It has been repeatedly said that the American
people are the only ones who could perform
the Herculean task of bringing down the
most powerful and bloodthirsty empire ever
known to humankind. Humanity anxiously
hopes to see the US people act, and will provide
the solidarity they
would have earned.
The frequent US asymmetric
wars against countries
incomparably poorer
and militarily weaker than
the only superpower have
awakened the humanitarian consciousness of
many Americans who have strongly demonstrated
solidarity with these abused peoples.
The continuous embarrassing exposure of
prisoners’ human rights violations – including
torture and serious indignities– in US public
or secret prisons scattered around the world,
have awakened the awareness of millions of
Americans who condemn such injustice.
However, as a result of the manipulation and
deceit they are subjected to in their religious
faith, or the naiveté that for years has been
instilled by the media dominated by corporate
and banking elites, Americans have been
impregnated –for more than a century– with
the influence of a neo-conservative policy
with fundamentalist traits that today some
consider their national feature.
After the collapse of the USSR and the European
socialist bloc –which meant the end
of the Cold War– the US government intensified
its economic war against Cuba, a country
that had remained as a thorn in the throat
of imperialism.
With new laws, there was a better definition
of the set of tools aimed at the economic and
financial drowning of the island. There were
also other measures whose goal was to “cause
shortages, suffering, and the overthrow of the
Cuban government” –as originally defined,
more than half a century ago, by the objectives of the
US blockade,
euphemistically
called an
“embargo”.
Fidel Castro,
called on the
Cuban people
to “tighten
their belts”
and prepare
for shortages
and greater
sacrifices. Cubans responded
by closing ranks around
the leader of the Revolution.
The results of their heroic
resistance can be seen today. Reason, justice,
and patriotism were victorious. The internationalist
solidarity of countless people around
the world who stimulated the success of the
Cubans with their sincere help has also been
victorious.
A uni-polar world followed the end of the
Cold War. A single superpower tries to impose
its selfish interests on the rest of the
planet. The neoliberal globalization imposed
on the world’s peoples, with its consequences
of hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental
degradation, discrimination, and many other
ills of humanity. This proves that it is not geographical
fatalism, or an alleged racial inferiority,
but the very essence of the bourgeois
order that determines these evils in human
societies.
Neo-liberalism, the order which the North
spreads, imposes on the South, and recommends
itself as a panacea for all the misfortunes
of humankind which is precisely the
basic cause of the great evil and cruel abandonment
suffered by the peoples living in the
poor countries, and the poor who live in the
rich countries.
Neoliberal capitalism, with its praise and
proclamation of the market –not the human
being– as the absolute axis for the functioning
of society, has increased poverty
and expanded inequalities on
a universal scale. Constantly
generating crises, the capitalist
order tries to ignore the asymmetries
it causes, and always
manages to unload its effects on
the humble people of the planet.
The capitalist system of relations,
instead of calling for cooperation
and solidarity, calls for competition, selfishness and the law of the
richest.
With Bernie Sanders’ campaign for nomination
as Democratic Party candidate in the
United States presidential election, Americans
have begun to hear about many things
that were not mentioned in the recent past.
Sanders offers to end nearly four decades of
neo-liberal policies. He condemns Wall Street
greed, the corruption of the electoral and political
systems, and the stealing of the futures
of young people and American workers. He
recalls the glorious struggles for equality, civil
and labor rights, and
the rights of immigrants.
These are things not
heard in the United
States for a long time.
Let’s hope they are a prelude to a change that
only the US people can promote.
April 26, 2016.
* Manuel E. Yepe is a lawyer, economist and
journalist. He is a professor at the Higher
Institute of International Relations in Havana.
He was Cuba’s ambassador to Romania, general
director of the Prensa Latina agency; vice
president of the Cuban Institute of Radio and
Television; founder and national director of the
Technological Information System (TIPS) of
the United Nations Program for Development
in Cuba, and secretary of the Cuban Movement
for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.
www.englishmanuelyepe.wordpress.com
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippman.
www.walterlipmann.com
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