Vol. 73/No. 17      May 4, 2009

The meeting was organized by the Third World Studies Certificate (TWSC) at this English-language college, which is part of the pre-university system in Quebec. TWSC trips have taken students to Chiapas, Mexico, and for the last few years to Cuba. Nineteen students signed up to participate this year.

Panelists at the event were Dolores Chew, who teaches history and is chair of the Liberal and Creative Arts Department Faculty; Philip Dann, an English teacher; and Martín Koppel, who participated in conducting the interviews for Our History Is Still Being Written. Eighteen people, including 12 students, attended the meeting.

Introducing the discussion Chew pointed to the sections of the book that deal with Cuba’s participation in the military defense of Angola against an invasion by the South African apartheid army between 1975 and 1990. Thousands of Cuban volunteer troops helped the Angolans beat back the racist invaders. “If it were not for Cuba, the apartheid system of South Africa might still be alive,” Chew said.

“These are not retired generals,” Dann told the students. “The book is full of concrete information on what they are doing today, for example, leading the environmental cleanup of Havana harbor, and working with young people in the education system promoting the ideals of the revolution.”

Dann encouraged students to take the book out of the school library and read it. The college library has a copy in both English and Chinese.

Koppel explained that Pathfinder Press published the book because “Cuba is a practical example of how to fight and win, of how workers and farmers can take political power and use it to build a society to satisfy the needs of the majority.”

“This is an example for today because of the worldwide crisis of the capitalist system, which is in its initial stages,” he explained. “In face of decades of intertwined wars and economic and social crisis the future of humanity will be decided by the capacity of working people to make a revolution and take state power. That’s why for fighting workers and youth this has valuable lessons.”

Questions covered China-Cuba relations; the nature of Stalinism; the 1961 literacy campaign carried out by tens of thousands of youth after the 1959 revolution; the role of the revolutionary tribunals in dealing with the former dictatorship’s torturers after the 1959 seizure of power; the role of Cuban medical teams today in countries like Equatorial Guinea and Venezuela; and whether the Obama administration’s move to allow more visits of Cuban Americans to the island would undermine the revolution.
 
 
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Opposition to U.S. embargo of Cuba marks ‘Americas’ summit  
 
 
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