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Cuban speaking tour this week!

Rock around the Blockade | 18.02.2008 11:13 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Liverpool

From Saturday 23rd February three Cuban revolutionaries will begin the North West leg of a national speaking tour of Britain entitled 'Cuba: socialism into the 21st century', organised by Rock around the Blockade.

Yoselin Rufin, Orlando Borrego and Jesus Garcia: in Britain, 21 Feb - 5 March
Yoselin Rufin, Orlando Borrego and Jesus Garcia: in Britain, 21 Feb - 5 March


They are:

Orlando Borrego - Che Guevara's closest collaborator from 1959-65;
Jesus Garcia - Cuban philosopher and elected member of a people's power assembly; and Yoselin Rufin - a leading member of the University Students Federation (FEU).

This is the first and only time that these three comrades will be in Britain together to talk openly about the Cuban revolution and Cuba's experience of building a new society. If you have a question to ask about Cuba now is the time to ask it and these are the people to ask it to! If you are not there you will be kicking yourself for years to come! Most of all this tour will be a chance to prove once and for all that socialism works.


Liverpool - VENUE CHANGE
Saturday 23 February:
Owing to demand, the venue for the meeting has been moved
2-6pm, Liverpool Students' Union

Liverpool Students' Union
Haigh Building,
Maryland Street (off Hope Street),
L1.

THEN
8pm, El Rincon Latino bar and cultural centre

Roscoe Street (off Leece Street),
Liverpool,
L1


Manchester
Sunday 24 February:
2pm (doors open 1pm)
At the Mechanics Institute,
Princess Street,
Manchester

Donations on the door, wheelchair access available

Monday 25 February:
12noon Manchester Metropolitan University,
The Wesley Centre
Alsager Campus

Monday 25 February:
2pm University of Manchester
Theatre 5,
Stopford Building,
Oxford Road


Leeds - VENUE CHANGE
Monday 25 February:
7pm Wade Suite, The Merrion Hotel

The Merrion Hotel,
Merrion Centre,
Wade Lane,
Leeds,
LS2 8NH

Rock around the Blockade
- e-mail: ratb@riseup.net
- Homepage: http://www.cubansarecoming.org

Additions

addition

19.02.2008 23:26

This Saturday, Liverpool will host a meeting at which Che Guevara’s closest comrade from Cuba, Orlando Borrego, will speak. On Sunday it will be Manchester’s turn. The events are part of a speaking tour of Britain organised by the campaign group Rock Around the Blockade. The tour comes at a crucial time for Cuban socialism as the people give their decisive and defiant answer to the oft-asked question ‘what happens when Fidel goes?’

Saturday 2-6 pm, Haigh Building, Maryland Street, Liverpool
Sunday 2-6pm Mechanics Institute, Princess Street, Manchester


‘Orlando Borrego is so identified with me that all that is missing is for him to get asthma and we would be the same person’ – Che Guevara, Bolivia 1967


This Saturday Liverpool will host a meeting at which Che Guevara’s closest comrade from Cuba, Orlando Borrego, will speak. On Sunday it will be Manchester’s turn. The events are part of a speaking tour of Britain organised by the campaign group Rock Around the Blockade. The tour comes at a crucial time for Cuban socialism as the people give their decisive and defiant answer to the oft-asked question ‘what happens when Fidel goes?’

Orlando Borrego, now aged 71, joined Che Guevara’s guerrilla army column in the Escambray Mountains becoming a first lieutenant. Che then asked Borrego to work with him in the Ministry of Industries from 1959 to 1964. Borrego became First Vice Minister and Che’s immediate deputy. He was also Cuba’s first Minister for the Sugar Industry. Today, Borrego frequently travels to Venezuela to give seminars to the National Assembly, economists and policy makers on Che’s approach to economic development. He remains an adviser to the Cuban Transport Ministry.


For further information contact Liverpool Rock around the Blockade organiser Robert Claridge on 07956 458 331 or at:   thecubansarecoming.liverpool@gmail.com or Manchester organiser Louis Brehony on 07940 988 203 or   ratb@riseup.net

‘In the last few years I have discovered Che the thinker, the reflecter, Che the critical thinker, Che the transformer of the economic system, Che of the stage of industrialisation of Cuba…all of which Borrego has been elaborating upon with an expertise and loyalty to the thought of Che..’
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Rock around the Blockade
e-mail:  ratb@riseup.net
Homepage:  http://www.cubansarecoming.org

...


Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Cuban State Suppresion of libertarians

21.02.2008 00:07

Anyone attending these talks who sypathise or identify as anarchists would find 'Cuban Anarchism - The History of a Movement' interesting. While it covers over 100 years it brings to light the conflict which continued between anarchists and state forces after the siezure of power by the castro-guevara political faction. Deaths, jailings ... These are not of course a reason for liberals or pro-state commies (who support the idea of prisons, state armies and governments) to stop fetishising Cuba... but should signal thought in the rest of us.

Read it yourself - there is no point replying to this comment as a meaningful discussion is unlikely to happen. I just thought I would bring attention to it

Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement, by Frank Fernández. Translation and Introduction by Chaz Bufe.
This inspiring history of the Cuban anarchist movement is also a history of the Cuban labor movement. It covers both from their origins in the mid-19th century to the present, and ends with an enlightening analysis of the failure of the Castro dictatorship.
ISBN 1-884365-19-1 / 154 pp

Available from AK PRESS :  http://www.akpress.org/

From the Intro:

'A great many anarchists, especially in Europe, were so desperate to see positive social change that they saw it where there was none—in Cuba, thanks in part to a skilled disinformation campaign by Castro�s propaganda apparatus. Despite suppression of civil liberties, the prohibition of independent political activity, the government take-over of the unions, the militarization of the economy, the gradual impoverishment of the country (despite massive Soviet economic aid), the reemergence of a class system, the institution of a network of political spies in every neighborhood (the so-called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), and the government-fostered personality cults which grew up around Fidel Castro and Ernesto (�Che�) Guevara, large and important sections of the world�s anarchist movement supported Castro until well into the 1970s.'

anon

anon


Cuban State Suppresion of libertarians

21.02.2008 00:09

Anyone attending these talks who sypathise or identify as anarchists would find 'Cuban Anarchism - The History of a Movement' interesting. While it covers over 100 years it brings to light the conflict which continued between anarchists and state forces after the siezure of power by the castro-guevara political faction. Deaths, jailings ... These are not of course a reason for liberals or pro-state commies (who support the idea of prisons, state armies and governments) to stop fetishising Cuba... but should signal thought in the rest of us.

Read it yourself - there is no point replying to this comment as a meaningful discussion is unlikely to happen. I just thought I would bring attention to it

Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement, by Frank Fernández. Translation and Introduction by Chaz Bufe.
This inspiring history of the Cuban anarchist movement is also a history of the Cuban labor movement. It covers both from their origins in the mid-19th century to the present, and ends with an enlightening analysis of the failure of the Castro dictatorship.
ISBN 1-884365-19-1 / 154 pp

Available from AK PRESS :  http://www.akpress.org/

From the Intro:

'A great many anarchists, especially in Europe, were so desperate to see positive social change that they saw it where there was none—in Cuba, thanks in part to a skilled disinformation campaign by Castro�s propaganda apparatus. Despite suppression of civil liberties, the prohibition of independent political activity, the government take-over of the unions, the militarization of the economy, the gradual impoverishment of the country (despite massive Soviet economic aid), the reemergence of a class system, the institution of a network of political spies in every neighborhood (the so-called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), and the government-fostered personality cults which grew up around Fidel Castro and Ernesto (�Che�) Guevara, large and important sections of the world�s anarchist movement supported Castro until well into the 1970s.'

anon

anon


Cuban State Suppresion of libertarians

21.02.2008 00:12

Anyone attending these talks who sypathise or identify as anarchists would find 'Cuban Anarchism - The History of a Movement' interesting. While it covers over 100 years it brings to light the conflict which continued between anarchists and state forces after the siezure of power by the castro-guevara political faction. Deaths, jailings ... These are not of course a reason for liberals or pro-state commies (who support the idea of prisons, state armies and governments) to stop fetishising Cuba... but should signal thought in the rest of us.

Read it yourself - there is no point replying to this comment as a meaningful discussion is unlikely to happen. I just thought I would bring attention to it

Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement, by Frank Fernández. Translation and Introduction by Chaz Bufe.
This inspiring history of the Cuban anarchist movement is also a history of the Cuban labor movement. It covers both from their origins in the mid-19th century to the present, and ends with an enlightening analysis of the failure of the Castro dictatorship.
ISBN 1-884365-19-1 / 154 pp

Available from AK PRESS :  http://www.akpress.org/

From the Intro:

'A great many anarchists, especially in Europe, were so desperate to see positive social change that they saw it where there was none—in Cuba, thanks in part to a skilled disinformation campaign by Castro�s propaganda apparatus. Despite suppression of civil liberties, the prohibition of independent political activity, the government take-over of the unions, the militarization of the economy, the gradual impoverishment of the country (despite massive Soviet economic aid), the reemergence of a class system, the institution of a network of political spies in every neighborhood (the so-called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), and the government-fostered personality cults which grew up around Fidel Castro and Ernesto (�Che�) Guevara, large and important sections of the world�s anarchist movement supported Castro until well into the 1970s.'

anon

anon


Good news from Cuba

22.02.2008 08:44

the regime has released some political prisoners. They are trade unionist Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos, dissident Omar Pernet Hernandez and independent journalists Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo and Alejandro Gonzalez Raga. Something to cheer everyone up at your meeting! Perhaps you could ask your speakers when the rest will be freed.

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080217/wl_afp/cubarightsdissidentsreleasespain_080217153745

Pete