Julio Carreras(h) es escritor y periodista argentino; dirige
la Agencia Digital Independiente de Noticias
AdinThe
Revolution has been an ideological lighthouse
Cuba: The Revolution reaches its 50th anniversary
Orestes Martí - Manuel Alberto Ramy
Interview with Julio Carreras
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria - Havana, Cuba - Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Revolution has been an ideological lighthouse
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 bby imperialism. Three points worried us,
though:
A certain apparent indolence in some administrative
sectors, particularly those in public relations (in embassies, for example.)
An ideologically rigid attitude during the first stage of
the Revolution involving issues of religion.
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.
Julio Carreras Jr. is an Argentine writer-journalist who
heads the well-known Agencia Digital Independiente de Noticias (ADIN)
