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Vol. 71/No. 40      October 29, 2007

 
Beirut newspaper reviews ‘Declarations of Havana’
(Pathfinder Around the World column)
 
The following review of the new Arabic-language edition of The First and Second Declarations of Havana appeared in the October 3 issue of Al-Akhbar, a major daily newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon. Athens-based publisher Diethnes Vima recently published this book in both Arabic and Greek translations (see news article in the October 22 Militant). The review appeared under the headline, “The struggle of the Cubans in the face of Yankee gangs: A historic document that has not lost its value.” This article was translated from Arabic by Georges Mehrabian. Reprinted with permission.

BY MOHAMAD AATWI  
The Arabic translation of The [First and Second] Declarations of Havana is issued on this 45th anniversary of the Second Declaration of Havana, which was read by Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1962.

The “Yankee gangs,” world imperialism under the leadership of the United States, continue their “work of sabotage” of the economy today, as they attempt to shape events that now are even more dangerous in this unipolar world with the expansion of the modern technological revolution.

The book The Declarations of Havana consists of manifestos of revolutionary struggle in the Americas as they were adopted by the Cuban people. The publishing house Pathfinder Press located in New York published the Spanish and English prior to the Arabic edition, issued in August by the Greek publishing house Diethnes Vima.

The Declarations of Havana consists of two declarations, the first issued on September 2, 1960, and the second issued on February 4, 1962. They were both adopted by the National General Assembly of the Cuban People.

In the First Declaration, the Cuban people point to the document issued in San José, Costa Rica, by the Organization of American States in the summer of 1960, which insults the sovereignty, the right to self-determination, and the dignity of the peoples of the hemisphere. The OAS approved the document, which demanded that each member state in the Americas submit to the dictates of the United States.

This declaration includes nine points, among them the condemnation of the San José Declaration and the condemnation of U.S. imperialism for its continuous crimes. In it the popular assembly of the Cuban people condemns the attempts to use the Monroe Doctrine, which U.S. imperialism uses for the extension of its domination in the Americas on behalf of greedy imperialists, as [Cuban national hero] José Martí explained.

The declaration also explains that the offer by the Soviet Union to aid Cuba, should it face invasion by imperialist military forces, is not an intervention but an act of solidarity. It rejects the implication that the intentions of the Soviet Union and People’s [Republic of] China are to exploit the economic or political circumstances of Cuba to break the unity of the continent or that they threaten the unity of the hemisphere.

The Second Declaration begins with quotations from a letter by José Martí written on the eve of his death by a Spanish bullet in 1895. It also attracts the reader’s attention with Marxist economic and philosophical discourse and a quote that states, “Capital comes into this world dripping from every pore with blood and dirt.”

The most outstanding quality in this book is a collection of questions that the Declaration deals with and answers: Is it possible for capitalism to serve the interests of the oppressed?
 

*****

BY SUSAN LAMONT  
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina—Supporters of Pathfinder Press from Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Greensboro, North Carolina, staffed a busy book table here at the October 4-7 conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The association, founded in 1915, was the initiator of Black History Month, which originated as Negro History Week. People came to the conference from universities, libraries, and museums around the country.

The Pathfinder table was the center of lively political discussion from morning until night. Conference participants bought more than $800 in Pathfinder books and pamphlets and 23 subscriptions to the Militant. Five copies of the new edition of Thomas Sankara Speaks and five copies of Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle were among the titles purchased.
 

*****

BY JACQUIE HENDERSON  
HOUSTON—At the Latino Book and Family Festival, held here September 29-30, some 34 Pathfinder books and pamphlets were purchased. These included five copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, three of Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution, two of the Communist Manifesto, and two of the Spanish-language Marxist magazine Nueva Internacional no. 7, with the feature article “Our Politics Starts with the World.” Visitors to the festival also bought 12 subscriptions to and 20 copies of the Militant.  
 
 
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