On Cuba: Reflections on 70 years of revolution and struggle
By Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad (with a foreword by Miguel Díaz-Canel)
The New Press, 2024
At a recent event in Sydney, touring author Vijay Prashad said he and Noam Chomsky wrote On Cuba to renew and enlarge support for Cuba, which is subject to an illegal economic blockade by the United States.
Donald Trump’s cruel and vindictive sanctions against Cuba were not lifted by Democratic President Joe Biden, despite his promises. With Trump’s re-election we can expect more of the same. So, the message of this book becomes all the more vital.
I went to Cuba last year as part of the Southern Cross Brigade, a solidarity tour organised by the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society.
This book — a lucky collaboration that came shortly before a stroke forced Chomsky’s withdrawal from public life last year — helped me appreciate Cuba’s achievements in the face of the blockade.
Prashad wrote much of the text, but it is peppered with Chomsky’s pithy insets. The book covers Cuba’s medical internationalism — such as training doctors for work in other countries — and its contribution to defeating South African apartheid.
Even during Cuba’s “special period” of economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was organising medical help to other parts of Latin America.
Without idealising Cuba, the book outlines how the country has faced aggression from the US, which is not limited to the blockade, but includes sabotage and more than 600 attempts on the life of the late Fidel Castro.
Truly telling are the two comparisons Prashad makes in the book.
First, it compares Cuba with Haiti — a country under US domination and engineered dictatorships (including Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier). Haiti has become one of the poorest and benighted countries on Earth. It has a similar population to Cuba’s (11million), living on a third of the land. It also has a proud history, coming into being by way of a successful slave rebellion.
However, it has no economic sovereignty. Prashad described the predominance of soldiers and police on the streets of Haiti, which was not in evidence in Cuba, from my own observation.
Second, it compares how Cuba and the US colony of Puerto Rico fared when Hurricane Maria struck in 2017. Cuba had prepared for it, and its locally based organisations got electricity supplies and infrastructure up and running again within weeks. Puerto Rico, on the other hand, was left waiting for help from Washington, which didn’t come. Insultingly, when Trump visited victims of the climate disaster, he threw paper towels at them.
Cuba’s revolution has not been a magic wand. However, it has had extraordinary leadership. One point Prashad made at his talk stuck with me: we need to stop talking about “democracy” and instead talk about popular political engagement.
In Cuba, political engagement is extensive. One outcome of this is its progressive Family Law. This contrasts with our “two-party system”, with representatives from neither party answering correspondence, and with both parties aiding and abetting the genocide of Palestinians.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote the book’s foreword. What other leader has been part of a march for Palestinian rights and against the slaughter?
Prashad writes well and the book is an easy read. The illegal US blockade may well get more vindictive: all the more reason to support Cuba and its people, who have given the world doctors and COVID-19 vaccines (used by Italy and Ireland) ... and inspiration.
And, if you can, go on a Southern Cross Brigade.