Socialist Action /July 2000
Youth in Action
U.S. youth go to Cuba
By PAUL McKIM
Youth for Socialist Action (YSA) is sponsoring
its first ever trip to Cuba this month. Twenty YSA members from Los Angeles,
the San Francisco Bay Area, Minneapolis, and Ashland, Wisc., will be participating.
YSAers have been planning the two-week visit, scheduled
for July 17-31, for over a year. Those going on the trip have held garage
sales and baked "communist cookies," among other things, in an
effort to raise money for the trip.
The most notable of the fund-raisers, however,
was a benefit concert organized by Bay Area YSA members last October. This
event, called "Hip-Hop For Cuba," featured several local politically
conscious hip-hop groups, including one YSA member. It raised almost $1400
for the trip and educated nearly 200 young people about the U.S. blockade
against Cuba.
While most American youth would not likely see
the relevance of Cuba to their lives, the organizers of this trip believe
that defending the Cuban revolution advances the interests of their generation,
as well as working-class and oppressed people in general.
At a time when the incarceration of young people
is rapidly increasing in the United States, Cuba provides a stark contrast
of a society that truly values its youth. All education, for example, is
free there.
Mike Schwartz, an LA YSA member who will be participating
in the trip, told me: "Cuba is a shining example of what can be accomplished
when a society values people rather than profits."
A focus of the visit will be to discuss with Cuban
youth how they feel about their society. The trip is taking place at the
invitation of Cuba's national youth organization, the Union de Jovenes Comunistas
(UJC), or the Young Communist League. Throughout their stay in Cuba YSAers
will be collaborating closely with members of the Cuban youth group.
Leaders of the UJC have arranged a dynamic tour
for the American youth. Through a number of meetings with Cuban leaders,
YSA members will be taking part in discussions about topics ranging from
the role of workers in Cuba, to the effects of the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the American blockade, to the relevance of Marxist theory.
They are scheduled to meet with prominent Cuban
youth, government officials, representatives of the Cuban Federation of
Women, members of the neighborhood-based Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution, and many others.
The itinerary also includes visits to factories,
hospitals, historic sites, and the memorial to the martyred champion of
the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara. A day will be spent participating in
the activities of a student work brigade as well.
What many YSA members are perhaps looking forward
to the most, however, is their participation in the main celebration of
the Cuban Revolution, which takes place every year on July 26. This day
commemorates the attack on the Moncada army barracks by a group of Cuban
revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro, in 1953.
After this heroic, but failed, attempt to spark
an armed struggle against U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, the revolutionary
movement in Cuba became known as the July 26 movement. Since the triumph
of the revolution in 1959, July 26 has been a national day of celebration.
This year, YSA members will have the opportunity
to join hundreds of thousands of Cuban people in a demonstration of their
continued support for their revolution. But even those who are already willing
to declare their solidarity with the Cuban revolution are still excited
by the idea of seeing for themselves the society that the proponents of
the American ruling rich daily decry as miserable and totalitarian.
When I spoke to LA YSA member Joanna Baker, for
example, she told me: "I'm interested to see for myself how the political
system is organized and what the culture is like instead of listening to
what everyone else tells me to think about Cuba."
The trip promises to be a powerful experience for
everyone going. Witnessing a society in which masses of people have tossed
out their exploiters and continue to stand firm against the pressure of
the world's biggest imperialist power will likely make a lasting impression
on the 20 YSA members.
We can expect that their stay in Cuba will provide
the American youth with the inspiration necessary to continue the struggle
when they return home, where it counts the most.
Socialist Action readers can look forward to a
thorough report on the trip next month.
Amarillo YSA fights censorship
The following article was written by members
of the Amarillo, Texas, chapter of Students for Socialist Action. They are
students in the 7th and 8th grade at St. Andrew's Episcopal School.
By SAM BLACK BURN and ANDY WHINERY
Every day, school seems to become more and more
a tool of capitalist repression, more and more a means for the suppression
of free-thinking minds (as well as anyone deemed dangerous to the Christian
right wing and its stranglehold over education), more and more a tool for
taking away what little freedoms we have left-such as freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, and freedom of peaceful assembly and petition.
Our freedoms are slipping away from us as easily
as sand through a funnel, with the hole at the bottom widening. We seem
to not only be losing our freedoms, but losing them at a greater rate as
time progresses.
Here we intend to cover a recent blow to the movement
at St. Andrew's Episcopal School.
Sam Blackburn's account
I had just eaten lunch and was attending my sixth
period class, "Social Studies," when an announcement came over
the PA system: "Can you please send Sam Blackburn down to the office,
thank you."
Knowing that I had done absolutely nothing wrong,
I was not scared the least bit. I entered the office with a little bit of
anxiety in my gut, not knowing what to expect, bad news or good.
My principal, Mrs. Connie Wooton, was standing
in the middle of the room. "Take a seat, Sam, oh, and don't worry,
you're not in trouble." She pointed to a chair pushed into a round
table.
She said that she had received some complaints
from parents that she was not allowed to name, but she would tell me what
they were complaining about: "They said that their children have been
exposed to some of your ideas that I personally do not believe are compatible
in a Christian school."
I asked her specifically what beliefs those were.
She replied by saying that parents had told her that I was "recruiting
kids to a socialistic, atheist" point of view. I asked her why she
thought that I was "recruiting" kids to my point of view, and
I was answered with a firm, brisk, "now you're just trying to be argumentative."
After about 30 minutes of well-proven points on
my side and about 40 more of these kind of comments from her, she decided
to just set down some rules for me.
Her first rule was that I would not be allowed
to bring any more "socialistic-type literature" to school. Let
me explain to you what books I had been bringing to school. For instance,
"The History of American Trotskyism" by Jim Cannon, "America's
Road to Socialism," also by Cannon, and "Compañero: The
Life and Death of Che Guevara." For those of you who have read even
one of these books, you can understand why this sort of logic is totally
irrational and bizarre.
When all ends met ends, the final rules were these:
1) From then on, I was not allowed to discuss philosophy,
political issues, or current books I was reading, even with my closest of
friends.
2) However, I am allowed to bring my books to school,
but I am not allowed to tell anyone about them, and if anyone asks me, I
just tell them to go away.
3) I was no longer allowed to ask questions in
"Religion" (Christianity) class that had never been answered before.
(Pardon me for interrupting, but is it just me,
or was the last time I checked, a question not asked to get an answer?)
At the very end, when I was getting up, she said,
"Now, Sam, remember this isn't punishment."
In a way, she was right, this is not punishment
but a low form of totalitarianism.
Andy Whinery's account
When I first heard about the insane restrictions
that had been placed upon my comrade, I thought, "They have taken thought-control,
as George Orwell called it, much too far."
I have heard it said that in a private school,
any restrictions that the administration deems necessary may be put on the
student body. This to a certain extent could be agreeable in the form of
rules about wearing uniforms, tucking in shirts, and other unimportant matters.
However, when restrictions are put upon politics
and freedom of speech, basic constitutional rights have been trampled under
foot-and action must be taken.
No historical documents, amendments, or laws in
the U.S. have ever stated that the government gives the church its consent
to wipe its soiled feet on the Bill of Rights.
The reason that I see for the restrictions upon
Sam are that the school administration believes that all communists are
"devils" lacking ethics and morals.
Since Sam and I are both outspoken leftists and
have asked questions about the Christian faith that couldn't be answered
by the teacher, we were assumed to be "dangerous" and needed to
be silenced.
I can assure you that none of our questions were
aimed at defacing Christianity or being prejudiced toward that faith.
They were aimed instead at our quest for knowledge
and the seeking of truth, using Thomas Paine's method of reason as the most
formidable weapon against all types of errors. We must rise up and defeat
injustices like these to better our society for all!
Students of America, take this message from us.
They can take away your books, your rights, your liberty, and your justice,
but they will never seize your mind, for it is the most important weapon
you have in this battle for an end to class antagonism.
Socialist Action /July 2000 |