to East Asia to Latin America. Engagement is not a silver bullet, but again and again we see that it is more likely to hasten change, not hold it back.
“The future for Cuba is not foreordained. But there is good reason to believe that once it gets going, this dynamic will be especially powerful on an island just 90 miles from the largest economy in the world. Just 90 miles away from one and a half million Cuban-Americans whose success provides a compelling advertisement for the benefits of democracy and an open society.
“So I have supported President Obama and Secretary Kerry as they’ve advanced this strategy. They’ve taken historic steps forward – re-establishing diplomatic relations, reopening our embassy in Havana, expanding opportunities further for travel and commerce, calling on Congress to finally drop the embargo.
“That last step about the embargo is crucial, because without dropping it, this progress could falter.
“We have arrived at a decisive moment. The Cuban people have waited long enough for progress to come. Even many Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to recognize the urgency of moving forward. It’s time for their leaders to either get on board or get out of the way. The Cuba embargo needs to go, once and for all. We should replace it with a smarter approach that empowers Cuban businesses, Cuban civil society, and the Cuban-American community to spur progress and keep pressure on the regime.
“Today I am calling on Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell to step up and answer the pleas of the Cuban people. By large majorities, they want a closer relationship with America.
“They want to buy our goods, read our books, surf our web, and learn from our people. They want to bring their country into the 21st century. That is the road toward democracy and dignity and we should walk it together.
“We can’t go back to a failed policy that limits Cuban-Americans’ ability to travel and support family and friends. We can’t block American businesses that could help free enterprise take root in Cuban soil – or stop American religious groups and academics and activists from establishing contacts and partnerships on the ground.
“If we go backward, no one will benefit more than the hardliners in Havana. In fact, there may be no stronger argument for engagement than the fact that Cuba’s hardliners are so opposed to it. They don’t want strong connections with the United States. They don’t want Cuban-Americans traveling to the island. They don’t want American students and clergy and NGO activists interacting with the Cuban people. That is the last thing they want. So that’s precisely why we need to do it.
“Unfortunately, most of the Republican candidates for President would play right into the hard-liners’ hands. They would reverse the progress we have made and cut the Cuban people off from direct contact with the Cuban-American community and the free-market capitalism and democracy that you embody. That would be a strategic error for the United States and a tragedy for the millions of Cubans who yearn for closer ties.
“They have it backwards: Engagement is not a gift to the Castros – it’s a threat to the Castros. An American embassy in Havana isn’t a concession – it’s a beacon. Lifting the embargo doesn’t set back the advance of freedom – it advances freedom where it is most desperately needed.
“Fundamentally, most Republican candidates still view Cuba – and Latin America more broadly – through an outdated Cold War lens. Instead of opportunities to be seized, they see only threats to be feared. They refuse to learn the lessons of the past or pay attention to what’s worked and what hasn’t. For them, ideology trumps evidence. And so they remain incapable of moving us forward.
“As President, I would increase American influence in Cuba, rather than reduce it. I would work with Congress to lift the embargo and I would also pursue additional steps.
“First, we should help more Americans go to Cuba. If Congress won’t act to do this, I would use executive authority to make it easier for more Americans to visit the island to support private business and engage with the Cuban people.
“Second, I would use our new presence and connections to more effectively support human rights and civil society in Cuba. I believe that as our influence expands among the Cuban people, our diplomacy can help carve out political space on the island in a way we never could before.
“We will follow the lead of Pope Francis, who will carry a powerful message of empowerment when he visits Cuba in September. I would direct U.S. diplomats to make it a priority to build relationships with more Cubans, especially those starting businesses and pushing boundaries. Advocates for women’s rights and workers’ rights. Environmental activists. Artists. Bloggers. The more relationships we build, the better.
“We should be under no illusions that the regime will end its repressive ways any time soon, as its continued use of short-term detentions demonstrates. So we have to redouble our efforts to stand up for the rights of reformers and political prisoners, including maintaining sanctions on specific human-rights violators. We should maintain restrictions on the flow of arms to the regime – and work to restrict access to the tools of repression while expanding access to tools of dissent and free expression.
“We should make it clear, as I did as Secretary of State, that the “freedom to connect” is a basic human right, and therefore do more to extend that freedom to more and more Cubans – particularly young people.
“Third, and this is directly related, we should focus on expanding communications and commercial links to and among the Cuban people. Just five percent of Cubans have access to the open Internet today. We want more American companies pursuing joint ventures to build networks that will open the free flow of information – and empower everyday Cubans to make their voices heard. We want Cubans to have access to more phones, more computers, more satellite televisions. We want more American airplanes and ferries and cargo ships arriving every day. I’m told that Airbnb is already getting started. Companies like Google and Twitter are exploring opportunities as well.
“It will be essential that American and international companies entering the Cuban market act responsibly, hold themselves to high standards, use their influence to push for reforms. I would convene and connect U.S. business leaders from many fields to advance this strategy, and I will look to the Cuban-American community to continue leading the way. No one is better positioned to bring expertise, resources, and vision to this effort – and no one understands better how transformative this can be.
“We will also keep pressing for a just settlement on expropriated property. And we will let Raul explain to his people why he wants to prevent American investment in bicycle repair shops, in restaurants, in barbershops, and Internet cafes. Let him try to put up barriers to American technology and innovation that his people crave.
“Finally, we need to use our leadership across the Americas to mobilize more support for Cubans and their aspirations. Just as the United States needed a new approach to Cuba, the region does as well.
“Latin American countries and leaders have run out of excuses for not standing up for the fundamental freedoms of the Cuban people. No more brushing things under the rug. No more apologizing. It is time for them to step up. Not insignificantly, new regional cooperation on Cuba will also open other opportunities for the United States across Latin America.
“For years, our unpopular policy towards Cuba held back our influence and leadership. Frankly, it was an albatross around our necks. We were isolated in our opposition to opening up the island. Summit meetings were consumed by the same old debates. Regional spoilers like Venezuela took advantage of the disagreements to advance their own agendas and undermine the United States. Now we have the chance for a fresh start in the Americas.
“Strategically, this is a big deal. Too often, we look east, we look west, but we don’t look south. And no region in the world is more important to our long-term prosperity and security than Latin America. And no region in the world is better positioned to emerge as a new force for global peace and progress.
“Many Republicans seem to think of Latin America still as a land of crime and coups rather than a place where free markets and free people are thriving. They’ve got it wrong. Latin America is now home to vibrant democracies, expanding middle classes, abundant energy supplies, and a combined GDP of more than $4 trillion.
“Our economies, communities, and even our families are deeply entwined. And I see our increasing interdependence as a comparative advantage to be embraced. The United States needs to build on what I call the “power of proximity.” It’s not just geography – it’s common values, common culture, common heritage. It’s shared interests that could power a new era of partnership and prosperity. Closer ties across Latin America will help our economy at home and strengthen our hand around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific. There is enormous potential for cooperation on clean energy and combatting climate change.
“And much work to be done together to take on the persistent challenges in our hemisphere, from crime to drugs to poverty, and to stand in defense of our shared values against regimes like that in Venezuela. So the United States needs to lead in the Latin America. And if we don’t, make no mistake, others will. China is eager to extend its influence. Strong, principled American leadership is the only answer. That was my approach as Secretary of State and will be my priority as President.
“Now it is often said that every election is about the future. But this time, I feel it even more powerfully. Americans have worked so hard to climb out of the hole we found ourselves in with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression in 2008. Families took second jobs and second shifts. They found a way to make it work. And now, thankfully, our economy is growing again.
“Slowly but surely we also repaired America’s tarnished reputation. We strengthened old alliances and started new partnerships. We got back to the time-tested values that made our country a beacon of hope and opportunity and freedom for the entire world. We learned to lead in new ways for a complex and changing age. And America is safer and stronger as a result.
“We cannot afford to let out-of-touch, out-of-date partisan ideas and candidates rip away all the progress we’ve made. We can’t go back to cowboy diplomacy and reckless war-mongering. We can’t go back to a go-it-alone foreign policy that views American boots on the ground as a first choice rather than as a last resort. We have paid too high a price in lives, power, and prestige to make those same mistakes again. Instead we need a foreign policy for the future with creative, confident leadership that harnesses all of America’s strength, smarts, and values. I believe the future holds far more opportunities than threats if we shape global events rather than reacting to them and being shaped by them. That is what I will do as President, starting right here in our own hemisphere.
“I’m running to build an America for tomorrow, not yesterday. For the struggling, the striving, and the successful. For the young entrepreneur in Little Havana who dreams of expanding to Old Havana. For the grandmother who never lost hope of seeing freedom come to the homeland she left so long ago. For the families who are separated. For all those who have built new lives in a new land. I’m running for everyone who’s ever been knocked down, but refused to be knocked out. I am running for you and I want to work with you to be your partner to build the kind of future that will once again not only make Cuban-Americas successful here in our country, but give Cubans in Cuba the same chance to live up to their own potential.
Thank you all very, very much.”
###
For Immediate Release, July 31, 2015
Contact: press@hillaryclinton.com
PAID FOR BY HILLARY FOR AMERICA
Contributions or gifts to Hillary for America are not tax deductible.
Hillary for America, PO Box 5256, New York
Sanders recognizes Cuba’s contributions
Bernie Sanders recognizes Cuba’s
contributions in education and health
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders recognized Cuba’s role in sending doctors around the world, as well as progress in education
————————————————————————————————
Author: Web Editor | internet@granma.cu
February 25, 2020 09:02:35
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Bernie Sanders: Photo: Prensa Latina
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, now one of the strongest Democratic Party candidates for the November presidential election, recognized Cuba’s role in sending doctors around the world.
“It would be a mistake not to declare in Cuba that they have made some good progress in health care,” the 78-year-old politician admitted in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes program broadcast Sunday.
“They are sending doctors all over the world. They’ve made some progress in education,” said the Vermont senator who is running against Republican Donald Trump for the Nov. 3 presidential election.
As it turns out, presenter Anderson Cooper asked the current Blue Force nominee to explain his comments in 1985, when he praised some of the social programs implemented by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.
According to a video clip from more than 30 years ago, the senator said at the time that Fidel Castro “educated the children, gave them medical care, totally transformed society.
Although he made it clear that his “socialism” is not that of Venezuela or Cuba and stressed that the kind of society he believes in is the kind that exists for him in countries like Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the legislator said it is “unfair to simply say that everything is wrong” on the island.
“When Fidel Castro took office, do you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program,” Sanders emphasized, referring to the cultural revolution that in just one year (in 1961) made it possible to eradicate illiteracy and provide universal access to the various levels of education free of charge in the Caribbean country.
On October 17, 1962, during the inauguration of the Victoria de Girón Institute of Basic and Pre-clinical Sciences in the Cuban capital, Fidel Castro announced the government’s decision to provide aid in the field of health and said that 50 doctors would be sent to Algeria.
“Today we can only send 50, but in eight or 10 years, who knows how many, and we will be helping our brothers,” the Cuban leader warned at the time.
Almost six decades later, more than 400,000 health workers from the Greater Antilles have carried out missions in some 164 countries, while with the same disinterest 35,613 health professionals from 138 nations have been trained on the island free of charge.
As expected, his comments provoked the anger of the most extremist sector of Cuban Americans in South Florida, who oppose any rapprochement with the Caribbean island.
In 2016, Sanders defended diplomatic relations with Cuba, which he said “will result in significant improvements in the lives of Cubans and help the United States.’
In addition, he has reiterated his position regarding the elimination of the blockade that both Republican and Democratic administrations have maintained for nearly six decades.
But watch out, warn observers, his praise must be viewed with caution, despite the fact that it differs from Trump.
By the way, during the televised program, Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, promised that if he becomes president he hopes to use the “federal government to protect the interests of working families.”
In that sense, he stated that in the United States the government works for the very wealthy and although without mentioning his name he said that the president of the United States is a pathological liar.
In early February, in his State of the Union address, the occupant of the Oval Office attacked Medicare for All, one of Sanders’ main proposals.
For the Republican, this health plan seeks to destroy American health care.
Recent polls show that Sanders continues to be unstoppable, winning comfortably in Nevada’s Democratic caucuses on Saturday, and increasing his support among Latino voters, second only to former Vice President Joseph Biden.
Source: Prensa Latina
CIMEX Releases Used Car Prices
Cimex discloses prices of used cars to be sold at MLC
On Tuesday, February 25, the sale of used cars in freely convertible currency (MLC) will begin, maintaining the same payment mechanisms and currencies approved for purchases in MLC, published the Cimex Corporation on its website
Author: Yisell Rodríguez Milán | yisell@granma.cu
February 21, 2020 12:02:32
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
On Tuesday, February 25, the sale of used cars in freely convertible currency (MLC) will begin, maintaining the same payment mechanisms and currencies approved for the purchase modality in MLC, published the Cimex Corporation on its website.
It is possible to acquire vehicles through this payment method, in a personal way, through the Car Agency located on 20th Street between 1st and 3rd, in the municipality of Playa, in the city of Havana. This establishment constitutes the only shop enabled Cuba for this service.
FROM THE SALE OF CARS IN CUBA?
PRICE, WITH A 10% DISCOUNT
Humor, Parody and Other Tricks vs. Patriarchy
Humor, Parody and Other Tricks vs. Patriarchy
Analyses of how women writers and artists describe to the public the continued danger posed in the 21st century by machismo, violence against women, sexual harassment, rape, and even femicide . These have been the focus of a Colloquium at Casa de las Americas (February 17-21) convened by its Women’s Studies Program, created in 1994 and now directed by Dr. Luisa Campuzano.
By Mireya Castañeda
February 23, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Taken from the Internet
From literature, theater and cinema, women have decided to expose with weapons as powerful as humor and satire that terrible anachronism that responds to the generic name of patriarchy.
The analysis of how women writers and artists describe to the public the continued danger represented in the 21st century by machismo, violence against women, sexual harassment, rape, and even femicide has been the central theme of a Colloquium at Casa de las Americas (February 17-21) convened by its Women’s Studies Program, created in 1994 and today directed by Dr. Luisa Campuzano.
Under the suggestive and even sarcastic title Humor, irony, parody and other women’s tricks to re/des/construct Latin American and Caribbean history and culture, the Colloquium attracted nearly forty specialists from universities in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Chile, Italy, Poland, Portugal and twenty from Cuba.
For our publication, Dr. Campuzano said that the Colloquium was very rich in participation and reiterated that “there is nothing like humor, like parody, irony, to remove anachronistic, ridiculous, and laughable patriarchal prejudices and that battle takes place within literature, the arts, and the theater.
The panels dealt with specific contents such as De cuerpo entero: las décimas y las canciones de Violeta Parra; Las muchachas se diverten. History and political discourse in the Latin American fiction film directed by women, or Women’s humour in political and social cabaret.
Two Cuban examples to appreciate how this serious subject is ironically treated from the stage: the monologue Yaisú by the also narrator Laidi Fernández de Juan performed by Verónica Feria, and a fragment of the piece La cita signed and performed by Andrea Doimeadiós and Verónica Feria.
But in addition to the “tricks” with which Latin American and Caribbean writers and artists put sexism and machismo in check, the Colloquium heard their impact even on many penal codes, including that of Cuba according to one of the presentations, in need of a reform that is planned for 2021 on the island.
The participants are aware of the urgent need to transcend public spaces, a debate of society in general about gender violence, sexual harassment and even cyber-bullying, beyond literature, the performing arts, and academia.
We Don’t Give Up Touching the Stars
Though the Path May be Challenging,
We Don’t Give Up Touching the Stars
Eight million Cubans gave their support to what is, since last February 24, the Supreme Law of our society, protected by Martí’s dream of a Republic of exceptional humanism.
February 23, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
A year has already passed, and if it were necessary to define it in one word, there is no other more explicit word for it than “transcendental”. Twelve months of incessant work since, having once again the dream that Martí left us of a Republic of exceptional humanism as a shelter, more than eight million Cubans gave their support to what is, since last February 24, the Supreme Law of Cuban society.
The approval of a more advanced constitutional text was not only reliable proof of the continuity that has marked the evolution of our revolutionary process, but also the starting point for an intense and challenging work stage.
The Guidelines, the Development Plan until 2030 and the Conceptualization of the Cuban economic and social model showed us that the Cuba of these times was demanding transformations to make our social system more sustainable, developed, proactive and, therefore, more just and richer in opportunities. For that, a new Constitution was undoubtedly necessary.
However, the collective consensus for the structuring of the Magna Carta, its approval in a referendum and its proclamation on another historic date, April 10, laid out a path, directed in two essential directions. First, the approval of a whole legal and regulatory framework that would allow for the implementation of its content. Second, on the one hand, the reordering of the structures of the State and the Government, so that they are more functional, efficient and objective in pursuit of a supreme goal: the growth of our country on all fronts.
These have been, during this year, unrenounceable goals, sustained with discipline and order, on a par with the permanent confrontation with the sickly policy of the United States Government against Cuba, and the countless tensions arising from it.
The essential task of legislating
During 2019, the Cuban Parliament has had an intense legislative year. Several laws have already been approved by our deputies, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution itself, and in view of the need to regulate certain processes that are indispensable from the social and economic point of view.
During the first ordinary session following the proclamation of the new Magna Carta, three of these invaluable legislative texts came into being: Act 127 or the Electoral Act, Act 128 or the Act on the National Symbols of the Republic of Cuba, and Act 129 or the Fisheries Act, the latter of which was passed for the first time in Cuba.
Logically, our current Magna Carta includes important changes in the constitutional order. Its first transitory provision determines that within six months after its entry into force, a new Electoral Law had to be approved by the National Assembly, of course, in order to first guarantee the structuring of the Electoral Councils at all levels and the subsequent election of the new figures described in the constitutional text, and which therefore did not correspond to what was regulated in the previous law of October 29, 1992. Likewise, it includes, as is logical, the procedures for the election of already known figures such as deputies, delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power and the direction of these.
For its part, the Law on National Symbols will make it possible, as it explains, to resolve the problems manifested in the regulations in force until then. At the same time, it makes the use of these symbols more flexible to a certain extent, in accordance with the interests of Cuban citizens.
In the case of the Fishing Law, its second Por Cuanto makes clear “the objective of establishing the management of fishing resources under the principles of conservation, sustainable use, the precautionary approach, the implementation of scientific-technological criteria and the protection of ecosystems, in correspondence with national and international norms and the principles of food security and sovereignty so that in a progressive, flexible and effective manner, the implementation of the Cuban fishing policy is guaranteed.
By the end of 2019, in its last ordinary session, the National Assembly approved two new laws, which are essential in the process of improving the bodies of the People’s Power: The Law on the Organization and Functioning of the Municipal Assemblies and the People’s Councils, and the Law on the Organization and Functioning of that body and the Council of State, as the structure that represents it between one session and the next.
Ahead lies an arduous task of legislation, the complexity of which is reflected in the timetable approved for that purpose, with a total of 70 regulations between laws and decree-laws up to 2023, and another 24 from that year until 2028. All of them, without a doubt, are aimed at the optimum organic functioning of the Cuban nation.
Structures more functional and tempered at the present time
The first month of the year brought with it two closely related processes that contribute not only to strengthening the structures of the State, but also to achieving a greater level of protagonism of the territories in decision-making, the search for local solutions to problems, the transit towards more horizontal processes that involve reasoning and assuming strategies in accordance with the closest reality, as well as in the advance towards municipal autonomy.
First, the delegates to the municipal assemblies of People’s Power throughout the country elected the Governors and Vice-Governors in their respective provinces. Later, they also approved, at the proposal of their presidents, those who already hold the posts of Quartermasters. Each one of these figures, with attributions gathered within the Magna Carta.
However, this step was preceded by others, which involved changes at the highest levels of leadership in the country and in the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) itself, the highest governing body of the State, which elected from among its members its President, Vice President and Secretary, who are in turn members of the Council of State.
The essential reason for this decision is that the Council of State is the body that represents the anpp in the inter-sessional periods and is accountable to the anpp for its activities. Although it has the power to adopt decree-laws, which may be essential for the conduct of certain processes in the country, these must be ratified by the National Assembly at its next session. Its powers are clearly defined in the Constitution.
This body is also responsible for the election of the President and Vice-President of the Republic. The former is elected from among its members, with an absolute majority vote, for a period of five years, and is also accountable to it. The second, elected in the same way, fulfils the powers delegated or designated by the President.
The Cuban Magna Carta clearly defines the structure of the Government of the Republic, constituted by the Council of Ministers as the highest executive and administrative body. It is headed by another of the new figures identified in the constitutional text: the Prime Minister. This, in turn, is the Head of the Government of the Republic. The latter was appointed on the proposal of the President of the Republic, with the support of the absolute majority of our deputies.
Beyond the constitutional terms
Although this text offers a brief summary of the different steps that have been completed as part of the materialization of constitutional budgets, the true essence of each of them and their impact within society goes much further than the legal language or the terms that make up a document of the rank of a Constitution.
The reality is that everything achieved so far, and what is still on the table, which is not at all negligible, has an unquestionable protagonist: the people, and with that profound popular essence it has been executed. Let us never forget that the deputies represent even the most humble of Cubans, those who live in the most intricate area, those who are still very young or those who are already combing their hair.
Nor should we forget that the fact that we approved the Magna Carta in a constitutional referendum, and that we enriched it with our criteria, in a broad popular consultation, also means that the majority supports the processes arising from its chapters and sections.
This has been, above all, a year of learning, of understanding that transformation is a top principle in order to develop, grow and broaden the horizons to which we aspire. Everything we do together, with that conviction of “thinking as a country”, is reverted to the benefit of you, me, our family, the people we love and who are privileged to live on this Island.
Our Apostle showed us from the infinite greatness of his person and the undeniable depth of his word, that one does not climb the stars on flat roads, and from that wisdom we interpret, therefore, that if the engine that moves us is will, no matter how rough the road, it is not impossible to reach them, with the accurate guidance of our leaders.
Bernie Sanders, the Most likely Democrat Bet in America Against Trump
Bernie Sanders, the Most likely Democrat in America Against Trump
Senator Bernie Sanders is shaping up today to be the Democrats’ most likely bet to face President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election
February 23, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
From left to right, Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donal Trump. Photo: EFE
If weeks ago the media highlighted the figure of the former mayor of New York and multimillionaire Michael Bloomberg as an alternative to the “establishment” and moderate Democrats to confront President Donald Trump, today the figure of the senator is making its way as a representative of diversity in the country.
His successes in the early states gave him a clear path to a plurality of committed convention delegates, while his rivals are divided and attempts to reach a contested convention appear to be going in the wrong direction, according to various U.S. media.
As with Donald Trump in 2016, so it is Sanders so far in 2020. The characters are different, but the same dynamic is at play.
The reality facing those in the so-called blue party who do not want the senator from Vermont to run is the division in their ranks. This makes it extremely difficult to stop a candidate if no alternative can be agreed upon, whether it is former vice president Joseph Biden, Bloomberg or another of those still competing.
According to analyses in such influential media as The New York Times and The Hill, the race is young and there is still time for “conservatives who opposed Trump to offer some advice to Democrats who want to nominate someone other than the Vermont socialist,” says the Times.
After the pointer’s passage through the blue ranks, the idea is now underway that figures like fellow challenger Amy Klobuchar, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and even former Vice President Biden, if he loses in South Carolina, will drop from the race to give possibilities to alternative figures like Bloomberg or Senator Elizabeth Warren.
According to Ross Douthat, author of several books such as “The Decadent Society,” those who are against Sanders are not united, but that could happen if moderate alternatives such as Bloomberg or Biden are considered, since it is difficult to stop a candidate from the Sanders plurality at a contested convention.
The Democrats’ delegate distribution rules make a contested convention more likely, but Sanders is on track to get a clear plurality of delegates by the end of March, and one thing that would be critical is whether he arrives in May with a majority of delegates.
The chances of the new frontrunner gaining more support are real. Some analysts, such as the site www.fivethirtyeight.com, even consider his pace to be overwhelming and he will arrive at the party convention with a large margin in his favor to be the nominee who will face Donald Trump on November 3 for the presidency.
The diversity of the vote in the race will determine what happens on Super Tuesday. That could consolidate Sanders, because on March 3 there are two delegate awards, in California (495) and Texas (261), and there Latinos can have the last word.
In the race to win the nomination in July, contestants are trying to make it to the party convention with the support of 1,991 delegates needed out of the total of 4,750 to be their party’s nominee for the November presidential election.
As things are going, Sanders could get there with that number. The race, however, is still in its infancy and a showdown between Sanders and Biden, or even Bloomberg, for the nomination is not ruled out, although Sanders probably has the advantage.
In Bloomberg’s case, Super Tuesday is still ahead when he will start appearing on the ballot, but after his disastrous performance in last Wednesday’s debate in Nevada, his chances are in doubt.
According to the polls, Sanders leads in both California and Texas. The progressive senator could also take advantage of those advantages in the next few days, after his momentum in the first states where they voted so far.
The reality is that the existence of eight candidates now makes it difficult for any rival to reach the top and challenge Sanders, which is likely to increase the pressure on some under-performing candidates to withdraw.
The truth is that there is panic among opponents and pressure for an alternative to Sanders is on, so eyes are on the Super Tuesday results, when the Democratic competition to challenge Trump will definitely be closed or opened.
(Source: Prensa Latina)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, in an edition complete with nearly 100 additional pages of excerpts from his speeches, was first published in a Cuban edition in 1977. The book has remained in print through the subsequent years. It’s sold at a price Cubans can afford: ten pesos. The following is the introduction to the Cuban edition by journalist Juana Carrasco, written for the 1977 edition and still used in the current edition. Juana Carrasco remains active in Cuba today, both as a columnist for Juventud Rebelde, and as a regular participant in Cuba’s leading public affairs program, the Mesa Redonda (Round Table). We are pleased to bring this introduction to the English-speaking public for the first time. (2005) The author of this prologue is STILL active covering the United States for Juventud Rebelde. (2020)
Editorial de Ciencias Sociales publication, Havana, 1977
Instituto Cubano del Libro, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales
ISBN 959-06-0539-7
A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela.
Edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
PROLOGUE TO THE CUBAN EDITION
“I don’t expect to live long enough to read my book…”, he said one day and it proved to be true because he was killed before his autobiography was published. It became a dramatic reality, on the afternoon of February 21, 1965, when he began to address an audience of about 400 Blacks and half a dozen whites.
Two men, taking advantage of a confusion caused by their accomplices, jumped from the first row of the Audubon Ballroom and fired at Malcolm X who kept standing in the face of the assassin’s bullets and then he fell to the floor – mortally wounded – while one of the killers emptied his gun into his body.
Betty Shabazz, the wife of Malcolm X and his four little children were present in the Audubon . Betty ran towards the lectern screaming: “They have killed my husband! They are killing my husband!”
At 3:45 in the afternoon, in the Columbian Presbyterian Medical Center, the following report was made: “The gentleman you know as Malcolm X is dead.”
The reaction of the whites, headed by the press, was to identify the assassins and the reason for the assassination as an act of vengeance by other Blacks, the Black Muslims, belonging to the organization Malcolm X had left during the early part of 1964.
However, the reaction in the Black ghettoes and among the closest followers of Malcolm X, his killing had a very different reason. Gradually it became known that powerful forces had their hands in it: the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were involved in the assassination because they were alarmed by the growing impact of Malcolm X and, primarily, because of his intent to internationalize the racial discrimination existing in the United States, trying to take it to the UN Human Rights Commission, through diplomats of African countries.
Using fraudulent declarations from bogus or bought witnesses, a trial was fabricated against two members of the Black nationalist organization, the Black Muslims [the Nation of Islam]; they intended to demonstrate that the assassination had been a question “among Blacks” and the investigations which should have been made of the events were not performed.
Because, in truth, it became evident that the Muslims could not have carried out the actions that were ongoing occurrences against Malcolm X: intervention and wire-tapping of all his telephone calls, following him on his trips to Europe, Africa and the Middle East; and these are just a few.
Proof revealed later demonstrates that the assassins were acting under orders of the United States government. Gene Roberts, one of the men who should have protected the life of Malcolm X, was a member of BOSS (Bureau of Special Services) an organization of highly secret police agents. [BOSS was, in fact, a covert arm of the New York Police Department.] In 1964 he had infiltrated the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), the organization founded by Malcolm X.
Malcolm X was killed when Gene Roberts was supposed to protect him. And the majority of the OAAU members are now imprisoned or dead. Gene Roberts later infiltrated another black nationalist organization, the Revolutionary Action Movement [RAM] and a group known as the Mau Mau. He culminated his activities against the most radical Black organizations, the Harlem Branch of the Black Panther Party. His testimony and provocations served to jail 21 Black Panthers in New York who were in danger of being sentenced to long prison terms, accused of conspiring to blow up stores of the great city. Gene Roberts was, at last, exposed in 1970.
One day we will learn the precise role he played in the assassination of Malcolm X.
The events of 1965 demonstrated that Malcolm X was right when he told his wife Betty that the United States establishment was after his life.
For this reason the New York Times wrote, in December of 1965: “Most admirers of Malcolm are beginning to believe that he was assassinated by order of the United States government.”
But who was this man considered to be a danger to the government of the United States, to the powers that be?
Malcolm Little, because that was the surname he received from his father on May 19, 1925, was born in Omaha, Nebraska. In the great cities of the North, in the ghettoes where he lived most of his life, from the age of 15, he was a thief, drug addict, professional gambler and pimp. Simply, he touched bottom of human conditions to become, later, the dynamic leader of the Black revolution in the United States. His example was devastating, consequently his dangerousness.
“I have dedicated all the time available to this book because I believe and hope that my honest and factual account will serve an objective reader and find some social value in this testimony.
“I hope and expect that an objective leader, reading about my life – the life of a Black leader formed in the ghetto – acquires an image and clearer account of the Black ghettoes that are modeling the lives of twenty-two million Blacks who live in the United States”.
Now, Malcolm X is known in the entire world by the surname he took when he left the Charlestown prison in 1952 and became a Black Muslim. In this Black Nationalist movement he was revealed as a genius in oratory winning thousands of converts. But, at the same time, he became a symbol of freedom and independence for ghetto Blacks. Continuing the process, he became politically aware. That was what led him to the religion of the Black Muslims. Malcolm X studied the oppression and discrimination of his Black brothers and, in 1963, began to have doubts about the religion he supported. Clear political differences caused him to break from the organization, on March 22, 1964.
In his autobiography, dictated to the Black journalist, Alex Haley, he reveals a stereotypical image of the Black assimilated to white culture until, in jail and through the doctrine of Islam, he became a sensitive being, proud of his black skin, of his frizzed hair; he identified with his African origin and with the pain of his people. He is politicized and he assumes the ideology of a revolutionary, he becomes a MAN.
“It would probably be impossible to find a Black man, in any part of the United States, who had sunken so low in human society, as me; or a Negro who has been more ignorant or a Negro who has suffered so much anguish in life than I. But it is only after the deepest darkness when the greatest joy can rise up; only after slavery and prison can he accept the sweet acknowledgement of freedom.”
To understand the crisis of identity, alienation, hostility, discrimination, and loneliness of the United States Negro and the reason for his struggle, the autobiography, writings and speeches of Malcolm X should be read.
“I gritted my teeth and tried to pull the sides of the kitchen table together. The comb felt as if it was raking my skin off … and so stupid that I was in rapture because my hair was like that of the whites … This was my first really big step towards self-degradation … I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are inferior – and white people “superior” – that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies …|
“I am not going to sit at your table with an empty plate to see you eat and say that I am a diner. If I do not eat what is on that plate, sitting at the table doesn’t make me a diner. Being in the United States does not make me an American. Having been born here does not make us Americans.”
These statements he made were, perhaps, not pleasant to the ears of many whites and some Negroes, but it was the truth of the situation of his people.
A controversial figure in life, activists of the fight for freedom of the Black people now study his writings, his speeches, his autobiography because the current active militancy in the United States has to be found in him. Then, each interprets him in their own way; but there they are, unmoving and, at the same time, with the flexibility of a constant dialectic development of a revolutionary, taken on, put into practice, enriched.
He aroused laughter and applause because he not only told the Black masses what they wanted to hear for a long time, but because he said it as one of the most eloquent and brilliant political orators of his time.
“I don’t see any American dream. I see an American nightmare.” The bitterness, hostility, animosity of white American racial intolerance is there in his autobiography and in his speeches. They are also present in his later political ideas, as the basis of the action program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, the organization he founded and those ideas are what led to his assassination.
Internationalization is proposed as the struggle for the US Negro people: “And if the twenty two million US Negroes see that our problem is the same as the problem of the peoples who are being oppressed in South Viet Nam, the Congo and Latin America, then – because the oppressed of the world are a majority and not a minority –, we must confront our problems as a majority who can demand and not as a minority who must beg.”
Many have wanted to classify Malcolm X a Black racist because he spoke of Negro nationalism. When Malcolm X speaks of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America he sometimes calls then Negroes. With this term he symbolized the exploited peoples but his position is not reverse racism: “It is wrong to classify the unrest of the Negroes simply as racial conflict of the Blacks against the whites or as a purely American problem. What we see today is, in fact, a worldwide rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressors … the revolution of the Negroes is not a racial revolution.”
To explain his belief that discrimination is a product of a system of social exploitation, he points out: “…all countries that rise up against the claws of colonialism are turning to socialism. I do not think that this is accidental. The majority of the countries that were colonial powers were capitalist countries and, today, the last bulwark of capitalism is the United States. It cannot be believed that a white person can believe in capitalism and not believe in racism. There cannot be capitalism without racism.”
The idea of rethinking the Negro as a man, as a human being, in the highest meaning of this word, and his internationalist concept of the struggle of the American people, makes him hated by imperialism; also his opposition and charges against the war of aggression in Viet Nam, Yankee invasion of Santo Domingo and the sending of mercenary troops to the Congo. But he is even more dangerous because he understood the importance of violence and, with this concept; he opened the eyes of the young American youths. He demonstrated, exhaustively, what revolutionary violence could do in China, in Algeria, in Cuba and is achieving in Viet Nam. He foresaw, at the time, the violence that would shake the Negro ghettoes in the United States and defended it as the necessary means to achieve freedom.
This publication of his autobiography and fragments of his speeches by the Cuban Book Institute informs us that the fight of the American Negro people was symbolized in one of the leaders of most clarity, who, with a direct, simple, plain, incisive and compelling language – because it will be a page-turner. Probably we will have to reread the book – as a piece of history, a history that is still being written with the blood and sweat of the Blacks and exploited of the United States
Juana Carrasco
TRANSLATOR’S COMMENT:
I am what is considered in Cuba a white person although there is a saying that he who hasn’t Congo blood has Carabali (two Black tribal groups that were slaves during colonial times). Also, if you proclaim pure Spanish heritage suffice it to remember that the Moors occupied Spain for five hundred years.
Now, what is the reason for this explanation? I want to express my opinion about Malcolm X that is a difficult task for a “white” person. I was young when Malcolm X held up the banner of Black liberation. (About 5 years older than him) and I followed his teachings at every opportunity I could find. He was a truly electrifying orator. But most important of all, I realized that I was seeing a new young leader who would be a force to consider in the near future.
I was greatly impressed by his thinking and became completely convinced when he left Elijah Muhammad to stand on his own, in defense of the exploited of the world. His trips to the many countries of the world opened his eyes to widespread exploitation and the ills of imperialism but also made him a world leader in his own right.
This was something that the “establishment” could not and would not allow and consequently, the US government and its agencies plotted his assassination.
Like Che, Malcolm became a martyr of the class struggle and a symbol of freedom. As a person politically developed during the sixties, I believe that both were necessary in life: Che to the Cuban people, Malcolm to the oppressed Blacks and both to the exploited of the world.
We have lost two champions but their seeds are sown and are beginning to bear fruit.
So with strong conviction I can say:
Power to the Blacks and exploited of this world!
Socialismo o Muerte!
Venceremos!
Ana Portela
June 2005
Pretexts and Lies Against Syria
Pretexts and Lies Against Syria
March marks the ninth anniversary of the aggression unleashed against this Middle Eastern country, which has been torn apart by many foreign interests
By Elson Concepción Pérez
February 17, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
People’s forces and the Syrian army celebrate their victory in Hama province. Photo: Hispan TV
Let us put things in place: Syria is an independent and sovereign country, with a democratically elected government, whose program has been directed towards development and social benefits for its people.
It is also part of its status as a sovereign nation that it has the right to sign military agreements with anyone it deems fit. In this case, it is entirely legitimate that it has requested military collaboration from Russia and Iran to defend the country against the terrorism of internal groups and against foreign actions aimed at destabilising the Arab nation.
It has had difficulties and, as in all countries with diverse religious currents, many have been and still are the setbacks in harmonizing its walk in the midst of a region besieged by a foreign power interested in its energy resources.
In this context, it is worth noting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has made significant economic and social progress in favor of the most dispossessed sectors.
But Syria has become a stumbling block for US policy in the Middle East region and the imperial drive to seize its resources, just as it has done with Iraq and Libya.
A terrorist group called the Islamic State (IS), which many specialists consider to have emerged from the subversion laboratories conceived by the U.S. CIA. IS [ISIS] appeared in the region a little over a decade ago and soon expanded like a bad weed, with a matrix of the most ruthless terrorism.
Together with the EI, a group openly supported by the United States, the Al Nusra Front, a descendant of the shadowy Al Qaeda, established itself on Syrian soil, putting in check its defense system. Moreover, it has suffered and continues to suffer for years from the direct aggression of Israel which has occupied part of the Syrian Golan Heights.
This March marks the ninth anniversary of the war of aggression unleashed against the country. Alarming figures, such as the more than 250,000 dead and more than that number of wounded, as well as the forced displacement and migration of millions of its children fleeing the war and the total or partial destruction of cities, industries, world heritage temples and many other facilities, constitute open wounds that are very difficult to heal.
THE DANGER IS SPREADING
Since last year, the Syrian People’s Army, with the active participation of the Russian aerospace force and Iranian advisers, had defeated terrorist groups in almost 90% of the territory, while the government was demanding the withdrawal of the American military that illegally occupied a part of the country under the assumption of fighting terrorism.
The bombing of areas where the Syrian army was operating, the death of many of its combatants and, in addition, the massacre of hundreds of civilians, including children, with the usual “collateral damage” caused by its bombs, have been part of this reality.
Already almost defeated by the action of the terrorists, those of the Al Nusra Front, supported by Washington, were concentrated in areas near the Turkish border, in the region of Idlib, where there is also the presence of Kurdish groups.
In recent days, on February 12, U.S. military forces opened fire on local residents who gathered near a Syrian Army checkpoint east of the town of Qamishli (Hasaka, Syria) to block the passage of several U.S. military vehicles.
As for the presence of uniformed Turkish soldiers on Syrian soil, the Government of Damascus has characterized it as “a violation of the sovereignty of its territory”.
In recent days, more than a thousand military transports and 5000 Turkish soldiers have crossed the border. Syrian sources accuse the Turkish artillery of having supported the armed terrorist groups’ fighting in Idlib.
As we can see, the current war imposed on Syria may reach a new dimension where, in addition to the internal actors, other external ones are involved, including Turkey in the Idlib border area.
It is quite possible that Trump, in this case, is playing at involving others in a war he has lost, so that he can enjoy his longed-for oil without having to subject his forces to the danger of confrontation.
Not for nothing did the U.S. president, in an interview with Fox News, emphasize once again his administration’s policy of “taking” Syria’s oil.
The Sociological View
The Sociological View
Published: Saturday 22 February 2020 | 09:03:07 pm.
By Graziella Pogolotti
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Grounded in the Industrial Revolution, with the invention of the steam engine, mass production and the resulting competitive drive to ensure the dominance of the world market had its effects, at an accelerating pace, on the life of society. The soot was invading everything. Cities began to grow rapidly. The proletariat was constituted as a social class. The dizzying change had repercussions on the rise of the social sciences. History changed its perspective, the economy became an indispensable reference point, psychology, anthropology and sociology acquired autonomy. The latter permeated other disciplines with its influence.
With the cost of paper now down, the press has a new reading public. It introduced the soap opera into its pages. It was the antecedent of the current soap opera [telenovela]. With the emergence of creative literary giants, narrative reached an unprecedented peak. First, social romanticism and later the proliferation of “costumbrismo” (local color), the latter spread through the novel, sharpened the sociological outlook. The characters moved in a specific context.
The historical perspective left the past behind to shape the approach of the present. The contradictions in everyday life and the exacerbation of individualism in the struggle to survive, to accumulate power and fortune and to move up the social ladder came to the fore. Little read today, Dickens became a bestseller of that time by showing the drama of helpless childhood in the city environment, captured by crime and victim of the debtors’ prison that punished them along with their parents. Balzac warned about the domination of the financial world, enriched by usury and the consequent disappearance of the small merchant. Emile Zola, A French writer preferred by the cigar factory lectors [workers who read live to cigar workers] wanted to systematize the analysis. He articulated the sequence of his novels to a family genealogy that allowed him to focus each of them on a specific sector of reality.
In one of his novels, Zola examines the seduction exerted on women by the emergence of the first department stores. In accordance with the traditional division of labor, women are responsible for taking care of domestic chores, but they also take on the responsibility of buying what is necessary for the home. Pressed by a concrete need, they turn to the dazzling display case that offers all sorts of temptations. To the purchase of the indispensable, they add the dispensable, with the apparent advantage of having a credit card. Not having to take money out of their purse, they lose track of what they have spent. They fall into debt that, in the end, will be unpayable. It was the original cell of the policy of encouraging consumerism, unleashed more than half a century later, a way of avoiding the overproduction crises characteristic of capitalism through the constant increase in demand, with its depredatory effects on the planet’s goods.
Like history and psychology, sociology became a science. It opened up perspectives that went beyond the field of specialists,. It influenced so-called investigative journalism and can help shape the outlook of better-informed citizens. This approach to reality rethought the complex nature of the link between the individual and society. Considered as a subject of history, human beings build their life expectations from a set of determining factors, among which are class roots, family environment and the education system.
Other factors act on the consciousness of each one, among which the media, entertainment, the use of free time and the formation of paradigms stand out. Some time ago, in the miserable favelas, where the essential was lacking, the television antennas were pointed out. Now, in a similar context, cell phones are everywhere. They offer escape routes, projected towards an illusory world that is not their own. The proposal of models of careers towards individual success replaces the image of a virtuous life in the struggle to transform reality for the benefit of all.
It is often forgotten that among the founders of historical science were Marx and Engels, who put knowledge at the service of the emancipatory revolution. The hegemonic power understood the scope of this way of exploring reality and finding the formulas to intervene in it by operating on human subjectivity. Politics has to strengthen the essential revolutionary condition of the sciences devoted to the study of society, a living and therefore changing phenomenon. It is an urgent demand to calibrate in its right measure the concreteness of the facts, without diluting them in vague generalizations. In the demands of the “wretched of the earth” lies the preservation of the future of humanity. Because once the reserves of the tiny Earth are exhausted, it will have no other planet to inhabit.
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