Following are excerpts from a talk given by Arturo Perez-Saad at a July 30 Workers World party meeting in New York.
This was my first trip to Cuba and I went with the Venceremos Brigade. In their 35-year history, the brigade has never applied for a travel permit because as Martin Luther King Jr. said, there are "just laws and unjust laws," and we believe the travel ban imposed on the U.S. people for travel to Cuba to be an unjust law.
The socialist system and mentality that goes along with it in Cuba is completely different from our current capitalist one here and cannot be compared. There is a sense of a strong community in Cuba, which I will call "pueblo", where an individual's roots vastly expand and extend from their home to the outer limits of their neighborhood, town, municipality and country.
For me, "pueblo" has a deeper significance as a Puerto Rican. You see Puerto Rico and Cuba have the same colonial history until 1959, when Cuba succeeded with their revolution. The Puerto Rican Nationalist movement led by Pedro Albizu Campos was suppressed at the initiative of the U.S. government in the 1940s and 1950s.
Unlike capitalist society where the propaganda machine exist to instill fears about our neighbors, other nationalities, etc., the Cuban foundation is to achieve equality for all.
Another building block of the Cuban revolution is their ability to identify problems before they happen and implement procedures to benefit their society. An example is in their educational system, where the Cuban government noticed that there was an unequally distributed balance in education with students in city schools scoring much higher in all subjects than those in the rural schools.
They began to implement a program called the "Universalization of Education" to elevate the rural and farm area education to the same level as the kids in the city. They are using the TV set, not like it is used here for entertainment, but to facilitate learning.
There is one teacher per 20 children. The Cuban government's goal is to lower that number to 15 children for every teacher.
In comparison, George W. Bush passed a program here titled "No Child Left Behind Act" and what are the results? It has left not only children behind, but also teachers. The ratio of students per teacher has increased in many instances to over 40 students per one instructor. In actuality one reason this act failed is because the federal government has under-funded it by $7.5 billion. This lack of funding is primarily due to the quagmire situation with the wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
To compound the discrepancy, in the United States children are taught memorization and regurgitation. When I asked a Cuban teacher about that he said, "We found that memorization does not work to fulfill educational needs of children, therefore we teach reason and logic from the beginning."
It is required by law that each child finish ninth grade. After that it is each individual's prerogative to continue her or his education. There are, however, over 107 state programs to get youth back into schools. Even those in jail are given the opportunity to educate themselves in the prison system and are re-introduced to society.
In one camp where we were doing solidarity work, there was an ex-prisoner working with us and the kids. Nothing in his behavior alluded to his past since Cuban laws elevate each human to function for the benefit of "pueblo" through their various programs aiding instead of oppressing them.
Another building block is solidarity work the Cubans do with other countries. In conjunction with the Venceremos Brigade, IFCO-Pastors for Peace and the African Awareness Association--all solidarity groups from the United States--there were 246 people from the European Community in Cuba.
Out of the eight groups expected from Puerto Rico, only one made it. The representative of that group said that the other groups were grounded due to the new travel restrictions, since they had booked their travel through commercial air carriers, and that "it is doubly hard for Puerto Ricans to challenge the law." The one group was able to make it to Cuba because they foresaw this problem and sought alter native means to reach their destination.
Worlds apart--health care in Cuba and U.S.
Another building block can be found in the public health sector. There is one medical clinic for every 120 to 150 families. A family is composed of about five people. These clinics are in the neighborhood or "pueblo," not just in the city center. There are reports that in some sectors of U.S. society there is one doctor for every 12,000 people. In Cuba, since the clinic is in the neighborhood they are able to monitor more effectively any aliments and be on alert in prevention of any epidemic.
The Cuban clinics are composed of two nurses and one doctor, who in the morning hold appointments in the clinics and in the afternoon conduct house visits. In relation to pre-natal care, pregnant women have weekly check-ups prior to giving birth. Once she has given birth, for the first month she sees both the neighborhood doctor and the pediatrician once a week. Regarding maternity leave for working women, they receive 18 weeks with 100 percent of their salary and 34 weeks with 60 percent of their salary. This is a basic right in Cuba and it does not cost a dime to receive this type of treatment.
About 25 of the brigadistas fell ill during our stay in Cuba with various forms of stomach ailments. Some of us were even hospitalized. Thanks to the Cuban clinic, I did not have to be hospitalized. I was not asked for an insurance card, nor was I asked to fill out a waiver on patient rights, nor was I asked to pay--because all health care is free.
I recently went to the doctor here [in New York]. I had to call to see if my health insurance was accepted, fill out reams of forms, provide a co-pay and purchase my medicine at a drug store that would honor my medical insurance.
In Cuba, I received modern medical treatment with available drugs such as Tylenol to lower my fever, and an injection which hurt due to the steel being a different gauge and quality than here. Due to the U.S. blockade they were unable to use the high-grade fine needles but instead they relied on alternative medicine such as herbal tea and Chinese massage, which were administered to me. Within 30 minutes my health had bounced back and I did not have to take the ambulance that was called for me to take to the polyclinic. A polyclinic is a small hospital that is tied to the small neighborhood clinics.
A fifth building block is the role of mass organization in Cuba. The children, on a voluntary basis, can join the "Pioneros" (Pioneers), which is a student-run organization that works with the school administration and teachers in all facets of learning and leadership. There are also mass organizations for junior high, high school and college students.
The most self-sacrificing, dedicated, class-conscious leaders in these organizations and in the trade unions, women's organization and neighborhood committees are recruited into the Young Communist League and then, by age 30, into the Communist Party. Enrollment in the Party is limited now to about 12 percent of the population.
The requirements are that you must have a job and be a solid citizen, meaning that you are not an abusive person, alcoholic, drug addict, etc.
Free Cuban 5 and Puerto Rican freedom fighters!
The U.S. Government is implanting the "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba." In the 450-page report (www.state. gov/documents/organization/32334.pdf), you will find what the U.S. ruling class wants to reintroduce in Cuba.
They want to roll back to the days of the U.S.- sponsored Batista regime. Chapter Two of this report is titled "Meeting basic human needs in the areas of health, education, housing and human services. This is a nice- sounding heading to hide an attempt to undermine the successes of the working-class revolution. It calls for stripping away all of these basic rights including the right to shelter, food and water, and privatizing all of them.
How has the U.S. government begun to implement this? It has increased funding to Miami-based terrorist organizations from $7 million to $63 million in an attempt to make this "transition" a reality by using U.S. citizens' tax money for acts of terrorism.
We here in the United States must assist in the education of our communities regarding socialist Cuba. Take the case of the Cuban five, who were unjustly jailed in the United States for infiltrating terrorist organizations in Miami to protect Cuba from their attacks. Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René Gonzáles presented their three volumes of findings to the U.S. Government and three months later they were arrested. Oscar Lopez Rivera, Haydee Beltran, Carlos Alberto Torres, and Antonio Camacho Negron are their Puerto Rican counterparts still being unjustly held in U.S. prisons.
I encourage everyone here to go and visit Cuba to see for yourselves the other alternative.
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