AN
EPIPHANY GIFT
(The
following article is from
the February 1-15,
2008
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
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Reflections by the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz, Jan. 14, 2008
The wires made the announcement ahead of time. On Jan. 6 we learned of
Bush's trip to the Middle East, just as soon as his very Christian
Christmas holiday break was over. He would be going to Muslim
territory, lands having a different religion and culture from that of
the Europeans, who converted to Christianity, declared war on the
infidels, in the 11th century A.D.
The Christians themselves killed each other,
both for religious reasons and national interests. It seemed that
everything had been overcome by history. Religious beliefs remained
that should be respected, the same as their legends and traditions,
whether Christian or otherwise. On this side of the Atlantic, as in
many parts of the world, children anxiously awaited every 6th of
January, gathering enough hay for the camels bringing the Three Wise
Men. I also shared in these hopes during the early years of my life,
asking those three fortunate Wise Men for the impossible, with the same
wishful thinking that some compatriots expect miracles from our
determined and dignified Revolution.
I am not physically apt to speak directly to
the citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for our
elections next Sunday. I do what I can: I write. For me, this is a new
experience: writing is not the same as speaking. Today, that I have
more time to inform myself and to meditate about what I see, I have
barely enough time to write.
One always expects good tidings; bad tidings
tend to surprise and demoralize us. Being prepared for the worst is the
only way to be prepared for the best.
It seems unreal to see Bush, the conqueror of
other peoples' raw materials and energy resources, setting out
guidelines for the world careless about how many hundreds of thousands
or millions of people die or how many clandestine prisons and torture
centers must be created to attain his objectives. "Sixty or more
corners of the world" must expect pre-emptive attacks. Let us not shut
our eyes; Cuba is one of those dark corners. The head of the empire
said that in just so many words and I have warned the international
community of this on more than one occasion.
In Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab
Emirates, a few miles from Iran, AP says that "The President of the
United States, George W. Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the
security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must
join together to confront the danger before it's too late. Bush has
accused the Teheran government of funding terrorists, undermining
stability in Lebanon, and sending weapons to the Taliban, the Afghan
religious militia. He added that Iran is trying to intimidate its
neighbours with alarming rhetoric, defying the United Nations and
destabilizing the region as a whole by refusing to be open about its
nuclear program."
"Iranian actions threaten the security of
nations everywhere" Bush said. "Therefore, the United States is
strengthening our long-range commitments to security with our friends
in the Persian Gulf and calling on our friends to confront this danger."
"Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace Hotel,
built at a cost of 3 billion dollars, and where a suite costs $2,450 a
night. It is one kilometer from end to end and has a 1.3 kilometer
white sand beach. According to Steven Pike, spokesman of the of the US
Embassy in the United Arab Emirates, every grain of sand on this beach
was imported from Algeria."
The entire world knows that he wants war
against Iran, it is his war. Furthermore, he promises that U.S. troops
will remain in Iraq for at least 10 more years.
What is worse is that the main candidates of
the two parties in line to succeed him are incapable of remedying this.
Not one of them dares to even slightly contest this imperial practice,
which is based on the excuse of fighting terrorism, an evil engendered
by the system itself and its colossal and unsustainable consumerism,
while striving for the impossible: sustained growth, full employment
and no inflation.
These were not the dreams of Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X and Abraham Lincoln; nor were they the dreams of those
great dreamers throughout humanity's turbulent history.
Whoever has the time to read and analyze the
news coming in on the Internet, cable and in books, can ascertain the
contradictions to which the world has been driven.
In an article run by El Pais, a widely read
Spanish newspaper, the subject of the prices of food and fuel are dealt
with. Signed by Paul Kennedy, professor of history and director of
International Security Studies at Yale University and one of the
country's most influential intellectuals, the article states that "oil
is the greatest element of dependency for the United States in terms of
external forces. By the mid-18th century, Great Britain had the largest
shipbuilding industry in the world. Yet, as its yards were launching
hundreds if not thousands of sailing ships each year, certain English
inventors were creating the magic of the steam engine, which used vast
amounts of energy secured in the especially bituminous depots of South
Wales. The steam and coal engine carried the British Empire onward for
another 150 years."
Later on he indicates the point of view that
is most interesting for us: the ever-greater interconnection between
oil and foods. The reasons are well-known: the enormous energy demands
of the large Asian economies and the inability of the wealthiest
countries "the United States, Japan and Europe" to reduce their
consumption.
"But global soy bean demand is also spiralling
upward, again, chiefly due to the rising consumption in Asia; China's
tens of millions of pigs devour an awful amount of soy bean meal in a
year. The soy bean futures prices are 80 percent higher this year
(December 2007) than last (2006). No one can be certain of that, but
the continued increases in overall world population, and the surge in
real incomes for more than two billion people over the recent past,
will surely translate into ever-greater demand for the world's protein:
for more beef, more pork, more chicken, more fish, and thus for more
grains to feed them."
The Yale professor might as well have added:
more eggs and more milk, since their production requires considerable
amounts of fodder. But a little later, he alludes to an article
published in The Economist, the main newspaper of European finance,
describing it as "highly detailed, impressive and very scary"; it is
entitled The End of Cheap Food. "That magazine began its food-price
index way back in 1845. The price index is higher today than in anytime
in its entire 162 years."
Brazil, which is now self-reliant in fuel and
has abundant reserves, will doubtlessly escape this dilemma. Stretching
on a plateau at 300 to 900 meters altitude, it is 77 times bigger than
Cuba. This sister republic enjoys three different climates. Almost
every food can be grown there. It is not hit by tropical hurricanes.
Together with Argentina, they could save the peoples of Latin America
and the Caribbean, including Mexico, although they could never
guarantee security for them because they are at the mercy of an empire
which will not allow that union.
Writing, as many people know, is an instrument
of expression that lacks speed, tone and the intonation of spoken
language, and it doesn't use gestures. It also takes several times our
scarce available time. Writing has the advantage that it can been done
at any time, day or night, but one doesn't know who will read it; very
few can resist the temptation to improve it, to include what was not
said or to cross out what was said; sometimes one has the urge to throw
it all in the waste basket since you don't have the interlocutor there
in front of you. All my life I have transmitted ideas about events as I
was seeing them, from the darkest ignorance until today when I have
more time available and I have the possibility of observing the crimes
being committed against our planet and our species.
To the youngest of our revolutionaries, in
particular, I recommend to be extremely demanding with themselves and
to observe an iron-clad discipline. They should avoid being ambitious
for power, presumptuous or boasters. They should be watchful about
bureaucratic methods and mechanisms and avoid succumbing to simple
slogans. They should recognize bureaucratic procedure for the worst
obstacle they are and use science and computation without falling prey
to the excessively technical and unintelligible jargon of the elitist
specialists. They should always be hungry for knowledge; and
perseverance, and both physical and mental exercises should be part of
their lives.
In this new era in which we live, capitalism
is not even a useful instrument. It is like a tree with rotten roots,
from whence only the worst forms of individualism, corruption and
inequality sprout. Nor should we give away anything to those who could
be producing and who don't produce, or who produce very little. Reward
the merits of those who work with their hands or their minds.
Just as we have universalized higher
education, we must also universalize simple physical labor; it helps us
to at least carry out a part of the infinite investments demanded by
everyone, as if there was an enormous reserve of money and labor force.
Be especially wary of those inventing State enterprises with just any
excuse and then managing the easy profits as if they had been
capitalists all their lives, sowing egoism and privileges.
Until we become aware of such realities, no
effort can be made, as Marti would have said, to "timely prevent" that
the empire which he saw surging up, living as he did in its entrails,
may destroy the future of humanity.
We must be dialectic and creative. There is no
other possible alternative.
We are grateful for Bush playing his part as
one of the Wise Men, visiting the place where the son of the carpenter
Joseph was born, if truly someone knows where the exact spot of that
humble crib is, where the Nazarene was born. The leader of the empire
bears the gift, this time, of tens of billions of dollars to the Arab
countries to buy weapons that come from the industrial-military
complex; and at the same time, two dollars for every one supplied to
them to arm the state of Israel, where the United Nations agency which
tackles the subject assures us that 3.5 million Palestinians have been
deprived of their rights or expelled from their territory.
His obsessive instrument is to threaten the
world with nuclear war. Only he is capable of bearing this Epiphany
Gift.
Found
at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint11/13_AN_EPIPHANY_GIFT.html