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Books
on Cuba
The Autobiography of a
Slave /
Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba
/
Santeria from
Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories
Fidel Castro and
the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba /
Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the
Twentieth
Century
Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon
/
Caliban
and Other Essays /
The
Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball
Santeria
Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin America Art /
Culture and
Customs of Cuba /
Man-making Words; Selected Poems
of Nicholas Guillen
Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity on
Contemporary Cuba /
Afro-Cuba: An Anthology of Cuban Writing
on Race, Politics, and Culture
Nicolas Guillen:
Popular Poet of the Caribbean /
Selected Poetry by Nancy Morejon
/
Cuba: After the
Revolution
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Fidel Castro May Day Speech 2007
It Is
Imperative to Immediately Have an Energy Revolution
I hold nothing
against Brazil, even though more than a few Brazilians
continuously bombard me with the most diverse
arguments, which can be confusing even for people who
have traditionally been friendly to Cuba, we might sound
callous and careless about hurting that country’s net
income of hard currency. However, for me to keep silent
would be to opt between the idea of a world tragedy and
a presumed benefit for the people of that great nation.
I do not blame Lula
and the Brazilians for the objective laws which have
governed the history of our species. Only seven
thousand years have passed since the human being has
left his tangible mark on what has come to be a
civilization immensely rich in culture and technical
knowledge. Advances have not been achieved at the same
time or in the same geographical latitudes. It can be
said that due to the apparent enormity of our planet,
quite often the existence of one or another civilization
was unknown. Never in thousands of years had the human
being lived in cities with twenty million inhabitants
such as Sao Paulo or Mexico City, or in urban
communities such as Paris, Madrid, Berlin and others who
see trains speeding by on rails and air cushions, at
speeds of more than 250 miles an hour.
At the time of
Christopher Columbus, barely 500 years ago, some of
these cities did not exist or they had populations that
did not exceed several tens of thousands. Nobody used
one single kilowatt to light their home. Possibly, the
population of the world then was not more than 500
million. We know that in 1830, world population reached
the first billion mark, one hundred and thirty years
later it multiplied by three, and forty-six years later
the total number of inhabitants on the planet had grown
to 6.5 billion; the immense majority of these were poor,
having to share their food with domestic animals and
from now on with biofuels.
Humanity did not
then have all the advances in computers and means of
communication that we have today, even though the first
atomic bombs had already been detonated over two large
human communities, in a brutal act of terrorism against
a defenseless civilian population, for reasons that were
strictly political.
Today, the world
has tens of thousands of nuclear bombs that are fifty
times as powerful, with carriers that are several times
faster than the speed of sound and having absolute
precision; our sophisticated species could destroy
itself with them. At the end of World War II, fought by
the peoples against fascism, a new power emerged that
took over the world and imposed the absolutist and cruel
order under which we live today.
Before Bush’s trip
to Brazil, the leader of the empire decided that corn
and other foodstuffs would be suitable raw material for
the production of biofuels. For his part, Lula stated
that Brazil could supply as much biofuel as necessary
from sugar cane; he saw in this formula a possibility
for the future of the Third World, and the only problem
left to solve would be to improve the living conditions
of the sugarcane workers. He was well aware –and he said
it-- that the United States should in turn lift the
custom tariffs and the subsidies affecting ethanol
exports to that country.
Bush replied that
custom tariffs and subsidies to the growers were
untouchable in a country such as the United States,
which is the first world producer of ethanol from corn.
The large American
transnationals, which produce this biofuel investing
tens of billion dollars at an accelerated pace, had
demanded from the imperial leader the distribution in
the American market of no less than thirty-five billions
(35,000,000,000) of gallons of this fuel every year. The
combination of protective tariffs and real subsidies
would raise that figure to almost one hundred billion
dollars each year.
Insatiable in its
demand, the empire had flung into the world the slogan
of producing biofuels in order to liberate the United
States, the world’s supreme energy consumer, from all
external dependency on hydrocarbons.
History shows that
sugar as a single crop was closely associated with the
enslaving of Africans, forcibly uprooted from their
natural communities, and brought to Cuba, Haiti and
other Caribbean islands. In Brazil, the exact same
thing happened in the growing of sugar cane.
Today, in that
country, almost 80% of sugar cane is cut by hand.
Sources and studies made by Brazilian researchers affirm
that a sugarcane cutter, a piece-work laborer, must
produce no less than twelve tons in order to meet basic
needs. This worker needs to perform 36,630 flexing
movements with his legs, make small trips 800 times
carrying 15 kilos of cane in his arms and walk 8,800
meters in his chores. He loses an average of 8 liters
of water every day. Only by burning cane can this
productivity per man be achieved. Cane cut by hand or by
machines is usually burned to protect people from nasty
bites and especially to increase productivity. Even
though the established norm for a working day is from 8
in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, this type of
piece-work cane cutting tends to go on for a 12 hour
working day. The temperature will at times rise to 45
degrees centigrade by noon.
I have cut cane
myself more than once as a moral duty, as have many
other comrade leaders of the country. I remember August
of 1969. I chose a place close to the capital. I moved
there very early every day. It was not burned cane but
green cane, an early variety and high in agricultural
and industrial yield. I would cut for four hours
non-stop. Somebody else would be sharpening the machete.
I consistently produced a minimum of 3.4 tons per day.
Then I would shower, calmly have some lunch and take a
break in a place nearby. I earned several coupons in
the famous harvest of 1970. I had just turned 44 then.
The rest of the time, until bedtime, I worked at my
revolutionary duties. I stopped my personal efforts
after I wounded my left foot. The sharpened machete had
sliced through my protective boot. The national goal was
10 million tons of sugar and approximately 4 million
tons of molasses as by-product. We never reached that
goal, although we came close.
The USSR had not
disappeared; that seemed impossible. The Special
Period, which took us to a struggle for survival and to
economic inequalities with their inherent elements of
corruption, had not yet begun. Imperialism believed that
the time had come to finish off the Revolution. It is
also fair to recognize that during years of bonanza we
wasted resources and our idealism ran high along with
the dreams accompanying our heroic process.
The great
agricultural yields of the United States were achieved
by rotating the gramineae (corn, wheat, oats, millet and
other similar grains) with the legumes (soy, alfalfa,
beans, etc.). These contribute nitrogen and organic
material to the soil. The corn crop yield in the United
States in 2005, according to FAO (Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations) data was 9.3 tons
per hectare.
In Brazil they only
obtain 3 tons of this same grain in the same area. The
total production registered by this sister nation that
year was thirty-four million six hundred thousand tons,
consumed internally as food. It cannot contribute corn
to the world market.
The prices for this
grain, the staple diet in numerous countries of the
region, have almost doubled. What will happen when
hundreds of millions of tons of corn are redirected
towards the production of biofuel? And I rather not
mention the amounts of wheat, millet, oats, barley,
sorghum and other cereals that industrialized countries
will use as a source of fuel for its engines.
Add to this that it
is very difficult for Brazil to rotate corn and
legumes. Of the Brazilian states traditionally
producing corn, eight are responsible for ninety percent
of production: Paraná, Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, Goiás,
Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina y Mato
Grosso do Sul. On the other hand, 60% of sugar cane
production, a grain that cannot be rotated with other
crops, takes place in four states: Sao Paulo, Paraná,
Pernambuco and Alagoas.
The engines of
tractors, harvesters and the heavy machinery required to
mechanize the harvest would use growing amounts of
hydrocarbons. The increase of mechanization would not
help in the prevention of global warming, something
which has been proven by experts who have measured
annual temperatures for the last 150 years.
Brazil does produce
an excellent food that is especially rich in protein:
soy, fifty million one hundred and fifteen thousand
(50,115,000) tons. It consumes almost 23 million tons
and exports twenty-seven million three hundred thousand
(27,300,000). Is it perhaps that a large part of this
soy will be converted to biofuel?
As it is, the
producers of beef cattle are beginning to complain that
grazing land is being transformed into sugarcane fields.
The former
Agriculture Minister of Brazil, Roberto Rodrigues, an
important advocate for the current government
position—and today a co-president of the Inter American
Ethanol Commission created in 2006 following an
agreement with the state of Florida and the Inter
American Development Bank (IDB) to promote the use of
biofuel on the American continent—declared that the
program to mechanize the sugarcane harvest does not
create more jobs, but on the contrary it would produce a
surplus of non-qualified manpower.
We know that the
poorest workers from various states are the ones who
gravitate towards cane cutting out of necessity.
Sometimes, they must spend many months away from their
families. That is what happened in Cuba until the
triumph of the Revolution, when the cutting and hauling
of sugarcane was done by hand, and mechanized
cultivation or transportation hardly existed. With the
demise of the brutal system forced on our society the
cane-cutters, massively taught to read and write,
abandoned their wanderings in a few years and it became
necessary to replace them with hundreds of thousands of
voluntary workers.
Add to this the
latest report by the United Nations about climate
change, affirming what would happen in South America
with the water from the glaciers and the Amazon water
basin as the temperature of the atmosphere continue to
rise.
Nothing could
prevent American and European capital from funding the
production of biofuels. They could even send the funds
as gifts to Brazil and Latin America. The United States,
Europe and the other industrialized countries would save
more than one hundred and forty billion dollars each
year, without having to worry about the consequences for
the climate and the hunger which would affect the
countries of the Third World in the first place. They
would always be left with enough money for biofuels and
to acquire the little food available on the world market
at any price.
It is imperative to
immediately have an energy revolution that consists not
only in replacing all the incandescent light bulbs, but
also in massively recycling all domestic, commercial,
industrial, transport and socially used electric
appliances that require two and three times more energy
with their previous technologies.
It hurts to think
that 10 billion tons of fossil fuel is consumed every
year. This means that each year we waste what it took
nature a million years to create. National industries
are faced with enormous challenges, including the
reduction of unemployment. Thus we could gain a bit of
time.
Another risk of a
different nature facing the world is an economic
recession in the United States. In the past few days,
the dollar has broken records at losing value. On the
other hand, every country has most of its reserves in
convertible currencies precisely in this paper currency
and in American bonds.
Tomorrow, May Day
is a good day to bring these reflections to the workers
and to all the poor of the world. At the same time we
should protest against something incredible and
humiliating that has just occurred: the liberation of a
terrorist monster, exactly when we are celebrating the
46th Anniversary of the Revolutionary Victory at the Bay
of Pigs.
Prison for the
assassin! Freedom for the Five Cuban Heroes!
Fidel Castro Ruz
April 30, 2007
6:34 p.m.
posted 2 May 2007 * *
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Cuba An African Odyssey, previously untold
story of Cuba's support for African revolutions, is also the story of the
Cold War told through the prism of its least known
arena: Africa. It is the untold story of Cuba’s support
for African revolutions. It is the story of men like
Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Agosthino Neto and of
course Che Guevara who have become icons, mythical
figures whose names are now synonymous with the word
revolution. This is the story of how these men, caught
between capitalism and communism, strove to create a
third bloc that would assert the simple principle of
national independence. It is the story of a whole
dimension of world politics during the last half of the
20th century, which has been hidden behind the facade of
a simplistic understanding of superpower conflict.
Cuba: An African Odyssey
will tell the inside
story of only three of these Cuban escapades. We will
start with the Congo where Che Guevara personally spent
seven months fighting with the Pro-Lumumbist rebellion
in the jungle of Eastern Congo. Then to Guinea Bissau
where Amilcar Cabral used the technical support of Cuban
advisors to bleed the Portuguese colonial war machine
thus toppling the regime in Europe. Finally, Angola
where in total 380,000 Cuban soldiers fought during the
27 years of civil war. The Cuban withdrawal from Angola
was finally bartered against Namibia’s independence.
With Namibia’s independence came the fall of Apartheid…
the last vestige of colonialism on the African
continent.
Cuba: An African Odyssey
unravels episodes of
the Cold War long believed to be nothing but proxy wars.
From the tragicomic epic of Che Guevara in Congo to the
triumph at the battle of Cuito Carnavale in Angola, this
film attempts to understand the world today through the
saga of these internationalists who won every battle but
finally lost the war.
Credits:
Written, directed and narrated by Jihan El-Tahri /
Edited by Gilles Bovon / Photography by
Frank-Peter Lehmann
Sound Recordists: James
Baker, Graciela Barrault / Produced by Tancrède
Ramonet, Benoît Juster, Jihan El-Tahri
Source:
Snagfilms
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Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an
Image (2009)
By
Michael Casey
Illustrated. 388 pages. Vintage Books. $15.95
Casey, Buenos
Aires bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires, tap
dances across history— and the globe to examine
intellectual property and iconography through the
lens of the famous image of Che Guevara captured by
fashion photographer Alberto Korda. Some say that
only the famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe, her
skirt rising as she stands over a subway grate, has
been more reproduced, writes Casey. The author does
not neglect the relevant biographical details or
history, but his focus is Che as a brand. He wants
to understand why the Korda image remains so
compelling to such a wide variety of people and how
it continues to represent so many different (and
differing) causes; he suggests that the power of Che,
the brand, is in its ability to be anything to
anyone. The book can feel like a disorderly amalgam
of travelogue, visual criticism, biography and
reportage—fragments befitting a study of globalized
culture. Readers interested in the impact of visual
culture or in better understanding the elusiveness
of intellectual property rights, particularly in a
global marketplace, will find much food for thought.
Publishers Weekly
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War |
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 4 November 2007
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