On November 25, coinciding with the first anniversary of the passage of the Commander in Chief to immortality, his comrade in struggle, Commander José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera, Member of the Secretariat and Head of the Department of International Relations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, he was the keynote speaker and closed the Second Colloquium on Fidel Castro's Legacy, convened by the UWI Cave Hill Campus, organized by a working group under the direction of Professor Dr. Tennyson Joseph, Head of the Department of Government and Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences. The dissertation was about internationalism in the thinking of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, in particular its contribution to the liberation of Africa and its projection and impact on relations with the Caribbean. It was up to the Cuban Ambassador, Dr. Francisco Fernández, to introduce the guest of honor, highlighting a summary of his rich biography at the service of the Revolution, which summarizes his condition as a Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and Current Head of its International Relations Department. Having been a founding member of the Party and its Central Committee in 1965. Member of the Political Bureau of the Party (1997-2011) and of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba until 2013. Minister of Health (2004-2010). Current Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power.
INTERNATIONALISM ON FIDEL CASTRO: AFRICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Nothing can be said about the legacy of Fidel´s thinking as internationalist, without mentioning first Africa and the Caribbean. They were always highlighted in the speeches related to the African continent that spoke about their peoples as actors of their history and not as alien subjects, something that few politician had done so far. When Fidel stated that “In Africa a decisive battle is also waged” (I), he put the continent and its inhabitants at the center of any analysis or reference. When he made his historic tour of several African countries in 1972, he always showed interest in looking close at the life of the populations. He involved himself. He was not a visiting, distant and disconnected politician, but he was constantly showing interest in having direct contact with the people, talking freely with them to see closely the works they were producing (II).
Since then the African peoples would occupy an essential place in his rhetoric as well as in the projection of his revolutionary work. He also began to draw historical parallel between their political processes and ours, between their culture and ours, between their way of being and ours in Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean. There is a significant example: When he compares the events in Cabinda and Bay of Pigs, revealing the spiritual union that he sees between Angola and Cuba, showing how two events, two different historical events, reveal the same aspirations. Since then , Africa began to reveal itself as a sister in the revolutionary struggle who knows about similar problems and, above all, has to fight against the same enemy: imperialism. When Fidel mentioned the role of imperialism in Africa, he remembered its role in Cuba and in the American continent. So, when he remembered the coup d´tat they supported in Africa, he remembered how similar were the historical processes not only of Cuba, but also in the whole American subcontinent so “used to” the plans produced by the United States. “In Africa one can increasingly see the imperialist attempt to penetrate, divide, subjugate. And their fashion now, in the last weeks, are the coup d´tat, coup d´tat in Congo, coup d´tat in Africa, coup d´tat in the Central Republic, coup d´tat in Nigeria, according to the reports, showing imperialism’s desperate efforts to strengthen their control in that part of the world. (iii) (Speech delivered at the closing ceremony of the First Conference of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (Tricontinental), at the Chaplin Theater, Havana, January 15, 1966)
That is why he constantly reflected on the need of unity of the African and Cuban peoples, since imperialism was precisely trying to divide the revolutionary forces and, thus, the need of a common front: “If it was never easy to fight against the forces that threaten peace, against the remains of colonialism and the might not yet defeated of imperialism, that battle is still more difficult if we have to wage it when our forces are torn apart by the lack of unity (…)” (IV). And that is why he also explained the importance of solidarity and thereafter in his speeches Africa becomes a point of solidarity among revolutionaries: “The solidarity movement (…) began in Africa and Asia and it has already spread to the third continent of the world oppressed and exploited by imperialism (…)” (V).
Fidel identified very early that colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism mean intervention not only politically, but also culturally. That is why he underlined the harm caused by colonization and imperialism to culture. In his speeches, poverty is no related only the economy, but he goes beyond to take us to the cultural plundering by colonialism and its willingness to impoverish the identity of the colonized countries. In the analysis he made of the African and Cuban history, he said that if the Cuban and African revolutionaries can be compared, then the U.S Government and those of some African countries can also be also be presented as equals in intentions, as he stated in his speeches: “When we were children, we were told at school that two things equal to a third one were equal among them. When raising the same flags that those of the UNITA groups and giving them common support, the U.S. and the South African Governments expressed their affinity of ideas and purpose, and were equal among them. What difference can be between Washington and Pretoria´s policies? (VI)
He denounced the common points between Washington and Pretoria, between the Cuban people (which fought against colonialism and the Batista´s dictatorship) and el African people that waged a battle against dictatorships and colonial power. With Fidel we learned to call “brothers” to all the oppressed in the world. The word “brother” becomes a key word in his revolutionary speeches. Thereafter, there is a real brotherhood between the Cuban and African liberation movements, without interference in their internal affairs. They are related to the Revolution by the rebelliousness against the order established by the foreign economic powers and, more than a parallel, we see how Fidel depicts the unity between the Cuban and African peoples. “We, Cubans, who have lived an experience similar to yours, know what a revolutionary peoples is, we know what a militant peoples is, what a united peoples is, -in two words- what a revolutionary people is. And all that we know”. (VII) (Speech delivered in the town of Kissidougou, Guinea, on May 4, 1972)
Fidel´s admiration for the liberation struggles of the African people was translated in solidarity towards our African brothers when he said. “Just to mention a clear example among many we can quote, the war in Angola was a conflict in which three hundred seventy seven and thirty three thousand Cubans participated directly for almost sixteen years of hostilities” (VIII). It should be noted the fact that the name “Carlota Operation” given to the Cuban participation in Angola was a pay of tribute to a famous slave woman who led a slave uprising in Cuba in the 19th Century. So, Cuba became an engine, or at least a lighthouse, in the construction, modeling and the study of the Caribbean cultural identity in which there is an African component that is common to all countries in the region and is depicted sometimes as “fragmented”. At Nelson Mandela´s funeral, Raúl Castro said: We shall never forget when (Mandela) visited us in 1991 and said that the Cuban people have a special place in the heart of the African peoples (…). Cuba, which carries African blood in its veins, emerged from the independence struggle against Spain and afterwards had the privilege to fight and build together with the African nations” (IX). The shared bloodshed in the same combats is the strongest image that the Cuban authorities could give to the historical and spiritual link between Cuba and Africa.
On highlighting the unity and the internationalism towards Africa, Fidel considered that we were paying a back a debt with the continent, reminding that it was part of our historical heritage and the African origin of many of our main leaders in our independence struggle. To fight for Africa was to preserve some events of the past regarding the origin of heroes of our independence struggle in the island such as Antonio Maceo, or thinkers such as Félix Varela and, of course, José Martí, whose anti-imperialist and anti-racist ideas are unquestionable. We cannot speak about Africa without remembering that the role played by Commandant Che Guevara there was a proof of the commitment of outstanding protagonists of the Cuban Revolution: “Che had visited several African countries (…) He denounced strongly, when he addressed the UN General Assembly on December 11, 1964, the U.S. –Belgium aggression against Congo” (X). In that regard, we cannot forget Che, when as far as 1961 -no more than two years after our victory and when the Algerian people was still waging an astonishing struggle for its independence- a Cuban ship carried weapons to the Algerian patriots and in the way back brought one hundred orphans and wounded children in that war” (XI). So, the Cuba´s projection in Africa was not limited to a few territories, but the whole Africa became a bond between Cuba and the planet.
With the end of African independence, the relationship between Cuba and Africa did not end, quite the contrary, many medical doctors began their tours of solidarity with that lands and it is worthy to refer to Fidel´s articles “The Hour of Duty” (XII) and “The Heroes of our Times” (XIII), about the recent sending of Cuban doctors to African countries to fight Ebola, showing the involvement of the Cuban Revolution in that continent. Internationalism does the miracle, as if defying the harsh reality with a certain irony: a small Caribbean country does not give up its altruistic help to its brothers, regardless of the distance, nor the criminal American blockade of the Island. The strengthening of the relations with the revolutionary peoples of Africa has always been accompanied by the establishment of links with the Caribbean, a multicultural and multiethnic space seen by Fidel as a region of great importance and not as an appendix, province or sub-region of Latin America. Therefore we can say that Cuba´s policy towards Africa meant at the same time an opening of the Caribbean to Cuba, and was the foundation for a new look of the Caribbean region to itself:
The Cuban professor Milagros Martínez, in an analysis of the Cuban external projection towards the Caribbean, has stated that: “Cuba´s policy towards the Caribbean is today one of the highest priorities regarding foreign policy. To the extent that we can describe that policy as the most dynamic and effective in the foreign projection of Cuba during the second half of the nineties and the first years of the 21st Century. Cuba is considered by the people of the Caribbean as an unmistaken part of the region. It is known by its active and solidarian projection towards the Third World, its stands against racism and colonialism and its wide relations with the African countries as a result of the sensitivity shown by the presence of the ethno-racial factor –the common African roots- as part of our nationhood. In turn, this has influenced in the formation of a Caribbean cultural identity. (XIV)
Slavery is a symbol of the colonial past that the Cubans share with the rest of the Caribbean (XV), being a common link with Africa. When we review Fidel´s speeches, we can see how he explores our history recognizing the influence of the African cultural traditions which go back to the times of the Spanish colonialism. In his statements he constantly revalues the role played by the slaves in our independence wars, and he refers to slavery not only to insist on the cruel, inhuman and brutal aspect of that exploitation, but also reinsert the black man in the history of the island. Slavery is a link among Cuba, the Caribbean and Africa, the group of colonized countries and the colonizing countries. To Fidel, the colonizing countries have an economic and moral debt with their former colonies: “Through mathematical analysis and serious reflections on this issue, we got to the conclusion that the foreign debt of third World countries could be neither paid nor collected; that for those countries it a political impossible, an economic impossible and a moral impossible; that the development of capitalism was financed with the blood, the sweat and the wealth from the colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America. (XVI) (Speech delivered in Guinea in 1972)
To Fidel, the former colonized countries have the full right to claim compensation. Cuba feels that it is a moral and ethical duty to compensate for a historical event from which she was also a victim: “The arguments about the assistance to Africa have ben singularized: Fidel Castro himself said that the “duty of compensation” that the Cubans has with Africa because of the crucial role played by Africans and their descendants in the independence and revolutionary wars, and their contribution to the construction of the Cuban nationhood and the creation of wealth that successive generations of all races enjoyed. So that many years before the boom of African claims of compensation for the slave trade and slavery, Cuba, that was not one of the colonial powers that benefitted from the extreme slave exploitation, was at the forefront of the claims with an example that, so far, no former colonial power has dared to follow” (XVII).
To Fidel, one way of “compensating” for the evils of history is to establish increasingly stronger links with Africa and the Africans, with the afrocaribbeans, for example, through the possibility offered to African and Caribbean young people to study in Cuba: “More than fifteen thousand young Africans ( around eight thousands from Latin America and the Caribbean) study free of charge in our homeland and thousands of Cuban doctors, teachers, technicians and workers render services free of charge in that continent (around two thousand in the Caribbean). More than two hundred and fifty thousand Cubans have fulfilled missions in Africa as combatants or civil workers” (XVIII). (Speech delivered in Harare, Zimbabwe, September 2, 1986)
Thus, Fidel´s evocation of “the moral debt that (Cubans) have with the sons of Africa that the colonialists uprooted by force of their homeland and were brought as slaves to Cuba, Haiti and other regions in America” (XIX), offered an appreciation of the contribution the Africans made to the Caribbean. So the African roots are revalued in one part of the Caribbean that was showing in a concrete way its intentions to defend an African heritage common to most of the Caribbean States in search of identity and acknowledgement. (XX)
In the context of this colloquium, it is worthy to mention that Cuba never abandoned its commitment to establish strong links with the Caribbean since 1959. Our historical leader always expressed special admiration for the Caribbean region, as when he stated here, in Bridgetown, at the Second Cuba-CARICOM Summit, that “We increasingly feel more affection, more love for the peoples of these islands and their excellent leaders (…) They are examples for these hemisphere and for the world” (XXI).