Havana, March 28.- Seas surrounded by both, framed by diverse cultures that express themselves in languages of different origins, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean have often been compared. However, they are shaped by different historical processes. Although there had been armed conflicts, the Mediterranean Sea – bordered by the coasts of Africa, Asia and southern Europe – built bridges between the Far East and the narrow gateway to the Atlantic through intensive trade. It was a space for the confluence of knowledge from distant origins, which brought together to form the foundations of Western culture.
At the dawn of capitalism, European colonial expansion displaced native cultures to transform the Caribbean into a source of raw materials through the practice of a plantation economy. Under the guise of a supposed civilizational mission, the growing demand for cheap labor forced the brutal transplantation of African workers, reduced to the status of disenfranchised slaves. Of their ancestral cultures, they could only preserve what they could retain in their memories.
The triangular trade imported slaves from Africa and shipped raw materials to Europe across the Atlantic. Behind it was a systematically fragmented Caribbean through the use of various methods.
The application of the plantation economy structured a productive base that has not yet been overcome, which, with the production of low-value-added goods, increased dependence on the foreign market and prevented the emergence of a possible complementarity between the different areas of the region.
At the same time, skin color has erected barriers between residents, with consequences for social stratification and at the level of subjectivity, through the development of prejudices that have been transformed into stereotypes deeply rooted in consciousness.
Even after the abolition of slavery, the newly freed did not have the means to create a livelihood for themselves that would secure their livelihoods. They were doomed to unemployment or access to temporary and low-paying jobs. Lacking land of their own, they flocked to the cities, where they settled on the outskirts and huddled in so-called parcels, urban equivalents of the barracks of yesteryear.
An ongoing study by Professor Graciela Chailloux uncovers further differences arising from the different forms of colonization employed by metropolitan areas according to language, culture and social organization.
For example, in the British Antilles, the owners of estates, mostly absent, delegated the management of affairs to officials charged with defending their interests, while the Spaniards, second-rate, bereft of inheritances, driven by necessity, made their own fortunes , settled in America and underwent a process of creolization.
It would be worthwhile delving further into the politics of Christianization, subject to the divergent tendencies imposed by the confrontation between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. In this last case, the living memory of the mythology of African origin survived during a process of transculturation that manifested itself in Cuba, Haiti and Brazil, to mention only the most famous cases.
Recently, Casa de las Américas published a series of interviews with Caribbean women writers conducted by the poet Laura Ruiz from Matanzas, who created her questionnaires based on the knowledge of the life and work of each of her interlocutors, thus revealing a shocking socio-cultural reality.
Stationed in the diaspora, lost awareness of their national identity, many have turned their backs on their countries of origin, integrated in the distance to sectors of different origins, united only by the color of their skin. The five Cubans, on the other hand, maintain their roots in the history and destiny of their country, from which the meaning and projection of their creative task grow.
Cuba is characterized by the development of an integrationist project. Their intellectuals did it, because Ramiro Guerra wrote Sugar and Antilles Population, thereby revealing the essential keys of our common historical process. José Martí had perceived it earlier, as he understood our role in the necessary balance of the world. The historian José Luciano Franco paused to look at the history of Haiti. Nicolás Guillén and Alejo Carpentier also contributed to forging a common imaginary.
The Casa de las Américas has systematically announced a literary prize with the aim of disseminating the artistic creation of our immediate surroundings and offering a counterpart to the often exclusive monopoly of transnational publishers. Since the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the practice of solidarity actions has laid the foundation for strengthening political ties.
It seems time to address these issues when the news channels are being ravaged by the events in Ukraine and the world is bordering on the apocalypse with the presence of nuclear and ideological weapons of mass destruction, the range of which can overwhelm the areas directly affected The conflict .
but It is necessary to deal with the cause of things. Since the conquest and colonization of America, struggles for supremacy have reached a planetary dimension. In the summer of 1914, the so-called First World War broke out. Ruler and broom in hand, France and Great Britain had agreed on the division of the African continent, thereby splintering the existing unity of historical cultures. Germany was left out of the distribution. The then very powerful international social democracy had based its political program on the defense of peace.
The workers should not become cannon fodder in the service of the interests of the bourgeoisie. At the crucial moment, they were strongly represented in the parliaments of France, Germany and the Netherlands. However, they voted for war and Jean Jaurès, unshakable in his pacifist principles, was assassinated. Since then, armed conflicts have not ceased, although sometimes limited to “dark corners of the world”, they have received little news coverage.
Once the forge of Western culture, the Mediterranean is now the gathering place for the fragile boats that haul their aftermath of dead and missing from starving Africa and the vast Middle East ravaged by violence from foreign intervention.
This great humanity is the repository of a better future when it begins to walk united in a common project of authentic national liberation, social justice, the elimination of all forms of oppression, including those practiced through racism and perverse propaganda campaigns. When it articulates an emancipatory purpose, it also guarantees the preservation of life on the planet.
(Cuba Debate)