The trip, which took place July 23-31, was sponsored by the Federation of University Students (FEU), the Union of Young Communists (UJC), and other Cuban youth organizations. They organized an itinerary designed to address some of the questions participants had about the Cuban Revolution today. Many returned home identifying more strongly with the revolution and its example for all those around the world fighting exploitation and oppression. They went back anxious to win others to their convictions. In Havana the U.S. delegation met with members of a municipal assembly of People’s Power, Cuba’s legislature; with leaders of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC); and with young revolutionary social workers in a local community (see coverage in the last two issues). They visited the Latin American School of Medicine, the University of Havana, the Museum of the Revolution, and a number of scientific research centers.
They also visited two eastern cities, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo, where a U.S. naval base occupies Cuban territory against the will of the people of this Caribbean nation. In Santiago they joined a July 26 rally of 10,000 people, addressed by Cuban president Fidel Castro, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks. The 1953 attack on the Moncada and the nearby Bayamo garrisons of the Batista dictatorship launched the mass revolutionary struggle—led by what became the July 26 Movement and the Rebel Army headed by Castro—that overthrew the U.S.-backed regime in January 1959.
The revolutionary victory led to the replacement of the capitalist government with a new power—a workers and farmers government—that opened the door to the first socialist revolution in the Americas. Four decades later, millions of Cubans throughout the island celebrated their success in standing up to Washington’s unceasing economic war and continuing to set an example for workers, farmers, and the oppressed around the world.
The U.S. delegation was the largest of the three Youth Exchange trips organized so far; the last one, two years ago, numbered about 180. It included students from university campuses around the country, as well as some high school students, workers, artists, and others. The delegates came from 23 states, with the largest groups from Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami and Tampa, Philadelphia, and New York. More than 80 came from the Los Angeles area alone, where the group was sponsored by the Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba. Many were Chicano or Mexican, and a substantial number were children of Latin American or Asian immigrants, Black, or Puerto Rican.
Many of the delegates, eager to learn about the Cuban Revolution, had spent weeks preparing for the trip, organizing events to raise funds for the travel costs as well as reading books and holding meetings to study and discuss more about revolutionary Cuba.
On the first full day of activities, the U.S. participants heard presentations by UJC first secretary Otto Rivero and FEU president Hassan Pérez. Rivero described what is known here as the “Battle of Ideas”—a political campaign that Cuba’s revolutionary leadership has been waging since the year 2000 to deepen the involvement of working people and youth in Cuba’s revolution. It aims to counter the imperialist ideological drive promoting capitalism and its cutthroat reality and morality of “looking out for number one.”
Such values tend to be reinforced by Cuba’s increased exposure to the world capitalist market since the early 1990s, when Cuba lost its favorable terms of trade with and aid from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The resulting economic crisis is known here as the Special Period. To obtain the hard currency needed to import vital goods and to finance social priorities—such as education, health care, and food subsidies—Cuba took a number of steps such as decriminalizing the use of the U.S. dollar, developing tourism, encouraging family remittances from abroad, establishing “dollar” stores where many goods can be purchased only with foreign currency, establishing joint ventures with foreign capitalist firms, and allowing self-employment in more than 100 occupations, like hairdressers, street vendors, and family-run restaurant operators. These measures have led to widening social inequalities between those who have even minimal dollar income and those who don’t, and alienation among some layers. The mobilization of youth around the Battle of Ideas seeks to address these challenges.
‘A revolution in education’
At the heart of the revolutionary political offensive being waged in Cuba today is an effort to expand access to culture and education for the entire population. “We are carrying out a revolution in education,” Rivero said.
He outlined some of the 70 new educational campaigns, most of which are led by UJC and FEU cadres. These include, he said:
During the discussion period, in response to a question by a U.S. delegate about problems facing youth such as unemployment and crime, Hassan Pérez said, “Our approach is that all problems have solutions.” The social workers “visit each youth in the neighborhoods one by one, to find out what problems they face and to integrate them into the work of the revolution. The response has been very good. It’s hard work, and it’s a bigger challenge here in the capital—because of the greater influence of the dollar—where sometimes we have to visit young people not once but 10 times, working patiently to achieve results.”
Rivero described the Schools for the Comprehensive Upgrading of Skills for Youth, aimed at youth who, after graduating from ninth grade, as required in Cuba, neither get a job nor continue studies: from young women who face the unexpected burden of being single mothers, to youth who have family problems or get in trouble with the law. “Through this school young people receive a stipend—they get paid to go to school as an extra incentive. We have been very successful with this program,” he said.
“The problem with crime is not simply material, but also a matter of self-esteem,” he added. “In countries like the United States, human beings are denigrated. Prisons do not ‘reeducate.’ What is needed is not reeducation but true education.”
Pérez said, “An educated people can defend and argue for their views. As Fidel said, the revolution doesn’t say ‘Believe.’ The revolution says, ‘Read.’ Our aim is for the Cuban people to be the bearer of universal culture. That requires an education that goes from cradle to grave.
“We seek to involve all youth in the educational programs—including those in prison, so that even they will be able to graduate from the university,” he stated. “Our goal is to build a socialist society, one where there is no unemployment, no prisons. This is a goal that is impossible in capitalist countries.”
Later that day, the youth from the United States visited the Latin American School of Medicine, where 7,200 students from 24 countries are currently enrolled—most from Latin America but a number from African nations and 52 from the United States. Juan Carrizo, the school’s director, explained that the students there, most of them from working-class and farm families, study for free.
“This school is part of the solidarity of our revolution,” Carrizo said. He noted that Cuba’s internationalist solidarity is also seen in the 5,300 Cuban doctors and other health-care volunteers who are currently serving in 93 countries around the world, mostly in Africa. “Our greatest capital is our human capital,” he said.
U.S. base at Guantánamo
One of the high points of the Youth Exchange was the visit to Guantánamo, where the participants met members of Cuba’s Border Brigade and were able to view from a lookout point the U.S. military base. Lieutenant Colonel Prieto and Major Santiesteban briefed them about the history of the U.S. base, imposed on Cuba in 1903 when the country was a virtual U.S. colony. Prieto noted that since the revolutionary victory in 1959, U.S. troops on the base have carried out more than 13,000 provocations against Cuba, including incidents in which eight Cubans—two of them border guards on duty—have been killed. From the beginning, he said, the revolutionary government “has maintained our inalienable and sovereign right to have this territory returned.”
In a gesture of solidarity, Camilo Matos, a student from New York, gave the guards a flag of Vieques, a Puerto Rican island where three months earlier a victory had been won in the battle to get the U.S. Navy out. “Just as you are fighting to get the U.S. military out of your land—a struggle that we support—the Puerto Rican people are fighting to get the U.S. military out of our country,” he said. Throughout the trip, a number of Puerto Rican delegates highlighted the common struggle against U.S. imperialism by the peoples of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and Cuba’s unflagging solidarity with the Puerto Rican independence struggle.
From the lookout post the visitors were able to see details of the base, including Camp Delta, where Washington continues to hold more than 600 men indefinitely, with no charges or legal protections, under the label “enemy combatants.”
Many of the youth from the United States reacted strongly to this sight. As several of them put it, the experience reinforced their conviction to return home and tell the truth about why “we stand in solidarity with our Muslim brothers who are being held in the occupied territory of Guantánamo.”
Cuba’s resistance to Washington’s 44-year-long economic war and attacks against the revolution was the theme of a conference session following the group’s return to Havana, where they heard a presentation by Rafael Dausá, head of the North American desk of Cuba’s foreign ministry.
Dausá outlined recent events in the U.S. policy of aggression against Cuba, including Washington’s refusal—until recently—to prosecute or return to Cuba those individuals who hijack planes or boats to the United States, a policy that has led to a wave of armed hijackings over the last year.
“Cuba has stood up to the U.S. empire just 90 miles off its shores,” said a student from Los Angeles during the discussion period. “While we as Chicanos are second-class citizens in the United States and are denied our sovereignty, Cuba has defended its sovereignty,” he said, pointing to why support can be won for the fight against the U.S. embargo.
Another delegate asked about changing attitudes among Cuban-Americans. “Cubans in the United States are not monolithic,” Dausá pointed out, noting that many among the younger generation especially oppose U.S. sanctions against Cuba.
Nicole Sarmiento, a University of Miami student, described several recent actions organized in Miami against Washington’s policies toward Cuba that involved significant numbers of Cuban-Americans. “There is more political space in Miami today to organize actions in defense of the Cuban Revolution than in the past,” she said.
The last two discussion sessions of the Youth Exchange included presentations by Randy Alonso on U.S. foreign policy and a panel of speakers on culture in revolutionary Cuba.
Alonso is the moderator of the nationally televised Roundtable program, a popular show held several nights a week that takes up a wide range of topics on national and international politics.
The evening before, Alonso had invited seven of the Youth Exchange participants to speak on the Roundtable program about what they had learned in Cuba and their political work in the United States. The seven were Graciano Matos from New York; Eddie Torres, one of the coordinators of the group from Los Angeles; Jessica Marshall from Chicago, a leader of the Young Communist League; Alex Alvarado from Miami; Olympia Newton from Los Angeles, a leader of the Young Socialists; and Abdul Hassan and Celia González of the Youth United delegation from New York and Chicago, respectively.
Culture and the Cuban Revolution
The panel on culture included Abel Prieto, Cuba’s minister of culture; Iroel Sánchez, president of the Cuban Book Institute; and Omar González, president of the Cuban film
institute ICAIC.
Prieto explained that the policy of Cuba’s revolutionary government is “to defend our national culture and to promote the people’s right to universal culture.” He added that the Cuban Revolution has been marked by the expansion of access to culture and education for the entire population, from the literacy campaign at the beginning of the revolution to today.
Defense of Cuba’s national culture today includes “fighting to prevent the laws of the market from distorting culture, because the market reproduces degrading stereotypes promoted by imperialism.”
Asked by a U.S. delegate about his view of “socialist realism,” Prieto said that was the policy of the former Soviet government “that dictated an official style on culture, a dogma that did serious damage to cultural expression and wiped out the legacy of avant-garde culture that had prevailed in the early years of the Soviet Union. There were advocates of socialist realism in Cuba,” he added, particularly in the 1970s, but “in Cuba there is no official style of culture. Our view is that we need cultural creativity.”
Prieto pointed to the popular Cuban film Strawberry and Chocolate, based on a short story by Senel Paz, which uses humor to criticize antigay prejudice and bureaucratic intolerance in general. That film “had a huge impact in this country,” he said.
Several students in the audience, noting the racist character of U.S. society, asked how Cuba is confronting the legacy of racism today. “Fighting discrimination and marginalization is at the heart of many of the educational campaigns in Cuba, like the training of social workers,” the Cuban minister said.
He noted that a growing discussion is taking place in Cuba about Black organizations in the years prior to the revolution and the history of the struggle against racist oppression.
For example, “a massacre of Blacks who had revolted in 1912 was covered up for many years before the revolution, and for many years after the triumph of the revolution it was not discussed much, but some books have recently been published that talk about that history.” The uprising was led by a Black party called the Independents of Color.
Pointing to another example, Prieto said, “In their music, Black rap musicians react to the continuing manifestations of racial prejudice in Cuba.”
Another highlight of the Youth Exchange was a meeting with Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba’s National Assembly, and with relatives of the five Cuban revolutionaries serving draconian sentences in U.S. prisons on frame-up charges of conspiracy to commit espionage (an article on that event will appear in a coming issue).
At the concluding session, a statement was read that highlighted what those taking part in the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange would be doing on their return home. The statement projected organizing public meetings and other activities to tell the truth about Cuba. It called for opposing the U.S. economic war on Cuba and joining the campaign to demand that Washington free the five jailed Cuban militants.
“We need to educate other people in the United States,” said Leah Smith from Atlanta during one of the final discussions. Her comment echoed the sentiment of many participants about what they were now committed to do in their respective cities.
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Two Militant reporters traveled to Cuba to provide first-hand coverage of Third Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange. Please contribute to help cover expenses of close to $4,000 (see address in ‘Contact Us’). Since this appeal was first published, $170 has been donated to travel fund. |