Feb 28
This statement from the Cuban government about the unfinished struggle against racism, despite many advances against racism in the material and spiritual lives of Cuban Afro-Descendants by the policies of the Revolution, could be a critically important juncture at which Cuban citizens, especially those of Afro-Descent, and the Cuban government, can become central players in the Continental wide ideological and political discourses and policies of Afro-racial-cultural identity and related discrimination, participatory democracy and integration of the Caribbean and Latin America…
James–I believe the use of the world “acknowledgement’ by EFE is somewhat misleading, since this is not the first time that the Cuban authorities have publicly referred to this problem. As you point out, it is the subject of a high-level Commission of UNEAC, the Union of Artists and Writers. What is new, I believe, is your argument that it could be a critically important juncture “at which Cuban citizens, especially those of Afro-Descent, and the Cuban government, can become central players in the Continental wide ideological and political discourses and policies of Afro-racial-cultural identity” This would indeed be a very signficant development.
By the way, was this statement in any way connected to the the UN designation of of 2011 as the “Year of Peoples of African descent”?
Norman
Norman,
Thanks for your clarifying comments about the EFE headline.
I fully agree that the use of “acknowledgement” in the EFE headline is ” misleading”. By not, at least, providing information on prior, especially, most recent critical references by Cuban citizens and Cuban government officials about the yet unfinished struggles against racism and other issues of social inequity within the overall accomplishments of the socialist Revolution, ” Banner” headlines ” hang in the air” and can so easily lead to isolation, intrigue, and minimization of what is certainly an important historically developed ” Afro-racial-identity” in Cuba and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
For most Latin Americans not of self-identified Afro-Descent, proactive assertion of Afro-Descent identity has been and remains in some progressive and Left sectors problematic. In January 2004 when the TransAfrica Board of Washington, D.C. visited Venezuela at the invitation of President Hugo Chavez (I was a non-board invitee by Board President Danny Glover), President Chavez was forthrightly critical of the failure of his administration to designate Afro-Descendants in the 1999 Constitution. He called for immediate correction.
For many Latin American nations it is still problematic to a vow Afro-Descendants as central to national policy development, resource allocations, and leadership participation. Some in governance and mainstream civil society organizations and institutions think it simply sufficient to make philosophical declarations about the importance of diversity, but not to make scientific social analysis of the negative consequences of racism (structural) and discrimination in material and spiritual life. Many find it even more difficult to analyze formulate, implement, and evaluate specific measurable policies to eradicate racism, often lumping the negative consequences and nexus to calls under general rubrics of poverty abatement and remediation of historical cultural deficits.
Although this exchange was begun about Cuba, my concerns and comments are directed more broadly towards the Caribbean and Latin America. On a global scale, I think the integration process between varied ideological and political nation-states in those regions represent the most dynamic visions and practices of scale consciously designed to counter neo liberal dominance, to search for and implement practical alternatives e.g. Petro-Caribe, UNASUR, Bank of the South, and to seriously explore plural developments of socialism based upon a participatory democracy wherein, Afro-Descendants among other marginalized sectors and groups, can be protagonist on all fronts, and not just in unfinished democratic struggles against racism.
I take the opportunity of your response to my comments on the EFE article to share these thoughts because I am very concerned that progressive Latin American and Caribbean governments, progressive and Left scholars and activists do not explicitly envision Afro-Descendants as full citizens on all fronts, anti-racist declarations and individual outlooks notwithstanding. More disturbing is a quickly developing de facto current among many Afro-Descendants in Latin America reflected in the unreflective, uncritical association with the Honduran coup leadership endorsement of a major summit planned for August to observe the United Nations”™ 2011 recognition of Afro-Descendants.
Preliminary discussions about meetings of some Afro-Descendants in Cuba and Venezuela in May and June, proposed in relationship to the U.N. 2011 Recognition of Afro-Descendants, raise serious questions as to the extent this important United Nation”™s racial-cultural-identity focus will be grounded in the broader, regional and global real-politic of the Caribbean and Latin America, including South-South relations. Invitations to high-profile participants (especially from the U.S.)to participate for a few days in Caribbean and Latin American conferences about Afro-Descendants is an all-too-familiar orientation that in my view more often than not diverts attention from the main anti-racist protagonists in the Caribbean and Latin America.
What is required at this juncture of regional and global changes are strategically well-articulated and well-planned objectives within and across nations with respect to the struggles against racism that fosters the full exercise of Afro-Descendants in national, regional, and global politics.
I must say that I am very concerned that progressives are generally lagging on anti-Afro-Descendant racism in the Caribbean and Latin America (not to mention the muddled situation in my own country, the U.S.A.) at a time that the U.S. government and U.S. Parasatal programs are reviving up on the offensive taking conscious advantage of the ” blind spots” and sluggish and uneven policies from Latin American governments and insufficient analysis from Left-analysts and theoreticians in Latin America. In my view many Marxists and socialist Leftists in Latin America and the Caribbean are ” class-bound” and a-historical in their analyses of history, economic, and national sociology, and policy—and fail to see the historical nexus and contemporary expressions between class and racism in the development of Capitalism in the region, and strategies for resolution under socialism.
In response to your specific question as to if the Cuban official”™s statement carried by EFE ” was in any way connected to the UN designation of 2011 as the “Year of Peoples of African descent?”—- I do not know, but I hope that Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, and anti-coup Afro-Descendants in Honduras and elsewhere use the U.N. platform to further activate Afro-Descendant participatory democracy on all national, regional, and global fronts, and to work with other citizens and government representatives to serious formulate target policies to eradicate racism and to advance material development and national leadership contributions among Afro-Descendant citizens.
I hope we can further this and other discussions.
In solidarity.
James Early
fyi: Fidel references to racism in Cuba on speeches in 1999, 2000 and 2003 (check them out at
http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/fidel-castro-on-the-persistence-of-racial-discrimination-in-cuba.htm.
He has been saying that occasionally since March 1959. I heard him saying that personally, publicly in my home town of Santa Clara.
The thing is Cuban people has engrained a Cuban way of ‘racismo de convivencia’ totally different from other part of the world. Watch RACE a documentary film made by a young white Cuban director. He interviews ordinary Cuban on Havana streets about the subject. Nothing new. That’s the Cuban way!