'A defeat of our enemy is a victory for all of us'
The following is a message sent to the Active Workers Conference held July 27-29 in Oberlin, Ohio, by Rafael Cancel Miranda, one of the best-known leaders of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Cancel Miranda was one of five Puerto Rican Nationalists who spent more than a quarter century in U.S. prisons following armed protests they carried out in Washington against colonial rule. He was freed from prison in 1979 through an international defense campaign, and has remained active in anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles ever since.
Compañeros who are delegates to the Active Workers Conference sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialists:
Brothers and sisters: Regardless of where we happen to be, our struggle is one, whatever the various forms it may take according to each one's circumstances. What is happening in the meatpacking industry in the Midwest, in the miners' strikes in the West, in the protests against the criminal death penalty and against police violence--the developments in each of our countries affect us all, whether positively or negatively. From that flows the necessity of globalizing our struggle against the globalization of "neoliberal" oppression--feudalism reincarnated--which is directed at the working-class and national forces.
For example: if we Puerto Ricans succeed in ridding our national territory of the deadly U.S. Navy (for we are a country that is militarily occupied), if we win the release of our imprisoned patriots, and if we are able to liberate Puerto Rico from the bloody claws of Anglo imperialism--then we will all be stronger! Because a defeat for the enemy of all is a victory for each one of us. Every tentacle we tear off the imperialist octopus is one tentacle less that can be used to strangle us. Only by understanding that we have common interests can we mutually reinforce each other and advance toward victory.
I don't want to conclude before giving you a strong Puerto Rican embrace. You are at the conference because you believe in yourselves, because you believe in the dignity of working people, because you believe in social justice and in the capacity of men and women to attain it. Capitalism is the law of the jungle; socialism is the law of social justice. An embrace of solidarity for you all--pa'lante siempre [forward always]!
Rafael Cancel Miranda
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