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Cuba Diaries
Breathing Room
Cuba 4.3 (4th Trip; 3rd Day)
September 11, 2013
Cindy Sheehan
Interestingly on 9/11, I am in a nation that
remembers 9/11 as the day when the democratically elected, Socialist president
of Chile Salvador Allende was violently removed from office and murdered
ushering in the reign of terror of US backed tyrant, Pinochet.
It always seems that the US
is on the wrong side of the people’s wishes. Besides trying to assassinate, or
overthrow Fidel Castro dozens of times; actually did briefly overthrow Hugo
Chavez in 2002; Zelaya in Honduras; tried to remove Rafael Correia in Ecuador;
forced the plane of president Evo Morales of Venezuela down fearing that Edward
Snowden was aboard; all the misadventures in the Middle East, beginning with
Mossadegh in Iran which is really when the US slid down that slippery slope to
ruin. I don’t have the time, or energy, to list it all.
In Cuba today, the delegates
(which includes me) to the conference commemorating the 15th anniversary of when the
Cuban Five were arrested, were bussed to Revolution Square to
view the artwork of one of the Five, Antonio Guerrero, I am including photos of
some of Tony’s work in this blog—all "snapshots" of his life in prison. One of
the great beauties of the Cuban people, and the Cuban 5, especially, is that
they have suffered so much hardship for the Revolution, but they respond with
grace, with art, with doctors, with teachers, with engineers. Nothing the US
does can break their spirits and the Empire doesn’t know how to deal with
people that it cannot not break, or kill!
At the art exhibition one of
the mothers of the Cuban Five (Rene), Irma,
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| Irma, by Toni Guerrero |
asked me how I was enjoying my visit to Cuba. I had a
response that surprised me. I said, “I am doing great, I can breathe.” Since my
first time here, every time I return, it seems like I take deep breaths and
relax a little when I walk off the plane and see a smiling face at the end of
the ramp. The cares and oppression of the Empire gradually melt off of me. The air is clean here and it’s not so crowded that one doesn’t feel
like her space is being constantly violated. I am not one of the only ones
around me who knows the truth about the USA; in fact usually I am the last to
know.
I had many great
conversations with colleagues from all over the world, but they now live in Cuba.
I met Sean Clancy in Holguin
a couple of years ago when I went there for another conference about the Five.
Sean is Irish, if you couldn’t tell by his name, but he came to Cuba and fell
in love with the island, its people and the Revolution and he now lives in a resort
town called, Trinidad.
Sean is very, very smart with
international politics, but of course more
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| Sean Clancy in Havana |
with those of Latin America. He and
I were talking about my most recent trip to Ireland back in 2011 when I
addressed members of the Dail. Many of the Senators and Members of the lower
body told me that they appreciate my work, but they always have to keep
Ireland’s “special” relationship with the US in mind. They LOVE the USA. When I told Sean this he said,
“by Christ, if you want to look at how to ruin a revolution in 50 years, just
look at Ireland.’
Sean is also very astute
about US politics. I would say more so that 75% of the people who actually live in the
country. I told him about my bike ride from California to Washington, DC and
how I had undergone such an effort so I could take the temperature of as many
people in as many places as I could. He asked me what I had found discovered.
I told Sean that I had found
that most of the people we talked to were frightened and confused. In the US, for
our entire lives, we are told, taught, and lied to that our only participation
in US political/social life should be at the “ballot box.” If f we have a
problem with an elected official, we are told that we should “vote the bum
out.” If we are struggling with any kinds of problems from joblessness,
homelessness, war, hunger, crime, or whatever, we are told on one hand that we
should “go through proper channels” and on the other hand that “you can’t fight
city hall.” Then when we step outside those false paradigms and do something
about it like Occupy or Camp Casey, we are demonized as being “crazy,” or so
outside the mainstream that nothing we say has validity even if we aren’t
crazy. People in the US feel betrayed and befouled by the system. However, even
though most people know in their gut that there is something wrong, they can’t
diagnose it.
Sean said one of the most
simple, yet profound things “off the cuff” that I rarely hear in casual
conversation. He said, “Exactly! It’s like people walk around with an
undiagnosed disease feeling really sick, but even the terms of the cure are
poisoned in the US.” Of course, Sean was talking about community and the
people’s solution of Socialism and revolution, but we can’t say those words in
the US. The McCarthy hearings took care of one and the NSA spying on all of our
communications takes care of the other.
The terms are so poisoned and now foreign to most of us in the US that the "right" will call Obama a "Socialist" and the "left" will call him a "hero." The terms are even poisoned internationally, because the Nobel Peace Prize Committee calls Obama a "Peace Laureate."
Well, I am not shy or afraid
to say either one: SOCIALISM AND REVOLUTION! We are talking about a broad-based
people’s struggle, not the elitist revolution of 1776 that actually changed
nothing except the shapes of the colors on the flag. Revolution in the US must
come in the form of community based solutions because the days of our pop-guns
matching the advanced and deadly weaponry of the Empire passed many decades
ago.
I also met a very petite and
pretty Japanese woman who calls herself, Maggie. Maggie told me that she was on
a tour of Cuba many years ago and she fell in love with their tour guide who
was there translator. Her husband now teaches Japanese at Havana University. I
thought that was a very romantic story. Maggie and I did pretty well
communicating with each other despite my limited Spanish and non-existent
Japanese and her limited English.
Maggie shared with me that in
Japan she was an activist who had gone down to Okinawa many times to protest
the US bases and she fought to raise awareness about nuclear contamination
because her daughter died when she was nine from Leukemia. It’s such a sad time
when the hearts of two mothers who have buried their children connect in a way
that tragically, only they can know. It’s a sad time, but ones heart recognizes
a sister in suffering and there is a stillness in that connection.
In the evening there was a
dinner given in a magnificent, old colonial building with wonderful
architecture and design.
The food was wonderful, but I
had to pass my fish to Sean since I don’t eat anything with a face, or anything
that comes out of anything with a face, but the rest was wonderful: Yummy
potatoes, mixed vegetables and we started with a banana. The food is very
simple, but prepared in a way that makes it extremely edible. I, myself, am
not a fan of heavy sauces and cheeses anyway and I try to eat in Cuba even less
than I eat in the US. I feel like I am taking someone else’s food away and the
US has already taken so much from them.
After dinner, the delegation
walked over to the nearby Karl Marx Theater where we were treated to singers,
actors and dance companies performing for the commemoration of the arrest of
the Five Heroes. The show was well rehearsed and very entertaining. Commandante
Raul Castro was in attendance.
On the way home from the
Theater to the hotel, I sat with Keith, an ex-pat from Australia. Keith is
retired from the railroad in Australia with a “reasonable pension,” but he was
sharing with me how Australia is following Europe and the States in cutting
back social services and other human rights and traveling down the path to
austerity. Only we the people in solidarity can stop the global assault from
the 1%
Earlier in the day, I was
chatting with Sean and I said that things are really, really getting bad in the
States, and he said, “It’s not just the US.”
Of course I know that—but what other nation in the world sets ITSELF up as the
shining beacon of hope, democracy and righteousness. It’s the hypocrisy of the
ruling class jackasses that makes it so much worse globally.
So, the night after the long
day of connections, I tossed and turned and turned and tossed and couldn’t get
to sleep until after 3am. Jetlag caught up with me, I guess and tomorrow is a
busy day.
Hasta la victoria, siempre!
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| Prison Shirt by Toni Guerrero |
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| Toni's mother, Mirta |
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| Toni's Prison Number |
