[NYTr] Reflections on Cuba: Interview with Doug Morris

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Aug 18, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/smith08182007.html

The following is Part I of an edited and enhanced version of an
interview conducted by Rick Smith (radio host of "United for Progress,"
a 100% pro-labor and unapologetically progressive voice, heard on WHYL
News Talk Radio (960 AM), Carlisle, PA) with Dr. Doug Morris, College
of Education and Technology, Eastern New Mexico University, Portales,
NM.

Reflections on Cuba

An Interview with Doug Morris

By RICK SMITH

Q: First, can you tell us why you were in Cuba?

I should first say that I am not an expert on Cuba but I do have
research interests in progressive forms of pedagogy and a hope and
belief that we can organize ourselves differently in society, more
justly, more equitably, and more democratically. Cuba has had great
pedagogical successes in formal and informal education and they are
carrying out an experiment in alternative politics and economics that
places people above profits.

I was in Cuba as part of the 19th "Research Network in Cuba Conference"
organized by the University of Havana and the US based "Radical
Philosophers Association . I had not visited Cuba since 2002 and there
are clear signs of improvement in Cuba. "The Research Network" includes
a yearly gathering of philosophers, educators, cultural workers and
students from Cuba and the United States who share research interests,
theories and practices, visions, goals, plans, etc.

As part of the research we were able to visit and interact with
researchers, scholars, and workers at the Latin American School of
Medicine that is working to graduate 100,000 doctors from Latin
America, Africa and the US over the next ten years dedicated to helping
the poor in their home countries, the Pedagogical Institute which is
home to the "Yes I Can" literacy program now operating in 19 countries,
the Ophthamology Institute home of "Operation Miracle" that has now
performed over 600,000 free eye operations to restore sight (the goal
is six million operations), neighborhood health clinics, schools, etc.

One thing in common about all of these places is a deep sense of
solidarity, social responsibility, compassion, and internationalism
(captured in the oft-seen slogan "Homeland is Humanity") in the
pedagogical process. The head of the School of Medicine noted that
"people here are trained both in the science of Medicine and the
science of political consciousness. They learn that health is not only
a matter of biology but also a matter of society. A healthful people
require a healthful society." This key dialectic between humans as both
biological and social beings is a crucial component of Cuban pedagogy.

Another reason for visiting Cuba is to renew one's inspiration and hope
in human possibility.

Q: Are there some general impressions of Cuba you could share?

One thing is the striking billboards in Cuba. One sees no
advertisements for cars, or beer, or diamonds, but one does see much
about the accomplishments of the revolution, international solidarity,
denunciation of US imperialism, the Cuban Five, the terrorist recently
freed by the US, Luis Posada-Carriles, etc. One could do an interesting
comparative study about the use of public space for sharing information
in Cuba and the US. In Cuba, in general, public space remains public
while in the US it is increasingly privatized. In the US
over-consumption is emphasized, in Cuba solidarity and education is
emphasized. In the US aggression is celebrated, in Cuba it is
denounced. In Cuba health for all is celebrated, in the US the question
is "how can we make money from your ill-health?" In Cuba they are
trying to produce a healthful society for all, including free
health-care, in the US we have produced a society that makes people
sick and then we spend enormous amounts repairing the damage.

And, of course, one sees Ché's image at multiple sites.

For example, regarding billboards, imagine a perplexed Statue of
Liberty screaming "What barbarians! They have freed the terrorist!" To
whom might this admonishment be directed? In this case, Lady Liberty's
image adorns a large and colorful billboard along the ocean-side
Malecon in Havana, just across from, and facing, CIA headquarters in
Cuba, a.k.a. "The US Interest Section." The admonition refers not to al
Qaeda terrorists, but to the long-time US backed thug and killer Luis
Posada-Carrilles, who now walks freely on the streets of Miami. The
Bush Administration is responsible for "freeing the terrorist" and the
Cubans are rightly angry.

Freeing "the terrorist" is really a scandalous violation of
international treaty agreements. The US refuses to extradite the man
who publicly and proudly admits (along with co-terrorist Orlando Bosch)
to carrying out years of terrorist attacks against Cuba, and he has
been implicated in the infamous exploding of a Cuban airliner in 1976
that killed everyone on board, along with admitting to a series of 1997
bombing attacks on Havana hotels and restaurants in an attempt to
undermine tourism during a period when Cuba relied on tourism to boost
the economy.

In the US, since 1959 and the triumph of the Cuban revolution,
terrorism of multiple sorts carried out against Cuba is not only
permitted but encouraged, and, on the billboard, Lady Liberty is, like
the rest of us should be, aghast at the horror of this vindictive and
vicious US policy.

We might recall that after 9/11, George W. Bush "put the world on
notice that we will hold any person or regime that harbors or supports
terrorists as guilty of terrorism as the terrorists themselves." We
still await legal actions against those "guilty of terrorism" in the
current US administration responsible for harboring terrorist Luis
Posada-Carrilles, among others (not to mention the Administration's
other, and more heinous, crimes).

Much of old Havana is in a state of disrepair, but at the same time one
sees much restoration under way, another sign of an improving economy.
There are parts of Havana that remind one that Cuba is a poor country,
but there are other parts that remind one that Cuba has achieved much
with very little. Cuba is not a tropical paradise, but it is also not
an infernal hell like Haiti right next door. There seemed to be more
food on the table and more cars in the streets, both indications that
the economy is improving (though not necessarily the air quality in
Havana).

Q: What is the primary struggle in Cuba these days?

Though we met with many Cubans from different walks of life, but mainly
academics, the visit to Cuba was short, two weeks, so one must be
careful not to generalize. In my view, arguably the primary battle in
Cuba now continues to be what they call "the battle of ideas," i.e. how
to maintain socialist consciousness and socialist commitment during
this challenging historical period when Cuba is forced to interface
more and more with global capitalism/neoliberalism in order to survive.
In other words, how does a country carrying out a socialist experiment
maintain and develop notions of and commitments to solidarity, mutual
responsibility and collective work within a context of relative
scarcity while at the same time global forces are increasingly present
that promote a rapacious individualism and exacerbated consumption of
frequently unnecessary, but tantalizing, products? In addition, there
is the constant threat of US military force and that has material, as
well as psychological and emotional, impacts on an entire population of
people.

At the same time that there exists a US military threat and
neoliberalism is attempting to claw its way into Cuba, the growing tide
of leftism in Latin America (most evident in Venezuela, Bolivia,
Ecuador and Nicaragua, but growing in most other countries, including
Mexico), along with US distractions elsewhere, a weakened US economy,
and the newly constructed ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin
America), rooted in the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela, provide a
form of protection and support for Cuba as well as emerging hopes that
the sails of socialist possibilities will gain new and stronger winds
in the coming years.

Additionally, Cuba's revolutionary commitment to national dignity and
sovereignty along with their revolutionary commitment to international
solidarity is beginning to spread across Latin America and the world
and that provides and earns them increasing levels of international
respect, interest, acknowledgement, appreciativeness and support. All
of that makes it more difficult for the US to overturn the revolution.
We might also recall that the Cubans mobilized more than 1,500 doctors
and aid workers experienced in hurricane relief to come to the US
immediately after Katrina, but the Bush Administration stupidly and
arrogantly refused their assistance.

Q: One often hears of human rights violations in Cuba. How does one
respond?

First, we do not want to ignore human rights violations anywhere,
especially human rights violations for which we are responsible. The US
blockade against Cuba, now in its 47th year (official blockade 45th),
is illegal. The latest vote on the US embargo in the United Nations was
184-4, essentially the whole world calling for an immediate end to the
illegal US embargo. The US embargo is a major human rights and
international law violation, and the US, voting essentially alone,
voted to keep the illegal embargo. This vote, where basically the
entire world says "end the embargo" and the US, against the world, says
"what we say goes," demonstrates how little the US is interested in
democracy internationally. People around the world know these things.
Sadly, internally many people in the US are unaware.

Cuba, since 1959, has been victimized by more terrorism than any other
country (not in terms of victims but in terms of attacks), and
virtually all of it comes from the US, either as officially sponsored
state terror, for example, "Operation Mongoose" started under the
Kennedy Administration after the failed US attack at the Bay of Pigs,
or a sort of "we will look the other way" non-state terror organized by
anti-Cuban revolution folks in Miami. Many of the people involved in
that terror have links to the CIA. The US has carried out biological
warfare against Cuba, for example, releasing dengue fever that killed
several hundred people, mostly children, etc. There is a long list,
much of it is covered in a book by William Blum "Killing Hope" that is
highly recommended.

But, I suspect the question is pointing to the oft-noted, in the US,
human rights violations perpetrated by the Cuban government, yes?

Q: Yes, of course, this is what we are constantly told. There is the
impression that Cuba is a police state that governs through force,
intimidation and coercion.

Well, yes, in the United States one hears much about Cuban human rights
violations, but it is difficult to believe that the US has any real or
principled concern for human rights anywhere, other than the "right" to
maximize profits and power for the select few. For example, a report
came out recently noting that more than one million people have now
been killed in Iraq as a consequence of the US aggression and
occupation. That figure does not take into account those who were
killed by the 12 years of US sanctions and bombings in the years
1991-2003. Estimates of people killed during that period run as high as
a million people, with roughly 500,000 of them young children. It is
about that figure that US Secretary of State Madeline Albright said
"the price [of killing 500,000 children] is worth it." In addition, a
significant portion of the Iraqi population is without adequate food or
drinkable water or employment. Children in Iraq are among the most
traumatized in the world. There are roughly 2 million internally
displaced people and two million who have been forced to flee the
country. Hospitals are barely working and are undersupplied.
Electricity is hard to find on a regular basis. There is rampant
killing, torture, kidnapping, abuse, bombing, etc. How is the US
demonstrating its concerns for these major human rights violations? The
US continues to participate in carrying out the violations. I mention
all of this to suggest that US concerns for human rights are at best
incidental and US condemnations of Cuba for human rights violations
must be looked on with suspicion.

As to Cuba, under the revolution, Cuba has no history of death squads
or torture squads, no mass imprisonment, mass kidnapping, and no mass
repression. Some people who are referred to in the US as "dissidents"
and imprisoned in Cuba would be called "terrorists" if they were
operating in the US or in a US client state. In general, those
"terrorists" are people who work for the US, are funded through the US
Interest Section in Havana (basically CIA headquarters in Cuba), or
they are funded by anti-revolution groups in Miami that often have
connections to the CIA and thus carry out policies supported by US
power. Those people are trying to destroy the Cuban socialist
experiment and they are backed by real power, i.e. US power.

There are no fair analogies in the real world regarding power
relationships so one must invent them that match the US/Cuba power
relationship. For example, suppose there was a SUPERPOWER in the world,
call it "SUPERPOWER X" that had the same degree of power over the US
that the US has over Cuba, and that SUPERPOWER X was hostile to the US,
had carried out invasions, regular terror operations and maintained an
illegal blockade against the US, was constantly propagandizing inside
the US over radio and television all in attempts to destroy the US (and
here we would also have to imagine that the US was attempting to carry
out an experiment in people-first politics and economics), and then
imagine there were people inside the US, working for, trained and
funded by SUPERPOWER X in repeated attempts to destroy the
(hypothetical in this case) US experiment in socialism? We would not
call them "dissidents" we would call them "terrorists," and one can
imagine they would not be treated nicely, in fact, they would probably
be executed for treason, or sent off to some Guantanamo-style gulag to
be tortured. The US, I would suggest, despises Cuba not because of
human rights violations in Cuba but because in Cuba they respect human
rights the US does not consider as valid rights: health care, food,
education, cultural expression, work, housing, sustainability of the
environment, etc.

Q: And what about freedom of speech? We are told there is no freedom of
speech in Cuba; we are told that people are cowering in corners afraid
to say anything lest they be hauled off to prison?

That is surely a caricature. We had plenty of conversations with people
in various settings and they seemed perfectly willing and free to be
critical. One senses, however, a certain pride in the revolution that
could make people somewhat reluctant to be overly critically in the
face of people from the US. Remember, the US is trying to destroy the
revolution. Furthermore, that pride, I think, is linked to a sense of
responsibility not just to the revolution inside Cuba but for the
example that Cuba might provide for the rest of the world, i.e. Cuba
offers a working example that demonstrates how people can organize
society differently and direct it toward a people-first mobilization
that does not place profits above human well-being. This is linked to
the strong sense of international solidarity one witnesses in Cuba's
internationalized literacy and medical programs that really are
unmatched and unprecedented.

There were some arguments in Cuba among some on the US delegation
around freedom of speech in Cuba, and of course one would want to
support more freedom of speech everywhere, including Cuba. But, as one
of the Cuban philosophers told us, "we are not carrying out a socialist
experiment on the moon!" A few from the US intimated "the US has a free
press as evidenced by the Bill Moyers program and 'NOW' on PBS, 'Air
America' radio, 'The Nation' magazine, etc." I think they are missing a
crucial point. While it is true those somewhat oppositional forms exist
in the US, they are not a threat to power because they are not backed
by any significant power that is a threat to real power in the US, i.e.
corporate power. If any of these programs became a real threat to power
one suspects they would quickly disappear.

In Cuba the situation is different. So called "oppositional literature"
or "oppositional speech" in Cuba IS frequently backed by significant
power, in fact, it is backed by the most powerful force in history, a
combination of US military, economic and political power, and it is
well known that the US is virulently hostile to Cuba. Because of that
Cuba must, I think, operate with a greater degree of care and suspicion
in determining what should and what should not be disseminated or
permitted. This is not an attempt to justify repression of speech, but
an attempt to explain it in the current circumstances. There is Fidel's
statement "Criticism within the revolution, yes; criticism against the
revolution, no." Cuba does not want to return to the virtual
slave-state existence it had before the 1959 triumph of the revolution.
That Cuba has survived is a bit of a miracle, and they continue their
struggle, under difficult conditions. They appear to be committed to
extending what is already a fairly substantial degree of participatory
democracy, both formally through the State and informally through
participation in popular organizations and federations.

Because of the US blockade and the collapse of the Soviet trading block
the Cuban economy is still operating within what they call "The Special
Economic Period," a period of deprivation, severe at times, but they
expect to achieve productive levels similar to "the good ol' days" of
1989 (before the collapse of the Soviet bloc that supported the Cuban
economy) sometime within the next two years. At the height of the
Special Period the economy was down as much as 40% and caloric intake
was down as much as 60% according to some reports. They survived by
sharing the deprivation and mobilizing the collective will and
intelligence to find ways to survive.

So, in spite of its many problems, some internal, many external, I
think the world owes Cuba and the Cuban people a great debt of
gratitude for not surrendering their struggle because in a world edging
toward multiple catastrophes, both human and social, rooted in
capitalism and militarism, Cuba offers a different model that provides
both some hope and possibility that alternatives do exist and we can
organize society in ways that place people above profits, cooperation
above selfishness, and international solidarity above international
aggression.

Q: What about Cuban nationalism? We often see photographs of tens of
thousands of people at demonstrations?

Tens of thousands is probably an underestimate. Hundreds of thousands
is more accurate. Nationalism is surely promoted. A strong sense of
national defense is essential while living "beneath" the behemoth to
the North.

Here I will speculate. In Cuba one hears or sees the slogan "Patria o
Muerte," ("Homeland or Death"). Some people in the US will say "Castro
has trained a country of robots willing to die to protect his power."
One suspects that has very little to do with the slogan, and that is
not to say Fidel is not respected for his contributions to the
revolution, he is. When Cubans say "Patria o Muerte" ("Homeland or
Death") it carries with it, I think, a number of meanings, and
relevance beyond Cuba: (1) it suggests they will struggle to the death
to protect the socialist experiment and national identity, their
self-determination and their right to live free from colonial or
imperial control, exploitation and domination; (2) if they lose the
homeland it is not only a physical death but a cultural death along
with the death of the experiment in socialism and a "people first"
society, and thus a "spiritual" death, a crushing of hope, and the
elimination of dreams; (3) (a bit more subtle, but perhaps even more
important), there is a sense one gets from a number of Cubans, young
and old, that the Cuban experiment may provide a model, both material
and inspirational, theoretical and practical, ideological and
pedagogical, of sorts for the very survival of Latin America in the
face of US hegemony, and also for the survival of the rest of the world
in the face of neoliberalism and militarism. This is not rooted in any
sense of Cuban arrogance (just the opposite), but out of an
understanding that the rapacious, brutal and destructive nature of a
"produce and expand in order to profit and survive" economy accompanied
by a commitment to military aggression portends ultimate doom for
humanity, preceded by all too much suffering, despair and misery. So
yes, there is a strong sense of being part of something larger than the
self in Cuba, it is both nationalist and internationalist, both local
and global.

One might sum it up by saying that if the values on which socialism is
based, i.e. solidarity, love, respect, humanitarianism, equality,
reason, freedom, substantive democracy, and peace, are crushed; then,
there is a sense of spiritual death, followed soon by physical
annihilation. So, in a phrase, "homeland or death," i.e. "patria o
muerte," also carries with it the notion "socialismo o muerte!"