Letter from Havana, January 12, 2003

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

LETTER FROM HAVANA
by Walter Lippmann, Moderator
CubaNews

Sunday January 12, 2003

Dear Friends,

This year is the 150th anniversary of the birth
of Jose Marti, called here "the apostle of Cuban
independence." Each year since its triumph, the
Cuban government has designated the year with
a particular theme.

Thus, 2003 is "The Year of Glorious Anniversaries
of Marti and Moncada", (the latter referring to the
1953 attack on the Moncada military barracks in
the city of Santiago de Cuba, on the far other end
of the island. Being linking the Cuban Revolution
of today into thematic sync with Jose Marti adds
a special resonance to this year 2003.

Yesterday morning I went with a neighbor to attend
a celebration of the Marti anniversary at the National
Library (the Biblioteca Nacional) of the anniversary.
It was sponsored by ANCI, the National Association
for the Blind and was attended by over 125 people.
The library itself is over a hundred years old now.

My neighbor, who is vision-impaired but not blind,
is the public relations person for the municipal
district of this blind/vision-impaired group. She
introduced me to the leaders of the group and we
also had a bit of a tour around the Biblioteca
Nacional following the meeting.

The program consisted of a lecture by Professor
Jorge Lozano, a youngish-looking man about 35.
He traced Marti's life from birth to death in gentle
and eloquent tones. I was pleased to be able to
understand the great bulk of his presentation and
wish it were transcribed somewhere. He spoke of
Marti's life and work in Cuba as well in his various
periods of exile. Drawing on Marti's writings he
looked at the role of slavery in the economy of
the island under Spanish rule. (Cuba was the last
country to formally abolish the peculiar institution
long after the end of the US civil war, in 1882.)

He showed the strands of historical continuity
between Marti's life and work in exile, and that
of Fidel Castro in the twentieth century, and he
characterized Marti as the first anti-imperialist of
in the modern world. He took time to further
recount the political ideas Marti had about how
Cuba's revolutionary independence struggle had
to be conducted. The lesson Marti and others drew
from the failure of previous efforts to win Cuba's
independence from Spain was the need to unite all
who support the struggle into a single united and
effective force.

The independence war of 1868 was defeated at
least in good measure because of the falling out
among themselves of the independence fighters.
Marti advocated and build one single party for the
struggle, the Cuban Revolutionary Party.

Today's Cuban CP conceives of itself as following
in Marti's footsteps in this respect. I had not at all
really understood this until a few years ago when
I read a small book published here called HEIRS
TO HISTORY, which contained articles on this
process beginning with Marti and proceeding to
articles and interviews by others who had been
part of the formation of both the first and second
Communist Parties of Cuba, including people like
Juan Marinello, Fabio Grobart and Fidel Castro.
It's a short but valuable study which everyone
interested in Cuban politics might enjoy and
which should be brought back into print.

As you would expect in a meeting like this, we had
a veritable cross-section of ages, colors and of
genders present. When the presentation came to
an end, applause from the audience was intensely
enthusiastic. The speaker took some questions and
then the event retired to the cafeteria in the basement
of the building. It was an inspiring activity indeed.

The library has a special room for its blind and vision-
impaired patrons, staffed by both blind and sited staff.
This room, clean, comfortably and newly-furnished,
has talking computers, braille-writers, and of course
lots of books in braille. The room is named after the
deceased Cuban pianist Frank Emilio whose great
piano playing was and remains quite popular and is
available internationally on compact disk. He died
in August of 1981 and had been playing a lot in
Los Angeles.

The reference room has full internet access and also
features a friendly and helpful staff. The library has
its own website, in both English and Spanish which
is linked below.

On this Sunday morning at 9:30 at a time when the
majority of Cubans are at home, this library was
filled with patrons of all ages, including students and
young children, all reading and studying quietly.

The building made me feel in a way like I was back
at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the
1960s, or else at USC and Cal State University in
Los Angeles where I had library jobs in those days.

US libraries I think have mostly gotten rid of their
card catalogs, replacing them with computers as
my Los Angeles Public Library has. This library
still uses the old system with literally hand-typed
cards referencing and cross-referencing materials.
To call a book up from the stacks you have to fill
out a little card by hand and take it, with the
carbon-copy (hand-held) to the clerk who gets it
for you.

Those of you who know my political background in
the US Socialist Workers Party may be amused by
the little "field test" I made of library contents.

I took a quick peek and found dozens of titles by
Leon Trotsky in Spanish, including his HISTORY
OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION and others.
Works by the US Trotskyist leader James P.
Cannon were also present, as were works by
such Trotskyist writers as Ernest Mandel and
Janette Habel. (Habel's book, a rather critical
take on the island first published in 1989, was
represented by a 1994 Italian-language edition).
Terrance Cannon, a writer for the Communist
Party, USA was also represented by his book
on Cuba from International Publishers.

Several books by the Trotskyist C.L.R. James
were present, including THE BLACK JACOBINS
(his study of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the
revolution in Santo Domingo), MINTY ALLEY,
a novel, and more.

This also being Cuba there were two large and
nicely-organized windows devoted to the five
Cuban patriots who are being held in US jails
for their anti-terrorist activities. Cards, letters
and photographs of and from the Five were
on display, including an entire window which
includes cartoons by Gerardo Hernandez who
had been employed as a cartoonist at the
humor magazine P'ALANTE prior to his work
gathering information on terrorist exiles in
Miami, Florida. These are right at the main
entrance under a beautful stained-glass
ceiling.

Once you get inside there's a much larger
display section, two long walls and two rows
of display cases featuring books by and about
Marti. Most, of course, are in Spanish, but the
Ocean Press MARTI READER was also there.
Bound volumes of LA PATRIA, one of the
papers Marti edited were on display and open
to be looked at (though not handled) by all.

BIBILIOTECA NACIONAL - ENGLISH:
http://www.lib.cult.cu/bnjm/english/index_e.asp
BIBILIOTECA NACIONAL - SPANISH:
http://www.lib.cult.cu/bnjm/espanol/index_e.asp

People often confuse a "revolution" with the period
of armed struggle which resulted in the triumph,
but that's inadequate. The Revolution is actually a
permanent process through which the leadership
endeavors to continually educate, agitate and
organize as much of the population as it can to
see their lives and struggles connected with the
broader historical trends, nationally as well as
world-wide. This revolution tries to bring along
as many people as it can in the process which
was very evident in this meeting for the blind.

No doubt even more could be done, but this is
an example of how one group organized itself
to participate in the ongoing process.

Those who recall my story the other day of my
search for a decent, reasonably-prices photocopy
will be pleased at this: A couple of blocks from the
library is the main post office. There I found a nicely
equipped small stationary store with one of those
big, industrial-sized copy machines. The price is
only ten cents per page, the best photocopy deal
in town! Now you know where to go for this.

Thursday was a great day in Havana with better
weather and lots of productivity. I had neglected
my yoga practice for a couple of days, but had
got back to it strongly Thursday and Friday and
it was helpful in many ways. Saturday I took
a 45 minute hike around the area where I live,
including a jaunt around the Plaza of the Revo-
lution and a stop at the bus depot. Someone
asked awhile back if there were indications of
a McDonald's in the depot's past history.

I can confirm for you, from my personal look,
there is no evidence of such. There were and
are quite a few places to eat which were open
at 6:45 in the morning. The fanciest is a Pain
de Paris, but there were several others which
charged in hard currency and one in Cuban
pesos. There were also a hundred or so folks
on the Lista de Espera (Waiting List) for the
morning bus to Pinar del Rio. Readers may
recall a Cuban movie on that theme awhile
back. It tells of a group of people on the
waiting list in a provincial station who take
things into their own hands when the bus
breaks down and no replacement comes.

At this station, however, they seem to get out
regularly. I've taken them and know others
who also take them. These are the Astro
buses which Cubans take for the most part.
There are also the more pricey (and also
very comfortable - I know, I've taken them)
Via Azul buses which also depart from the
same station.

Driving to a meeting Thursday I saw what to me
actually looked like a homeless person in Cuba
in these past two-plus months: a pitiful individual
sprawled out on a public sidewalk with a bit of
food, garbage and cans surrounding his body.
He was alive and looked somewhat dazed.

This is an extremely rare sight here in Cuba,
unlike Los Angeles where it's all too common.

Mentioning this to a few people all said the
same thing: he was probably a mentally ill
individual who had left a treatment center and
either stayed away from his family or else had
none. When I passed by that intersection a
few hours later the man was gone but the
garbage remained. The cans were TuKola,
not beer, for those who are interested.

After my meeting I wandered around several
used local bookstores. Two are real stores
the first of which sells new books, but seems
to specialize in used ones (it's on 25th near
Infanta, next to the Pain de Paris) where
I found a stack of old magazines, in good
condition, which I picked up for literally a few
Cuban pesos each. The big expense was a
couple of back issues of HABANERA for ten
Cuban pesos, and a current edition of the
journal REVOLUCION Y CULTURA costing
five pesos for these old magazines.

I'm not much of a TV watcher, here or in the
US, but I needed a break from the day's
work yesterday and sat through Carl Franklin's
HIGH CRIMES on CubaVision last night. It's
a combination court-room drama/thriller with
Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman in which
the plot centers around US terrorist activities
in El Salvador and desperate action by the
US military to cover them up.

After that a three-story late newscast gave
first place to a report on current election
efforts in Cuba, showing economics chief
Carlos Lage Davila campaigning for his
seat in the National Assembly. He's running
for a seat in the Vedado Area. (Fidel and
Raul run from Santiago.) These are the
second round of elections and this round
is not contested as were many in the first.

The midnight movie was also from the US,
Norman Jewison's 1989 comedy-thriller
THE JANUARY MAN, about a serial
killer terrorizing New York City. I didn't
stay up to watch this, however.

The second story featured the latest news
from Venezuela where President Chavez has
called a national front in defense of the right
to education into being. Venezuelans are
fighting back against the righist-opposition's
attempts to sabotage the nation's economic,
social and cultural life. He said there would
be no negotiations with these terrorists.

President Chavez and other Venezuelan
officials are also now giving out land titles
and housing titles to the poor in need of
these things.

Finally, the cameras showed Brazilian
President Ignacio Lula Da Silva touring
the poorest regions of his country now at
the beginning of his administration. Cuba's
media now features Brazilian news in a big
way, expressing enthusiasm for the positive
turn in the political life of South America's'
largest nation.

I've also I begun collecting signatures on the
petition demanding that Roger Calero, the US
Socialist Workers Party leader and editor of its
publications, THE MILITANT and PERSPECTIVA
MUNDIAL not be deported from the United States.

Calero's case (a newspaper reporter born in
Nicaragua, holder of permanent residence in the
US [green card] who was summarily seized, held
and who is threatened with deportation by the INS
after attending the Guadalajara Book Fair and
other political events in Mexico and Cuba) is at
once unique yet typical. Typical in that thousands
of others are having the same terrifying experience
Calero had when in INS custody, unique in that he
is lucky to have a wife and organization which is
standing by him and organizing in his defense.

The Calero case was reported here in Granma:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/a-vueltade-correo-i.html

Take down copies of the Fact Sheet in PDF here:
http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6701/1212FACT.pdf
Take down and circulate the Calero petition here:
http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6701/1228pet.pdf

Finally, I'm again sorry not to have been able to get
back to many of you who have written to me offlist.
Please accept this as acknowledgement and as a
reluctant apology.


Walter Lippmann, Moderator
CubaNews list at Yahoo
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
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