Brother Obama

The kings of Spain brought us the conquistadors and overlords whose marks remained in the circular plots of land assigned to the gold seekers on the banks of rivers, an abusive and shameful form of exploitation whose vestiges can be seen from the air in many places in this country.

Tourism today consists mostly of showing the delights of the scenery and enjoy the exquisite food from our seas, so long as they are shared with the private capital of the great foreign corporations, whose earnings are not worthy of notice if they don’t reach billions of dollars per capita.

Since I was obliged to mention the topic, I must add — mainly for the young people — that few persons realize the importance of such a condition in this singular moment of human history. I won’t say that time has been lost, but I do not hesitate to affirm that we are not sufficiently informed — neither you nor us — of the knowledge and awareness that we should have, in order to deal with the realities that challenge us.

The first thing to take into account is that our lives last a historic fraction of a second, which in addition must be shared with the vital needs of every human being. One of [man’s] characteristics is the tendency to overestimate his role, which on the other hand contrasts with the extraordinary number of people who incarnate the highest dreams.

Nobody, however, is good or bad in and of himself. None of us is designed for the role he must assume in the revolutionary society. In part, we Cubans had the privilege to count on the example of José Martí. I even ask myself if he had to fall or not in Dos Ríos, when he said “the time has come for me” and charged against the Spanish forces entrenched along a solid line of fire.

He didn’t want to return to the United States and there wasn’t anyone who could make him return. Someone ripped off some pages of his diary. Who committed that perfidious act, which was undoubtedly the work of some unscrupulous intriguer? It is known that there were differences between the leaders, but never indiscipline.

“He who attempts to seize Cuba will garner the blood-soaked dust of its soil, if he doesn’t die in the struggle,” declared the glorious black leader Antonio Maceo. Máximo Gómez is similarly recognized as the most disciplined and discreet military chief in our history.

Seen from a different angle, how can we not admire the indignation of Bonifacio Byrne when, from the distant ship that brought him back to Cuba, upon seeing another flag next to the lone star flag, declared: “My flag is the one that has never been mercenary,” only to immediately add one of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever heard: “If my flag is ever torn up into tiny pieces, our dead, raising their arms, will still know how to defend it!”

Nor will I forget Camilo Cienfuegos’ fiery words that night when, from a distance of several dozens of meters, bazookas and machine guns of U.S. origin held by counterrevolutionary hands pointed to the terrace where we stood. Obama was born in August 1961, as he himself explained. More than half a century would elapse since that moment.

Let us see, however, how our illustrious visitor thinks today:

“I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas. I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.”

Immediately thereafter, a deluge of concepts entirely new for most of us:

“We both live in a new world colonized by Europeans,” the U.S. president went on. “Cuba, like the United States, was built in part by slaves brought here from Africa. Like the United States, the Cuban people can trace their heritage to both slaves and slave-owners.”

The native populations do not exist at all in Obama’s mind. Nor does he say that racial discrimination was swept away by the Revolution; that retirement and the salaries of all Cubans were decreed by it even before Mr. Barack Obama reached the age of 10.

The odious bourgeois and racist custom of hiring thugs to expel black citizens from centers of recreation was swept away by the Cuban Revolution. [The Revolution] passed into history because of the battle it waged in Angola against apartheid, ending the presence of nuclear weapons in a continent with more than a billion inhabitants. That wasn’t the objective of our solidarity; rather, it was to help the peoples of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and others from Portugal’s colonial and fascist domination.

In 1961, barely one year and three months after the Triumph of the Revolution, a mercenary force with cannons and armored infantry, equipped with planes, was trained and accompanied by U.S. warships and aircraft carriers in a surprise attack against our country.

Nothing can justify that treacherous attack that cost our country hundreds of losses between dead and wounded. Nowhere is there any indication that a single mercenary in the pro-yanqui assault brigade could have been evacuated. Yanqui combat planes were shown to the United Nations as turncoat Cuban equipment.

The military experience and power of that country is all-too well known. In Africa, they similarly thought that revolutionary Cuba would be easily removed from battle. The attack through southern Angola by the motorized brigades of the racist South Africa took them to the environs of Luanda, that country’s capital. There, a struggle began that lasted no fewer than 15 years.

I wouldn’t be talking about this unless I had a basic duty to respond to Obama’s speech at the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater of Havana. Nor will I try to give details, merely emphasizing that a proud page of the struggle for the liberation of human beings was written there.

In a way, I had wished that Obama’s conduct might be correct. His humble origins and his natural intelligence were evident.

Mandela was imprisoned for life and had become a giant in the struggle for human dignity. One day, a copy of the book that narrates part of Mandela’s life came into my hands and — oh, surprise! — it bore a foreword by Barack Obama. I fast-read the book. The size of Mandela’s handwriting providing precise facts was incredibly tiny. It was worthwhile to have known men like him.

About the South Africa episode I must mention another experience. I was really interested in knowing more details about the way in which the South Africans had acquired the nuclear weapons. My only, very precise information said that they numbered no more than 10 or 12 bombs.

A sure source would be professor and researcher Piero Gleijeses, who had written the text of “Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa 1959-1976,” an excellent work. I knew that his was the most reliable source of the events and said so to him. He replied that he had not talked further about the issue, because in the text he had answered the answers of comrade Jorge Risquet, who had been a Cuban ambassador or collaborator in Angola, a very good friend of his.

I located Risquet; among other important endeavors, he was finishing a course and had several weeks to go. That task coincided with a very recent trip by Piero to our country; I warned him that Risquet was an older man and that his health was not the best. A few days later, my fears came true. Risquet grew worse and died.

When Piero arrived, there was nothing to do, except to make promises. But I had already obtained information about those weapons and the help that racist South Africa had received from Reagan and Israel.

I don’t know what Obama will say now about that story. I don’t know whether he knew about it or not, although it is very doubtful that he was absolutely unaware. My modest suggestion is that he should reflect and not try to elaborate theories about Cuban policies.

There is an important issue:

Obama delivered a speech in which he used the most honeyed words to say, “It is time, now, for us to leave the past behind. It is time for us to look forward to the future together — un futuro de esperanza. And it won’t be easy, and there will be setbacks. It will take time. But my time here in Cuba renews my hope and my confidence in what the Cuban people will do. We can make this journey as friends, and as neighbors, and as family — together.”

Presumably, each one of us ran the risk of a heart attack upon hearing these words from the President of the United States, after a merciless blockade that has lasted almost 60 years. And how about those who died in the mercenary attacks against Cuban ships and ports? An airliner full of passengers blown up in flight? Mercenary invasions, multiple acts of violence and force?

Let no one delude himself by thinking that the people of this noble and selfless country will renounce the glory and the rights and the spiritual richness it has earned through the development of education, science and culture.

I also caution that we are capable of producing the food and material riches that we need through the effort and intelligence of our people. We do not need any gifts from the empire. Our efforts will be legal and peaceful because they are our commitment to the peace and brotherhood of all human beings who live on this planet.

[Translated by Progreso Weekly.]