David Bradbury replies
Your review of Fond Memories of Cuba (GLW #500) is what reluctantly I have come to expect of the dogmatic left response your paper has on too many issues that vitally concern all progressive and left minded people in Australia. At 77 minutes in length, my film cannot satisfy hardcore politicos like your reviewers, crossing every "t" and dotting all the "i"s as to why the Revolution has failed the people of Cuba.
Given the limitations of making the film "entertaining" while appealing to as wide a cross section as possible so that I could get it onto television and even harder, into a cinema (no small feat these days), it does have to be sketchy in areas where your reviewers would like more proof or information.
How can anyone possibly sum up in one film 42 years of revolutionary struggle and hope to come to definitive grips with where Cuba is today reluctantly embracing globalisation as the only "game in town"?
What I tried to do was to challenge the romantic, rose-tinted glass view of many of your comfortable cappuccino revolutionaries set who believe that Cuba is a paradigm of revolutionary virtue and had it not been for that terrible Colossus the United States, everything would be fine in Cuba. Sorry for the reality check, but it ain't.
Many of the Cubans I met are disheartened with Fidel's lack of economic management over the years and that they have no real choice of candidates or opportunity to seriously debate issues in open forums without reprisals or privileges denied. It is a one party dictatorship.
It's all right for your reviewer to dismiss such issues lightly, but let them try living under such a repressive system for 42 years and see how the froth from their cappuccino cups suddenly disappears.
If you go on a brigade visit in solidarity to Cuba to stay out of Havana 60 kilometres and pick oranges, mixing always with the smiling party faithful comrades, of course you're going to think everything is rosy.
If you get the day off from work to attend a huge rally, or if your "lack of revolutionary zeal" by not attending is noted and held against you by the zealots, who wouldn't attend?
But I lived with the people for three and a half months, criss-crossed the country on all forms of transport, spoke with all classes of people to reach my conclusions, even if that doesn't come across in the film.
Cuba was not a sudden discovery for me. I made three visits to Cuba in the 1980s when they were propped up by the Soviet subsidy who gave Cuba all its oil and paid five times the world price for Cuba's sugar which Castro unwisely relied on as their main income earner for 30 years(!) despite how environmentally disastrous and detrimental to people's health sugar is.
Why didn't Fidel and Cuba diversify into other areas given their highly educated workforce and that presumably they couldn't rely on the Soviet Union forever? Far easier to blame the US blockade (which didn't stop them trading with nearby Latin American countries or many countries in Europe if they had something more than sugar to trade) for bad planning and chronic bureaucratic ineptitude.
I think I've got a better grip on the Cuban reality and dashed dreams than your reviewers. But don't take my word for it. Learn some Spanish, go to Cuba, spend more than a week or two there and go and live in and amongst the people and see what life after 42 years is really like.
Thank God for their generosity of spirit, the cheap rum and music that they can handle it.
David Bradbury
Byron Bay NSW
NTEU election
We read the article "Challengers in NTEU Elections" (GLW #499) with interest. There are a number of points that need to be made about this article. Unfortunately, the title of the article bore little resemblance to its content.
As the "challengers" referred to in the article we are disappointed with the piece. The author, Jeremy Smith, failed to indicate that he has endorsed the incumbents in their campaign for re-election, and appears as one of a number of NTEU branch officers to do so on an election leaflet.
Presumably, this list is what prompts Smith's assertion that the incumbents have "widespread declared support from local branch delegates". It is disappointing that a publication that has previously supported rank-and-file tickets in union elections (Workers First, Workers' Strength etc.) should succumb to this disingenuous tactic.
GLW's assessment of the leadership's performance is composed of a paraphrasing of the incumbent leadership's election materials. We would have expected a more critical appraisal. GLW states the incumbents' achievements in identical terms to those made by the incumbents. This is misleading and inaccurate. Of particular concern is the bald assertion that the leadership has achieved "permanency in the industry". Our experience — in the industry — is that there is an expansion of casual and sessional employment, as well as a shift towards greater use of contract labour.
We are also disappointed that GLW made no attempt to speak to any of us prior to publishing this article. We are concerned that, when given the opportunity, GLW has made a decision not to support a ticket with a revolutionary perspective.
Having read the pages of GLW from time to time it is astounding that GLW would actively support a reformist union leadership in such a blatant manner. The policies that we have put forward as part of this election campaign are aimed at a radical reconceptualisation of the role and structure of the NTEU. For too long the NTEU has been happy to see itself as a cosy group of specialised lobbyists, prepared to make compromise after compromise.
We believe that the resources of the NTEU should be directed towards the struggles of its members: that the NTEU and its members should be seen, and see themselves, as exercising decisive power over the education sector. We are disappointed, and surprised, that GLW would be opposed to this.
Vicki Sentas, Bruce Lindsay, Justin Bare
Democracy and Action
Telstra
Generating public and parliamentary support for the full privatisation of Telstra is proving difficult. So, the Murdoch press' far-right business columnist Terry McCrann has come up with an alternative proposal: give the public component of Telstra away, with an equal share for each person. This is an even worse idea.
Government spending disproportionately benefits the less-well-off, chiefly via social security and health care allocations. Using Telstra profits to, instead, fund an equal dividend for all would therefore redistribute up.
Furthermore, public expenditure on services many will use can promote efficiency and community spirit. A public library, museum, park, train, arts centre, swimming pool, etc. can be shared by thousands, and people can beneficially interact with others at such venues.
Telstra should be fully nationalised and its profits used to expand community services and income support for the low-income jobless and low-wage families. Public asset giveaways designed to starve the public sector of revenue, and facilitate more individualistic luxury consumption, are the last thing we need.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere NSW
From Green Left Weekly, July 24, 2002.
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