While yesterday’s statements by Senator Clinton diverted us all from the road ahead Senator Obama forged on, confronting and addressing his toughest audience to date, on the Anniversary of Cuban Independence in Miami Florida, a state where Republicans have been comfortably assured of reaping automatic votes from the anti-Fidelista community that is now over 2 million strong in the US
The majority of the more than 2 million current Cuban exiles living in the United States live in and around the city of Miami. Other exiles have relocated to form substantial Cuban American communities in Union City, New Jersey, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Raleigh, North Carolina and Palm Desert, California.
Two generations have now been raised on our shores, imbibing "Cuba Libre sin Fidel" along with their mother’s milk and morning coffee. But things in Miami have changed in the years since Fidel Castro first assumed power in Cuba, and since waves of Cubans fled, settled and have thrived on our shores.
His speech yesterday charted a new course for our foreign policy with Latin America, and is already under attack from John McCain.
Obama: Renewing U.S. Leadership in the Americas
Key in his remarks were these statements (empahsis mine):
Now let me be clear. John McCain’s been going around the country talking about how much I want to meet with Raul Castro, as if I’m looking for a social gathering. That’s never what I’ve said, and John McCain knows it. After eight years of the disastrous policies of George Bush, it is time to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions. There will be careful preparation. We will set a clear agenda. And as President, I would be willing to lead that diplomacy at a time and place of my choosing, but only when we have an opportunity to advance the interests of the United States, and to advance the cause of freedom for the Cuban people.
I will never, ever, compromise the cause of liberty. And unlike John McCain, I would never, ever, rule out a course of action that could advance the cause of liberty. We’ve heard enough empty promises from politicians like George Bush and John McCain. I will turn the page.
It’s time for more than tough talk that never yields results. It’s time for a new strategy. There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans. That’s why I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island. It’s time to let Cuban Americans see their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers. It’s time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime. I will maintain the embargo. It provides us with the leverage to present the regime with a clear choice: if you take significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalizing relations. That’s the way to bring about real change in Cuba – through strong, smart and principled diplomacy.
and if you listen to the entire speech, note the point at which he received a standing ovation.
The host of the speech was the Cuban American National Foundation
once the foremost voice representing the Cuban exile cause in Washington, is hosting a speech Friday by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in a bold move to recapture the group's prominence.
Its founder, Jorge Mas Canosa, long served as a symbol of stalwart anti-Castro sentiment. But since his 1997 death, the group has receded into the cacophony of Cuban-American voices.
The decision to host Obama is a daring move in a community generally more supportive of Republican candidate John McCain and even Obama's Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For a detailed history of the right—wing connections and machinations of the CANF, historian Jane Franklin wrote an in-depth piece for the Progressive entitled "The Cuba Obsession" cataloging the connections of the CANF to our politicians is of interest:
Why do Democratic political leaders like Bradley, Graham, Torricelli and even the President do the bidding of this man? Some people answer that Mas is a multimillionaire power broker whose organization donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians. For example, in April 1992, with his Presidential campaign grasping for money, Governor Clinton, in what The Boston Globe called "a Faustian bargain," attended a CANF-sponsored fund-raiser in Miami's Little Havana and announced to cheers, "I have read the Torricelli-Graham bill and I like it." He also declared that the Bush Administration "has missed a big opportunity to put the hammer down on Fidel Castro and Cuba." Clinton was rewarded with $125,000 and received an additional $150,000 at another CANF-sponsored event the same day in Coral Gables. Just before a key vote on the bill last September, Presidential candidate Clinton issued a press statement urging Congress to vote for it. Clinton's fee of $275,000 was cheap, merely half the $550,000 given by Cuban Americans to President Bush on October 23, the day he went to south Florida to sign the Cuban Democracy Act into law.
Links to other repressive regimes and protests against US support for progressive governments were part of their agenda.
During the 1980s, Mas mobilized against Nicaragua's Sandinista government in the Cuban American community. Oliver North's diary refers to Mas Canosa's secretary, Inés Díaz, and to Jorge Mas next to a notation for $80,000.
In 1986, CANF sponsored U.S. appearances by Jonas Savimbi, head of the rebel group backed by South Africa and the United States in the Angolan civil war, where Cuban troops were fighting on the side of the government forces and against South African troops who were invading Angola and occupying Namibia.
In April 1990, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela called Cuba an inspiration and praised its love for human rights and liberty. When Mandela visited Miami two months later, tens of thousands greeted him at an anti-apartheid rally, but local politicians retaliated for his praise of Cuba by refusing any official welcome, leading to a Black-led tourism boycott of Dade County that lasted three years. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/...
But the new demographics of the Miami Cuban community have also ushered in voices not in lock-step with the right wing agenda – and there are voices beginning to call for change.
Younger Cubans with only oft told tales from grandparents are not as hard-line, and even older Cubans long to see family on the Island.
Obama's speech comes more than a quarter century after Hernandez and Mas Canosa founded the group with encouragement from the Reagan administration.
Since then, the foundation has backed both Democratic and Republican candidates. Its former president Joe Garcia is now running for Congress as a Democrat. Hernandez and other foundation leaders attended a McCain event Tuesday.
Today it is more difficult for one organization to represent the entire Cuban-American community than it was in the group's heyday. Exiles are far more diverse in terms of race and class, and immigrants often flee Cuba as much because of economic desperation as political oppression.
The foundation has also incurred the wrath of many in the exile community. It supports dialogue with members of the Cuban government — Fidel and Raul Castro excluded.
And it recently released a scathing report on the Bush administration's funding to promote democracy in Cuba. The report comes as the federal government is set to announce the recipients of $45 million in aid to Cuba — about five times the amount allocated in 2007.
http://ap.google.com/...
Also not on the National radar was recent legislation passed by the Florida legislature. I received an urgent email forwarded from friends in Miami at the beginning of May:
May 1, 2008
Dear friends,
The so-called Seller of Travel Bill passed yesterday in the Florida Senate and House and is ready to go to the Governor for signing.
The Bill, which will become effective July 1, 2008, may STOP all direct flights from Miami to Cuba, because of the tremendously increased financial and legal risks included in the bill for charter operators.
As a law, it will give the right wing Cuban-American politicians the control of the Cuba travel industry in Florida, taking it away from OFAC in practice.
The last possibility before having to go to Court is for the Governor not to sign it.
Here is a link to the Contact page to the Governor of Florida:
http://www.flgov.com/...
Attached is the final version of the bill that will go to the governor.
We need help in organizing a campaign of messages to the Governor asking him not to sign it.
Armando Garcia, President, Marazul Charters, Inc.
Bob Guild, Marazul Charters, Inc.
Cuban–Americans send remittances and travel to Cuba for a variety of reasons. To see family, for academic study and for religious purposes. Florida International University has an extensive academic program in Cuban, Caribbean and Latin American Studies.
The bill is sponsored, among others by right wing Cuban American Republican David Rivera who is quoted in an article Florida lawmakers, travel agents row over Cuba trips :
agents specializing in Cuba travel had operated largely under the radar of state and federal law over the years.
"Every other business in Florida is regulated," said Rivera. "This bill provides for reasonable oversight (for Cuba travel.)"
The new legislation was an "anti-terrorism bill" that would require agencies that provide direct travel to any country on the State Department's state sponsor of terror list to pay out the increased bond, he argued.
Reactions to the Obama speech have been interesting. And while discussion was limited on the tube, the print media did not ignore the implications.
In Time Magazine's Misreading the Cuba Vote
Even moderate Cuban-Americans want to see the Castros gone and democracy returned to their ancestral island. But most resent President Bush's policy of letting them visit their relatives in Cuba only once every three years (although Bush announced on Wednesday that he'll allow Americans to send cell phones to Cubans now that Raul Castro has permitted his citizens to own them). And when recent surveys show that even a majority of Miami Cubans, of all people, favor relaxing the restrictions — in an FIU poll 55% backed unlimited travel to Cuba — it's probably time for U.S. politicians to drop the one-string embargo banjo and pick up a new instrument for effecting change across the Florida Straits.
The Miami Herald covers Loved ones oppose travel limits to Cuba discussing two U.S. citizens who have relatives in Cuba denouncing Bush administration regulations limiting their ability to visit family members in Cuba.
Baltasar Martín Garrote's mother is 85, has leukemia, and broke her pelvis and hip in a fall at home in Matánzas, Cuba, three months ago. Her son in Miami desperately wants to take care of her but can't because of Bush administration Cuba travel restrictions.
''I will not be able to see my mother until 2010 under the current restrictions we are challenging,'' said Martín Garrote. ``I pray to God that she will remain alive until 2010 but given her advanced age, her ailment, it may not be possible.''
Martín Garrote, 53, was one of two U.S. citizens who appeared at a news conference Thursday at Democracy Movement headquarters to complain about the 2004 travel restrictions that prohibit U.S. citizens and residents from visiting relatives in Cuba more than once every three years -- regardless of emergencies. Prior to 2004, Cuban Americans could travel once a year.
Academic freedom is also an issue and has been for some time. From 2006:
http://www.uff-fsu.org/...
TAMPA - Dozens of Florida university professors have suspended plans to study in Cuba because a state law froze thousands of dollars earmarked for their work. The law, which went into effect this summer, bans the use of any money channeled through the state's public colleges and universities for travel to federally designated terrorist states, including Cuba.
Today, lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union are in a Miami federal court trying to stop enforcement of the Florida law, which they say violates academic freedom by restricting opportunities the U.S. government allows.
Researchers at nearly every Florida public university are affected, including many at the University of South Florida. Their work takes them to the farmland of communist Cuba, where they study how crops have been grown and distributed since the fall of the Soviet Union 15 years ago. They study Cuba's marine life, its art and history, its immigration patterns to the United States. "It's hard for me to believe that this Legislature would have passed this if they really thought about the tremendous impact this has on research in this state," said Noel Smith, curator of Latin American and Caribbean art at USF's Graphic studio and a plaintiff fighting the state law.
The law prohibits the use of state money for research trips to Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria and North Korea. It extends to private grants that are channeled through universities to individual researchers, which is how most private awards are distributed.
Last spring, state Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, pushed the bill because "I don't think Florida taxpayers support the idea of their money, or public resources, being used to subsidize terrorist governments," he said.
The ACLU efforts have recently gained allies.
Florida Board of Governors: Board joins fight over travel ban
Earlier this month, the Florida Board of Governors agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Faculty Senate of FIU that the Travel to Terrorist States Act - which, among other things, bans university research travel to Cuba - should be reexamined to determine if it has constitutional merit.
"These professors saw this law as a restriction on their ability to meet their obligation as professors in their fields," said Bill Edmonds, director of communications of the Florida Board of Governors. "We are agreeing that the court needs to look at the issue of non-state dollars [in the act]."
Signed into law by the Florida Legislature in 2006, the Travel to Terrorist States Act forbids the use of university state and non-state funds to travel to countries deemed "sponsors of terrorism" by the U.S. Department of State. The countries deemed "sponsors of terrorism" are Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Cuba.
The ACLU, in conjunction with the Faculty Senate of FIU, brought a lawsuit against the state and the Board in 2006, arguing that the travel ban is unconstitutional.
More importantly, but less often discussed in media outside of Miami are the important religious ties Cuban Americans have with the Island. Only in recent years has there been open discussion of the fact that many Cubans – regardless of color are both Catholic and practitioners of the Lukumi Yoruba African Diasporic religion, commonly referred to as "Santeria". Its cousin in Brazil is referred to as Candomblé, and there are over 60 million practitioners of these faith systems in the Americas.
Miami Cubans, as well as those from other parts of the US, often travel to Cuba for ceremonial initiations, and have had to circumvent restrictions by traveling through Canada (no longer possible) Mexico, the Bahamas or Jamaica, which increases the cost. Certain religious travel rights were available but the new legislation is closing those avenues.
Cuban Americans cherish their beliefs and recently there have been many exhibits, museum showings of the arts and music associated with Afro-Cuban beliefs. An example was this ground-breaking exhibit:
At the Crossroads :Afro-Cuban Orisha Arts in Miami
The music of Santeria is well known, though American audiences may not always recognize it as such. Dating back to the I Love Lucy Show – Lucille Ball’s husband Desi Arnez, known on the show as "Ricky Ricardo" was famous for belting out "Babalu".
Celia Cruz sings songs to Babalu as well:
But what is not known to most people outside the Cuban, Latino and African-Daisporic religious tradition is that "Babalu" or more correctly "Babaluaye" is an African deity, brought by slaves to the New World from West Africa, and later syncretized with the Catholic Saint Lazarus. Babaluaye, the Orisha of epidemics and healing is prayed to by the sick for his intervention, and is much sought after now in this time of AIDS.
Cubans of all colors and social classes pay homage to Orishas called "los Santos" (the Saints) representing African deities or energies of the ocean, the forest, and the rivers – all natural forces under God – who they refer to as Olodumare.
Religious Scholar Miguel de La Torre explores the religious relationships between the Miami exile community and the Island in much of his work. His most recent book
La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami discusses the love hate relationship in religious terms:
For many in Miami's Cuban exile community, hating Fidel Castro is as natural as loving one's children. This hatred, Miguel De La Torre suggests, has in fact taken on religious significance. In La Lucha for Cuba, De La Torre shows how Exilic Cubans, a once marginalized group, have risen to power and privilege—distinguishing themselves from other Hispanic communities in the United States—and how religion has figured in their ascension. Through the lens of religion and culture, his work also unmasks and explores intra-Hispanic structures of oppression operating among Cubans in Miami.
Miami Cubans use a religious expression, la lucha, or "the struggle," to justify the power and privilege they have achieved. Within the context of la lucha, De La Torre explores the religious dichotomy created between the "children of light" (Exilic Cubans) and the "children of darkness" (Resident Cubans). Examining the recent saga of the Elián González custody battle, he shows how the cultural construction of la lucha has become a distinctly Miami-style spirituality that makes el exilio (exile) the basis for religious reflection, understanding, and practice—and that conflates political mobilization with spiritual meaning in an ongoing confrontation with evil.
In his seminal article "Ochún: [N]either the [M]other of All Cubans, [N]or the Bleached Virgin," (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, v. 69, n.4, December 2001, p.837-861)He sees the Orisha Ochun – syncretized with the Catholic Saint La Caridad de Cobre (the Patron Saint of Cuba) as a medium of reconciliation between Cubans in Miami, and those who still remain on the island:
The ambiguousness of Ochún transcends her role as solely a religious symbol, for she also identifies with the Cuban exilic existence. Additionally, she can help Exilic Cubans transcend their physical space in order to begin constructing a Cuban ethical response toward reconciliation with Resident Cubans. For Exilic Cubans, Ochún represents the Divine who also left Cuba and resides in exile, waiting to return to her rightful place. Simultaneously, for Resident Cubans, she remains the hope for the marginalized who never left. The orisha discovered by the marginalized Taíno brothers and the slave boy can also speak to white middle-class Exilic Cubans. By the 1990s the Miami Shrine had become the most popular Catholic pilgrimage site in the United States, drawing mostly older white middle-class Cubans. La Virgen has become a new symbol which exists for the entire cubanidad. She can be claimed as the Cuban's own sign, white and black, poor and middle-class, Exile and Resident. Long after Castro and Mas Canosa (founder of the Cuban-American National Foundation) are dead and buried, la Virgen del Cobre/Ochún will continue to live. Upon this shared sacred and political space Cubans can begin a dialogue by which to reconcile and rebuild their Cuban house.
Santería is a Cuban national symbol which, as such, is also sacred. Any attempt to Christianize or bleach Her white does violence to the Cuban culture. And to ignore Her prevents the construction of a theology of reconciliation that can heal the brokenness found in cubanidad. This article advocates the use of Cuban cultural symbols to communicate the liberative message of intra-Cuban reconciliation. This salvation, manifested as reconciliation for the Cuban people, can be facilitated as Cuban theologians begin to operate from within Cuban spaces such as these. If Cuban theologians refuse to participate in bringing about a dialogue, then their voices will be irrelevant to whatever form reconciliation takes in a post-Castro era.
Ochun, the deity of sweet waters and rivers is sister to Yemaya (La virgin de Regla). Yemaya, the Orisha of the Ocean, known as the Divine Mother is celebrated in Miami each year with trips to the beach, to place offering of fruit. In Rio de Janiero – for the New Year, millions of people head to the beaches each year to jump seven waves in her honor.
I doubt that the Obama campaign understands the complex underpinnings of Miami Cuban culture and the Afro-Cuban culture they spring from in more than "communist versus anti communis"t terms. They would do well to contact some local Cuban religious scholars, anthropologists and ethnographers, who do have these insights.
While his statements about opening travel to Cuba for those who have an intense desire to be with family struck a deep chord and may be the chink in the exile armor, he would do well to understand that there are even deeper ties of a religious nature that have been stifled for the many long years since the first Cuban priest, "Babalawo" Pancho Mora arrived here in the States in 1946. The Santeria community’s ranks swelled after first wave of arrivals after the Cuban revolution of 1959, and increased in the succeeding waves from 1961 through 1975. In the final massive wave of over 120,000 "Marielitos", many poor and black swelled the ranks of the religious community yet again.
Here's hoping that Barack Obama, as President of the United States will open the doors for those yearning for family, reclaiming their roots, practicing the faith of their ancestors, or who are engaged in academic study to once again have access to Cuba.
Cuba, with ties to both the US and Africa is a cultural, politcal and religious bridge.
I will leave you this afternoon with another Afro-Cuban tune by La Reina Cubana, Celia Cruz. Sung in Africa in a stadium filled with 40,000 Conglolese:
Alafia/Peace