"I have ideas of what a child
can and should be taught. I believe that a lack of education is the
greatest harm that can be done."--Fidel Castro.
Just to clarify what Castro wrote, "Education" is not the propaganda
that many Capitalist Schools pump into their children.
Education is the process of teaching children to think and reach
conclusions through their active participation in the process.
I would also add that the act of charging our children for their
education is a criminal act. Of what use is a government that
prevents great numbers of their children access to education? Such
thoughtlessness are the seeds to self-destruction.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/27/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistaction.org/2016/11/26/republic-of-cuba-declares-period-of-national-mourning-for-fidel-castro/
Fidel Castro: An autobiographical essay
/ 22 hours ago
fidel-14-alex-castro
In the early hours of Nov. 26, President Raul Castro announced on Cuban
state television that Fidel Castro, the former president and
revolutionary leader, had died and would be cremated later in the day.
“The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this
evening (03:29 GMT Saturday),” he said. “Hasta victoria siempre!”
(Always forward to victory!).
The Organizing Commission of the Cuban government announced nine days of
mourning for Castro. On Nov. 28 and Nov. 29, “all Cubans will have the
possibility to pay tribute and sign a solemn oath to fulfill the concept
of Revolution, expressed by our historic leader on May 1st, 2000, as an
expression of the resolve to continue his ideas and our socialism.” On
Nov. 29, a mass rally will take place at José Martí Revolution Square in
Havana. On the next day, his ashes will be carried following the same
itinerary that remembers the Caravan of Freedom of January 1959, until
the province of Santiago de Cuba.”
At this sad moment, Socialist Action expresses our condolences to the
Cuban people. We are preparing an article on Fidel Castro’s political
life and legacy. In the meantime, we reprint from the Cuban government’s
on-line magazine Granma an autobiographical essay by Fidel Castro on the
occasion of his 90th birthday last August.
The birthday
By FIDEL CASTRO RUZ
I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect,
the greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which
give me the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit
to the members of our Party and relevant organizations.
August 15, 2016 12:08:41
Tomorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory called
Birán, in the eastern region of Cuba. It’s known by that name, although
it has never appeared on a map. Given its good conduct it was known for
close friends and, of course, a stronghold of political representatives
and inspectors involved in any commercial or productive activity typical
of the neocolonized countries of the world.
On one occasion I accompanied my father to Pinares de Mayarí. I was
eight or nine years old. How he enjoyed talking when he left the house
in Birán! There he was the proprietor of the land where sugar cane,
pasture and other agricultural crops were planted. But in Pinares de
Mayarí he was not a proprietor, but a leaseholder, like many Spaniards,
who were the owners of a continent under the rights granted by a papal
bull, of whose existence none of the peoples and human beings of this
continent were aware. Already, the knowledge transmitted then was
largely treasures of humanity.
The altitude rises to approximately 500 meters, with inclined, rocky
slopes, where the vegetation is scarce and at times hostile. Trees and
rocks obstruct transit; suddenly, at a certain height, a vast plateau
begins which I estimate extends over approximately 200 square
kilometers, with rich deposits of nickel, chromium, manganese and other
minerals of great economic value. From that plateau dozens of trucks of
pines of great size and quality were extracted daily.
Note that I have not mentioned the gold, platinum, palladium, diamonds,
copper, tin, and others that at the same time have become symbols of the
economic values that human society, in its present stage of development,
requires.
A few years before the triumph of the Revolution my father died.
Beforehand, he suffered a lot.
Of his three sons, the second and third were absent and distant. In
revolutionary activities both fulfilled their duty. I had said that I
knew who could replace me if the adversary was successful in its
elimination plans. I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the
presidents of the United States.
On January 27, 1953, after the treacherous coup by Batista in 1952, a
page of the history of our Revolution was written: university students
and youth organizations, alongside the people, carried out the first
March of the Torches to commemorate the centenary of the birth of José
Martí.
I had already reached the conviction that no organization was prepared
for the struggle we were organizing. There was complete disorientation
from the political parties that mobilized the masses of citizens, from
the left to the right and the center, sickened by the politicking that
reigned in the country.
At the age of 6 a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small
public school of Birán, convinced my family that I should travel to
Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly
prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very
teacher from the little school in Birán. She, splendidly treated in the
house in Birán, where she ate at the same table with the family, was
convinced of the necessity of my presence. Certainly, I was in better
health than my brother Ramón – who passed away in recent months – and
for a long time was a classmate. I do not want to be extensive, only
that the years of that period of hunger were very tough for the majority
of the population.
I was sent, after three years, to the Colegio La Salle in Santiago de
Cuba, where I was enrolled in the first grade. Almost three years past
without them ever taking me to the cinema.
Thus began my life. Maybe I will write, if I have time, about this.
Excuse me for not having done so before now, it’s just I have ideas of
what a child can and should be taught. I believe that a lack of
education is the greatest harm that can be done.
Humankind today faces the greatest risk of its history. Specialists in
these areas can do the most for the inhabitants of this planet, whose
number rose, from one billion at the end of 1800, to seven billion at
the beginning of 2016. How many will our planet have within a few years?
The brightest scientists, who now number several thousand, are those who
can answer this question and many others of great consequence.
I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect,
the greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which
give me the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit
to the members of our Party and relevant organizations.
Modern technical means have allowed for scrutiny of the universe. Great
powers such as China and Russia can not be subject to threats to impose
the use of nuclear weapons. They are peoples of great courage and
intelligence. I believe that the speech by the President of the United
States when he visited Japan lacked stature, and it lacked an apology
for the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in
spite of the fact that they knew the effects of the bomb. The attack on
Nagasaki was equally criminal, a city that the masters of life and death
chose at random. It is for that reason that we must hammer on about the
necessity of preserving peace, and that no power has the right to kill
millions of human beings.
For further reading:
https://socialistaction.org/2016/11/16/end-the-embargo-against-cuba/
Photo: Alex Castro
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November 26, 2016 in Caribbean, Cuba, Latin America. Tags: Fidel Castro
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