The Revolution has been an ideological lighthouse

Cuba: The Revolution reaches its 50th anniversary (III)

The
Revolution has been an ideological lighthouse

Orestes
Martí – Manuel Alberto Ramy                               Read Spanish Version  

Interview
with Julio Carreras

Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria – Havana, Cuba – Buenos Aires, Argentina

Julio
Carreras Jr. is an Argentine writer-journalist who heads the
well-known Agencia Digital Independiente de Noticias (ADIN).

Cuba
nears the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the triumph of its
Revolution. Did you live through that event? How do you remember it?

Carreras:
I was 9 when the Cuban Revolution triumphed, but I remember that
event with intensity because for us, the Argentines, that was also a
time of struggle. My family was Peronist and we were going through a
period when insurgent activities were carried out throughout the
country against a pro-Yankee military dictatorship. Around the same
time, some guerrilla groups emerged, like the Uturuncos, a Peronist
militia born in my province, Santiago del Estero.

Beginning
in 1959, it established a camp in the mountains of NOA, engaging in
guerrilla action and resisting the military repression for little
over a year.

My
father and my uncles were young Peronist militants. One of them led a
very combative union, the teachers’ union. So, when the Cuban
Revolution triumphed, my family went through a period of euphoria and
hope. My uncles, my father and their militant comrades talked a lot
about the Cuban Revolution. At a time when there was no TV, my father
bought every news magazine there was — and there were many. My
uncles joined him in that effort. They read U.S. magazines printed in
Spanish, such as Vision, The Reader’s Digest and Life.

I
remember seeing large photographs of Che — in Life, if I’m not
mistaken. It must have been when he was in Punta del Este. Around
that time, Che had an interview with Argentine President Arturo
Frondizi, who had been elected by the Peronist votes (though Peronism
remained banned.)

Well,
I could fill several pages talking about my childhood and teenage
recollections about the Cuban Revolution. But in deference to your
space, I will say, closing this first answer, that for the Argentine
Peronists (a great majority of the people), the Cuban Revolution was
a subject for study. Many of its details were learned, little by
little, through the network of militants.

What
influence did the Cuban Revolution have in your social environment?

Carreras:
Like me, tens of thousands of Argentine children must have grown up
listening to their Peronist families talk about the Cuban Revolution.
The presence of Perón’s delegate, John William Cooke, and a superb
militant journalist, Rodolfo Walsh, together with Massetti, among the
friends of the Revolution, made us feel that Cuba was almost part of
Argentina. Among the population in general there was great sympathy
toward the Cuban Revolution. In bars, social centers or cultural and
educational centers, one could hear praise for Cuba and its
revolutionary process.

I
think the influence of the Cuban Revolution in all of Latin America
was very stimulating. And its experiences gave spiritual sustenance
to millions of nationalist militants and revolutionaries throughout
the world, from the 1960s until today.

And
they continue to provide sustenance. The success of the movie "Che,
the Argentine" demonstrates that clearly. Today, there is
another wave of young revolutionaries who avidly follow every detail
of what has been accomplished in Cuba.

What
do you think about the U.S. blockade against Cuba? Would you advise
the new U.S. administration to lift it, in response to international
public opinion, especially to the vote in the United Nations?

Carreras:
In the ethics of war, there is no recourse as vicious as the
starvation of besieged opponents. In itself, that’s an admission of
defeat, because a perverse recourse is taken against people who
cannot be defeated in fair combat.

In
70 A.D., the Romans applied a blockade against the brave Israeli
soldiers they could not defeat and had found refuge in Massada. The
Spaniards also blockaded the brave Quilmes Indians in the Argentine
northwest and ended up defeating them through starvation. In other
words, the only prisoners they found were women, old people and
children.

This
same vile recourse was applied by the U.S. after the sound defeat it
suffered at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Realizing that it could not
defeat Cuba by openly military means, it decided to undermine the
people’s moral through an immoral blockade.

For
50 years, the U.S. has constantly suggested that it doesn’t care what
the other nations think. Its recent invasion of Iraq demonstrated
this consistent attitude, in a brutal manner. Same as with Cuba, it
used the votes at the Organization of American States only when it
was able to manipulate them. Later, when those votes turned against
it, it simply ignored them.

Of
course I would recommend the administration of Barack Obama — whom I
consider a promising leader — to immediately lift the blockade. Not
only for reasons of social ethics but also for convenience sakes. The
United States is going through the first stage of a very sharp
economic debacle. What we’re seeing is a capitalist ineptitude that
practically emptied that huge country’s economic potential in the
past 30 years.

So,
a policy of aperture by the U.S. is possible not only as a strategy
to repair its global relations but also as the empire’s only way to
avoid its total ruination.

What
do you consider the "unfinished topics" of the Cuban
revolutionary process?

Carreras:
From the outside, we have seen more hits than misses in the Cuban
revolutionary process, at all times. In particular, the fact it
resisted, with its own means — which, as is known, are
geographically modest — that huge economic exclusion imposed by
imperialism. Three points worried us, though:

1. A
   certain apparent indolence in some administrative sectors,
   particularly those in public relations (in embassies, for example.)

2. An
   ideologically rigid attitude during the first stage of the
   Revolution involving issues of religion.

3. The
   difference in status between tourists and the ordinary Cuban people,
   something that was felt very clearly in the 1980s and 1990s and, I
   feel, tended to undermine the revolutionary morale.

Of
course, these are very superficial appreciations from someone who
observes from the outside. They could be wrong.

What
do you expect from the Cuban Revolution in the next several years?

Carreras:
The Cuban Revolution has been an ideological lighthouse and example
not only for Latin America but for the whole world. I believe that
Russia itself — the cradle of the first socialist revolution — is
adopting many of Cuba’s examples.

I
expect that, in the New World Socialist Order, Cuba will be an axis
for realignments that will permit the world to advance toward social
systems that are more fair and culturally evolved.