From left to right, author Vitoria Afonso, Ulises Estrada, director of Tricontinental Editions; and Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press speak at Cuba event.

Equality and the Social Participation of Mozambican Women, published by Tricontinental Editions, was presented by author Vitoria Afonso Langa de Jesús. Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, introduced Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, a March 1987 speech by Thomas Sankara, leader of the 1983–87 revolutionary government in the West African country of Burkina Faso. Ulises Estrada, director of Tricontinental Editions, opened the meeting and chaired it.

Nearly 60 people attended the February 13 book presentation. Among those present were half a dozen women from Nigeria, Benin, Kenya, and Mozambique, members of the Association of African Women in Cuba, a group of women from African countries on diplomatic assignment in Cuba. A good number of young people participated in the event, both Cubans as well as youth from Angola and several Latin American nations who are studying in Cuba.

"Women in Africa, as throughout the Third World, face oppression and exploitation, a consequence of the legacy of colonialism and the result of capitalism," said Ulises Estrada. He added that "many Cubans have lived in Africa and we have seen some of the painful conditions faced by women there. But we have also seen how African women have fought for their emancipation and have been advancing their participation in society."

In the early 1960s Estrada, assigned to the Technical Vice-Ministry of Cuba's Ministry of the Interior, was responsible for helping train members of the advance team of Cuban revolutionary fighters who went to Bolivia to prepare the way for the guerrilla front led by Ernesto Che Guevara in that country in 1966–67. In 1965, during preparations for the Bolivia mission, he went to the Congo as part of a leadership team at the time that Guevara was leading a column of Cuban internationalists fighting alongside Congolese liberation fighters. Today he is the director of Tricontinental, the magazine of the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL), an international anti-imperialist organization whose headquarters is in Havana.

Afonso, a member of the staff of Mozambique's Center for African Studies, told the audience that in Mozam-bique, "women fought alongside men for liberation from colonialism." She said the victory against Portuguese colonial rule also pushed forward in a new way the fight for women's equality.

While women in Mozambique have made modest advances over the past decades, they suffer disproportionately the consequences of imperialist domination, Afonso noted. For example, while women represent half the population of Mozambique, they constitute more than two-thirds of those who cannot read or write. "Traditions are elements of our identity," she said, "but we have to eliminate those elements that perpetuate the exploitation of women."

Afonso applauded the example revolutionary Cuba has set by offering more than 3,000 Mozambican youth, since the 1970s, the opportunity to study in Cuba and take those skills back home for the betterment of society. Afonso herself is among those who went to school here.

Estrada introduced Waters, congratulating Pathfinder Press on its long publishing record in accurately presenting the voices of the Cuban Revolution. He hailed Pathfinder's publication of Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, which for the first time makes available in Spanish the words of revolutionary Burkinabè leader Thomas Sankara.

Estrada pointed to the 1983 insurrection that brought to power a popular revolutionary government led by Sankara in the West African country of Burkina Faso, a former French colony.

"Sankara was a truly revolutionary leader in Africa," he emphasized.

From 1983 to 1987, the revolutionary leadership in Burkina began tapping the capacities of peasants and workers to carry through a land reform, take steps to combat hunger, and prioritize education and health care. Sankara was assassinated in a 1987 coup that overthrew the revolutionary government.

"In one of the poorest countries of imperialist-ravaged West Africa, with the highest infant mortality rate in the world, where literacy among women stood at 99 percent," Mary-Alice Waters said, "Sankara confidently unfurled the banner of women's emancipation, presented a scientific, materialist explanation of the social and economic roots of women's oppression within class society, and pledged the support of the National Council of the Revolution to organize and mobilize women to fight to change their conditions of life, and the conditions of life of all" in that country.

"More than a pledge," she continued, "this was a course of revolutionary action that over the next four years set an example not only for all of Africa but also far beyond."

"This small book is not about the fight for women's equality in Africa alone," Waters said. It "belongs to those fighting for human dignity everywhere, including in the most industrially developed countries such as the United States, and the most politically advanced such as Cuba."

Pathfinder also publishes Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle in English and French. Its publication in Spanish was appreciated by many in the audience who had heard of Sankara before but had not been able to read a translation of his own words.

The English-language edition of the booklet was originally produced a decade ago. Since then, some 7,000 copies of Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle have been sold.

After the presentations by Afonso and Waters, dozens of people lined up to purchase copies of both books and get them autographed.

Brian Taylor is a member of United Mine Workers of America Local 2133 in Alabama. Yonatan Mosquera is a member of the Young Socialists in the United Kingdom.
 

Militant readers are encouraged to contribute to the Books for Cuba Fund, which helps make it possible for Pathfinder books to reach working people and youth in Cuba.

Like their brothers and sisters around the world, Cuban working people find the titles published by Pathfinder to be effective revolutionary political weapons, including in the defense of the Cuban Revolution.

Through the fund, Pathfinder is able to send books and pamphlets to Cuban organizations and institutions that request them. During book fairs, the titles are made available to Cubans in pesos, at prices they can afford.

Among other initiatives, the fund also makes it possible to respond to the political interest in the books in Cuba with special donations to libraries and other cultural institutions.

Contributions, large or small, are welcome. Please send checks or money orders made out to the Militant and earmarked "Books for Cuba Fund" to the Militant, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014.
 
 
Related article:
Sankara confidently raised the banner of women's emancipation  
 
 
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