Reflections of Fidel

It would seem our country has the most educational problems in the world. All of the cables that reach us report the many and difficult challenges we face: a deficit of over 8,000 teachers, disrespectful and ill-mannered students, lack of training, in short: problems of all sorts.

I don‘t believe, to begin with, that we‘re in such bad shape. Not one developed country shares our schooling indices and the educational opportunities open to all citizens, which we maintain in spite of the unjust blockade and the shameless plundering of arms, muscles and brains Cuba endures.

The United States and other wealthy countries cannot even compare themselves to us. They do have many more automobiles, use more fuel, consume more drugs, buy more cosmetics and benefit from pillaging our countries, as they have done for centuries.

Imperialism seeks to return Cuban women to the condition of merchandise, pleasure objects and servants for the rich. They do not forgive countries for their struggle for liberation. It yearns to return to the time when black Cubans were barred from using recreational facilities. Then, many citizens lacked employment, social security and medical services.

To Martí, freedom was very dear and one had to pay the price for it or resign oneself to a life without it. That is the question all Cubans must ask themselves each day.

How feasible are the aspirations of our enemies? Only we have the answer, within each of us. In terms of education, should we not ask ourselves if our educational system employs a bureaucratic method which teaches science without conscience? I don’t believe we have regressed that much. In any event, each one of us must ask these questions to avoid having our dignity spat on. We should expect no mercy from our enemies.

There are tens of thousands of people who think, speak, act and make decisions. The measures that are adopted every day are in their hands.

Let us keep a watchful eye on our enemies and let us do exactly the opposite of what they want from us to continue being who we are.

This is an appeal to our conscience. The Revolution justifiably demands from us that we work more, that is to say, that we work! We have held our ground for 50 years. The new generations are much better educated to face the challenges; we have the right to demand from them much more. Let us not become discouraged by the news spread by our enemies, which distorts the meaning of our words and paints our self-criticisms as tragedies. The wellspring of our revolutionary ethics is inexhaustible.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 19, 2008

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the text of a report from Gallup, the well-known U.S. opinion pollster. I started to leaf through the material with the natural lack of confidence given the lying and hypocritical information usually used against our nation.

It was a survey on education in which Cuba was included, although it is usually ignored. It analyzed the situation in four regions of the world: Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. A number of Caribbean nations were included in some aspects.

First question: Are children in your country treated with dignity and respect? Positive answer: Asia 73%, Europe 67%, Africa 60% and Latin America 41%. If the Caribbean countries are included, Gallup states that in Haiti, only 13% of those surveyed responded affirmatively to that question.

Second question: Do children in your country have the opportunity to learn and grow every day? In Asia 75% answered yes; in Europe, 74%; in Africa, 60%; in Latin America, 56%. Many of the countries of this region were under 50%.

Third question: Is this country’s education accessible to anyone who wishes to study independently of his or her economic situation? The answers reveal a painful situation in many Latin American nations and better answers from the English-speaking Caribbean.

I do not wish to offend any of the countries that I mention, but it would be meaningless to write these lines without noting the place occupied by Cuba – so many times slandered – in the survey. It was in first place among all the countries in the world. Of those surveyed by Gallup, 93% answered yes to the first question; 96% to the second; and 98% to the third. As it is known, Cubans have the habit of answering any question with complete frankness.

Another particularly salient fact is that in Venezuela, 70% and 80% answered positively to the first and second question, respectively. This is a country that is developing a large-scale education program, eradicating illiteracy and promoting study at all levels, a process that began only a few years ago. On account of that, Venezuela occupied second place in the region.

The response to the third question was a yes from 82%, placing it third in Latin America and the Caribbean, exceeded by Trinidad and Tobago, in second place with 86%.

In important Latin American countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, 57%, 56%, 52% and 43%, respectively, answered yes to the question. Those that came out with the best results were the Dominican Republic, Panama, Uruguay, Belize and Bolivia, with 76%, 73%, 70%, 60% and 65%. Paraguay and Haiti are in the lowest places, with 17%.

Cuba is cooperating free of charge with these two countries and many other sister nations in the hemisphere, both in education and health, and giving special emphasis to the training of medical personnel. Thus Cuba is modestly fulfilling its duty as expressed by Martí: “Homeland is humanity!” as our national hero affirmed.

May 19th was the 113th anniversary of his death, which took place in Dos Ríos in 1895. As everybody knows, the U.S. military intervention frustrated the independence of our homeland. Innumerable patriots had died in the struggle that lasted nearly 30 years.

The great power to the north was always hostile to our struggle, given that for a long time it had assigned it the manifest destiny of forming part of its territory, at that time in full expansion.

The moment had arrived, the decadence of the Spanish empire, where the sun never set, gave the new imperial power the opportunity to snatch Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. It sought pretexts, it utilized deception and lies, recognizing that in fact and in law the Cuban people were free and independent, as a means of seeking the support of its valiant combatants to support the war of the interventionists.

In that final struggle the Spaniards displayed the habitual bravery of their soldiers and the stupidity of their government. The Cevera squadron was annihilated ship by ship at the exit of Santiago de Cuba Bay by the U.S. battleships, as we have explained on other occasions, almost without being able to fire off a single cannon round. The great fraud came afterwards when, with the people already disarmed, the United States imposed the Platt Amendment and leonine economic agreements on Cuba; the country, laid waste and bleeding, moved inexorably toward becoming the property of the United States.

That is the real history.

What has been happening recently? It (the United States) is being driven crazy by the unyielding resistance of our people and their modest advance toward a more just world, despite the disappearance of the Socialist camp and the USSR.

Radio Martí, TV Martí and other sophisticated forms of media aggression with which it is trying to humiliate the Cuban people and destroy their resistance, are insults to the name of the national independence hero.

A deluge of speeches and lies are being lined up against Cuba. McCain, Bush’s candidate to the presidency of the empire, is speaking; Bush himself is speaking. Against whom? Against Martí. In the name of whom? Of Martí.

They are referring to atrocious acts of torture, something that has never happened in our country, and even the least informed of Cubans knows that. And who are the ones talking of torture? McCain, the candidate, and George W. Bush, the President.

What is the candidate saying?

“I would like to thank my two dear friends in Congress, Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart, who are great defenders of the people of Cuba. They are men of honor and integrity. I respect and admire them very much. They are the best members of Congress who I have worked with and whom I have known…”

“My friends, today on Cuban Independence Day we have the opportunity to celebrate the cultural legacy and the deepest roots of the Cuban people…”

“The independence fighters who won Cuba’s independence more than 100 years ago could not have imagined that their descendants would be in a struggle for freedom and democracy one century later…”

“One day Cuba will be an important ally for securing democracy in our hemisphere…”

“The dictatorship will not continue until the end of time and, as President, I will not passively await the day when the Cuban people enjoy the blessings of freedom and democracy. I will not wait…”

“My administration will force the Cuban regime to unconditionally free all the political prisoners and to plan elections under international supervision…”

“The embargo must be maintained until those crucial elements of democracy and social democracy emerge.”

“Venezuela and Bolivia have to be prevented from following Cuba’s example.”

In his book The Faith of My Fathers, McCain confessed that he was one of the five bottom students in his cohort at West Point. He is demonstrating that. At the end of his time in prison he was weak, and he acknowledges that as well. He launched innumerable bombs on the Vietnamese people. How many lives and how much money did that adventure cost? At that time gold was worth $35 and they squandered $500 billion in that war. The consequences are still being paid. A Troy ounce is now worth $1,000 and once again hundreds of billions are being squandered in wars. New and complex problems are compounding that.

Where are the solutions?

What did President George W. Bush say?

“One hundred and 13 years ago this week, Cuba lost its great poet and patriot, José Martí. And 106 years ago this week, Cuba achieved the independence for which Martí gave his life… Martí’s warning proved truer than anyone could have imagined…”

“…the regime has not attempted even cosmetic changes. For example, political dissidents continue to be harassed, detained, and beaten…”

“The world is watching the Cuban regime. If it follows its recent public gestures by opening up access to information…, respecting political freedom and human rights, then it can credibly say it has delivered the beginnings of change… America refuses to be deceived, and so do the Cuban people. While the regime embarrasses and isolates itself, the Cuban people will continue to act with dignity and honor and courage…”

“This is the first Day of Solidarity with the Cuban People — and the United States must keep observing such days until Cuba’s freedom.”

“We’ll continue to support the Cubans who work to make their nation democratic and prosperous and just.”

“…the United States has dramatically stepped up our efforts to promote freedom and democracy in Cuba. This includes our increased efforts to get uncensored information to the Cuban people, primarily through Radio and TV Martí.”

“Today, I also repeat my offer to license U.S. NGOs and faith-based groups to provide computers and Internet to the Cuban people…”

“Through these measures, the United States is reaching out to the Cuban people. Yet we know that life will not fundamentally change for Cubans until their form of government changes. For those who’ve suffered for decades, such change may seem impossible. But the truth is, it is inevitable…”

“The day will come when all political prisoners are offered unconditional release. And these developments will bring another great day — the day when Cubans choose their own leaders by voting in free and fair elections…”

“Today, 113 years after José Martí left us, a new poet-patriot expresses the hopes of the Cuban people… Willy (Chirino) will perform a song that is on the Cuban people’s lips and in their hearts. And here are some of its lyrics: Nuestro día ya viene llegando.”

As for the siege of hunger and blockade that has lasted for decades, not a word.

Martí was a profound thinker and upright anti-imperialist. In his epoch, nobody like him understood with so much precision the terrible consequences of the monetary agreements that the United States was trying to impose on the Latin American countries, the blueprint of those of free trade, which they have resurrected today, in conditions that are more unequal than ever.

“Whoever says economic union, says political union. The people that buys, commands. The people that sells, serves. Trade has to be balanced in order to ensure freedom… The people that wishes to be free, must be free in business.”

Those are the principles proclaimed by Martí.

In that period, payments were in silver or gold. Today they are made with paper.

In an unfinished letter to his friend Manuel Mercado written the day before his death, he noted:

“…I am in daily danger of giving my life for my country and duty, for I understand that duty and have the courage to carry it out – the duty of preventing the United States from spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America. All I have done so far, and all I will do, is for this purpose. I have had to work quietly and somewhat indirectly, because to achieve certain objectives, they must be kept under cover; to proclaim them for what they are would raise such difficulties that the objectives could not be realized.”

It does not matter how many times these intimate and revealing words, so marvelously expressed, are repeated.

With those immortal phrases in his mind, a few hours later, he launched himself on his own account into the attack on the Spanish column. Nobody could have held him back. Riding in the front line, he received three fatal bullets in his impetuous advance.

On July 26, 2004, when Bush had already spent nearly three years bombarding, torturing and killing in his absurd anti-terrorist war, with the invasion of Iraq already underway, I analyzed his strange personality based on a study of the interesting book Bush on the Couch, by Dr. Justin A. Frank, which contains one of the most revealing and fundamental studies of the personality of George W. Bush:

“Conspiracy is a common phenomenon among consumers of alcohol, as is the perseverance evident in Bush’s tendency to repeat key words and phrases, as if the repetition helps him to stay calm and maintain his attention.”

“…If, moreover, we assume that George W. Bush’s days of alcoholism have been left behind, the question remains as to the permanent damage that it could have caused before he stopped drinking, beyond the considerable impact on his personality that we can trace up to his abstinence without treatment. Any integral psychological or psychoanalytical study of President Bush will have to explore to what extent his brain and functions have changed in more than 20 years of alcoholism.”

Neither of the two speakers on May 20th and 21st even mentioned the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes, whose information made it possible to uncover the plots of Luis Posada Carriles and to prevent the sabotage of airplanes in full flight with foreign visitors on board, including U.S. citizens, in order to damage tourism. They pressured and bribed the president of Panama and helped to secure Posada’s release. Santiago Alvarez transported him to Florida. I publicly denounced that almost immediately. Everything has been proven. After that an enormous weapons arsenal was seized from Santiago Alvarez himself.

They want impunity for terrorists and mercenaries. How far they are from understanding Cuba and its people!

The gross lies of McCain and Bush constitute the only way of obtaining absolutely nothing from the heroic people who have known how to resist the power of the empire for almost half a century.

Our desire is to record for history: the immortal ideas of Martí that he watered with his blood will never be betrayed!

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 22, 2008

Without some basic historical knowledge, the subject I am dealing with could not be understood.

In Europe, people had heard about China. In the autumn of 1298, Marco Polo told marvelous tales about an amazing country he called Cathay. Columbus, an intelligent and intrepid sailor, was aware of the Greeks’ knowledge about the roundness of the Earth. His own observations led him to agree with those theories. He came up with the plan of reaching the Far East sailing westward from Europe. But, he calculated the distance with far too much optimism, for it was several times greater. Unexpectedly, between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, this continent loomed up on his route. Magellan would make the journey conceived by him, even though he died before reaching Europe. Still, the value of the spices collected paid for the expedition initiated with a number of vessels – of which only one returned – a prelude of future colossal profits.

From that point, the world began to change at an accelerated pace. Old forms of exploitation were repeated again, from slavery to feudal serfdom; ancient and new religious beliefs spread over the planet.

From that fusion of cultures and events, accompanied by technical advances and scientific discoveries, today’s world was born, and it could not be understood without a minimum of real precedents.

International trade, with its advantages and disadvantages, was imposed by the colonial powers, such as Spain, England and the other European powers. These, especially England, soon began to control southwest, south and southeast Asia, and Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, forcibly expanding its rule everywhere. The colonizers were not able to impose their authority over the gigantic country of China, which had an ancient culture and fabulous natural and human resources.

Direct trade between Europe and China began in the sixteenth century, after the Portuguese established the commercial enclave in Goa in India and in Macao in southern China.

Spanish control in the Philippines facilitated an accelerated exchange with the great Asian country. The Qin dynasty, which ruled China, tried to limit this kind of unfavorable commercial operation with foreign countries as much as possible. It was allowed only through the port of Canton, today called Guangzhou. Britain and Spain had great deficits because of the low demand of the enormous Asiatic country, related to English goods manufactured in the metropolis, or Spanish products coming from the New World that were not essential to China. Both of them had begun to sell opium.

Large-scale opium trade was at first dominated by the Dutch through Jakarta, Indonesia. The English observed the profits that were close to 400 percent. Their opium exports which, in 1730, were 15 tons, grew to 75 in 1773, shipped in crates weighing 70 kilograms each; with this they bought porcelain, silk, spices and Chinese tea. Opium, not gold, was the currency Europe used to acquire Chinese goods.

In the spring of 1830, faced with the unbridled abuse of the opium trade in China, Emperor Daoguang ordered Lin Hse Tsu, an imperial official, to fight the plague; he ordered the destruction of 20,000 crates of opium. Lin Hse Tsu sent a letter to Queen Victoria asking for respect for international regulations and not to allow trade with toxic drugs.

The Opium Wars were the English response. The first lasted three years, from 1839 to 1842. The second, with France joining in, lasted four years, from 1856 to 1860. They are also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars.

The United Kingdom forced China to sign unfair treaties committing this country to opening up several ports to foreign trade and handing over Hong Kong. Several countries, following England’s lead, imposed unequal terms of exchange.

Such humiliation contributed to the Taiping Rebellion of 1850 to 1864, the Boxer Rebellion of 1899 to 1901 and, finally, the fall of the Qin Dynasty in 1911 which, for various reasons – including its weakness in the face of foreign powers – had become highly unpopular in China.

What happened with Japan?

This country with its ancient culture and very hard-working, like others in the region, resisted “Western civilization” and for more than 200 years – among other causes because of a chaotic domestic administration – remained hermetically sealed to foreign trade.

In 1854, after an earlier exploratory voyage with four gunboats, a U.S. naval expedition commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry, threatening to bomb a Japanese town – defenseless before the modern technology of those vessels– obliged the shoguns to sign, on behalf of the Emperor, the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. Thus, the grafting of capitalist trade and Western technology was begun in Japan. At the time, Europeans were unaware of the Japanese capacity to develop in that field.

On the heels of the Yankees, representatives of the Russian Empire arrived from the Far East, fearful that the U.S., to whom they later sold Alaska on October 18, 1867, would get a head-start in trading activities with Japan. Britain and the other European colonizing nations came quickly to the country with the same intentions.

During the U.S. intervention in 1862, Perry occupied different parts of Mexico. At the end of the war, the country lost more than 50 percent of its territory, precisely those areas where the greatest oil and gas reserves were to be found, even though at that time, gold and land to expand into, not fuel, were the main goals of the conquerors.

The first China-Japan War was officially declared on August 1, 1894. At the time Japan wanted Korea, a tributary state subordinated to China. With more developed weaponry and technology, it defeated Chinese forces in several battles near the cities of Seoul and Pyongyang. Later military victories opened its way toward Chinese territory.

In the month of November that year, they took Port Arthur, today Lüshun. In the River Yalu estuary and at the Weihaiwei Naval Base, surprised by a land attack from the Liaodong Peninsula, heavy Japanese artillery destroyed the fleet of the attacked nation.

The dynasty had to ask for peace. The Treaty of Shimonoseki, which put an end to the war, was signed in April of 1895. China was forced to cede Taiwan, the Liaodong Peninsula and the archipelago of the Pescadores Islands to Japan “in perpetuity;” China also had to pay a war indemnity of 200 million taels of silver and open up four ports to the exterior. Russia, France and Germany, defending their individual interests, obliged Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula, paying in exchange another 30 million taels of silver.

Before mentioning the second China-Japan War, I should include another armed episode with a double historical importance; it took place from 1904 to 1905 and it cannot be omitted.

After being inserted into armed civilization and wars for the partitioning of the world as imposed by the West, Japan, which had already waged the first war against China as mentioned above, developed its naval power to such a degree that it was able to deal a harsh blow to the Russian Empire, which was at the point of prematurely inciting the revolution programmed by Lenin when he created in Minsk, 10 years earlier, the Party which would later unleash the October Revolution.

On August 10, 1904, with no advance warning, Japan attacked and destroyed the Russian Pacific Fleet at Shandong. Czar Nicholas II of Russia, upset by the attack, ordered the Baltic Fleet to be mobilized and to set sail for the Far East. Convoys of colliers were contracted to bring in the shipments needed by the fleet while it was sailing towards its distant destination. One of the operations to transfer coal had to be carried out on the high seas due to diplomatic pressure.

The Russians, upon entering south China, sailed towards Vladivostok, the only available port for the fleet’s operations. In order to reach that point, there were three routes: the best choice was the Tsushima route; the other two required navigation to the east of Japan and increased the risks and the enormous wear and tear on the vessels and crews. The Japanese admiral had the same thought: for this option he made his plan and located his ships so that the Japanese fleet, after making a U-turn, would have all its vessels, mainly cruisers, passing about 6,000 meters away from the adversary’s ships, a large number of battleships. These would be at the reach of the Japanese cruisers, outfitted with personnel that were rigorously trained in the use of their cannon. As a result of the lengthy route, the Russian battleships were navigating at a speed of only 8 knots as compared with the 16-knot speed of the Japanese vessels.

The military action is known by the name of Battle of Tsushima. It took place on May 27 and 28, 1905.

On the side of the Russian Empire, 11 battleships and eight cruisers took part.

Admiral of the Fleet: Zinovy Rozhdestvensky.

Losses: 4,380 dead, 5,917 wounded, 21 ships sunk, 7 captured and 6 rendered useless.

The admiral of the Russian fleet was wounded by a shell fragment that hit him in the skull.

On the side of the Japanese Empire, 4 battleships and 27 cruisers took part.

Admiral of the Fleet: Heichachiro Togo

Losses: 117 dead, 583 wounded and 3 torpedo ships sunk.

The Baltic fleet was destroyed. Napoleon would have termed it “Austerlitz at sea”. Anyone can imagine the deep wound caused by the dramatic event to traditional Russian pride and patriotism.

After the battle, Japan became a much feared naval power, rivaling Britain and Germany and competing with the United States.

Japan rehabilitated the concept of the battleship as the principal weapon in the years to come. They embroiled themselves in the task of empowering the Imperial Japanese Army. They requested and paid a British shipbuilder to construct a special cruiser, with the intent of later reproducing it in their Japanese shipbuilding yards. Later, they manufactured battleships that were far better than those of their contemporaries, both in armor and power.

There was no other nation on the face of the earth that could come close to Japanese naval engineering in the 1930’s in the design of warships.

That explains the bold action with which, one day, they attacked their master and rival, the United States which, through Commodore Perry, started them off on the road of war.

I shall continue tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 30, 2008

The secondary school students met: their 11th Congress was taking place. Listening to them, I felt a healthy pride and understandable envy. What a privilege at their fruitful age! Along with the massive nature of university study today, so is a more important activity: the battle of ideas before enrolling in university.

It would seem that Nature determined the evolution of human beings so that they are capable, from a very early age, of making consciousness prevail over instinct. My dear compañeros of the Federation of Students in Intermediate Education, that will be your battle.

Today, the decadent and unsustainable empire’s greatest effort is to deprive us of the right to learn and think. Reflect for a moment on the petty attempts by the ringleader of that empire to prevent our people from having access to the Internet, which Rosa Miriam, a young and profound journalist, exposes in a commentary, adding information that The New York Times —in an opinion article, in fact— does not mention:

“…the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control, of the U.S. Treasury Department) reports that 557 ‘accursed’ businesses from all over the world, and 3,719 .com domains have been blocked on the Web without their owners receiving any prior notification… The United States has blocked almost three times as many sites as the country has registered under the country’s generic domain.”

“This is new evidence that the United States is not only controlling its own citizens’ access in cyberspace, but that of all Internet users worldwide.”

She is referring to the policy followed by Bush during his mandate. Although her article was published in Juventud Rebelde, it was worth repeating the information she cites.

What a response in the statements made by the secondary school students. Is there anything like it in the consumerist society of the United States? It is from there, unfortunately, that distressing news arrives about adolescents and young students in contact with deadly firearms, which are sold freely in a society where money and the market chart the course. The U.S. government is based on the National Rifle Association and fear of culture, but it cannot block Cuba’s.

Onward, young Cuban students! Let us fight against egotism, vanity and the sterile ambition of glory, which are vipers that devour human souls; let us maintain our ideas and our consciousness, always upward, together with our glorious ancestors.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 9, 2008