The Revolution will not be televised, but it has great rhythm

I arrived in Cuba on the afternoon of April 16, which was the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, that U.S.-backed debacle that Cubans refer to as the battle of Playa Girón (after one of the beaches where the attackers landed). For a history geek fascinated by the history of radical political movements and a long-standing interest in the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America, this was a great starting point. This island, so demonized by U.S. politicians for years, really had pulled off something different than any other country in the region. So what have been the impacts, dare I say the successes and failures, of this other American revolution? What does communism look like in practice? As a casual tourist, would I even be able to tell? Or would I have to "settle" for just soaking up the uniqueness of the things I had expected to see: old cars, crumbling but clearly once-grand buildings, impossibly turquoise Caribbean waters, and revolutionary propaganda everywhere?

One of the first things that struck me as I walked around Havana was that there were used book stalls all over the place. Of course, Fidel's writings featured prominently in the selection, as did books by and about Che Guevara and José Martí. Also ubiquitous were the newspapers of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma (named for the boat that carried Fidel, Che, and other revolutionaries to Cuba from Mexico in 1956) and Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth); people were selling them and reading them on every corner. Say what you will about what people were reading -- I bought a comic book called "Girón: Victory of the People" -- but the fact of the matter is that is a country of highly literate people. According to the CIA World Factbook, the literacy rate in Cuba is 99.8%. Not long after coming to power, the revolutionary government declared 1961 "The Year of Education." That year, "literacy brigades" fanned out across the country and taught more than 700,000 people to read and write. To me, this is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

That said, I had plenty of moments when stereotypically not-so-great things about communism were (sometimes comically) apparent. There was the fancy-looking ice cream parlor where it took a game of twenty questions to establish that they only had one flavor available. There was the customer service, which could be indifferent at best or even make you feel like you were out of line for interrupting the person who was reapplying their makeup, braiding a girl's hair, or having a snack. There was the airport waiting room that was almost pitch black because all the lights were burnt out. There were the Soviet-era airplanes. Sweet Jesus, those planes! Thankfully, I had been warned about the condensed, foggy air that came billowing out from under the seats prior to landing, but still.

And then there was the propaganda. It is absolutely everywhere you turn, in the form of murals, flags, banners, posters, billboards, handwritten signs, and (my personal favorite) coloring books. It is full of hyperbole and optimism. Sometimes it is an overt call to arms. It permeates captions under exhibits in museums. It maintains the cults of personality of (mainly) Fidel, Che, and Camilo Cienfuegos. It is without a trace of irony. Truthfully, to me, it was everything from quaint to ridiculous to cheesy to creepy to downright funny. I know it's not supposed to be any of those things, but I have to admit that that's how I saw it.

These casual observations aside, it was my conversations with regular people that gave me the best -- which is to say, complex -- picture of what the revolution meant for the average Cuban. Antonio, the tour guide who led me around on my first day there, showed me his card that gives him permission to "trabajar por cuenta propria" (work on his own behalf) and told me about his work with brigades doing extermination of mosquitos. I was struck by my encounter with a man who, upon seeing me taking a photo of a Girón commemoration poster, stopped rooting through the garbage to show me the pin that identifies him as a veteran of the battle. Jorge the Havana taxi driver talked about how gratifying his work as a teacher in Angola was, when he went there in what I can only think of as a sort of communist Peace Corps. The groundskeeper and father of two who showed me around the historic Colón cemetary told me about how his wife disappeared, only to call him from Miami to let him know she wasn't coming back. Manuel, a taxi driver in Santiago de Cuba, reflected on his time spent cutting sugar cane and gave a withering indictment of a system that he described as failed. His observations stood in stark contrast to those of my hosts in Santiago who raved about the Girón commemoration extravaganza televised a few days earlier and, while acknowledging that they weren't enough, boasted that the prices of certain rationed goods had not changed since 1970.

So I am left with those stories and images and impressions, as well as an appreciation for the music that comes from every corner, the spontaneous salsa dance party I saw on the beach, the sunshine, the mojitos, and the warmth that (despite my earlier observation about customer service) characterized my interactions with almost every Cuban I met.

Stories of displacement from my Witness for Peace delegation

A while ago I posted an entry about the context of the Witness for Peace delegation that I went on last month, but I am only now able to sit down and write about the delegation itself. There is so much to tell that I just haven't known where to start. So this piece is but a humble attempt to do justice to the people who shared harrowing stories with us and to help give you a picture of the realities in one corner of Colombia.

Over the course of four full days of travel in distant parts of the Curvaradó and Jiguamiendó river basins, our group visited five different communities. All but one were designated as "humanitarian zones," areas described well by an Inter Press Service article (see link below) as communities opposed to Colombia's ongoing war that "defend the distinction between civilians and combatants, as established by international humanitarian law." As one person in the Las Camelias humanitarian zone put it, the zone is "a way to protect our lives and our land in the midst of war." The zones all have the backing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The humanitarian zones are remote communities. To get to Pueblo Nuevo -- the first zone we visited -- we traveled by airplane, bus, 4x4, and boat (really a dugout canoe with a motor attached to it). The zones have no electricity or running water. Residents practice some subsistence farming and barely eke out a living. In two of the zones I saw school buildings (more like shacks, really), but it was unclear to me if or when teachers actually come through to offer classes. In Pueblo Nuevo, as I stood under the leaky school roof while a torrential tropical rainstorm raged, I was hit by the smells of wood smoke and raw sewage. It occurred to me that that combination is the smell of poverty.

The humanitarian zones were founded by peasant farmers who were forcibly displaced from their homes and their land by military and paramilitary operations in the mid- to late 1990s. They joined the ranks of Colombia's internally displaced population, which in 2009 (according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring cntre) numbered up to 4.9 million.

In Las Camelias, one woman (I'll call her Rosa) told a representative story of what displacement had entailed for her. Rosa is a rail-thin Afro-Colombian woman who smoked ragged cigarettes and hugged me like an old friend when she met me. She is the mother of eight, grandmother of 36, and great-grandmother of three. She has been accused of being a leader of the 57th Front of the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. There is a reward on her head.

Her diplacement began in 1996, when she and some other people from her town fled into the jungle to escape armed attacks on their community. They lived there for six months. During that time, the men would sneak back to their land to get food. The group would scatter to another area whenever they heard gunshots. With help from a Spanish non-profit and an area church, Rosa and her companions eventually left the jungle for a town where they lived for a year -- all the while hearing gunshots and explosions as the paramilitaries occupied neighboring communities.

They then relocated to the town of Caño Seco where they could hear the destruction of the town from which they had just been displaced. While in Caño Seco, the community got together and decided that the elderly and people with young children should move to the town of Murindó. The rest of the group moved too, but to the town of Bartólo where they stayed for two years. This pattern continued for years. Rosa told us that, all totalled, the community endured 13 displacements before deciding to return to the land that had been theirs and establishing the humanitarian zone.

Heartrending stories like this one were repeated everywhere we went. It was hard to listen to over and over again. But it was impossible not to be intensely moved by the courage these people have shown and continue to show as they defend their right to live what in Spanish is called a "vida digna," a dignified life.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43813

Stories of current struggles from my Witness for Peace delegation

Just as we heard many stories about forced displacement, we heard many accounts of current struggles in the humanitarian zones, all of whom are under violent pressure from the paramilitary-backed large land holders who took over the lands from which the communities were displaced.

The most extreme and most intense testimony we heard was in a tiny, recently-established humanitarian zone named for its leader who was assassinated in January of this year by two local known paramilitary agents who operate openly and with impunity. The wheels of justice turn excruciatingly slowly in Colombia, however, and the case has not moved forward. Now his brother who I'll call Javier, a soft-spoken man who spoke with downcast eyes, has received threats that he will end up like his brother if he does not stop his efforts to reclaim the community's land. He is afraid to leave the zone. His sister Elena wept as she talked about her fear for his safety, and person after person expressed the same concern.

The community has asked the police to patrol the perimeter of the zone to ensure its residents' safety, but this protection has yet to materialize. They do not want the army to be responsible for these patrols because they know that there are members of the paramilities working within that institution. After our meeting and lunch with the community, I chatted with a woman while she washed dishes. She illustrated why the community might need the protection of the police, she said she is afraid that the paramilitaries -- working in the service of neighboring land-holders -- will eventually just invade the zone some night while the community sleeps.

After describing their current fears, the community members spoke movingly about their life before their forced eviction by the army and paramilitaries. "We used to live well," said one woman. Elena told us that "Life was easier before. We had daily food . . . and were able to go to [the nearby town of] Mutatá to study. . . . But happiness doesn't last . . . I had to leave everything I loved." After hearing testimony like this, it was hard to leave this particular zone knowing that sometimes, an international presence can discourage paramilitary attacks.

But we had to get to a meeting with an official of the 17th brigade of the Colombian army, the military unit charged with providing security in the region we had visited (and the brigade that the communities had charged works hand-in-hand with paramilitary organizations). In a frigid, air-conditioned, and windowless meeting room, we spoke with a lieutenant who serves as the brigade's human rights officer. His answers to our carefully-constructed questions were at times telling and at times laughable. He explained that the primary factor that demonstrates improved security in the region is increased foreign and national investment. "The [civilian] population is not at risk today. This is proven by foreign investment," he said. Needless to say this comment belies the government's priority for the region and, in light of all we had heard in the humanitarian zones, begs the question "security for whom"? He went on: "The facts speak for themselves. There have been no violent deaths in the region and no attacks on civilians in this region." When asked about links between the army and paramilitary groups, he said that if they had existed, it was in the distant past. We left that meeting dismayed and more convinced than ever of the army's (and therefore the government's) total lack of concern for marginalized people like those who live in the humanitarian zones we had visited.

In light of all that we had seen an heard during our days in these rural parts of the Lower Atrato region I felt that there is little reason for optimism regarding the achievement of a real and sustainable peace in Colombia, the government's claims to the contrary notwithstanding. I had suspected as much even before my visit to the region. When I think back to my original reasons for going on this delegation, I can say that I accomplished what I had hoped to. I travelled far from the bubble of Bogotá. I saw the grinding poverty in which so many Colombians live. I got to be a witness to the realities of people affected by Colombia's enduring armed conflict. I was deeply moved and with a sense of responsibility to bear witness to these realities.

A little context about my delegation

Ten years after helping to start the Witness for Peace program in Colombia, I finally got to take part in a delegation here. It ended on Wednesday, and since then I have been struggling to figure out how to share what I learned in a way that isn’t too long, makes sense, and does justice to the people who entrusted their stories to us.

Our delegation focused on developments in the Urabá region of northwestern Colombia (near the border with Panamá). Rich in agricultural resources, biodiversity, and subsoil mineral wealth, the region is largely populated by Colombians of African descent. Most of the region is rural. Most importantly for our trip, Urabá has come to be seen as a microcosm of key problems facing Colombia. Here the issues of economic development, land ownership, internal displacement, paramilitary violence, and government inaction converge to devastating effect and in a pattern that is repeated all over the country.

But before I begin to tell the stories we heard during five days in the countryside, it is essential to give some context and background about Colombia today. So here are some things you should know.

· Since 2000, under an initiative called Plan Colombia, the United States has given about $7.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia. The main purpose of this aid is to fight the drug war, in which pretty much all of the armed actors in Colombia’s decades-long civil war are involved.
· Between 1999 and 2008, despite extensive aerial fumigation, the tonnage of cocaine produced in Colombia only dropped from 680 to 600. Coca is now cultivated in 20 of Colombia’s 32 departments.
· Since 2000, according to Witness for Peace, approximately 30,000 civilians have been killed, and 3 million have been displaced. The Colombian Ministry of Defense estimates that there have been 21,000 combat deaths since 2002.
· Using US assistance, outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe implemented what he referred to as his “Democratic Security” policy. This involved a tripling of the military budget and nearly doubling the size of the security forces.
· During the time of Uribe’s Democratic Security policy, foreign investment (especially in extractive industries) has more than tripled, but rates of poverty and extreme poverty have barely budged.
· Between 2002 and 2008, Colombia was one of only three countries in Latin America where economic inequality increased.
· In the rural areas of Colombia, where approximately 25% of the country’s population lives, 0.4% of landholders control approximately 61.2% of the land.
· An estimated 80% of Colombia’s rural population lives in poverty.

So it was against this backdrop that my fellow delegates and I headed to Urabá to visit a number of "humanitarian zones," small communities where people displaced by violence that peaked in the 1990s have returned to or near the lands from which they were expelled. Now they are under tremendous pressure – and, at times, threat of death – from large landowners and cattle ranchers who, working hand in hand with paramilitaries and sometimes with the Colombian military, appropriated the abandoned lands to grow cash crops and raise cattle and who now claim to be the rightful owners of the land. It is an extremely complicated conflict and one that we worked hard to make sense out of. It was the people’s stories that helped us understand.

Year one of teaching abroad: check.

The school year is over. It is almost impossible to believe, and as trite as it may sound, the time flew. I taught four different courses and coordinated (or tried to) a department of 12 people. I am so tired!

A lot of people have asked me how my first year was, and my answer is always: challenging. I think that sounds a little unoriginal, but it is the truth. I think it suggests something that is really hard but good. I worked my butt off this year. I went to school early --arriving at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. -- many, many days. I went to a zillion meetings, wrote a zillion e-mails, and went to some lengthy workshops all in Spanish. There were days the language thing wore me out. There were days the kids drove me insane. There were days the grown-ups drove me insane. But the reason I say the year was challenging is that at no point did I wish I hadn't come here to do this. I am exhausted but so glad I made this move.

I think over the next month -- in the rare quiet moments I will have -- I will keep reflecting on the year. (I've kind of already started to do that as the year wound down). Not surprisingly, there are hundreds of things I want to do differently and other things that I hope I have really learned how to do. Next year will bring new challenges, like two new teachers in my department. But I am hopeful that I will generally have a better handle on things.

So now I am taking a few days to wind down, which is an extra nice thing to do in my new apartment, before my summer activities begin. First my Witness for Peace delegation, then flying around to Ohio and Boston, and finally off to California for an AP World History seminar at Stanford. Does that schedule mean I love a challenge?

Semana Santa

You know that great feeling when you step off a plane in a warm place and the sun is shining and the air is soft? That was how it felt to arrive in Popayán when I traveled there a couple of weeks ago to see the town’s famous Holy Week celebrations.

I was with my dear, dear friends Fiona and Sam who were visiting from London. Fiona, it bears mentioning, is kind of my only childhood friend. Growing up overseas means that even if you actually stay put in a country for a while, other people inevitably come and go. Fortunately for us, both Fiona’s and my families stayed in Rome for a long time – hence our friendship that dates back to when I was eight and she was ten. I think my at-home manicurist-pedicurist Sandra (who got us all fixed up before we headed to where the weather was sandal-worthy) put it best: she said we are “super amigas.” All of that to say, it was very special to have Fi and her husband Sam here and so great to get to travel with them.

The reason we chose Popayán as our destination is that it is famous all over Colombia for its Holy Week celebrations, specifically the nightly processions featuring huge float-like things called pasos that are topped with statues of Jesus (many of them pretty gory), Mary, various saints, and other Biblical characters. These things weigh hundreds of kilos and are carried on the shoulders of the faithful, specifically men and boys for whom this privilege has been passed down through generations.

Probably the most interesting thing about witnessing these observances was that we got to see them several nights in a row, with each night having its own tone and mood. On the night of Holy Thursday, the statues depicted various scenes from events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus (like his sentencing before Pilate and his being crowned with thorns), and the mood was pretty somber. (Not that there weren’t peanut and cotton candy vendors doing a booming business). On the night of Good Friday, the mood was even darker as the pasos told the story of the crucifixion. The people carrying them were dressed in purple, which was the color of all the flowers too. But on Saturday night, in anticipation of the resurrection, things turned joyful. The paso bearers wore white, and people applauded when the paso with the statue of Jesus resurrected came out. Interesting note: the resurrected Jesus was totally jacked – in stark contrast to the emaciated crucified Jesuses we had seen on previous nights. But whatever the condition of the Jesus statues, it was really a spectacle, quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Colombia without a pretty martial element. The National Police band was front and center, complete with kids who were some kind of scouts but just looked like mini-me policemen. Even more striking was the presence of the military. They appeared a couple of times in the procession (one group of them heavily armed), and we just couldn’t quite figure out how they fit in with the rolling orchestras (a woman playing a piano on wheels being pushed down the street – awesome) and altar boys. Nonetheless, it was cool to see the devotion and pageantry, even just as curious onlookers.

Election days

I know I am up too early when I hear the Colombian national anthem on my way to school. They play it on the radio at 6:00 every morning. I have come to associate it with sunrise. I think it's interesting to see how the national anthem is used or viewed in different countries. I feel like you don't hear it as much in the States, but I remember it being played before the start of the film in movie theatres in Thailand, complete with a gigantic image of the king projected on the screen.

I guess I am thinking about this public patriotism partly because of the elections that took place here on Sunday. [Disclaimer: I was a less than casual observer to them. I really barely followed them at all, so anything I write is based on the most general of impressions.] The elections were to choose members of the senate, and it seemed like there were a whole lot of parties to choose from. Walls were absolutely plastered with posters, and people in party T-shirts tried to give me literature about a hundred times in the past few weeks. Somehow one was more aware that something was going on than you might be in the U.S. First of all, during elections here the government imposes a ley seca or dry law. You couldn't by alcohol starting at 6 p.m. on Friday and until 6 a.m. on Monday. (I couldn't help but wonder who were the people lined up outside a liquor store at 6:01 Monday morning).

Second of all, starting on Thursday or Friday, security was beefed up everywhere. For instance, there is always a security guard at my supermarket around the corner, but on Thursday night he was carrying a massive shotgun. By Friday, the military and police were out in force, standing guard everywhere it seemed. The security guard at my building also told me that all the army and police were acuartelados for the whole weekend, meaning that no leaves were granted, and they had to be on call at all times. By Sunday, there were helicopters flying over my building what seemed like every few minutes. Frankly, I found it all a little intimidating, which I feel like would not be a good feeling to have as you go to vote. Or maybe in a country of so much conflict, it makes people feel safe. I wonder.

On election day itself things were buzzing. I happened to be at two different shopping centers that were being used as polling stations, and they were mobbed. And the police were out in force managing the crowds. Traffic was as bad as a week night rush hour, and the party faithful had fanned out everywhere. One supermarket was even running an election day lunch special. It was all pretty interesting to just observe, to see what was different from election days in the States. Now my question is: what is it going to be like when the presidential elections roll around in August?