Fidel at 100: A Centenary of Legacy and Solidarity

Corbyn calls for solidarity

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined over 200 diplomats, union leaders, parliamentarians, academics, and long-standing friends of Cuba to reflect on Fidel Castro’s  legacy and enduring international solidarity on the anniversary of his birth on 13th August 1926. Mander Hall, at the headquarters of the NEU, the largest education union in Europe, was packed on that Thursday morning last week. By the time the lights dimmed, there wasn't a spare seat left.
The morning opened with a short tribute film tracing Fidel's life, his legacy, the achievements of the Cuban Revolution he led, and the international solidarity he built across the world. Woven through it were brief contributions from doctors, trade unionists, academics, filmmakers, campaigners and politicians, each speaking to what that legacy means in their own corner of society. Some of them had actually known Fidel in person. Friends speaking about a legacy. Friends remembering a man.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Independent Alliance group in the House of Commons, took the platform next and spoke with real feeling about what Fidel built for every corner of Cuban society and for the cause of international solidarity, then went further, calling on Britain to deepen its solidarity with Cuba at every level, including government to government. Coming from someone who, this March, rode in the Nuestra América aid convoy into Havana and stood inside a cancer hospital struggling to keep its machines running through a blackout, with Richard Burgon MP alongside him, those words carried weight.
The Cuban ambassador, Ismara Vargas Walter, closed the event and the room went still. She took us back to the beginning: a twenty-six-year-old leading the assault on the Moncada barracks, captured, standing alone at his own trial to say the words that outlived every judge in that courtroom: "Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me." Prison. Exile in Mexico. Eighty-two men on a leaking yacht called Granma, scattered on a beach under fire, barely a dozen reaching the Sierra Maestra alive. From that dozen, in under two years, a country and a Revolution.
She reminded us what he did with that victory: over one hundred thousand volunteer teachers, many of them teenagers, walking into the mountains until Cuba could declare itself free of illiteracy. Cuban doctors in Chile and Algeria by 1961 and 1963. Cuban internationalists at Cuito Cuanavale, standing with a nation fighting apartheid — the same struggle Nelson Mandela himself later called a turning point in the liberation of his continent.
And then she brought us to the present: a naval armada in the Caribbean, oil tankers tracked and seized on the high seas, a total fuel blockade, "a profound breach of the equality of states and sovereignty," in her words, not a bilateral dispute. Families cooking over firewood. Blackouts lasting entire days. Eleven thousand children among more than one hundred thousand people waiting for surgeries that cannot be safely scheduled. Survival for a Cuban child with cancer and infant mortality, fallen. "When a hospital in Havana loses power tonight," she said, "it is not the weather. It is policy, arriving exactly as designed."
And still, 300 Palestinian students are training as doctors in Cuba right now, free of charge, because Fidel taught his country that internationalism is a debt paid, not a favour granted. And to be internationalist is to pay our own debt to humanity. 
She thanked the National Education Union for opening Hamilton House's doors to us once again, the 117 MPs who backed this year's Early Day Motion against these illegal unprecedented sanctions, and six decades of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign's unwavering friendship. Fidel is a hundred years old today, she told the room. Cuba is still standing!

Defending Cuba!

Outside the embassy

by New Worker correspondent

Cuba solidarity activists were on the streets of London last weekend to protest against the American blockade and confront provocations by Cuban émigrés and other agents of imperialism calling for increased sanctions and US action, including direct intervention.
    Rabid anti-communist US politicians and far-right Cuban-American émigré groups based in Florida had called for a global weekend of action against the socialist island. But in London they had little to show for it apart from a handful who turned up outside the Cuban embassy on Sunday only to find it surrounded by over a hundred supporters of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
    Meanwhile, the new US embassy in Nine Elms was picketed by the Consistent Democrats, a left split from Socialist Fight, The demonstration was in defence of the Cuban revolution and a show of solidarity with the Cuban people against the “Gusano” or “worms”, as they’re known in Cuba, mobilisation.

Islamic Students honour Fidel

by Theo Russell

A meeting in memory of Fidel Castro at the Kanoon Towhid Centre in Hammersmith, run by the Islamic Students Association (ISA), heard speakers from several countries honour the leader of the Cuban revolution’s life and ideals last week.

Opening the meeting, Dr Kamran Fathi from the ISA said that Castro’s movement “inspired millions around the world from all races and religions, and many other countries in Latin America and elsewhere, with its ideals.”

He said the meeting would also remember the life of Hashemi Rafsanjani, a lifelong supporter of the Palestinian struggle who, like Castro, had always sided with the oppressed peoples of the world.

Bernard Regan, national secretary of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, spoke of the modern history of Cuba and the Cuban revolution, pointing out that education in Cuba is free at every level and that its literacy campaign had been adopted by many countries, including Spain, New Zealand and amongst indigenous peoples in Bolivia.

He said that starting in 1959 with no health service at all, Cuba now has more doctors working abroad – 50,000 – than the World Health Organisation, the International Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières combined.

“Castro’s help to developing countries has always been with no consideration for Cuba’s own interests. Its military support for the government of Angola in 1987–88 and the crushing defeat for apartheid South Africa’s NATO-backed military machine was a turning point in the history of southern Africa.”

Ramon Grosfoguel, a Puerto Rican professor based at the University of California in Berkeley, said that it was very important that an Islamic organisation was holding a meeting to remember Fidel Castro. He said Islam and Cuba held common values such as solidarity with other peoples, in Iran’s case with Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Puerto Rica, he added, shared a common history with Cuba, both becoming US colonies after the Spanish–American War in 1898.

Ramon said that Castro was not concerned with religious or political beliefs, but the humanitarian needs of the oppressed, and had acted with no concern for the consequences, “such as the many assassination attempts against him.” His legacy, he said, “could be summed up in one word – dignity.”

Masoud Shajareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in London, spoke about the importance of solidarity with the oppressed: “Everyone, even Tony Blair and Adolf Hitler, claims to be nice and to help the needy, but in reality they contributed to the downfall of morality.

“Many people talk but take no action. Oppression needs to be challenged and donating money is not enough. It is not enough to pray five times a day, to fast, to memorise the Koran, you have to be active in supporting those resisting injustice, colonialism and oppression, whether in Palestine or Kashmir.”

Shajareh recalled the sanctions against Iraq in the 2000s that resulted in half a million children dying of starvation and compared Castro’s ideals with those of Ayatollah Khomeini, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Nelson Mandela and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah party.

In the discussion, Bernard Regan pointed out that although Cuba had made major breakthroughs in treatments for cancer, diabetes and hepatitis, “the US drug companies have blocked publicity about the new drugs and people in the US itself are suffering because they’re not allowed to import them.”

Farewell to Fidel at Congress House

by New Worker correspondent

Congress House was packed on Monday evening for the memorial service called by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) to pay their last respects to the memory of Fidel Castro. It was standing room only for some of the thousand or so who came to the TUC’s headquarters in London to hear tributes from diplomats, writers and artists to the outstanding Cuban revolutionary leader who passed away on 25^th November.

            Cuban Ambassador Teresita Vicente led the tributes, saying: “Today we know that over 200 million children sleep on the streets in the world. Not one of them is Cuban. Millions of people all over the world lack healthcare, lack education and lack social security. None of them are Cuban.”

All of this had been achieved, she said, despite the fact that “Cuba has been under permanent attack and blockade for almost 60 years.

“We will continue with Cuban internationalism. Wherever a child will be without a school, there will be a Cuban educator. Wherever there is a child without medical attention, there will be a Cuban doctor. Internationalism, as defined by Fidel, is to pay off our debt with humanity.

“We will struggle until the end of the immoral, illegal and criminal US blockade against our country. We will fight for the return of the illegally occupied territory at Guantanamo.

“Those who die fighting for life cannot be called dead. Fidel will live on!”

She ended with the rousing call of “Viva la revolución! Viva Cuba! Viva Fidel!” and received a huge standing ovation.

Other tributes were given by artists and writers including Tariq Ali, Cuban violinist Omar Puente, Asabi Hawah, Victoria Brittain and Richard Gott; and diplomats spoke about the consistent support that Cuba gave to the Third World during the Castro era.

Venezuelan ambassador Rocío Maneiro said: "Fidel is the son of Bolívar, the son of Jose Marti. He fought for social justice and independence for our lands.

"The dream of friendship, solidarity and integration is being made reality by Latin American countries who believe a better world is possible."

But probably the best speech at the memorial meeting apart, from that of the Cuban Ambassador herself, was from the Angolan ambassador who is also a senior officer in the Angolan armed forces.

Lieut-Colonel Rui Goncalves said: “If it was not for Cuba, Angola would have fallen under the South African apartheid army – and I can honestly said that I wouldn't be standing here today.”

Cuba’s support went beyond the military support, the ambassador said. “All my teachers when I was growing up were Cuban. Many doctors in Angola were Cuban. Fidel and Cuba helped our country in so many ways that we will forever be grateful for.”

He detailed Cuba's assistance to the MPLA [The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola] and spoke highly of the Cuban military help, as well the help given to education and health by Cuba. Cuba's decision to send military assistance to Angola was done independently of the Soviet Union and one year before the USSR acted.

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined other comrades in signing the book of condolences at the Cuban embassy in London last week and over 7,600 people have now signed the on-line condolence book for Fidel Castro organised by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.