RACE & RACISM
10.2 GUEVARA'S IDEAS AND STANDPOINTS .1 Race as a category of capitalism-imperialism
Following in the steps of the triumph of the revolution, frank deliberations and analyses of the island's race question were conducted by a cross-section of the nation. Among other institutions The National Integration Committee addressed this problem during the early months of 1959. The Committee was supported by Guevara and delegates from trade union, women, and youth organisations.
prominent artists and writers such as Nicolas Guillen and Lazaro Pena;
Fernando Ortiz; and Gonzalez Martin, a renown psychologist. In safeguarding Marti's thoughts (see Part II), delegates both called for an end to racism und questioned the very concept of 'different races'. Also examined by the Committee were the socio-economic and psychological causes generating racism and social prejudice (Serviat 1993, 88-90).
This was followed by the revolutionary government opemng segregated restaurants, hotels, and beaches to black Cubans, something that 'irritated' US business men and women and the white Cuban middle class, the primary clientele of such establishments (Brock and Cunningham 1991).
In his speeches and writings Guevara places special emphasis on a new Cuban society devoid of racist practices, attitudes, and behaviours. As will be noted.
his anti-racist stance links directly with his standpoints on democratic political practice and capitalist exploitation. His citing of the Declaration of Havana in
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his Punta del Este speech (see EG 1961/2003i, 247) offers some insight into this aspect of his thought:
The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba - confident that it is expressing the general opinion of the peoples of Latin America - reaffirms that democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy; with discrimination against Blacks and
outrages by the Ku Klux Klan (ibid., emphasis added).
Guevara reasons that, while an economically exploitative system governs and controls society, racially discriminatory practices will continue to exist. The reference to the white supremacist establishment is arguably is intended to highlight the US administration's seeming lack of concern with, and reluctance to, decisively halt decisively organised racist customs in the US at the time.
Guevara defends his stance, arguing as follows: 4
Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color [sic] of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men - how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom? (EG 1 964/2003s, 337)
10.2.2 New measures in Cuba
In his endeavour to advance the revolution's commitment to 'affirm the dignity of the human being', Guevara recalls in his Punta del Este speech that among the first measures the revolution instituted
was the abolition of racial discrimination, which existed in our country.
The beaches of our island were not for the black nor for the poor to swim at, because they belonged to some private club .... Our hotels ... which were built by foreign companies - did not allow blacks to sleep there, because tourists from other countries did not like blacks.
That is the way our country was (EG 1 961/2003i, 253).
In the same speech Guevara recounts that tens of thousands of literacy volunteers of all ages are in the Cuban countryside teaching reading and writing to millions of illiterates, many of whom were denied an education because of their skin colour.5 In this instance again, he conjures up Marti's desire to see an
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educated Cuban nation, especially those living in rural areas (see Part III, Chapter 14). Guevara furthermore maintains that, while primary and secondary education has been made compulsory for all, university reform measures ensure that all Cubans have free access to higher education, science, and modem technology. In this sphere, he notes, 'we have greatly promoted national values to overcome the cultural deformation produced by imperialism'. Reaffirming the revolution's all-encompassing, non-racial goals, Guevara pronounces,
we have promoted the cultural heritage of all Latin America ....
We have extended the social function of medicine to benefit the peasants and the poor urban workers. Sports for all the people ....
Popular beaches have been opened to all ... without distinction of color [sic] or ideology, and free besides. And the exclusive social clubs of our country, of which there were many, we transformed into workers' social clubs (ibid., 254).
It is noteworthy that Guevara perceives 'discrimination' or 'oppression', not only in terms of skin colour, but, more so, class. The above extracts reveal his desire for new revolutionary measures to have at heart the interests of both the racially oppressed and, equally, the economically exploited of whatever hue. It is striking too that Guevara perceives all inequities as a cohesive whole which, to him, directly emanates from the previous exploitative and oppressive regime.
In this respect his thought is both similar to and patently different from Marti's postures on related matters. Whereas Marti does not make a connection between racial discrimination and capitalism-imperialism (see Part II), for Guevara this is the essence of what lies beneath all discriminatory, oppressive, and exploitative practices (also chapter 12).
10.2.3 On Apartheid South Africa
Of some relevance too in other speeches are Guevara's attentiveness to racist practices in Africa and his denunciation particularly of the then South African Apartheid regime (see EG 1964/2003k, 307; EG 1964J2003s, 328, 330; EG 1965/2003v, 349; EG 1967/2003w, 355-56).
Heading Cuba's delegation to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, Switzerland, during March 1964 (Deutschmann 2003,
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303), Guevara principally condemns the presence of an official South African delegation while other socialist republics are not represented (see EG 1964/2003t). Guevara declares, 'we cannot say with complete accuracy that this is a forum of the world's people' (EG I 964/2003r, 306) as 'delegations representing the Democratic Republic of Korea and the Democratic Republic of V ietnam, the genuine governments of those nations, are absent, while representatives of the governments of the southern parts of both those divided states are present' (ibid., 307). 'And to add to the absurdity of the situation', Guevara points out that:
the government of the Union of South Africa, which violates the United Nations Charter with the inhuman and fascist policy of apartheid embodied in its laws, and which defies the United Nations by refusing to transmit information on the territories that it holds in trust, makes bold to occupy a seat in this hall (ibid.).
Addressing the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on December 11, 1964 (Deutschmann 2003, 325), Guevara selects for particular condemnation, again, the Apartheid establishment (see EG 1964/2003s). He furthermore petitions the world body to bring an end to what he perceives as, 'the brutal policy':
Once again we speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this? (EG 1964/2003s, 328).
10.2.4 Racism in Africa
In the same speech Guevara turns to acts of atrocities committed elsewhere on the African continent. He notes, 'and as if this [South Africa] were not enough, we now have flung in our faces these latest acts that have filled the world with indignation' (ibid, 329). In this instance he identifies other 'perpetrators of atrocities' as among others, 'Belgian paratroopers, carried by U.S. planes, who took off from British bases'. These forces, he remarks, are 'murdering in cold
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blood thousands of Congolese in the name of the white race', 'just as they suffered under the German heel [Nazism] because their blood was not sufficiently Aryan' (ibid., 329-30). In this instance, likewise, Guevara directly associates European colonialism (Belgian and British) and North American capitalism-imperialism, with racist oppression in Africa. He regards the racist ideology imposed on Africa in a similar light as the racist dogma which underpinned Nazi rule in Germany. Though not mentioning him by name, in the speech Guevara in this speech proceeds to recall a standpoint advanced by Marti in earlier times. However, in reviving one of Marti's most cherished ideas, Guevara endeavours to imbue it with a distinctive class perspective:
Perhaps many of those soldiers, who were turned into sub-humans by imperialist machinery, believe in good faith that they are defending the rights of a superior race. In this Assembly, however, those peoples whose skins are darkened by a different sun, colored [sic] by different pigments, constitute the majority. And they fully and clearly understand that the difference between men does not lie in the color [sic] of their skin, but in the forms of ownership of the means of production, in the relations of production (ibid., 330, emphasis added).
Concluding his standpoint on this issue, Guevara goes on to express Cuba's support for various oppressed and poor nations, both in Africa and beyond the continent's borders. This is an instance that portrays his awareness of global human struggles and above all, his allegiance to universal solidarity, topics which receive in-depth attention in chapter 14:
The Cuban delegation extends greetings to the peoples of Southern Rhodesia and South-West Africa, oppressed by white colonialist minorities; to the peoples of Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, French Somaliland, the Arabs of Palestine, Aden and the Protectorates, Oman; and to all peoples in conflict with imperialism and colonialism. We reaffirm our support to them (ibid.).