The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

September 29, 2021/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

David and Goliath: The Sequel We Now Need

Who doesn’t love the story of a kid with a slingshot bringing down an armored nine-foot tall warrior wielding sword and javelin? In countless US movies, we’ve all cheered the valiant underdog who vanquishes a powerful and evil enemy who threatens a vulnerable people. 

But what if you happen to be the Goliath — and the kid hasn’t slayed you, just fought you to a standstill? Imagine the wound to your pride, your burning desire for revenge that even stomping down other kids can’t quench. The United States has been that Goliath ever since the end of the Cold War swept away any geopolitical rationale for continuing US hostilities toward the island. The US has sustained these hostilities for decades now, painting little Cuba as a big danger to the entire world, formally listing Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” maintaining a blockade that serves only to starve the Cuban people.

Countries that have lived under similar threat, including México, look at Cuba with a mixture of wonder, delight, admiration — and support, as Pedro Gellert explains in our interview this week. Latin Americans see what’s going on with Cuba through the sovereignty prism. A century and a half ago, the Monroe Doctrine proclaimed Latin America the backyard of the United States, and the US has, ever since, been acting like the schoolyard bully who decides who can play there and who can’t, beating up on those who disobey. Earlier this month, México's Andrés Manuel López Obrador pushed back against that bully. In a fittingly symbolic move, he used the annual commemoration of México’s own independence day to applaud Cuba for maintaining its sovereignty against all odds.

But not just formerly colonized countries think the US should lay off Cuba. The UN General Assembly has for 30 years made that case, most recently this past June when 184 nations voted to demand an end to the US blockade.

Those of us who love David but live with Goliath need to pressure our merciless giant to put down his sword and shield. Our Cuban David-and-Goliath story needs a sequel. Can we write one where the bad guy becomes a good guy? Why not! We all love that story line, too!

Pedro Gellert: The PRI, unquestionably a bourgeois party deeply committed to the capitalist system, welcomed US corporate penetration in México. At the same time, the PRI embraced what was called “revolutionary nationalism” and claimed continuity with the Mexican revolution and even the important social transformations of the 1930s under president Lázaro Cardenas. This populist streak in the PRI went hand in hand with its vertical control of social organizations in the labor, peasant, and popular sectors and made defending Cuba a logical stance for the Mexican government. And this stance, along with other pro-Third World positions, played an important role in the defense of Cuba and other national liberation movements and progressive governments, in Chile, for instance.

We should also not forget that anti-imperialist consciousness runs deep in the Mexican population for historical reasons that include the loss of a third of the country’s territory in the Mexican-American War ending in 1848, the constant U.S. interference in México’s internal affairs, and the ongoing discrimination against Mexicans in the United States. So the PRI’s stance on Cuba proved to be a popular position domestically and boosted the México’s image internationally.   

So the AMLO government didn’t break tradition by having Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel the guest of honor at the independence day celebration September 16. But why did AMLO choose this particular moment to express unequivocal support for Cuba?

Second, AMLO’s speech chastising the US for its blockade and lauding Cuba came on the heels of — and in response to — the PAN’s open embrace of the Spanish Vox party, a far-right outfit now waging a campaign against the supposed “communist threat” in Latin America and Mexico. 

Another factor: Our recent experience with doctors Cuba sent into México at the early stages of the COVID crisis, a presence the PAN attacked. México returned the favor — in sharp contrast to the US embargo — by sending food and medicine to Cuba in July.

What people-to-people connections exist today between Mexicans and Cubans?

Cuba remains a reference point, politically and culturally in Mexico. People identify with Che and Fidel, and Cuban artists such as Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanés have broad followings. Support for the Cuban revolution and its social achievements goes far beyond the organized left. Tens of thousands of Mexicans go to Cuba as tourists, or as students studying medicine and patients seeking health care, or just to attend academic and professional conferences — conference tourism rates as a big deal in Cuba. So we have considerable contact between the peoples of the two countries.

Latin American governments led by right-wing parties did not take kindly to AMLO’s inclusion of Cuba at the CELAC summit, or Nicaragua and Venezuela either. Is AMLO’s embrace of countries ostracized by the US strengthening rightists in México and throughout Latin America?

I think these right-wingers feel terribly weakened and that explains their howls of protest! Their anti-communist campaigns have had virtually no impact in society. In fact, within México, AMLO’s popularity currently stands at a whopping 72 percent.

The emergence of a clearly progressive bloc in Latin America that wants to either completely eliminate or drastically reform the US-dominated Organization of American States — together with Mexico’s clear anti-interventionist stance, defense of Cuba, and increased leadership position in the region — changes the ballgame as far as inter-American relations are concerned. The outcome of the upcoming next elections in Brazil will, of course, be critically important in defining how far this process will go.

The Music That Helped Build a Movement

The Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer Carlos Puebla, often called El Cantor de la Revolución, first met Fidel Castro in México in 1955 — Fidel always found inspiration in the Mexican Revolution — and quickly joined the revolutionary movement. Puebla would go on to write and perform music chronicling that movement, spreading Cuba’s cause worldwide. He wrote one of his most famous songs, Y en eso llegó Fidel, after the revolution’s 1959 triumph. Take a listen online!

And then Fidel arrived

Here they wanted to continue
taking everything for them,
having luxurious houses,
and making people suffer.
 
And continuing in a cruel way
to conspire against the people
to continue exploiting them...
and then Fidel arrived.
 
The fun was over,
El Comandante came
and ordered them to stop. (encore)
 
Here they wanted to continue,
swallowing and swallowing the land,
not suspecting that in Sierra Maestra
the future was born.
 
And continuing in a cruel way
the custom of crime
to turn Cuba into a gambling den...
and then Fidel arrived.
 
The fun was over,
El Comandante came
and ordered them to stop. (encore)
 
Here they wanted to continue,
saying that vicious
fugitive bandits
were devastating the country.
 
And continuing in a cruel way
with disgrace as their shield,
to defame bearded people...
and then Fidel arrived.
 
The fun was over,
El Comandante came
and ordered them to stop. (encore)
 
Here they wanted to continue
pretending to be democrats,
and people would just die
in their misery.
 
And continuing in a cruel way,
not caring how it was done,
with robbery as a rule...
and then Fidel arrived.
 
The fun was over,
El Comandante came
and ordered them to stop. (encore)

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Melissa Ayala, This Is for All the Girls Who Grew Up Thinking Abortion Meant Death or Jail, New York Times. An activist attorney with GIRE, the México City-based feminist organization dedicated to reproductive freedom, sees continuing struggles ahead, despite the Mexican Supreme Court’s recent landmark decision.

Manuel Pérez-Rocha, México Got Rid of a Prominent Columbus Statue. Neo-Colonial Economic Policies Should Fall Next, Inequality.org. A recently revived high-level dialogue between the US and México offers an opportunity for confronting international rules that empower corporations.

México doesn’t want to be ‘migrant camp,’ president says, AFP. México cannot become a “migrant camp,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said last Friday, urging the US to invest in the countries where people are fleeing poverty and violence.

Jorge Monroy, López Obrador defiende su idea de “abrazos no balazos” ante la delincuencia, El Economista. El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador aseguró que no dejará de promover su idea de “abrazos no balazos” frente a la delincuencia, el crimen y el narcotráfico, pues a su juicio no sirve por sí misma la estrategia de detener a capos.

Nick Corbishley, México’s AMLO Just Made Washington and Ottawa an Offer They’ll Probably Refuse, Naked Capitalism. If Lula beats Bolsonaro in the upcoming Brazilian elections, as recent polls suggest, AMLO should be able to count on Brazil as a key ally in his plan to create a Latin America Union.

Respaldan académicos acciones de la 4T contra científicos huachicoleros, Polemón. Más de 400 académicos respaldaron la decisión del gobierno de México de luchar contra la privatización y liberalización de los recursos públicos que se hizo durante los sexenios anteriores.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email!

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