Rock around the Blockade is gearing up for its fifth brigade to Cuba in April. While the campaign is busy raising the final sums needed to reach our £5,000 total to buy equipment for a mobile disco in the province of Guantanamo, the brigadistas who will inaugurate the sound system within sight of the infamous US naval base in the province are preparing for two weeks soaking up the sun, sea, salsa and socialism of this revolutionary island.
The brigade breaks new ground this year, heading down south to Guantanamo City and then on to the mountains of Baracoa. While in Guantanamo, we hope to visit the Cuban military base on the border with the US-occupied bay – which serves as a poignant reminder of imperialist designs on the island.
There are celebrations all over Cuba at this time of year, marking the anniversary of the Cuban victory over the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. A number of us will be staying on in Cuba for the Havana May Day parade – an overwhelming annual display of Cuban revolutionary unity, with one million people parading through Revolution Square.
The brigade will be working on the disco project for the first few days, but will also take part in a number of visits to medical institutions and schools, meeting with the Union of Young Communists (UJC), the Federation of University Students and other mass organisations, and have an opportunity on every occasion to ask questions and find out how social provision is organised under socialism, to understand how the impressive statistics relating to health and education in Cuba can possibly be achieved in a relatively poor country.
In Baracoa, we will be taking the mobile disco to as many local communities as possible and working alongside Cuban students in a chocolate factory! We hope also to have the opportunity to sweat it out with some agricultural work. Most people in Britain have no contact with the process that brings us the food we eat, and this would be a chance to learn how important and rewarding agricultural work can be.
Helen
What are the brigadistas hoping to get from the experience?
‘I am really interested in the Pioneers and the UJC. I am interested in how young people are organised, whether it is imposed from above and how grass roots it is. There is lots of talk in this country about how young people are disenfranchised and apathetic, so I want to hear what the young Cubans feel about the revolution and their way of life.’
‘I want to see economic planning in practice, and how a socialist society functions. I want to learn about Cuban people’s attitude towards work. I want to see to what extent prejudice, sexism and racism have been eradicated. I want to hear how Cuban people see their place and their role in the world.’
‘I believe for socialists it is imperative to learn the ongoing lessons of the Cuban Revolution. The work we are doing in solidarity with Cuba forces people to take sides – do we stand with socialism or imperialism? Our experience on the brigade must be turned into a weapon, in order to build a socialist movement in this country to defeat imperialism and its lackeys .’
Paul McKenna, Strathclyde
FRFI 154 April / May 2000
