Fidel Castro

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.
— Che Guevara1 To my children (1965)

“If you are deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening in the world, you’re under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what’s happening and you don’t do anything but sit on your ass, then you’re nothing but a punk.” — Assata, page 207

During the funeral of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, members of the United States press were surprised when President Obama was photographed shaking the hand of Cuba’s President Raul Castro. The handshake, which was purely formal and ceremonial, did not have any meaning beyond what the protocol for such occasions demands. In 2000 President Bill Clinton shook the hand of President Fidel Castro which also led to all sorts of idle speculation about the meaning of that gesture. Unfortunately, there is a blind spot in the U.S.

I think a description of the political space in which we live as a kind of twilight reality is not an exaggeration. Not only is a great deal of the news about the world we read and hear manipulated and even manufactured, but a great deal of genuine news is simply missing. People often do not know what is happening in the world, although they generally believe they do know after reading their newspapers or listening to news broadcasts.

This is how it is possible in what is often regarded a free and democratic state, the national government commits itself to murder and mayhem, using its people’s resources without informing them and without their consent, all the while vigorously lying to them. Can you really have democracy that way?

Recent times have witnessed a number of pseudo-revolutions like in Eqypt, Tunisia, Philippines, and Indonesia where leaders of the old order were overthrown, but the corrupt system remained in place, and a new servant of the system was brought in. Cuba is an important anomaly; it is one of the few lands where a genuine revolution pulled down a capitalist system of oppression and replaced it with a people-centered system.

Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.
– Nelson Mandela

This is the season of death, when we celebrate the dying of the sun with an orgiastic burst of consumption and environmental destruction.  This is the season of rebirth when we spend time with loved ones and reach out to help others we don’t know.