CALIBAN

An Important Day in my Life

2012-01-28T08:51:00.002-04:00

Actually, the day I am marking as "important" is yesterday, and for two reasons: The first reason is that I managed to upload Uncle Neal's trio concert onto Ustream. The second reason remains unmentioned...

Streaming Live by Ustream

The US Corporate State

2012-01-06T11:20:00.002-04:00

On this Three Kings Day, a time when we step back, take stock of things and try to gain insights into the future, I'm afraid Chris Hedges summarizes the status quo succinctly, as well as points to where the US is headed.

Celebrating My Birthday

2011-12-22T13:20:00.002-04:00

I can't think of a better way to commemorate my birthday.

"Nothing has been more moving to me than this desire, realized imperfectly but repeatedly, to connect across differences, to be a community, to make a better world, to embrace each other. This desire is what lies behind those messy camps, those raucous demonstrations, those cardboard signs and long conversations. Young activists have spoken to me about the extraordinary richness of their experiences at Occupy, and they call it love." Rebecca Solnit

Miss Angola Leila Lopes crowned Miss Universe

2011-09-14T10:25:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to Leila Lopes! There is more to her story, however, which you will likely not find in the pages of the western press. It needs to be told: The source is in SPANISH, and I have translated it:

Of parents from Cienfuegos, Cuba, and born in Angola, the new Miss Universe, Leila Lopes, has been the victim of vicious racist verbal attacks.

The messages, written in Portuguese and English, were reported by the Stormfront webpage, whose authors define themselves as a "white nationalist community", that is under investigation by the Brazilian Federal Police on suspicion of links with neo-Nazi groups.

Even before learning of the abuse, Leila Lopes had said in a press conference at dawn on Tuesday, to not feel affected by racism.

"Racism does not affect me. The racists are the ones that need help, because it is not normal for a person to [harbor such ideas]... in the XXI century. There is no basis for any kind of prejudice," said the beautiful young 25 year old.

The organizers of the competition held Monday evening in Sao Paulo gave no immediate comment on the racist attacks by members of Stormfront, who also questioned the "racial purity" of European candidates for the title.

Beautifully said, Leila. Short, sweet and to the point! Bravo!

The Legacy of 9-11 on its Tenth Anniversary

2011-09-11T00:07:00.003-04:00

I agree wholeheartedly with Tom Engelhardt:

Let's just can it...
Ask yourself this: ten years into the post-9/11 era, haven't we had enough of ourselves? If we have any respect for history or humanity or decency left, isn’t it time to rip the Band-Aid off the wound, to remove 9/11 from our collective consciousness? No more invocations of those attacks to explain otherwise inexplicable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our oh-so-global war on terror. No more invocations of 9/11 to keep the Pentagon and the national security state flooded with money. No more invocations of 9/11 to justify every encroachment on liberty, every new step in the surveillance of Americans, every advance in pat-downs and wand-downs and strip downs that keeps fear high and the homeland security state afloat.

I have expressed myself already on the handling of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9-11, so there is no need to revisit that. If we must remember something on this day, it should be the following:

It's hardly controversial to suggest that the mainstream media's performance in the lead-up to the Iraq War was a disaster. In retrospect, many journalists and pundits wish they had been more skeptical of the White House's claims about Iraq, particularly its allegations about weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, though, media apologists suggest that the press could not have done much better, since "everyone" was in agreement on the intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons threat. This was never the case. Critical journalists and analysts raised serious questions at the time about what the White House was saying. Often, however, their warnings were ignored by the bulk of the corporate press.

This timeline is an attempt to recall some of the worst moments in journalism, from the fall of 2002 and into the early weeks of the Iraq War. It is not an exhaustive catalog, but a useful reference point for understanding the media's performance. The timeline also points to missed opportunities, when courageous journalists—working inside the mainstream and the alternative media—uncovered stories that should have made the front pages of daily newspapers, or provided fodder for TV talk shows. By reading mainstream media critically and tuning into the alternative press, citizens can see that the notion that "everyone" was wrong about Iraq was—and is—just another deception.

Hypocrisy

2011-07-31T12:14:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show
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Earl Neal Creque

2011-07-18T00:49:00.005-04:00

The final months of the year 2000 were devastating for the West Indian side my family. In October, I lost my mother while in December I lost the last two of my uncles on my mother's side of the family: Marvin and Neal. Uncle Neal passed away around December 1 and it is him I want to remember with this post.

My uncle was born Earl Neal Creque on April 13, 1940, in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, the last of eight children born to my grandfather (Cyril Creque) and grandmother (Leonie Sewer). He began taking piano lessons at age five and from around nine to sixteen years of age he studied classical piano with Edris Stakemann. Since there are biographical sketches of Neal that can be accessed on-line, I will not reproduce what is already available. I just want to add that my Uncle Neal was a prolific composer, having composed over 3,000 compositions (not all of them Jazz), and a teacher, having been on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Cleveland State University. Although he didn't leave an extensive legacy of commercial recordings, his compositions have been widely appreciated (and recorded) by top-caliber musicians that knew him, from Mongo Santamaria to Ramsey Lewis, among many others.

What I want to do is commit to writing some scattered memories of my own and combine them with an interview my Uncle Neal granted to the Cleveland Plain Dealer late in his career. First, a bit of personal background is in order.

I have a vivid recollection of my Uncle Marvin and Aunt Marilyn's household (whose entire family I grew up with, you could say, since I visited them with regularity from my early childhood days). The house was filled with music (both live and recorded Jazz Music*), given that instruments were always available, which fellow musician friends of my uncle would stop by to play at any hour of the day or night. My Uncle Marvin had learned piano and could belt out a tune from memory although he never pursued a career in music. In fact, the Marvin Creque household had garnered a reputation throughout Charlotte Amalie as a sort of impromptu Jazz studio.
Those were joyous days for me and, while I did not recognize it at the moment, they would have a profound impact on me later in life. Hence from my early days, I came to "absorb" Jazz (by osmosis, if you will) and associate it with my Uncle Marvin, though I was only able to fully appreciate the genre later in life.

Although all my mother's siblings were musically trained at some points in their lives, the only one (other than herself) to have made a career out of music was my Uncle Neal. While I had met Uncle Neal during my childhood, it wasn't until I went to Oberlin College (from 1977 to 1981) that I got to know and appreciate his talent as a Jazz musician. It was also during that period that I was finally able to fully appreciate the genre of Jazz, to the extent that I consider it my first love above all other musical genres. Uncle Neal, at the time, was firmly established in nearby Cleveland and I (of course) took advantage of the proximity to visit him on occasion.

It was at my insistence (I believe), that Uncle Neal came to Oberlin for the first time. During my student days, there was a cultural activity of sorts being organized by the Black Students Association on campus for which students were asked to suggest artists. I jumped at the idea of having Uncle Neal play since by then I had come to love his music and, with him being in the vicinity, it wouldn't cost much to bring him. He brought a trio and wowed the students, but it wasn't until after I graduated that I learned that he had returned to Oberlin and eventually gotten a faculty appointment at the Jazz studies Department of the famed Oberlin Conservatory. I was so proud for him and for many years thought I had somehow managed to facilitate that job opportunity by inviting him to Oberlin during my student years. Ironically, I had bragged for many a year that my crowning achievement in Oberlin wasn't the fact that I obtained my bachelor's degree, but that I had unsuspectingly hooked Uncle Neal up with the prestigious conservatory of music!). I learned, shortly before his death that it was actually the Director Wendell Logan of the Oberlin Jazz Studies Department that had witnessed Neal (on another occasion) and beckoned him to (eventually) come to Oberlin.

Regardless of how he arrived at Oberlin, we were all so happy for him because it got him off the Jazz clubbing circuit. It is truly heartbreaking to witness the tragic history of many of Jazz's finest musicians and composers, who unable to make much money, are forced to constantly be on the road seeking gigs at (often seedy) night clubs, a lifestyle that leads to early burn-out in their careers and often to an early death. While most musicians don't have it good, the Jazz musician's lot in particular is terrible (although it has changed for the better in recent years). Hence, the steady job afforded Uncle Neal the opportunity to give loose reign to his creative powers without the economic knife at his throat. He also relished the opportunity to teach and was able to go back to one of his great loves - classical composition.

Uncle Neal expressed his outlook in an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer -
He devotes more and more time to teaching at Oberlin College and Cleveland State University and writing classical music. What he tries to convey in his music, Creque says, "is the hope that the kids coming up in music respect the educational system that is afforded them today. A lot of things that are available to them, if they had been present years ago, no telling how far Jazz might have advanced. You can be studying at Oberlin and the talent can come in from all over the country to perform," he says. (…) As for the clubs, Creque doesn't miss them. "I think my interests have grown in a different direction", he says. "My original love was classical music and I'm back to that. Between performing and composing classical works and teaching, you get a chance to see an extension of yourself in terms of the student. When you see what you have accomplished, and pass some of that on, it's a marvelous thing."

Footnote and a requiem: My Uncle Marvin, more than any of us, loved Uncle Neal, perhaps because he saw in him the realization of what he had always wanted to do. We used to anguish over Uncle Neal's aversion to the recording studio. Despite being a prolific composer, Uncle Neal only left a handful of commercial recordings and most of these were made early in his career (which is one reason he is not well known on the Jazz circuit).

Neal did keep us readily supplied, however, with tape recordings of his concerts as well as some studio quality recordings. This would sometimes frustrate us even more because we (especially Uncle Marvin) would listen to these fantastic recordings and lament that they were not available on the commercial market (thus garnering him wider recognition). In an effort at garnering him wider recognition, I once even contacted the host Marian MacPartland of the popular radio program Piano Jazz to try to get him on the show, only to be told (after I mailed up a selection of his recordings) that a prerequisite for being invited to the show was that the artist have made a recent commercial recording. Shortly thereafter, we all learned that Uncle Neal had contracted cancer and I was (we all were) devastated.

I make no joke when I say that Uncle Neal is my favorite musician. I would say so even if he were no relative of mine. The fact that he was related to me was a source of immense pride and joy beyond description. I cherish the tapes and videos he diligently sent us over the years and preserve the copies of the classical pieces he composed late in his career, copies of which he had sent my mother. As a tribute, view the YouTube of Uncle Neal and Howie Smith playing Neal's composition "Slightly Monkish". I have a particular love for this piece because, aside from being a tribute to the all-time great Jazz icon (and favorite of mine!) Thelonious Monk, it has the calypso rhythm of our West Indian heritage in the Virgin Islands.

God Bless You Uncle Neal.

Support Wikileaks!

2011-07-03T13:28:00.000-04:00

Here Comes your Non-Violent Resistance

2011-05-18T08:28:00.004-04:00

A defining moment for all parties involved:

"FOR many years now, we've heard American commentators bemoan the violence of the Palestinian national movement. If only Palestinians had learned the lessons of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we hear, they'd have had their state long ago. Surely no Israeli government would have violently suppressed a non-violent Palestinian movement of national liberation seeking only the universally recognised right of self-determination...So now we have an opportunity to see how Americans will react. We've asked the Palestinians to lay down their arms. We've told them their lack of a state is their own fault; if only they would embrace non-violence, a reasonable and unprejudiced world would see the merit of their claims. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of them did just that, and it seems likely to continue. If crowds of tens of thousands of non-violent Palestinian protesters continue to march, and if Israel continues to shoot at them, what will we do? Will we make good on our rhetoric, and press Israel to give them their state? Or will it turn out that our paeans to non-violence were just cynical tactics in an amoral international power contest staged by militaristic Israeli and American right-wing groups whose elective affinities lead them to shape a common narrative of the alien Arab/Muslim threat? Will we even bother to acknowledge that the Palestinians are protesting non-violently? Or will we soldier on with the same empty decades-old rhetoric, now drained of any truth or meaning, because it protects established relationships of power? What will it take to make Americans recognise that the real Martin Luther King-style non-violent Palestinian protesters have arrived, and that Israeli soldiers are shooting them with real bullets?"

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster- You won't hear this on the Main Stream News.

2011-05-16T08:05:00.001-04:00

Obama Is Helping Iran

2011-02-24T12:49:00.004-04:00

Most people I know are having difficulties figuring out what is happening in the Middle East and why. This is understandable, given the Western (and especially US) mainstream media's tendency to hand out the propaganda that Washington wants deployed precisely for domestic consumption. Hence, I feel compelled to highlight the following article by authors Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett. Flynt Leverett, who is about my age, is no light-weight. He:

...is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a professor at the Pennsylvania State University School of International Affairs. From March 2002 to March 2003, he served as the senior director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council. Prior to serving on the NSC, he was a counterterrorism expert on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and before that he served as a CIA senior analyst for eight years. Since leaving government service, Leverett served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy before becoming the director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation.

So, if you would like some insight about the Middle East and what is happening and likely to continue happening there, then do yourself a favor and read his article in Foreign Policy. Here are some excerpts:

On Obama's watch, the regional balance of influence and power has shifted even further away from the United States and toward Iran and its allies. The Islamic Republic has continued to deepen its alliances with Syria and Turkey and expand its influence in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Public opinion polls, for example, continue to show that the key leaders in the Middle East's resistance bloc -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Lebanon's Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas's Khaled Mishaal, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- are all vastly more popular across the region than their counterparts in closely U.S.-aligned and supported regimes in Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia.
(...)
From literally the day after Iran's 2009 presidential election, we pointed out that the Green Movement could not succeed in bringing down the Islamic Republic, for two basic reasons: The movement did not represent anything close to a majority of Iranian society, and a majority of Iranians still support the idea of an Islamic Republic. Two additional factors are in play today, which make it even less likely that those who organized and participated in scattered demonstrations in Iran over the past week will be able to catalyze "regime change" there.
(...)

Go to the original article at Foreign Policy to discover what those "two additional factors" are. For further antidotes to the US mainstream media, I recommend Juan Cole and The Arabist.

An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice

2010-12-27T11:46:00.002-04:00

An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice

The assault lasted 22 days, killing 1,417 Palestinians, 352 of them children, according to main-stream Human Rights Organizations. For a staggering 528 hours, Israeli Occupation Forces let loose their US-supplied F15s, F16s, Merkava Tanks, internationally prohibited White Phosphorous, and bombed and invaded the small Palestinian coastal enclave that is home to 1.5 million, of whom 800,000 are children and over 80 percent UN registered refugees. Around 5,300 remain permanently wounded.
(...)
We ask: when will the world’s countries act according to the basic premise that people should be treated equally, regardless of their origin, ethnicity or colour – is it so far-fetched that a Palestinian child deserves the same human rights as any other human being? Will you be able to look back and say you stood on the right side of history or will you have sided with the oppressor?

There is a War going on

2010-12-05T09:11:00.000-04:00

"Happy" Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T11:03:00.000-04:00

Haiti's Academic Community digs out of the Rubble

2010-01-28T11:47:00.003-04:00

We share our grief with the rest of the world for the tragic circumstances that have befallen our fellow human beings in Haiti. As members of the academic community, though, we hold a particular interest in the fate of those that labor in country's institutes for higher learning. In this respect, I would like to share with you an email from Dr. Jacky Lumarque, Rector at Université Quisqueya.

Rough translation of mail ( by Gilles Lubeth) from Dr Jacky Lumarque, Rector Université Quisqueya:

It's my first time on the Internet since Tuesday's earthquake. My apologies to friends who may have been worried by my silence but I have been focused on rescue operations and assistance to families. Iwas bent on not ending rescue operations until getting confirmation that the persons we were searching for had indeed died.

Here's the situation...

I stopped searching for survivors for good and I am finally able to extract those corpses that have been identified: 5 students from the Faculty of Education, including 2 priests from the Salesiens congregation, a monk and a nun from the St Croix congregation, a lecturer, an engineer and two gardeners. We will find out this morning if there are more victims that can be identified.

The corpses are badly decomposed and we had to turn a water tank into a grave, in the botanical garden. This location will become a mausoleum dedicated to the victims of the earthquake. Bishop Dumas, members of the Don Bosco and St Croix congregations will hold a church service in memory of the victims at noon. Those who cannot be present physically will surely keep us in their affectionate thoughts.

Special thanks to students and volunteers (most of whom didn't even finish primary school) for the extroadinary courage displayed, as they work 48 hours non-stop to take about 20 survivors from the rubble, without any technical support and at risk of losing their own lives. Those who died before our eyes did not make it because of the lack of resources and equipment to move them out from under the beams and flagstones where they were crushed.

All the buildings were destroyed, including the Museum which was hosting an exhibition dedicated to the famous Haitian-born painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as three apartments for visiting lecturers at Quisqueya and the state universities. We will have to start from scratch but I have no doubt about our collective ability to find the means, the energy and the determination to do so.

For now, mobilization at Quisqueya has been directed to families in need. The Harry Truman Boulevard Campus has been used as a Center already hosting 10,000 victims from Cité l'éternel. The Gheskio Center and US doctors are assisting those who are ill or injured. We invite ALL Quisqueya Medical Faculty students to come and assist us in organizing daily life in the community and providing basic care. We will wait for the venue to be secured (fences have to be put up again) before starting distributing food, in order to avoid looting.

On the Turgeau campus, the esplanade and the parking lot will also be transformed in a care center for the victims. Since we will be located near the main drinking water reservoir in the city, we are trying to set up a small water treatment plant in order to produce 3 thousand gallons of drinking water per day, to serve residents and newly installed "colonies" in peripheral neighbourhoods (Turgeau and Debussy). Aide et Action is expected to get the equipment needed for the plant from the Dominican Republic. Quisqueya students are invited to form a solidarity network. Helping the more fragile among us will actually give them the strength and inspiration to rebuild their individual lives and the community.

International aid has been abundant but poorly coordinated and there are great frustrations. The population has spontaneously formed "colonies" in various areas; these groups must be helped to get organized rationally while relief efforts are channeled to those who are most in need.

Thank you to all our friends for expressing their solidarity and affection. The hardest time is still to come, when we have to rebuild and spontaneous solidarity fades away. It is up to Haitians to get organized with the help of a network of friends acting out of solidarity rather than out of the search for media visibility only.

For additional information in English and from a Caribbean regional perspective, please check Dr. Norman Girvan's SITE.

This diary is cross-posted at Daily Kos and European Tribune.

Celebrating the Birth of Bud Powell

2009-09-26T15:25:00.011-04:00

Today (September 27, 2009) I want to celebrate the birth of a towering figure in BeBop (Jazz) who I would venture to say is scarcely known in the United States outside a small coterie of musicians (and not necessarily US musicians). This is a very sad fact when one realizes that the music often referred to as "Jazz" is considered America's true Classical music.

Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was a formidable pianist and a composer, having contributed not an insignificant number of pieces to the Classical American repertoire [Listen to his "Dance of the Infidels"]. Literary critic Harold Bloom included Powell's 1951 recording of his composition Un Poco Loco for Blue Note Records among the greatest works of twentieth-century American art. The following extract from Powell's official web-site gives us an idea of this man's true stature:

Bud Powell is generally considered to be the most important pianist in the history of jazz. Noted jazz writer and critic Gary Giddins, in Visions of Jazz, goes even further, saying that "Powell will be recognized as one of the most formidable creators of piano music in any time or idiom."

It should be noted that Bud Powell's life was a tragic one as well; a tragedy all too well known to people of African American descent during the post-war years. This nevertheless did not detract one bit from the man's enormous talents:

From 1940 Bud Powell took part in informal jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse, New York, where he came under the tutelage and protection of Thelonious Monk and contributed to the emerging bop style. By 1942--44, when he played in the band of his guardian Cootie Williams, he had already developed his individual style in most of its essentials. After sustaining a head injury during a racial incident in 1945, he suffered the first of many nervous collapses, which were to confine him to sanatoriums for much of his adult life.

Precious little is known about the enigmatic figure of Bud Powell. Some of what we do know is thanks to a French man that befriended Powell in his waning years. However, there can be no doubt that his music constitutes a towering legacy, testimony to which can be found in such recordings as Jazz Giant, and The Amazing Bud Powell.

My favorite (living) pianist?

2009-08-07T17:23:00.004-04:00

Original; Talented; Chops; Has feeling and emotion; Like Oscar Peterson, he can tear apart a concert grand, but can also play a ballad so tenderly that it will soften the hardest heart. Plus, he knows the canon: Diz, Bird, Bud...

Problem? His originality makes him inaccessible to a lot of people (kind of like Thelonious Monk)

Thoughts on the Persistent Racial Divide in America

2009-07-30T12:13:00.003-04:00

It is enough to make one sick. After hearing the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of this country carry on ad nauseum about "reverse racism" and "hatred" of whites, the common illusion that is desperately being peddled is that America (white America) has solved the race problem and moved on. We have a black president, right? Why are you (blacks) complaining? According to this narrative, any individual that continues to talk about discrimination or racism is talking about a past that no longer exists in the present, and has a chip on their shoulder, refusing to let go of his or her victim-hood for some nefarious reason. This, my friends, is a big lie that not only ignores the fact that the civil rights of black people were granted to us after we fought tooth and nail for them (they were not given to us gratuitously nor out of good faith but begrudgingly and are not by any means guaranteed into perpetuity), but dismisses a number of unresolved and festering issues.

It is precisely one of these unresolved issues that I want to touch on briefly: There is a dirty little secret harbored by a not insignificant population of our Americas (and not only in the United States, but everywhere that black slavery was practiced) that is rarely discussed by either side in this unresolved black/white divide, and that haunts this land to this day. It is a story that goes to the heart of why the race question has not yet been fully resolved and will not be resolved until perhaps something like a South African style Truth and Reconciliation Commission is constituted to deal with it. It has to do with the de facto mixture of the races throughout the history of the United States (in particular) and its implications (legal and otherwise) for the "family trees" of many of today's US citizens of mixed African-European ancestry.

If the mixing of the races in many of the states of the United States was against the law up to the nineteen fifties, then what explains the existence of a significant population of mulattoes (interestingly that term derives from "mule" which is no innocuous term in and of itself) at the time? The dirty little secret is that during slavery, many slave owners either fell in love with or took advantage of their black slave women thereby giving rise to a "phenomenon" of interracial concubinage that produced a not insignificant population of "mixed race" offspring. It should be noted that one-eighth black parentage remained sufficient for disenfranchisement for many years.

Note: The true nature of these relationships has been subject to historical interpretation, discussion and, in the worst case, to simple conjecture. In the scholarly treatment of such a contentious and often taboo subject, I would adopt the position of Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo, authors of Daily Life in Civil War America:

There is considerable disagreement over the level of true affection found between such (mixed race) couples. Noted Civil War historian Eugene D. Genovese claims that many slaves fell in love with their masters and vice versa. In The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), Catherine Clinton finds such a conclusion lacking in sensitivity with regard to the dynamics of sexual exploitation. The authors have decided to defer to Clinton's view. {footnote # 40, page 80}

The vast majority of the offspring of these relationships, whether they were sincere relationships based on "true love" or not, or a product of rape were never recognized and ended up leaving many "mulattoes" with truncated family trees. Now please step back and consider this for a moment. This is not some minor detail or insignificant fact to be conveniently swept underneath the rug and forgotten, although that is precisely what happened in the vast majority of cases by the white side and in some cases the black side as well. It was done for many reasons but initially for the basic reason that miscegenation and intermarriage were deemed illegal well into the post emancipation period. Even after intermarriage between blacks and whites became legal and Jim Crow became a thing of the past, many of these relationships were still not acknowledged.

Since such relations were "taboo" for so long, one can only speculate on the nature and motivations behind the "original act" and the possible reasons for them not being acknowledged, even after the passage of time. Racism undoubtedly played a role in many, if not the vast majority of cases. Even in the case of an acknowledged and legal union, as Volo and Volo describe in their text:

...some white Southerners demonstrated a long commitment to their black mistresses, recognized their mixed-race offspring, and attempted to provide for their upkeep and well-being. Often this took the form of a public admission after death, and many interracial alliances were recognized in a planter's will. The white children of such masters often went to great lengths to undo those parts of their father's will favorable to their biracial siblings. {Daily life in Civil War America, page 77.}

Nevertheless, each case would require its own independent investigation and the circumstances surrounding each would undoubtedly turn out to be as diverse and unique as any individual family experience in the history of a people. It shouldn't take the detached observer long to deduce that at the root of many problems of non-recognition lie legal problems involving possible property claims and inheritance. It's hard not to imagine many former slave owners watching with regret as their former slaves obtained equal legal status as citizens of the nation... Or with terror in the case of a slaveholder that had fathered progeny with a black "concubine". What would prevent a slew of legal claims on the property of such a former slave holder?

We have seen recently how some black individuals (primarily celebrities like Chris Rock, Al Sharpton and Oprah) have begun to uncover some long buried "secrets" within their own family histories, with some discovering ties in the process to sometimes prominent white individuals. Clearly the wounds in America have not healed, and to express that it is truly unfortunate to see certain people pressing the wider society to move on as if everything has been resolved is, in my opinion, an understatement.

THROW THE MODEL OUT!

2009-05-09T14:56:00.002-04:00

The following was published today in the Puerto Rico Daily Sun [Year 1, No. 198: p. 13]

It is way past the time we in the Caribbean and Central America should have abandoned once and for all the export based economic model that was more or less thrust upon us by our principle trading partner to the North. Unfortunately, much of Central America and a dwindling number of insular Caribbean states continue their fruitless pursuit of assembly industries for export to the US market. The assembly process is known in the US as 'production sharing' and the topic has been, until recently, a fixture of sorts among researchers at the US International Trade Commission (USITC). They regularly published lengthy reports ostensibly for members of the US Congress intent on maintaining as much employment as possible from their quondam industrial base within the borders of the United States. I am familiar with these publications because I used them frequently in my own research.

Hence, I am very familiar with the volatile nature of production sharing in the Caribbean Basin from its inception in the late sixties and early seventies to its virtual institutionalization in the eighties via the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and its many incarnations or reincarnations thereafter up to and into the new millennium. Once the import substitution model of yore was abandoned and countries slowly began to buy into the new outward oriented export paradigm, opportunities arose for entry into the largest and most lucrative market in the hemisphere (that of the U. S.). I won't go into the geopolitical forces behind this new “paradigm” other that to draw people's attention to the fact that the CBI was enacted “for” our region under the Reagan Administration shortly after the US invasion of Grenada, a period in history which also saw the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and several other insurgencies throughout Central America.

Preferential access schemes such as Section 807 of the US Tariff Schedule (subsequently replaced by Section 9802.00.80 of the new Harmonized Tariff System) linked with the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act, as the CBI was more formally called, stimulated the garment assembly industry, which has historically been the largest sector by far in export processing zones throughout our region. A recent World Bank study [PDF] notes the region has witnessed 30 years of unilateral preferential access to the United States for certain products under the CBI and subsequently through the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), enacted in 2000. It correctly asserts that these preferential agreements have shaped the Caribbean external trade structure.

For example the garment/textile sector I refer to above grew from less that 1% of Nicaragua's exports to the United States in 1990 to close to 63% by the year 2003, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America [CEPAL-Mexico, May, 2006: pp. 29 - 30; PDF]. Although not as dramatic, a similar trend occurred throughout much of the rest of the region with garment/textile exports from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic going from 26%, 29%, 24% and 39% respectively of exports to the US in 1990 to 60%, 87%, 78% and 49% in 2003. It should be noted that the Caribbean Basin carries out the vast majority of its external trade precisely with the United States. By all measures, this data should be viewed as a success story from the point of view of proponents of the export paradigm. As a matter of fact, the recently enacted Central American, Dominican Republic Free Trade Area, CAFTA-DR was crafted to a large degree to solidify those gains and provide for further growth into the future.

The problem is that the crafters of this policy ignored a glaring but simple truth that a beginning student of international economics is capable of explaining to anyone with an ability to listen. The truth revolves around a concept known as “trade diversion”. Anyone even remotely familiar with the ins and outs of worldwide garment commerce would have been aware that there was a gradual process of trade liberalization going on that straddled the turn of the century and that would profoundly impact importers like the United Sates. Added to that was the fact that the garment/textile powerhouse of China would be joining the free trade club, so to speak, and would consequently overwhelm any other exporter within the US and other markets, if free trade were to prevail.

What is disheartening, not to say thoroughly outrageous, is that US authorities were well aware of it, judging by the voluminous output on the topic produced prior to the fact by researchers at the USITC, not to mention half a dozen or so other non-government think tanks. Yet, US authorities perpetuated the preferential access schemes that “shotgun married” the Caribbean Basin's garment assemblers to their own moribund textile mills via the CBTPA. William C. Gruben of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank was succinct when he described several years ago the outcome of the identical phenomenon in the case of Mexican textile/garment exports to the US:

“By their very nature, regional accords lower tariffs and regulatory burdens for members, giving them an edge over nonmembers. Trade diversion occurs when these preferential trade agreements encourage higher-cost imports of member countries to replace the lower-cost imports of nonmembers. Where trade diversion exists, economic theory suggests that all good things must end—at least for those that have benefited from the trade preferences. ... When the importing countries extend preferential trade benefits to more nations, the boom from the original diversion may be followed by a bust as new trading patterns emerge and the world’s low-cost producer regains its advantage. This may not always occur, but it’s exactly what happened with Mexico’s textiles and apparel. With the erosion of Mexico’s NAFTA edge, China increased U.S. sales. Mexico lost market share—and as a result, employment fell in the textile and apparel maquiladoras.”

And this is the exact same thing that occurred with the Caribbean Basin's US based export model! We bought into the orthodoxy, acquiescing ever so eagerly to the US marketing ploy like a herd of oblivious lemmings plunging trans-like over the perennial cliff. As if to rub salt into the wounds, the World Bank now tells us, as we founder in the throes of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, that although preferential trading schemes were established as a development tool to stimulate and diversify our exports, the prevailing consensus is that“…trade preferences have not delivered expected results...they have not helped overall trade performance”.

We have now come full circle. Can anyone honestly blame the region if some member countries are seeking out alternatives to US policy prescriptions, no matter how wrongheaded or erroneous they might be perceived as being from the US side? Who is going to want to follow a US economic strategy for the region if we have obediently been following them for the last thirty odd years only to end in the situation so aptly described by the latest World Bank report? President Obama rose to the US presidency on a promise for change. He was also given a rousing reception at the recent Summit of the Americas from a region reeling from economic decline. Is this really a new beginning or will we be left to eat merely words?

Remembering Freddie Thomas

2009-03-11T12:09:00.003-04:00

I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of musician Fred Thomas, who I got to know when I had the privilege of teaching at the University of the Virgin Islands' St. Croix campus for two years. He was a wonderful bassist and could play the piano professionally as well. He was known to my uncles Marvin and Neal, and joins them in that pantheon of jazz musicians in the sky. Of particular fascination to me was the fact that Freddie had played bass with the original band of Puerto Rican icon Rafael Cortijo. Before I left St. Croix to return to Puerto Rico, he gave me these copies of photographs of Cortijo y su Combo. In this first one, you can see Uncle Freddie at the far left with his characteristic lit cigarette in his right hand.

In the next photo (below) you can see Freddie in the front row with the legendary Sonero Ismael Rivera's right hand on his right shoulder and Maestro Cortijo's right hand on Freddie's left shoulder.

Finally you have the band with a number of other musicians and singers. I would be grateful to anybody out there that could help me identify them individually.

The last picture is of a Jazz quintet which belonged to renown drummer Monchito Muñoz. Legendary trumpeter Juancito Torres was on trumpet and of course Uncle Freddie played the bass. I wish I could have heard them play if even on a recording. Juancito could really hit those high notes, almost like Dizzy Gillespie.

When in St. Croix, I always went to see Freddie play at the Blue Moon in Fredriksted. He was ailing then and despite suffering from emphysema, he continued to smoke. Maybe I was imagining things, but he always seemed to perk up when I arrived and would then proceed to play his heart out. I gave him my electric keyboard when I left, cognisant of the fact that he didn't have much more time to live. Rest In Peace Uncle Freddie. I know you're up there playing a mambo for St. Peter.

The End of an Error

2009-01-20T07:25:00.006-04:00

While initially reluctant to make any mention of this, I feel I must if for no other reason than to exercise catharsis: The earth and all its inhabitants will breathe a sigh of relief at the departure today of what some consider [I include myself among these opinion holders] one of the worst presidencies in US history. Although not a card-carrying member of the US Democratic Party, I find myself in total agreement with the words of George McGovern, published in the Washington Post just over a year ago:

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation. In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

If I were to decide on a metaphor for the Bush presidency, I would probably choose “wrecking ball” or “bull in a china shop”. Undoubtedly, some of the former allies of said presidency would agree with me on that. ...And as for the fiction of Bush being the “decider”, well this ought to put that one to rest! Good riddance, GWB, and be sure to take your few remaining followers with you on your way out!

The one main chilling lesson that I take away from this horrible administration of the last eight years is the utter fragility of the US governing system. Please make no mistake: The fact that the US was able to sweep aside this mess and in its best democratic tradition elect someone that apparently represents a significant departure from the previous administration is a testament to the strength and resilience of the US democracy and I applaud that. However, that doesn't negate the fact that the system can at times become quite fragile and under certain extraordinary circumstances come very close to self destruction. This is not a good sign. I hope that future generations will recognize what the country has just been through at the beginning of this new century and therefore be vigilant; working hard to preserve the best of what the United States has to offer the rest of the world.

+++++++++++++++++

Postscript: I just couldn't let this go by without including a tribute to the incoming and first Black President of the United States.

A Birthday Celebration: Tropical Fruits & Vegetables

2008-12-22T14:54:00.003-04:00

Fruits and vegetables! They are what our doctors recommend we include in our daily diets to ensure our health. As baby boomers age, more and more people are adding these wonderful gifts of nature to their diet. And with today being a reminder of that phenomenon in my own life, given that it is my birthday, I thought I would reproduce a [mildly edited] diary I had written about a year ago on the subject for the Daily Kos:

Fruits are abundant in nutrients, such as fiber, potassium, folate, and Vitamin C. Moreover, they also contain carotenoids and polyphenols, which act as antioxidants within the body. Eating large amounts of plant-based foods has been associated with lowered rates of cardiovascular disease (1, 2) and with decreased risk of cancer and stroke (2). Consuming adequate fruits and vegetables provides both essential nutrients and compounds that provide other beneficial physiological effects, not all of which are known.

One of my greatest pleasures has become to plant, cultivate and consume my own fruits and vegetables. Everyone here in the tropics, where abundant rains ensure lush vegetation, has their own backyard fruit and vegetable garden. Even those (very rare souls) that don't, need only walk down a nearby street or park to harvest any of a number of fruits that grow on trees that have sprouted from discarded seeds throughout the years.

Here I will be sharing with you just a handful of fruits, spices and veggies which I have cultivated in my 'back yard' over the years. In the photo, you can see a sampling of a recent harvest.
The large fruit in the upper left hand corner are grapefruit. Those are the last of my crop for this season. While mine have abundant seeds, they are unusually sweet. I have two trees and these were from the tree on the northern side of my house (the other is on the southern side). Next on the plate are five lemons from two trees I have right outside my kitchen. There is probably no fruit as essential to cooking as the lemon (I actually think they are limes but here in Puerto Rico we rarely call limes by their name). I use them for just about everything from cleaning meats to using as ingredients in marinades and dishes. Furthermore, I doubt you can imagine yourself eating fried fish without a lemon wedge nearby!

In front of the lemons, off to the right, are small sweet Spanish peppers (ajices dulces) which I guess would be classified as condiments or spices as opposed to vegetables or even fruit (although the ones in the photo I took are green, they can come in a variety of colors from bright red to a dark purple). They are not to be eaten raw but are very common in Latin American cooking from Puerto Rico to Venezuela. They are an essential ingredient in a traditional condiment that we prepare almost daily here in Puerto Rico: the ubiquitous Sofrito! It is a very versatile condiment which can be used to season meats, and as ingredients in rice and bean dishes, soups and seafoods. Use it to spice up any meal. Try seasoning your meatballs with it the next time you make spaghetti and meatballs! The following recipe makes about 4 cups:

SOFRITO
2 medium Spanish onions, coarsely chopped
3 or 4 cubanelle peppers
15 - 20 garlic cloves
1 large bunch cilantro
7 - 10 Spanish sweet peppers
a couple of leaves of culantro (a much stronger version of cilantro)
3 to 4 ripe plum tomatoes, cut into chunks
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped

Chop the onion and cubanelle peppers and place in a food processor. Process until coarsely chopped. Add the remaining ingredients one at a time and process until smooth. Your sofrito will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, but it freezes well for longer keeping.

As a footnote, my late musician uncle, Neal Creque, composed a very popular tune entitled "Sofrito" (click to hear it!), which became the title piece of an album released by Cuban conga legend Mongo Santamaria.

Finally, on the far right of the plate you see a fruit which seen whole from afar would look just like a lemon. Once you cut it open, revealing its redish pink interior and numerous seeds (as pictured), you would be pleasantly surprised to discover it is actually a guava (guayaba in Spanish)! We had quite a guava orchard way back when my parents bought the property in the early sixties. Today, only two trees survive but I am replenishing the supply with young offshoots. My grandmother used to love to make a delicious guava stew when she was visiting in Puerto Rico to help my mother take care of me. Below is a photo of the ripe fruit on one of my trees. Half a cup of guava fruit has 4.5 grams of fiber, 188 mg of vitamin C, 344 mg of potassium, 26 retinol activity equivalents of vitamin A, 15 mg of calcium, and 40 mcg of folate. It is very easy to make a fabulous treat of guava preserves:

GUAVA PRESERVES
1 pound of guava
1 pound of sugar
1 cup of water
Pare guavas. Cut in halves; remove seeds. Boil sugar and water for 10 minutes. Add guava shells. Cook at low temperature until syrup is thick, not stiff.

Next, I want to draw your attention to one of my favorite tropical fruits: the papaya. If any plant deserves the term "wonder plant" it is the papaya plant (it is technically not a tree). This tropical gem not only tastes heavenly on its own, but can be used in cooking and has medical and industrial applications as well. The plant in the photo is growing right up against the house and has over a dozen fruit on it (there is a better photo of the entire tree further on down in the diary). The bottom most fruit in the photo are ripe and (believe me) they tasted so good, I ate the entire fruit in one sitting! Interestingly, I didn't plant the papaya; it just grew there (possibly a kind bird or bat dropped the seed there and it took root and grew). Currently I have about six papaya plants growing around the house which I didn't plant either!
I could dedicate an entire diary to this wonder-fruit, so I'll just highlight a few of its uses and give you a recipe for a papaya salsa. From the Purdue University's Center for New Crops and Plants Products:

Papaya is cultivated for its ripe fruits, favored by tropical people, as breakfast fruit, and as an ingredient in jellies, preserves, or cooked in various ways; juice makes a popular beverage; young leaves, shoots, and fruits cooked as a vegetable. Latex used to remove freckles. Bark used for making rope. Leaves used as a soap substitute, are supposed to remove stains. Flowers eaten in Java. Papain, the proteolytic enzyme, has a wealth of industrial uses. It has milk-clotting (rennet) and protein digesting properties. Active over a wide pH range, papain is useful in medicine, combatting dyspepsia and other digestive orders. In liquid preparations it has been used for reducing enlarged tonsils. Nearly 80% of American beer is treated with papain, which digests the precipitable protein fragments and then the beer remains clear on cooling. Papain is also used for degumming natural silk. But most of the papain imported in the U.S. is used for meat-tenderizers and chewing gums. Also used to extract the oil from tuna liver.

I really urge you to go to the Purdue site and read the entire piece on Papaya when you have a chance. For now, I want to pass on this (untested but delicious sounding) recipe which I pulled off the internet (I can't recall the site):

PAPAYA SALSA
1 mango peeled, seeded and chopped
1 papaya peeled, seeded and chopped
1 avocado peeled, pitted and chopped
½ sweet onion, peeled and chopped
2 Tbs Fresh Cilantro, chopped
1 Tbs Light Olive Oil
2 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste
Brown Rice Syrup to sweeten if needed
Combine all the ingredients and chill for 30 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips.

Moving right along... What backyard, no matter how modest, anywhere in the Caribbean would be complete without one or more banana plants? They are everywhere and while I do have various plants at my place, the photo below is actually of one of my plantain plants. The fruit are not ripe yet as the plantains have to fill out quite a bit more (doesn't the fruit bunch seem to resemble a strange creature from outer space with red lips?)
While similar in size and shape to the banana, the plantain fruit (not the herb!) cannot (or should not) be consumed without being cooked. Half a cup of plantain has 1.7 gm of fiber, 41 retinol activity equivalents of vitamin A, 14 mg of vitamin C, 369 mg of potassium and 16 mcg of folate. There are tons of recipes you can prepare with plantains, so I will just leave a link to (mostly) Puerto Rican recipes you can explore on your own.

Not too far from the papaya plant are two bushes of sweet basil. There are many types of basil. I have two varieties growing and while I can't name them, the one on the right is the most common and more aromatic of the two.

I am still learning the ins and outs of growing basil. I have been advised to not let the plants flower. By cutting off the flowers, it motivates them to produce more leaves. I'll remember that for next time!

Now, below is a more panoramic view of my papaya plant (sans the two ripe fruit pictured previously). I'm including this photo because in the foreground (to the left of the papaya plant) is a young avocado tree. It has yet to produce fruit but is coming along nicely. This scene is just outside my library (hence the airconditioner to keep the books from getting too humid). Once I get a harvest of mangos and avocados, I will be able to make that intriguing papaya salsa recipe (above).

Even further to the left of the avocado tree (you can barely see some of the branches, since the tree itself is out of sight) is another wonderful tropical tree which produces another of my favorite fruits: the soursop, (Guanabana in Spanish)! Although called 'sour'sop, it is actually quite sweet and juicy. Below is a close-up photo of one of the fruits of that tree.

When ripe, the fruit has a fluffy white pulp which is excellent for making juice, sherbet or other treats. A half cup of soursop has 3.7 g of fiber, 23 mg of vitamin C, 16 mg of calcium, 313 mg of potassium, and 16 mcg of folate. Of particular medicinal use are the young leaves which are very effective in curing an upset stomach. The Purdue University Center for New Crops and Plants Products confirms what we in the Caribbean already knew:

...we are told to break soursop leaves in water, "squeeze a couple of limes therein, get a drunken man and rub his head well with the leaves and water and give him a little of the water to drink and he gets as sober as a judge in no time." This sobering or tranquilizing formula may not have been widely tested, but soursop leaves are regarded throughout the West Indies as having sedative or soporific properties. In the Netherlands Antilles, the leaves are put into one's pillowslip or strewn on the bed to promote a good night's sleep. An infusion of the leaves is commonly taken internally for the same purpose. It is taken as an analgesic and antispasmodic in Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador. In Africa, it is given to children with fever and they are also bathed lightly with it. A decoction of the young shoots or leaves is regarded in the West Indies as a remedy for gall bladder trouble, as well as coughs, catarrh, diarrhea, dysentery and indigestion; is said to "cool the blood," and to be able to stop vomiting and aid delivery in childbirth. The decoction is also employed in wet compresses on inflammations and swollen feet. The chewed leaves, mixed with saliva, are applied to incisions after surgery, causing proudflesh to disappear without leaving a scar. Mashed leaves are used as a poultice to alleviate eczema and other skin afflictions and rheumatism, and the sap of young leaves is put on skin eruptions.

The real treat, however, is a tall ice cold glass of soursop juice. Nothing beats it on a hot muggy day:

SOURSOP JUICE

1 soursop
1 quart of boiling water
Sugar to tastee
Remove the skin and core of one soursop. Over the pulp of the soursop pour boiling water. Let stand in covered container for half an hour. Strain and sweeten to taste.

Just down an embankment from the soursop tree is one of several tannia or taro plants I have scattered around my property. Although sometimes called 'elephant ears' (see photo below), we call them yautia in Puerto Rico and tannia or dasheen in the Virgin Islands.

Although the leaves are rich in nutrients and are used, we tend to go for the tubers or corms that accumulate around the roots, eating them like potatos. Since they are not visible in the photo above, you can see what the tubers look like here. As Wikipedia tells us:

Typical of leaf vegetables, taro leaves are rich in vitamins and minerals. They are a good source of thiamin, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, and zinc, and a very good source of vitamin B6, vitamin C, niacin, potassium, copper, and manganese. Taro corms are very high in starch, and are a good source of dietary fiber.

However, a warning for those of us that suffer from kidney stones:

Oxalic acid may be present in the corm and especially in the leaf, and these foods should be eaten with milk or other foods rich in calcium so as to remove the risks posed by ingesting the oxalate ion, especially for people with kidney disorders, gout, or rheumatoid arthritis. Calcium reacts with the oxalate to form calcium oxalate which is very insoluble.

For those of us that can stomach them, here is a wonderful recipe from the Virgin Islands:

TANNIA SOUP

1/2 lb. salt fat meat, ham bones or ham
salt and pepper to taste
1 small onion
1 sprig of thyme
1 sprig of parsley
1 Tbsp. of margarine
5 large tannias
1/2 cup tomatos
Boil meat or hambones in two quarts of water; season with salt & pepper. Brown onion and seasonings in margarine; add to the water. Simmer for two hours. Add diced tannias and tomatos; cook gently until tannias are soft. Mash tannias and tomatos against the side of cooking pan. Serve garnished with chopped parsley.

The final item on my "list" is both a fruit and a condiment that I cherish, given my affinity for indian dishes. Almost two years ago I posted a comment on the Daily Kos about my tamarind tree. This year's (early 2008) tamarind crop is more plentiful than last year's and I have provided you a glimpse (below) at a small part of it.

The tree itself is impressive and beautiful (unfortunately, I couldn't get a good photo of the entire tree to post for you here), as Purdue University's Center for New Crops and Plants Products tells us:

The tamarind, a slow-growing, long-lived, massive tree reaches, under favorable conditions, a height of 80 or even 100 ft (24-30 m), and may attain a spread of 40 ft (12 m) and a trunk circumference of 25 ft (7.5 m). It is highly wind-resistant, with strong, supple branches, gracefully drooping at the ends, and has dark-gray, rough, fissured bark.

Aside from its use in dishes like Sambhar (which is what I'm having for dinner tonight), tamarind is made into a thirst-quenching tropical drink. As the CNCPP article goes on to note:

Tamarind ade has long been a popular drink in the Tropics and it is now bottled in carbonated form in Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico and elsewhere. Formulas for the commercial production of spiced tamarind beverages have been developed by technologists in India. The simplest home method of preparing the ade is to shell the fruits, place 3 or 4 in a bottle of water, let stand for a short time, add a tablespoonful of sugar and shake vigorously. For a richer beverage, a quantity of shelled tamarinds may be covered with a hot sugar sirup and allowed to stand several days (with or without the addition of seasonings such as cloves, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, pepper or lime slices) and finally diluted as desired with ice water and strained.

One slight correction to the above. We don't (to my knowledge) bottle it in carbonated form.

Cuba - Tales of another Occupation

2008-02-20T13:40:00.005-04:00

A year ago I began what I hoped would have been an historical series on twentieth century relations between Cuba and the United States, following the Spanish American War. After two installments, I was unable to keep up with it. Although I haven't abandoned the idea altogether, the historic decision of Fidel Castro not to run for re-election as President of the State Council has motivated me to re-post what I had written back then.

PART I

The 24th of February will mark 51 years since the New York Times correspondent and editor Herbert L. Matthews (no relation to me) published his first in a series of articles on Fidel Castro, marking the 26 of July Movement's first steps out of the Sierra Maestra mountains and toward its eventual ascendency to power in Cuba. Criticized as partial to Fidel Castro, Matthews nevertheless spoke words that would prove prophetic and resonate throughout Latin America:

One might say Fidel Castro was like Pandora. The box was there and all the troubles were in it – and he opened the box. Latin America is moving fast, and not necessarily with us or toward us. The social and economic pressures have revolutionary possibilities. Our policies to date have not been successful. They have been too negative, too little, too closely tied to dictators and to small ruling classes who will become victims of the new social pressures if they do not move quickly and make necessary reforms. Stability and the status quo are dreams of the past. We have lost the Cuba we knew and dominated, or influenced so greatly. Our relations with Cuba will never be the same , even when they become friendly again, as they must. (Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story, New York: Braziller, 1961, p. 273)

The United States is going to continue to have a difficult time dealing with Fidel Castro’s legacy, even after his passing. It is no secret that the US had actively sought to depose and even eliminate the Cuban leader in order to replace the island’s communist government with one favorable to US interests. Instead of passing judgement on Castro’s years in power as supreme leader of Cuba, I would instead like to go back in history to examine to some degree why someone like Castro came to power in the first place. I do it in the hopes of contributing to the examination of the roots of animosity and outright rebelliousness of not a few Latin American administrations towards the US government and its policies (notice that I am - purposely - not using the phrase “roots of anti-Americanism”). As author Thomas G. Paterson writes in the first chapter of his 1994 book Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution, in the mid nineteen fifties:

Castro had no ties with Cuba's Communist Party – at least not at this time. His dissident organization actually distrusted the Communists because of their onetime sordid alliance with Fulgencio Batista, the very dictator the rebels intended to topple. Castro's most conspicuous model in the mid-1950's was the hero of the 1890's Cuban Revolution José Martí, not Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, Mao Zedong or Josef Stalin. (pages 15-16).

So what happened? Historians have long debated whether Castro, once in power, was pushed by the Eisenhower administration into the arms of the communists, or if he had come to power with the intent of converting the island to communism all along. That debate is not as interesting as why there may have existed in Cuba (and, for that matter, elsewhere in Latin America) a widespread distrust of and even antagonism towards the United States government in the first place. In fact, I believe the debate about Fidel’s intentions was largely settled by Allen Luxenberg in his 1988 article “Did Eisenhower Push Castro into the Arms of the Soviets”, (Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 1 pages 37-72.)

(The photo of l to r Cuautémoc & Lázaro Cárdenas, Fidel Castro & his son was taken by my father, Dr. Thomas G. Mathews)

It is evident that when Castro came to power, his seemingly abrupt repudiation of the United States came as a shock to many ordinary Americans. As Louis A. Perez Jr. expressed in “Fear and Loathing of Fidel Castro: Sources of US Policy toward Cuba”,

North Americans viewed early developments in Cuba with a mixture of incomprehension and incredulity. Much had to do with the pace of events: everything moved so quickly, as events with portentous implications seemed to accelerate from one day to the next in vertiginous succession. There was no frame of reference with which to take measure of developments in Cuba: no precedent, no counterpart, but most of all there was no understanding of the larger historical circumstances from which the Cuban revolution had emerged. (Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, Part 2, May 2002, page 229)

It is precisely these historical circumstances that must be reviewed to understand why someone like Castro could emerge as a leader of a Latin American country. Cuba’s hostility toward the United States can be attributed in part to U.S. policies toward the island since 1898. That was the year of what North Americans have dubbed the Spanish American War.

(note: I am at great pains to recommend a single book as the definitive account of the “Spanish American War”, since there are many writings on the subject as well as diverse interpretations of the events; nevertheless, I am advised that David Trasks’ book is among the best one might find in a single volume).

Herein lays one of the main roots of the historic US-Cuban discord. Cubans have resented the US depiction of the war as primarily a battle between Spain and the United States. As Lars Schoultz expounds in his commentary Blessings of Liberty: The United States and the Promotion of Democracy in Cuba:

The Cuban contribution had been considerable: after three years of warfare the rebels had pinned down nearly all of the 200,000 Spanish troops on the island, and that alone explains why Cubans have always been upset by the term US citizens use for the conflict – the Spanish American War – which overlooks their role in the proceedings. (Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, Part 2, May 2002, page 399)

One of the great heroes of what Cubans prefer to call the Spanish-Cuban-American War was General Antonio Maceo Grajales, a black man who was popularly known as the Titan of Bronze. Described as one of the outstanding guerrilla leaders in nineteenth century Latin America, Maceo’s

...most famous campaign in the War of Cuban liberation was his invasion of western Cuba when his troops, mostly Afro-Cubans on horseback, covered more than 1,000 miles in 92 days and fought the enemy in 27 separate encounters.

Noted historian Ada Ferrer points out that the presence of blacks among Cuban revolutionaries brought anti-racism to the fore in the struggle for independence. (See also the historical references to the Mambises) The experiences of these black insurgents became fundamental to the unfolding of the new republic and held out the promise of the eventual establishment of a color-blind nation. While Spain was defeated in the war, what took place in its aftermath clearly dismayed the brave Cuban fighters. As Lars Schoultz explains,

No Cuban helped to negotiate the armistice signed by Spain and the United States in Washington in August; it required the Spanish to relinquish sovereignty over Cuba pending negotiation of a treaty of peace, which was signed in Paris in December, again without Cuban participation. It declared that Cuba ‘is, upon evacuation by Spain, to be occupied by the United States’. (page 399)

And this in the face of a US Congressional War Resolution known as the Teller Amendment that explicitly stated that the US would not annex Cuba. It is important to note that while the United States supposedly joined the war to assist the Cubans in liberating their country from the yoke of the Spanish, the tables were now turned and Cuba had actually become a war booty with the US presence emanating from the “right of conquest” instead of any invitation or formal understanding with Cuban leaders. General John R. Brooke, to who the Spanish formally turned over the Cuban capital in 1899 (and who became the first US military commander of the island) exemplified the condescending and paternalistic approach which would characterize the US occupation of the island. According to Lester D. Langley:

Having condemned Spain for its backward colonialism, Brooke... accepted the Spanish characterization of Cubans as people incapable of self-rule who required enlightened guidance. (...) In assuming power, Brooke retained much of the Spanish administrative structure, modifying it to meet the current requirements; he even kept a number of Spanish bureaucrats. (The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century, Fourth Ed., U. of Georgia Press, 1989: pages 18-19)

Meanwhile, in the eastern part of the island, the eventual successor to Brooke was already stamping his imprimatur on the American occupation by implementing a

regimen which included, among other punishments, public whippings for those who violated his civic code. (Langley, page 19)

This individual was General Leonard Wood, who would become a particularly notorious irritant to the Cubans. Leonard Wood (who would later go on to notoriety as the butcher of Muslims in the Phillipines) was one of a group of likeminded government functionaries, that included such “luminaries” as US President McKinley’s Secretaries of War, Elihu Root, and State, John Hay, that disliked the Teller Amendment and clearly favored annexing Cuba to the United States. Lars Schoultz documents the racist nature of the US occupation under Leonard Wood:

But the Cubans could not be convinced so quickly to become part of the United States, and so Governor-General Wood tried to extend the transition period. ‘We are going ahead as fast as we can,’ he wrote the president in 1900, ‘but we are dealing with a race that has steadily been going down for a hundred years into which we have got to infuse new life, new principles and new methods of doing things. This is not the work of a day or of a year, but of a longer period.’ (...) ...the president ordered Wood to accelerate the transition. The first task was to disenfranchise that part of the Cuban population which had gone furthest downhill. By decree Wood restricted suffrage to Cuban born males over the age of twenty who could meet one of three requirements: the ability to read and write, the possession of property valued at $250 or more, or military service in the insurgent forces. This eliminated two thirds of Cuba’s males over the age of twenty, and ...Elihu Root congratulated his general when he learned that ‘whites so greatly outnumbered blacks’ in the truncated electorate. (pages 400 – 401)

PART II (originally posted on March 11, 2007)

Following some brief notes about the current Cuban transition to a new leadership, we go back in time to examine the infamous Platt Amendment, which compounded the already deteriorating relations between the island and its North American occupier following the war.

(The above photo is of the Havana waterfront taken during my 1979 visit)

Speculation abounds in the press of the United States regarding the possible fate(s) of Cuba following Fidel Castro’s decision to step down due to illness. Although he appears to be making a slow but steady recovery, it is evident he will no longer be able to hold the island’s foremost leadership position. What seems to have escaped the US media in its unbound enthusiasm for a radical change in the political direction of the country is the fact, apparent to anyone who cares to analyze the situation seriously, that an orderly transition to a new leadership under the aegis of the Communist Party has already taken place.

People in the know like Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director of Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Julia E. Sweig (who not only has publications about Cuba but has traveled to the island some 30 times over the past 23 years, meeting with a wide spectrum of people from Fidel Castro to his regime’s political prisoners) are aware that despite not being a US style Jeffersonian democracy, Cuba:

... is a functioning country with highly opinionated citizens where locally elected officials (albeit all from one party) worry about issues such as garbage collection, public transportation, employment, education, health care, and safety. Although plagued by worsening corruption, Cuban institutions are staffed by an educated civil service, battle-tested military officers, a capable diplomatic corps, and a skilled work force. Cuban citizens are highly literate, cosmopolitan, endlessly entrepreneurial, and by global standards quite healthy.

This panorama is seldom acknowledged by the Cuban government’s (exiled) detractors, which at times seem to have an all-too-privileged access to the halls of power in the United States. People without such blinders would readily acknowledge what Sweig has concluded: that the Cuban government has garnered sufficient legitimacy over the years to undertake a smooth leadership transition:

People at all levels of the Cuban government and the Communist Party were enormously confident of the regime's ability to survive Fidel's passing. In and out of government circles, critics and supporters alike -- including in the state-run press -- readily acknowledge major problems with productivity and the delivery of goods and services. But the regime's still-viable entitlement programs and a widespread sense that Raúl is the right man to confront corruption and bring accountable governance give the current leadership more legitimacy than it could possibly derive from repression alone (the usual explanation foreigners give for the regime's staying power).

This should get some people thinking. The Cuban leadership has maintained itself defiant towards the US throughout its nearly 50 year history. If it is still in power and enjoys such a level of legitimacy as to be able to guarantee continuity of the Revolution via a smooth transition to a new leadership, maybe there is something to all the anti US government rhetoric (please notice, again, that I am using the phrase anti US government , instead of anti US). As Sweig again acknowledges:

In Cuba's national narrative, outside powers -- whether Spain in the nineteenth century or the United States in the twentieth -- have preyed on Cuba's internal division to dominate Cuban politics. Revolutionary ideology emphasizes this history of thwarted independence and imperialist meddling, from the Spanish-American War to the Bay of Pigs, to sustain a national consensus. Unity at home, the message goes, is the best defense against the only external power Cuba still regards as a threat -- the United States.

THE PLATT AMENDMENT
On November 5, 1900, Governor-General Leonard Wood (who, as noted in PART I, would rise to further notoriety in the Philippines) called for a constitutional convention in Cuba’s capital. However, just four months later the Cuban constitutional convention was given a set of articles which had originated as a US legislative amendment to the Army Appropriation Act of 1901, sponsored by Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut. What became known as the Platt Amendment reflected US President McKinley’s Secretary of War, Elihu Root’s and General Wood’s (both annexationists) prescriptions for future Cuban-US relations. It placed onerous restrictions on Cuban sovereignty and was immediately rejected by the constituent assembly as well as sectors of the Cuban population. Two provisions of the amendment are of particular importance:

Article III. The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba. Article VII. To enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the Cuban Government will sell or lease to the United States the land necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States. (As reproduced in: Leo Huberman & Paul M. Sweezy, Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1960: page 15)

As Lars Schoultz explains:

Once McKinley had signed the Platt Amendment into law, ...Root informed the Cubans that they were obliged to append it to their new constitution. When the constituent assembly refused by a vote of 24 to 2, he instructed Wood to tell the Cubans that the US occupation would continue indefinitely ‘if they continue to exhibit ingratitude and entire lack of appreciation of the expenditure of blood and treasure of the United States to secure their freedom from Spain’. [Elihu Root papers cited by Schoultz] With no alternative but capitulation, the constituent assembly grudgingly added the Amendment’s eight articles to their constitution; in return, Governor General Wood presided over Cuba’s first transition to Democracy, then sailed for home. Shortly before leaving he wrote to assure his new President, Theodore Roosevelt, that ‘there is, of course, little or no independence left Cuba under the Platt Amendment’. (Blessings of Liberty: The United States and the Promotion of Democracy in Cuba, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, Part 2, May 2002, page 402)

Lester Langley adds some more detail to the reaction the Platt Amendment elicited from Cubans:

In Havana it precipitated widespread, but not universal, disapproval; when a Cuban group presented Wood with a formal protest, he privately characterized its members as ungrateful. The Cuban convention resolved to oppose the amendment as a violation of national sovereignty and dispatched a delegation to Washington. It arrived only to discover that McKinley had already signed the act into law. Root mollified the Cubans with a sumptuous dinner and a soothing explanation that the amendment would be interpreted narrowly and would not be exploited to impair Cuban sovereignty. Six hours of discussion ensued, during which Root reminded them that the Monroe Doctrine already gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuban affairs. (Lester D. Langley. The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century, Fourth Ed., U. of Georgia Press, 1989: page 21)

Thus on June 12, 1901, the Platt Amendment was written into the Cuban Constitution by a vote of 17 to 11 (it would be further formalized two years later by a permanent treaty between both countries). Although the US military occupation of the island “officially ended” on May 20, 1902, the US used article VII of the Platt Amendment to lease (for $2,000 a year) the land for what today is the naval station at Guantanamo Bay. The US wasn’t gone for long, either. As I will discuss in future installments of this series, the US returned to occupy Cuba between 1906 and 1909, sent troops in 1917 and continued interfering in the conduct of Cuba’s internal affairs up until the July 26 Revolution (and beyond).

(The respected popular Cuban journal Bohemia has more detail on the Platt Amendment – in Spanish).

Instead of continuing on to take a look at post-occupation Cuba, I will make a brief digression, before concluding, to examine why there wasn’t a stiff and violent resistance to the US occupation once the Spanish American War ended.

Why Didn’t Cubans Resist the Occupation?

First of all, to answer the question outright, Cubans did resist the occupation but not violently as did the Philippines. As Robert Whitney asserts in a recent round-up of Cuban scholarship before 1959:

Historians ... know that despite the long and violent independence struggles, when US troops occupied their island in 1898, many Cuban political leaders readily accepted US hegemony. Many members of Cuba’s upper classes had reluctantly joined the independence movement and had always been skeptical about the ability of Cubans to be a sovereign people. (History or Teleology? Recent Scholarship on Cuba before 1959, Latin American Research Review, Volume 36, Num. 2, 2001: pg. 222)

There was also an element of fear among the upper classes that the lower classes (and especially the blacks) would become empowered and threaten their privileged position in a post-colonial Cuban society. This angle has not been fully explored in the past and is now being pursued by scholarship from such notable researchers as Ada Ferrer (who I mentioned in Part I). Commenting on her book Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, Robert Whitney says:

Ferrer shows how in both wars for independence, the simultaneous struggle against racism and colonialism fueled an insurgent energy that threatened both Cuban Creole domination and Spanish colonial rule. This revolutionary threat from the poorest sectors of the Cuban population also alarmed US leaders, and one objective of US intervention in 1898 was to block this revolution. Ferrer reveals just how revolutionary Cuba’s independence wars were. A multiracial fighting force, integrated at all ranks, carried forward a message of racial equality, land and work for the poor and total independence for Cuba.

Just as was the case in Puerto Rico (speaking from my own common knowledge), the United States represented progress, modernity and freedom to Cuba’s Creole elites, while Spain was looked upon as backwards and decadent. What was not perceived at the time (or was ignored by some) was that the United States was entering its full imperialist phase. C. Friedrich Katz notes that:

While US economic expansion into Latin America, above all into Mexico and Cuba, had begun shortly after the Civil War, political and military expansion only began in 1898. In that year, the Spanish American War, the United States easily defeated Spain and occupied its colonies on the American continent: Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as the Philippines. (From paper entitled: US Imperial Expansion into the Caribbean and Mexico, 1898 – 1920)

(Note: For those of you more historically inclined than myself, there are some good sources which flesh out the different historical interpretations of the period and discuss the US’s emergence as an imperial power. For the time being, I’ll just recommend this one (pdf).)

I think it is important to include a note or two about the role of the Cuban exiles when discussing the lack of a fierce resistance to the US occupation. The Cuban patriot Jose Marti spent a good deal of time in exile and is probably best known for his essay Our America (rtf). Despite his strong anti-imperialist credentials, author Rodrigo Lazo notes in the introduction to his book Writing to Cuba:

In the mid-nineteenth century, Cuba's exiled writers were in many cases willing to embrace U.S. constitutional principles, if not the United States itself. They drew inspiration and political ideals from the writings of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams and from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. In addition to the content of U.S. revolutionary documents, exiles were captivated by the relationship between text and revolution exemplified by a pamphlet such as Common Sense. Their wish to recreate el sentido común for Cuba is an example of what Michael Warner describes as the "far-reaching impact both on the continent and in the New World" of the U.S. paper war waged by men of letters in the eighteenth century

Nevertheless, he says the following about what is indeed a very complex topic:

The attitudes of Cubans toward the United States, as I show throughout this study, were neither monolithic nor static. As a culture of exile and print developed in the antebellum period, some Cubans adopted expansionist positions, while others challenged the ascendancy of the United States and its slave-based economy. Thus, while the dominant strain in writings by Cuban exiles during the antebellum period is pro-United States, heterogeneous and contradictory discourses circulated as a result of the complex relationships and political alliances prompted by U.S. expansionism and Spanish colonialism.

Remembering my Mother

2007-10-24T20:57:00.001-04:00

I would like to remember my dear mother on this day, her birthday. She was a very very special person, as anyone who had known her could testify. No amount of words would be able to convey what she meant to me, so I will be brief, bordering on the prosaic.

If mom were still alive, she would be 83 years old. She left this world on this same month seven years ago, half a year after my father passed away (April, 2000). That dreadful year would not end before I lost two of my closest uncles as well (both of whom were her brothers).

As a tribute, I just want to reproduce a section of her entry in Profiles of Outstanding Virgin Islanders, where she is listed as a Pianist and Music Educator.

[Joyce Creque Mathews] graduated from Charlotte Amalie Highschool, St. Thomas [US Virgin Islands]. Her studies toward a musical career earned for her a Bachelor of Science degree in music (1950) from Polythecnic Institute (now Interamerican University, San German, Puerto Rico), a Master of Arts degree in music from Columbia University, Teacher's College, New York City (1956), and a diploma in piano from the Conservatory of Music, San Juan, Puerto Rico (1965).

Her professional career began in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, where she was appointed music teacher (1950 - 1954) at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Highschool. However, from 1954 to 1960, she served as music supervisor for the district of Mayagüez. Regional recognition of her expertise was demonstrated in 1961 when she was chosen as zone supervisor of music for San Juan and in 1964 she was promoted to General Music Supervisor for San Juan... (Profiles of Outstanding Virgin Islanders, Vol. II, researched and written by Ruth Moolenaar, Coordinator, Project Introspection, Dept. of Education, Funded by the Virgin Islands Commission on Youth, 1986)

Three years prior to my graduation from highschool, she reluctantly took the Directorship of the Music Program for the entire island of Puerto Rico, a position she held until retirement. The only anecdote I wish to offer is the following: My mother once told me that she was being groomed to become a concert pianist (Grandfather Cyril Creque, also a pianist and organist of highest rank, had obliged all siblings to learn an instrument - my mother, being the first born, was given particular instruction in this respect). Since the profession demands extraordinary dedication, a life-long commitment and time, she said that she had to decide between pursuing such a career or starting a family. She opted for the latter, for which I am eternally grateful, of course. Sometimes, though, when I hear her playing (links below), I wonder if she made the wrong choice. God Bless Her.

Brahms Rhapsody in G minor

Beethoven First Movement of Moonlight Serenade

Bach We Praise Thee Oh God

A Visit to Bahia

2007-06-11T15:41:00.001-04:00

Mater center of the nationality, Bahia is the most emblematic of all Brazilian states. Starting point of history. It transformed itself in an eternal transmutation, in a constant mutation point, copious font of traditions and of cultural renovation. Its land was sprinkled with the blood of the warriors for independence, which were glorified by Castro Alves, the most popular of all our poets. It is in Bahia where the Brazilian baroque has its highest expression serving of inspiration to the music of Caymmi, João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso y Gilberto Gil. Every day is a commemoration day. Censo Cultural de Bahia, Secretaria da Cultura e Secretaria do Turismo

I returned recently from a work related trip to Brasil, the main purpose of which was to participate in the the 32nd Annual Congress of the Caribbean Studies Association. Although I had been a regular participant from 1984 to 1998 (except for the years I was away doing my dissertation), I was renewing my ties to the association after a 9 year hiatus. The highlight of my visit, though, was the opportunity to see more of a northeastern Brasilian state that I have come to love since my first visit to the region several years ago. As a student of the Caribbean, it is only natural (if you accept as a defining element of Caribbean identity a common historical legacy of plantation slavery and its inseparable opposite: marronage) to be drawn to the Northeast of Brasil; a deciding factor as well in the odd choice of Salvador for the celebration of a “Caribbean” conference.

My first trip to Salvador da Bahia, in July of 2002, benefited enormously from the help of João José Reis*, Professor of History at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador. His name had been suggested to me by researchers Richard and Sally Price and he turned out to be of incalculable help with everything from finding reasonable places to stay to successfully identifying points of interest for my visit (which included a trip to the city of Recife and its adjacent town of Olinda in Pernambuco). As an added bonus, it was through the distinguished historian of Bahia that I came to learn about the famous Muslim slave uprising.

Being the son of a historian, I was naturally drawn to places of historical interest. From Olinda, I went to Ilha de Itamaraca where I visited (of course) Fort Oranje. While the expulsion of the Dutch is celebrated in Brasil, it signified the spreading of the slave-based plantation economy to the Eastern Caribbean. According to Cornelis Ch. Goslinga:

During the years of the [Dutch West India] company's decline, great changes had occured in the Caribbean area. Sugarcane, which had been introduced in the West Indies by Columbus a century and a half earlier, was under cultivation on most of the islands prior to 1650. The English and the French, however, had not known how to convert the cane into sugar, molasses and rum. Dutch refugees from Brazil, who poured into the area after 1654, brought with them the techniques of sugar cultivation and manufacture. Furthermore, Dutch capital helped the French and English planters purchase the necessary equipment on a credit basis. Dutch control of the slave markets in Africa secured the necessary labor. Dutch ships bought up the sugar crops and provided the colonies with food, hardware and other needed commodities throughout that period of English civil strife when the London government could do little to help them. The Dutch did the same with the French. (pages 333-334 of The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast, 1580-1680)

For another (lesser) consequence for the Caribbean of the expulsion of the Dutch from Pernambuco, see this.

Hence, my first trip covered a lot of ground, thanks in no small measure to the guidance from João as well as my own informed curiosity. The Northeast of Brasil is so rich in culture and history, however, that a handful of trips, however well advised and planned, can only scratch the surface. On my second trip, I wanted to explore more of the Recôncavo, the fertile agricultural region embracing All Saints Bay, that is also home to some of Brasil's richest and most cherished cultural traditions, including a wide array of afro-Bahian expressions.

I had to await this second opportunity to fulfill my wish to visit some of the smaller towns of the Recôncavo. One of these was the town of Cachoeira, birthplace of the abolitionist poet Antônio de Castro Alves, and location of the Sisterhood of the Good Death, a Black lay sodality that had drawn my interest during my first trip.

As the Sisterhood's own website states:

The history of the Irmandade da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of the Good Death), a religious confraternity devoted to the Assumption of the Virgin, is part of the history of mass importation of blacks from the African coast to the cane-growing Recôncavo region of Bahia. Iberian adventurers built beautiful towns in this area, one of them being Cachoeira, which was the second most important economic center in Bahia for three centuries. In a patriarchal society marked by racial and ethnic differences, the confraternity is made up exclusively of black women, which gives this Afro-Catholic manifestation - as some consider it - a certain fame. It is known both as an expression of Brazilian baroque Catholicism, with its distinctive street processions, and for its tendency to include in religious festivals profane rituals punctuated by a lot of samba and banqueting.

Thus, I joined two other CSA conference participants on a one-day tour with an exceptional guide through portions of the Recôncavo on the way to the twin towns of Cachoeira and Sao Felix. On the way to the Sisterhood, we made several stops which enriched my experience even more than I had expected. The first was to a bountiful outdoor market at Santo Amaro, birthplace of Caetano Veloso and his sister Maria Bethânia.

Santo Amaro’s colonial legacy is directly tied to the world of the sugar plantation. Although the latter has since been supplanted by the paper industry, mansions of the sugar barons can still be seen along with several churches. The town’s largest church, the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Purificação is located in the town square (see photo, above). A few steps from where I took that photo, is a plaque commemorating the poet Caetano Veloso (right: click to enlarge). The plaque reads Ao poeta Caetano Veloso O reconhecimento do povo de sua terra neste meio seculo de poesia Santo Amaro 2(?) de Agosto de 1992.

Our next stop was at a small rural community of (formerly) landless workers that belonged to the Movimento dos Trabalhadore Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Brasil's famed Movement of Landless Rural Workers. This was an added bonus since it was not scheduled on the formal tour. Nevertheless, our wonderful tour guide, who was clearly sympathetic to the MST, asked us if we would like to stop briefly to see and meet members the community, to which all three of us enthusiastically agreed. As expressed in their web-site, the MST clearly situates their movement in the country’s rich history of resistance groups, dating all the way back to the Quilombos (another key tradition that Brasil shares with the Caribbean):

Para falar sobre a trajetória do MST é preciso falar da história da concentração fundiária que marca o Brasil desde 1500. Por conta disso, aconteceram diversas formas de resistência como os Quilombos, Canudos, as Ligas Camponesas, as lutas de Trombas e Formoso, a Guerrilha do Araguaia, entre muitas outras.

In stressing the legitimacy of their cause, the cooperative workers highlight the fact that the land they rescued was idle or “unproductive” land held for the most part by the country’s financial sector. Their cause is furthermore backed by Article 186 of the Brazilian Constitution and has the support of the Lula government. While I was impressed with the activity I witnessed in the cooperative, which included the processing of cacao (chocolate) and other agricultural goods for commercial purposes, I couldn't help but wonder what these people could accomplish with a relatively small infusion of cheap capital. Clearly there was pride and motivation in their endeavors. See this for additional information about the situation of landless rural workers in Brasil.

Our next stop was at the mangrove and artesanal fishing village of Acupe which, if I recall correctly, was also linked to the MST. We were lucky enough to arrive at precisely the time the fishing boats were returning with the day’s catch to distribute at the cooperative. If you look carefully behind the beached vessel in the photo, you can make out the distribution of the fish from the canoes to awaiting consumers. On the way out of the town we searched out for inconspicuous candomble terreiros hidden among the town dwellings.

The Recôncavo in general and Cachoeira, in particular, have a high concentration of candomble terreiros, reflecting the rich African heritage of the region. Sufficient publicity is offered by the various tourist agencies bent on promoting excursions (including visits to terreiros to “witness” religious ceremonies), so there is no need for me to go into that here. For the city of Salvador, there are good resources like Bahia Online, which provide background for the itinerant visitor. Publicity is also evidenced in overseas media like the New York Times. The Sisterhood of the Good Death even has an English language Wikipedia entry.

Cachoeira is situated beside the Rio Paraguaçu below a series of hills. The river divides Cachoeira from its sister town, São Félix (above). While sugar cane has been the principle crop associated with the Recôncavo, Cachoeira is at the center of the country’s best tobacco-growing region; other main crops include cashews and oranges. When we reached Cachoeira, it was getting late, so we visited the Sisterhood and took a whirlwind tour of the town before returning to Salvador.

I would like to conclude by drawing attention to the renown soprano Inaicyra Falcão dos Santos, whose fascinating CD of traditional Yoruban songs set to orchestral arrangments, OKAN AWA, I purchased on my first visit to Bahia. It can be sampled and ordered here. According to that source:

Inaicyra is daughter of noted Mestre Didi Axipá (Deoscóredes Maximiliano dos Santos), a candomblé priest (of the Egungun on the island of Itaparica) who in his writings and art explored Nagô traditions in Bahia. She is also a great-great-granddaughter of Marcelina da Silva -- Obá Tossi -- captured in the Oyá region of Africa and brought to Bahia where she would eventually become a founder and high-priestess of house of candomblé Casa Branca.

*João José Reis is the author of a number of works on African slavery, Africans and people of African descent in Brasil, including the books Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia and Death Is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil; He is also winner of the 1996 Clarence H. Haring Prize, American Historical Association; the 1992 Jabuti Prize for Nonfiction, Brazilian Book Council; and was chosen as a 2004 Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

Remembering Earl Neal Creque

2007-04-13T09:35:00.000-04:00

The final months of the year 2000 were devastating for the West Indian side my family. In October I lost my mother while in December I lost the last two of my uncles on my mother’s side of the family: Marvin and Neal. Uncle Neal passed away around December 1 and it is him I want to remember on this day.

My uncle was born Earl Neal Creque on April 13, 1940, in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, the last of eight children born to my grandfather (Cyril Creque) and grandmother (Leonie Sewer). He began taking piano lessons at age five and from around nine to sixteen years of age he studied classical piano with Edris Stakemann. Since there are biographical sketches of Neal that can be accessed on-line, I will not reproduce here what is already available. I just want to add that my Uncle Neal was a prolific composer, having composed over 3,000 compositions (not all of them Jazz), and a teacher, having been on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Cleveland State University. Although he didn’t leave an extensive legacy of commercial recordings, his compositions have been widely appreciated (and recorded) by top-caliber musicians that knew him, from Mongo Santamaria to Ramsey Lewis and Carmen McRae, among many others.

I am sincere when I say that Uncle Neal is my favorite musician. I would say so even if he were no relative of mine. The fact that he was related to me was a source of immense pride and joy beyond description. I cherish the tapes and videos he diligently sent us over the years and preserve the copies of the classical pieces he composed late in his career, copies of which he had sent my mother. As a tribute, here is Uncle Neal and Howie Smith playing Neal’s composition “Slightly Monkish”. I have a particular love for this piece because, aside from being a tribute to the all-time great Jazz icon (and favorite of mine!) Thelonius Monk, it has the calypso feel of our West Indian heritage in the Virgin Islands.

120th Anniversary of the birth of Heitor Villa-Lobos

2007-03-05T08:50:00.000-04:00

INTRODUCTION
The great classics in music are almost exclusively associated with European culture. This holds true for the traditional pillars of classical music such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. as well as the less heralded innovators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Debussy, Schonberg, Berg and Webern. Even in the cases where this generalization does not hold, such as those of recognized classical composers from the United States and Latin America, the European influence is still pervasive.

When questioned in the mid-twentieth century by a fellow musician on the existence or not of an indigenous music of universal significance in the Americas, renowned American composer Aaron Copland was hardpressed for an answer.(1) He indicated three important preconditions that must exist for this to occur:

"First, the composer must be part of a nation that has a profile of its own--that is the most important; second, the composer must have in his background some sense of musical culture and, if possible, a basis in folk or popular art; and third, a superstructure of organized musical activities must exist--that is, to some extent, at least--at the services of the native composer."(2)

It is notable that in his search for "...qualities of the specifically Western imagination...", Copland names Heitor Villa-Lobos as one of only two composers who in his opinion possess "...a certain richness and floridity of invention that has no exact counterpart in Europe."(3) The uniqueness of Villa-Lobos' music is widely recognized by classical music authorities throughout the world.

I would add that Brasilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos is possibly one of the few members of that elite corps of classical composers to incorporate African (or what would probably be called today “Third World” or "World") music into his creations. Although still influenced by the European tradition, Villa-Lobos nevertheless based his art on the rich diversity of his native multi-ethnic country which includes Amerindians, several European nationalities, African descendents and various mixtures. Therein resides his originality.

Villa-Lobos approached his art in much the same manner as an academic researcher would approach the subject to be investigated. Furthermore he was an educator as well as a composer. My personal interest in his music is hard to explain, but nevertheless it led me to learn part of one of his more difficult pieces for the piano and to track down and acquire the sheetmusic for some of his lesser known but fascinating and underrated collections for piano that could only be acquired in Brasil. [More on that at the end of this brief exposition]

A prolific composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos is often credited with producing more than a thousand compositions. The extent of his output - including arrangements and compositions - varies according to the source, since a significant portion of it was reportedly lost. One source places his output at more than 3,000 works, while possibly over two thousand of these may have been lost.

"From 1899, the date of his first composition, Villa-Lobos composed in his words 'by biological necessity' until very shortly before his death in 1959. Even on social occasions such as lucheon engagements, parties and meetings with friends, Villa-Lobos frequently had manuscript paper and continued writing while simultaneously engaged in animated conversation."(5)

BACKGROUND: THE COMPOSER'S EARLY YEARS
Heitor Villa-Lobos was born on March 5, 1887 in the Laranjeiras (or Orange Grove) section of Río de Janeiro. His birth occured close to an historical turning point in the development of Brasil as a nation. The first two years of his childhood years saw the overthrow of the monarchy or "Second Empire" under Emperor Dom Pedro II. This was the direct consequence of the abolition of slavery, a necessary precondition for Brasil to truly become a modern nation. (Historical Aside: Dom Pedro II had a most interesting relation with the United States).

It was the daughter of Dom Pedro, Princess Isabel, who on May 13, 1888 signed the so-called Golden Law which abolished slavery without compensation for owners. Following the overthrow of the emperor by the army, an American styled Federation was proclaimed on November 15, 1889. It may therefore be said that the birth of Heitor Villa-Lobos coincided with the birth of Brasil as a modern nation.

Although little is known of Villa-Lobos' childhood, his parents were linked with the world of music but in different ways. His mother, Noemi Umbelina Monteiro, was daughter of a Brasilian composer named Santos Monteiro.(6) Although she would have preferred a different career for young Heitor, his father Raul - who was an intellectual and employee of the National Library of Río de Janeiro - is credited with having introduced the boy to music. Born in 1862 of Spanish parents, Raul Villa-Lobos was an amateur musician, and writer of around thirty books including mathematics compendiums. He was a founder of the first symphonic club of the city (the Symphonic Concerts Society of Rio de Janeiro) and often invited musicians over to the home for small chamber music concerts.(7) He exerted a considerable, albeit shortlived ( Raul Villa-Lobos died in 1899, thus forcing his wife Noemi to seek outside work in order to support the family.), influence over Villa-Lobos, having taught him the rudiments of the cello, which would become the composer's chief instrument.

According to Heitor Villa-Lobos own testimony, he was five years of age when he began learning the cello with his father. At six, his father would take him to practice sessions and small "concerts" in order to initiate him into group playing. At seven years, he learned the clarinet and by 9 years of age he was playing duets with his father on the cello as well as on clarinet.(8) He also achieved mastery of the guitar.

Concert life was quite strong in the cities of Río de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. During the second half of the nineteenth century, several concert organizations emerged in both cities, while in Río de Janeiro, visiting European singers performed at the Teatro Fluminense.

"In Río de Janeiro, the first to appear was the Sociedade Filarmonica (founded in 1834), followed by the Clube Mozart (1867), the Clube Beethoven (1882) and the Sociedade de Concertos Clássicos (1883). ... Sao Paulo was no less active. There was the Clube Haydn (1883) and the Clube Mendelssohn came into being."(9)

Heitor mixed early on with composers and poets from the world of popular Brasilian music and, following his father's early and untimely death, was obliged to play the cello in cafes, bars and cinemas to supplement his mother's meager income. During this time, his aunt Maria Carolina - who was a pianist - introduced him to Bach through works such as those contained in the Well Tempered Clavier.(10) This constituted one of the most important stages of Villa-Lobos' early musical education.

THE BRASILIAN ESSENCE OF HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS' COMPOSITIONS
During his adolescense, Villa-Lobos had a strong desire to travel throughout Brasil. However, he was known to adorn his travel experiences to make them more interesting. He related to people a series of fantastic voyages he supposedly undertook throughout Brasil around the period from 1905 to 1911, many of which have been called into question by authors. According to author Lisa Peppercorn, he spoke to her of:

"...his voyages up and down the tributaries of the great Amazon River, including the Río Negro, Río Tocantins, Río Araguaia, Río das Mortes, Río Tabajós and Sao Francisco accompanied by just one friend and in a small home-made boat. It seems most unlikely that even a courageous young man, such as Villa-Lobos undoubtedly was, undertook all these adventurous trips in those days.”(11)

It is certain that his initial excursion to Northern Brasil took him to the states of Espirito Santo, Bahia and Pernambuco, where he reportedly stayed at the cities of Salvador and Recife.(12) It is on these trips, according to some sources, that the young Villa-Lobos reportedly derived his inspiration and material for his compositions after experiencing the rich folklore and tradition of unfamiliar regions of his native Brasil. According to Villa-Lobos Bio-Bibliographer David Appleby, following sporadic attendance as a student at the National Institute of Music, Heitor Villa-Lobos decided that the:

"...formal classes at the institute were far less interesting than the folk and popular music he had heard during his travels, [therefore] he resumed his journeys. The most fascinating music he heard was in northeastern Brazil where types of folk music almost totally unknown in the capital captivated his attention. Much of the music heard during these trips provided a basis for later musical works."(13)

Author Lisa Peppercorn apparently takes issue with versions such as this. In her book The World of Villa-Lobos in Pictures and Documents, she states it is a mis-conception to believe that:

"...Villa-Lobos - in order to give his music a Brazilian flavour - roamed through virgin forests in the Amazon region, mingled with natives, collected folk materials in the interior of Brazil, and used it all in his music. He did not collect one single melody and therefore no such tunes are used in his compositions."(14)

She insists that the composer went about giving his music a Brazilian flavor in a very intellectual manner, as would a researcher in any field. He consulted archives, documents, records and chronicles that were abundant and easily available at the time for anyone interested.

In a 1944 interview with New York Times Music Critic Olin Downes, Villa-Lobos' declarations seem to lend credence to Peppercorn's view. In answer to the question regarding if he used Brazilian folk tunes as such in his music, he replied:

"I compose in the folk style, I use thematic idioms in my own way, and subject to my own development. An artist must do this. He must select and transmit the material given him by his people. To make a potpourri of folk melody, and think that in this way music has been created is hopeless. But it is only nature and humanity that can lead an artist to the truth. ... I study the history, the country, the speech, the customs, the background of the people. I have always done this, and it is from these sources, spiritual as well as practical, that I have drawn my art."(15)

Among the many sources Villa-Lobos consulted were French translations of Brasilian legends, some of which were published in 1930 by Gustavo Dodt Barroso. He also consulted a seminal book by German Hans Staden which reportedly contained rich early documentary material. An account of a visit in 1557 to Brasil by French Calvinist pastor Jean de Lery entitled Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil autrement dite Amérique was also studied by Villa-Lobos. A subsequent edition of de Lery's work, which presented five melodies of the Tupinambá Indians, provided material for Villa-Lobos' 1926 composition "Tres Poemas Indígenas" (Three Native Poems).

This is not to say that Villa-Lobos did not travel and come into contact will the rich human diversity which makes up Brasil. According to one source, he even made it as far as the Caribbean, visiting the island of Barbados in 1910.(16) Although there is some disagreement about his travels, he was known to have travelled to the city of Manaus in the Amazon, and Bahía in the Northeast - giving concerts in both places - as well as Curitiba in the South. His travels allowed him to become acquainted with different regions of Brasil, including the inhabitants, their customs and habits. However, authors coincide in that it was Bahía that captivated the young composer with its "candomble" and other Brasilian dances. It bears mentioning that this region has a strong African influence and was witness to an uprising of Muslim slaves in 1835.

A turning point in the life of Heitor Villa-Lobos occured in the year 1913 when he married pianist and teacher Lucilia Guimaraes (pdf) in Río de Janeiro after returning from his travels. The marriage brought about a fruitful musical collaboration, as Lucilia became an interpreter of the composer's music. She also encourgaged him to study the European classics and to write music for the piano. He assimilated some of the Russian symphonic literature as well as that of the French Impressionists.

In subsequent years, he gave performances of his work in and around Río de Janeiro, garnering reviews from critics along the way. The critics gave him mixed though generally favorable reviews during this period and although he managed to gain exposure in Río de Janiero, he was little known outside the area. This began to change once he befriended Arthur Rubenstein after initially meeting him in 1918 (coincidentally, they were both born he same year). Rubenstein was impressed by the composer and used his influence in later years to obtain sponsorship for one of Villa-Lobos' trips to Paris. Villa-Lobos dedicated the incredibly difficult piano piece Rudepoeme to Rubenstein as well as Choros No. 11 for piano and orchestra.

An important opportunity for Villa-Lobos to gain exposure arose in Sao Paulo during a cultural event designated as the Week of Modern Art. From 11 to 18 February of 1922, artists and intellectuals converged on the city's municipal theatre for an opportunity to present their works. Although much controversy surrounds the purpose of the 'week', it is considered by many the beginning of Brasilian modernism.(17) The event, which was held on the centenary celebration of Brasil's independence, was the product of influential intellectual Mario Raúl Morais Andrade and significantly shaped the upcoming generation of artists and intellectuals. Heitor Villa-Lobos participation fit in well with the overall theme of 'the week'.

THREE PERIODS IN VILLA-LOBOS' COMPOSITIONAL DEVELOPMENT
In her doctoral dissertation on the composer, Rebecca Rust organizes Villa-Lobos' works into three periods: the early years, which extend from 1908 to 1920; the middle years, spanning from 1920 to 1944; and the later years from 1945 to his death in 1959.(18) She emphasizes that in the early and later periods, Villa-Lobos demonstrated an acceptance of more traditional forms as well as what the composer termed a "universal" or international style. It is in the middle years, however, that he is guided by innovative impulses and strives to separate himself from formal established or traditional structures. As should be recalled, toward the beginning of the middle years marks his participation in the trend-setting Week of Modern Art.

Although Villa-Lobos allowed himself to be influenced by the French Impressionists throughout his lifetime, in the early period, it was particularly notable in his "Suite Floral" (1916-1918), which consists of three movements for piano. One of the movements, entitled "Idilio na Rede", reflects an enduring Brasilian or wider Caribbean or tropical custom of relaxing in a hammock. During this early period Villa-Lobos eschewed formal training in favor of the popular idiom. He wrote short songs, compositions for the guitar (an instrument often synonymous with popular music) and piano, chamber music works and others. He played an improvisatory type of music, known as choros, with popular musicians. While describing "Choros" as a generic term for a piece of music played by a small group of musicians in the open air - somewhat like a serenade - and with specific types of instruments, author Lisa Peppercorn also quotes Renato Almeida's definition of "Choros" from his Historia da Musica Brasileira:

"Choro was something that had come to Brazil from the other side of the Atlantic...from the African coast where the Kaffir tribes practiced a sort of vocal concert with dance, called xolo... . The Brazilian Negroes called their balls which they staged on St. John's Day or the other holidays on the big country estates where they were employed xolos which through some confusion with a Portuguese paronym turned into xoro. When this xoro moved into urban regions, it became choro."(Renato Almeida: Historia da Musica Brasileira, 2nd edition, Río de Janeiro, 1942)(19)

While Villa-Lobos gave many of his works the title of "Choros", this did not imply any specific type of popular dance form or composition. According to Peppercorn: "For Villa-Lobos, Choros was simply a name he gave to assorted series of compositions each of which could just as well be called symphony, trio, duo, etc."(20)

There appears to be a general consensus around the composer's middle period (1920-1944) as that in which he produced his most creative, innovative and certainly most enduring work. During this period, his style matured and he ended up securing his place in Western classical music history. During this period he produced his series of "Choros" and the "Bachianas Brasileiras"; he made two trips to Paris (in 1923 and 1927) where he presented new compositions such as his "Nonetto" (described as "one of the most important chamber music works..."[21] written by the composer). On his second trip he presented his "Choros" series along with other recent works to an enthusiastic public. With his increasing popularity he received invitations to present concerts in various European cities. According to Roberta Rust, "The cumulative musical result of the middle period was a magnificent fusion of essentially Brazilian nationalism with the European avant-garde techniques of the 1920's."(22)

An important aspect of Villa-Lobos legacy that remains to be mentioned and is also associated with the "middle period" is his interest and contibution to musical education in Brasil. After returning from his second trip to Paris, his career underwent a significant transformation that coincided (or was possibly a consequence of) the coming to power of dictator Getúlio Vargas on November 3, 1930.

VILLA-LOBOS' THE MUSIC EDUCATOR
Villa-Lobos was troubled by the low level of music appreciation among the public and the poor state of musical instruction in the public schools of Brasil.(23) On the one hand, he devised a program to bring good music, including his own, to the towns in the state of Sao Paulo through a series musical tours. On occasion during a tour Villa-Lobos would provoke the ire of crowds by criticising the way people listened to music as well as their preference for the very popular sport of soccer, which he said "deviated human intelligence from the head to the feet".(24)

He also attempted to stimulate the public's interest and appreciation of music by conducting massive choirs or canto orfeônico concerts. His aim was also to win over the authorities in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to his idea of introducing mandatory choral intruction in the public schools. The government of Gertulio Vargas, which was intent on instilling patriotism in Brasilian youth, was persuaded by Villa-Lobos suggestion that this could be easier achieved through musical instruction.

The support of key authorities such as Anisio Spinola Teixeira (soon to become director of the Department of Education in Rio de Janeiro), combined with the nationalist tendencies of the new Vargas regime, resulted in the establishment of the Superintendency of Music and Artistic Education (SEMA in Portuguese) under the Department of Education in April of 1931. Villa-Lobos was named director of SEMA, and choral singing became mandatory in municipal schools. He managed to stage un-precedented massive public choral presentations of 30,000 and 40,000 voices a capella in Vasco da Gama stadium in Río de Janeiro. Regarding these, author David Appleby says:

"The public demonstrations in the 1930's by enormous choral groups were feats never before or since duplicated in Brazil or elsewhere. The sheer size of groups was unprecedented, and the organizational aspects were carefully planned and carried out with the help of musical assistants and the government... . ...A demonstration with thirty thousand participants and one thousand instrumentalists performing music with body gestures portraying the wind rushing through the trees in an Amazon forest, or the waves pounding a magnificent Brazilian beach was not an experience easily forgotten by any performer or listener."(25)

(Note: At least one of these massive choral presentations was captured on video and is available to view at the Villa-Lobos museum in Río de Janeiro. Don't miss it if you are ever there on visit!)

Although the composer's new activities did not appear to provide him with the best of circumstances to produce major works, he nevertheless did complete his famous Brasilian Cycle or "Ciclo Brasileiro" for piano as well as several of the aforementioned "Bachianas Brasileiras". (Note: For those interested muisicians, you will find this wonderful piano music here.)

According to Alfred Heller, President of the Villa-Lobos Music Society, Inc., the composer in 1930 was also concerned that no one in northern Brasil listened to music by Bach, whom he considered the "universal fountain of folklore."(26) Hence, another of his educational projects was to bring Bach to the Northern region through the elaboration of nine suites which reportedly combined Brazilian folk music with the Baroque influence of Bach. These nine suites were entitled the "Bachianas Brasileiras" and include some of his most famous work.

CALIBAN'S POST SCRIPT
Why is an amateur “musician” (That's not true – more like a music lover with very little formal training) like myself interested in Heitor Villa-Lobos? I cannot answer that question beyond saying I just love his music. I surprised even myself by learning the entire Poema Singelo piece for solo piano. Villa-Lobos' mischievous humor is on display in the title, which translates roughly to a Simple Song. It is actually fiendishly difficult, so I only included my rendition of the first half, since I didn’t butcher that as badly as I did the second (much more difficult) half.

I have a particular fondness for Villa-Lobos' collection of sixteen piano pieces based on Brasilian folk-songs entitled Cirandas, which is Portuguese for circle dances. While the melodies are fairly simple, what Villa-Lobos does with them is nothing short of astounding. I was immediately captivated by them and avidly sought them out until I found them. The only editorial that had the copyright was Arthur Napoleao. The exclusive distributor was Fermata do Brasil, located on Av. Iripanga in Sao Paulo. (UPDATE: I have since discovered that the Cirandas are available outside of Brasil; they can be ordered at SheetMusicPlus)

The first opportunity I got to travel to Brasil, I made my way to the distributor with the intention of purchasing the collection. When I found the place, a fellow greeted me through a hole in the wall (literally!) and almost fell backwards when I asked him for the Cirandas Cycle. He noted my accent and asked how in the world did a foreigner ever hear of the works (much less of the location of the distributor). He spent the better part of the time I was there extolling the virtues of Villa-Lobos the composer and lamenting how Brasilians, in his view, no longer listened to nor sought out his works.

He expressed surprise that I had knowledge of the Cirandas Cycle, saying that the collection is hugely underappreciated, underrated and that people would come to realize that they constituted some of the composer's most innovative works for piano. In the hopes that I would make them better known outside of Brasil, he insisted on giving me the book free of charge. I couldn’t believe it since it had taken me several years to locate the book, only to discover that I couldn’t mail-order it. I was fortunate enough to make a trip to Brasil (one of several) as part of my job in the nineties. It was quite a find and I didn’t have the heart to tell the fellow that I wasn’t a professional musician (or a musician at all, for that matter).

The Cirandas are a wonderfully unique collection and constitute a prime example of Villa-Lobos’ use of folk material in his compositions. The piano style on some of them is quite un-orthodox (my mother was a pianist, so she was able attest to that for me). For those interested, Sonia Rubinsky does a beautiful rendition of the entire cycle on this CD. I have the lyrics for the original folk melodies in English and Portuguese and would love to make them public here if I was sure I wasn’t breaking some copyright law.

There is one piece from the Cirandas Cycle that I have managed to learn on the piano, but not well enough to venture putting it here. It is called A Procura de uma Agulha, which translates to Hunting for a Needle. It is not a metaphor for anything (although one might surmise that my search for the Cirandas Cycle sheet music was just that!). It is actually a simple and very poignant song about a peasant girl who is going door to door searching for a lost needle presumably so she can continue her craft in order to put food on the table. The lyrics roughly translate to:

Look at that girl!From how far away she comes!She is coming to our land.I have come here this way, this way,To hunt for a needle that here I lost.

(This article is cross-posted at the Daily Kos and at Progressive Historians)

FOOTNOTES
1.Aaron Copland, Music and Imagination: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1951-52, New York: The New American Library, 1952: 85.
2.Ibid.: 86.
3.Ibid.: 99; The other composer is Charles Ives from Connecticut.
4.David P. Appleby, Heitor Villa-Lobos: A Bio-Bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1988: preface.
5.Ibid.
6.Roberta Rust, "Piano Works of Heitor Villa-Lobos' Middle Period: A Study of Choros No. 5, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 and Ciclo Brasileiro", Doctoral Dissertation: University of Miami, May, 1991: 8.
7.Maria Celia Machado, Heitor Villa-Lobos: Tradicao e Renovacao na Musica Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alves Editora SA, 1987: 28.
8.Ibid.: 26.
9.Lisa M. Peppercorn, The World of Villa-Lobos: In Pictures and Documents, England: Scolar Press, 1996: 21.
10.Roberta Rust, May 1991: 9. (there is some disagreement over this, as Maria Celia Machado, 1987: 28, indicates it was his aunt Fifina instead).
11.Peppercorn, 1996: 47.
12.Roberta Rust, May 1991: 9.
13.Appleby, 1988: 5.
14.Peppercorn, 1996: 96.
15.Olin Downes, "Heitor Villa-Lobos: Visiting Brazilian Composer Discusses Sources of Nationalism in Art", The New York Times, December 17, 1944.
16.Roberta Rust, May 1991: 10.
17.Maria Celia Machado, 1987: 21.
18.Roberta Rust, "Piano Works of Heitor Villa-Lobos' Middle Period: A Study of Choros No. 5, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 and Ciclo Brasileiro", Doctoral Dissertation: University of Miami, May, 1991: 19.
19.Quoted in: Peppercorn, 1996: 318.
20.Peppercorn, 1996: 132.
21.Appleby, 1988: 5.
22.Roberta Rust, 1991: 25.
23.Maria Celia Machado, 1987: 38.
24.Maria Celia Machado, 1987: 37.
25.Appleby, 1988: 7.
26.Alfred Heller, "The 'One-World Style' of Heitor Villa-Lobos", Guitar Review No. 78, 1819, Summer, 1989.

2006-12-22T07:56:00.000-04:00

Art Tatum- Humouresque

Here's to a Happy Holiday

Remembering Calvin C. Hernton

2006-09-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

I feel compelled to pay tribute, however brief and modest, to someone who I consider an icon of Black American literature but who also influenced me personally in my thinking and in my general outlook on life. I first met poet and author Calvin C. Hernton as a student working through my studies as an undergraduate at Oberlin College in the late seventies and early eighties. Aside from being a fascinating professor, one of the few that actually tried to make us think, I will always be grateful to him for helping lessen the “shock” I experienced from the racial "dynamics" that I witnessed in US society. Being born and raised in Puerto Rico, I had little to no experience or wherewithall to deal with the overt racism that I encountered in what was my first experience actually living on my own for an extended period of time in the US. It can be bewildering, not to say daunting, to someone in the early stages of his adult life.

We became friends and crossed paths on several occasions over the years. I invited him and his companion Mary Gilfus to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands where he was struck by the casual touristic approach to such historic symbols of black servitude and oppression as the plantation ruins and sugar mill remnants that scatter the Virgin Islands to this day. Much later I was able to visit with Calvin in London during my years as a doctoral student in southern England. He was always lucid and full of provocative ideas and analyses of contemporary events. I enjoyed taking time off from my studies to visit and converse with him. I came to look upon him as a sort of sage or Medicine Man, as I am sure he would have become had he been brought up and lived all his life on the African continent.

Although not a household name like James Baldwin or Alice Walker, I hold Calvin in equal stature with the great Black American writers. One thing that stands out in my memory of Calvin was his unwavering and principled stand against sexism, especially that “within the race”, as he would say. Although he is perhaps best known for his best selling book “Sex and Racism in America”, I would like to excerpt a few lines from his lesser known book “The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers.” The latter book, he said, “fulfills the burning need for a black male writer to speak out against the red bricks of slander and bigotry that are hurled at black women and the literature they produce.” The excerpt reads as follows:

Because much of the writing of contemporary black women is critical of black men, both in the literary sphere and in real life, the men find it unpalatable. But black writing owes its very nature to the oppressive conditions under which blacks were and are subjected in America. The function therefore of black literature has always been, as Langston Hughes so declared, to illuminate and elevate the condition of black people. It is altogether consistent with the heritage of black writing that black women write about the meanness they have experienced and still experience at the hands of black men as well as white men. It is inescapable that women writers seek to illuminate and elevate the condition of black women, their whole condition. How is one to participate meaningfully in the struggle between the races if one is the victim of subjugation within the race?

...also, a pair of poems:

TERRORIST
(for the four Negro children murdered in Birmingham while praying to God)

Like his strickened face
Stroke of midnight.
Torn by crack of thunder
Or dissonance of vowel,
The deed, like agonized tooth
Fell from his mouth

And exploded.

In a dark room in a crumbling
Heart, the deed conceived its victims:
Ninety-one nails in the breast of Christ;
The deed made terror ripped open

Flesh and bone. No one knew,
Not even he himself, eight fragile bones
Would never walk from that debris.
I am the door. Hammer me down

Ninety-one and Four!
They were like chrysanthemums,
Tender flesh cracked by thunder –
Unknown to his grotesque face.

A revolution must draw blood.

In the manacled chamber of our egos
What we do not know about death
Comes alive; and though love agonized
There, when terror expires our frail hearts

Hate is a bitter madness.

For the four who died, without tears,
outside of cognition – their end
Is everlasting;
Their beginning is eternity.

To die young, before the rodent of exchange
Imperils the flesh, when you are innocent
And immaculate to the paranoid itch,
Is lambs blood
Is bread trans-substantiated
To galaxy.

If I were loin from whose pain
The ecstacy of these four little girls
Leaped, I would wail and weep,

Seek revenge; fly, with shotgun,
Through the streets.
Yet I know

When all this raving tortured love
And flagellating hatred
Is reckoned up to stars,
Those four will illuminate
The dark more than a billion heavens.

I wish I had died as they!
Before thunder in your face is
Done, you will too; there shall be
No shaking hands later on
And forgetting; blood will heave

In your chattered streets,
Birmingham!

And God, the tornado
Shall rave down on you like an angered
Black fist, merciless

And violent!
Unto the blazing sun.
[Copyright © 1976 by Calvin C. Hernton]

THE DISTANT DRUM

I am not a metaphor or symbol.
This you hear is not the wind in the trees.
Nor a cat being maimed in the street.
I am being maimed in the street
It is I who weep, laugh, feel pain or joy.
Speak this because I exist.
This is my voice
These words are my words, my mouth
Speaks them, my hand writes.
I am a poet.
It is my fist you hear beating
Against your ear.
[Copyright © 1976 by Calvin C. Hernton]

Calvin Hernton passed away sometime between September 30 and October 1st, 2001. He is sorely missed.

Fidel Castro is revered by many

2006-08-26T14:16:00.000-04:00

Here is a Pan-Africanist perspective on Cuban Leader Fidel Castro by Dr. Malik Sekou, a colleague and now Chair of the Humanities/Social Sciences Division of the University of the Virgin Islands, where I had the pleasure of teaching for two years. The article appeared in the August 23, 2006 edition of the Virgin Islands' Daily News.

We must be careful about our sources of information especially when it comes to Cuban politics. If you read the "mainstream" U.S. media you will only find Castrophobia, anti-Communist hysteria, and the same old drivel about Cuba's human rights violations.

Speaking from the Pan-Africanist side of the political spectrum in the Virgin Islands, Cuban President Fidel Castro's recent illness is a reminder of the mortality of revolutionaries but immortality of revolutionary ideas. We on the left wish Fidel a speedy recovery, but we are well aware that as he passed the 80-year milestone on Aug. 13, his physical presence has reached the golden stage.

I was impressed to read that priests from the African-Cuban religion invoked African gods to aid the recovery of Fidel. According to Granma, the Cuban newspaper, a priest, Victor Betancourt, insisted that: "We have to fight for health. We want to do a tambor (ritual) on the beach to OlokÃºn (the divinity of the depths) with an animal sacrifice." The article went on to state that the Yoruba Association of Cuba prayed to the pantheon of orishas or divinities for the leader's health. "As religious believers, our position is to follow the plans of the gods, which are to understand and support the decisions taken by our maximum leader." Ase.

I know that well-wishers from every faith tradition - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Ifa, and other African spiritual systems -sent warm birthday greetings and get-well messages. Fidel is highly respected and held in high esteem throughout the developing world, especially among African people.

Among Pan-Africanists, Fidel is within the same rank of Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Modibo Keita, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba and Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe. By the way, it is reported that he has a "lick of the tar brush," African blood runs through his veins just as most Cubans -Â even the "white" ones. Even more, his politics is the combination of many influences but two stand out - Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo. Maceo, the indomitable African-Cuban general of Cuba's two independence wars, is an ideological ancestor of Fidel.

But why do Pan-Africanists, black conscious groups, and African nationalists revere Fidel? Why do we tolerate domestic U.S. repression in order to support the Cuban people? Even more, some may ask why should Virgin Islanders embrace Cuba when its normalization of relations with the U.S. government may negatively impact our tourism?

Cuba is a part of the larger African world community and it is very much a Latin-African Caribbean society. During the early decades of the 20th century, hundreds of Virgin Islanders immigrated to Cuba in search of gainful employment. In fact, many Caribbean islanders have had close family ties to Cuban society for over a century. But more importantly, Cuba's Caribbean and African foreign policies have been honorable.

For four decades, Cuba supported just about every anti-colonial movement in Africa. In fact, guerrilla movements ranging from the MPLA, Angola, PAIGC, Guinea-Bissau and SWAPO, Namibia were aided in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism and in Southern Africa, white supremacy. The Cuban involvement in the decisive battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola was responsible for the retreat of South African occupation of Namibia, intervention in Angola, and eventual dismantling of apartheid in South Africa/Azania.

Closer to home Cuba has given thousands of scholarships to students within the Caribbean Basin. In fact, a standing offer to educate U.S. students in Cuba's medical schools still exists. Yes, Virgin Islanders can go to Cuba for medical school for free!

Cuba is not a threat to the United States or its territories. The Cuban Communist Party has already made a leadership succession and it includes hundreds of thousands of fervently nationalistic Cubans whose ancestry, color and faith reflect the masses. Even when Fidel leaves, his ideas will last forever within the Cuban Communist Party and Cuban People.

Dr. Malik Sekou is an associate professor of political science-history and Chairman of the Humanities-Social Sciences Division at the University of the Virgin Islands. He lives on St. Thomas.

The photo of Fidel Castro standing next to Lázaro Cárdenas (in coat and tie) was taken by my father, Dr. Thomas G. Mathews while the Cuban leader was reviewing a parade as part of the country's first July 26 celebrations following the overthrow of the Batista regime.

A Caribbean Perspective on Freedom and Independence…

2006-07-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

The history of social revolution in the Western Hemisphere starts not with Lexington and Bunker Hill in British North America in 1775 but less auspiciously in the French tropical colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean. The North-American and Latin American Wars of Independence were political events, almost devoid of significant restructuring of the social classes. Although intrinsically connected with the events in metropolitan France as well as the United States, the HAITIAN REVOLUTION sought not merely political independence for the state but also the personal freedom of the more than 80 percent of the inhabitants that were slaves. To accomplish this goal, the revolution had to be, as its metropolitan correspondent, both radical and destructive. The Haitians were forced to destroy the entire colonial socioeconomic structure that was the raison d'être for their imperial importance; and in destroying the institution of slavery, they unwittingly agreed to terminate their connection to the entire international superstructure that perpetuated slavery and the plantation economy. That was an incalculable price for freedom and independence.

The implications for the entire Caribbean – and slaveholding societies everywhere – were astonishing. From Boston to Buenos Aires, slave owners trembled at the consequences for themselves and their world. Haiti, the second independent state in the Western Hemisphere was politically quarantined, maligned by many, assisted by few. France, understandably, grudgingly granted diplomatic recognition in stages between 1825 and 1837. Only after sixty years did the United States of America offer diplomatic ties. Haiti remained poor in material terms, but its people remained strong, free, and fiercely indepenedent.

excerpted from The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism by Franklin W. Knight

Remembering Eric Dolphy

2006-06-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

Fall Down
(in memory of Eric Dolphy)

All men are locked in their cells.
Though we quake
In fist of body
Keys rattle, set us free.

I remember and wonder why?
In fall, in summer; times
Will be no more. Journeys
End.
I remember and wonder why?

In the sacred labor of lung
Spine and groin,
You cease, fly away

To what? To autumn, to
Winter, to brown leaves, to
Wind where no lark sings; yet
Through domination of air, jaw and fire

I remember!

Eric Dolphy, you swung
A beautiful axe. You lived a clean
Life.
You were young --
You died.
Copyright © Calvin C. Hernton.

Eric Allan Dolphy died on June 29, 1964.

The US return to multi-lateralism

2006-06-12T19:32:00.000-04:00

The economic realm is inextricably linked to the political realm and so it should be. While I argued in a previous post that the US public appears to be trending inwards after facing a series of unfavorable experiences brought on by its leadership on the global stage (not least of which is the emergence, arguably, of an Iraq syndrome), I want to step back and complement that observation with what is undeniably a new outlook in the halls of power within the US. In short, it is a return to multilateralism which represents a profound reversal in the outlook of this particular US administration (of George W. Bush).

We have seen how the Bush administration initially pursued a unilateralist approach, annointed with hubris, in world affairs which has gotten it nowhere and has actually reversed the country's fortunes (the Iraq incursion is the primary glaring example of this). The immediate fall-out is fairly evident to anyone who has eyes – the loss of support from allies, the soaring costs of a war in Iraq that still may see that country fractured into at least three separate states, and skyrocketing oil prices. Perhaps the most damaging legacy from this unilateralist approach has been the loss of credibility which the US will have to work very hard to rebuild in a post- Bush era.

That Bush has returned to a multilateralist approach, as manifested in its dealings with Iran, is truly remarkable for an administration that has resisted any change in course. It shows precisely the extent of the damage, which has reached such proportions as to force said reconsideration of policy. Although loath to admit it, this administration's ultimate aim in the middle east has always centered (in my view) around the increasingly important energy resources that the region posesses. Advocating democracy masked a greater goal: control over the energy resources that include massive reserves of oil and natural gas.

If the citizens of the US were in denial about this aim, the rest of the world certainly wasn't. It therefore wasn't long before the rest of the world and in particular the competing interests for those massive reserves of energy were galvanized into action in order to counter Washington's moves in the energy-rich region. This occurred with the formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

SCO was created in 2001 to include Russia, several of the former soviet republics of Central Asia and China, and may yet expand to include India, Pakistan and Iran. The stated purposes of the organization are to strengthen relations among member states; promoting cooperation in political affairs, economy and trade, scientific-technical, cultural and educational spheres as well as in energy, transportation, tourism and environmental protection fields; joint safeguarding and preservation of regional peace, security and stability, among others. Western analysts have stressed that the organization represents a strategic alliance between Beijing and Moscow aimed at countering Washington's influence in a region of considerable energy resources.

Despite the timid efforts of several of the former soviet Central Asian republics at opening up to the West, this new alliance represents an effort from Moscow's (as well as China's) perspective to draw them closer to its sphere of influence. SCO bears close watching in the ever complex chess game between East and West that has broken out anew. This time, energy resources are at the center of this new game given that two interested parties (India and China) represent rapidly growing economies that will need to secure sources of energy to guarantee that they continue to grow. Given the increasing hostility of the US towards Iran, it is no surprise that the latter sought observer status in SCO along with India and Pakistan.

This scenario has forced a reconsideration of unilateralism in Washington. We have seen this played out in the new US strategy toward Iran which engages the European Union as well as Russia and China and contemplates what would have been heresy a few years ago in the Bush administration: namely direct negotiations with Iran.

In a broader sense, however, the US has other reasons to pursue multilateralism. The economy is now global and US companies depend as much on foreign operations as they do domestic ones. One simply cannot ignore world opinion when you rely on the world for your profits. Call it realpolitik with a decidedly globalized perspective. That the Bush administration has realized this (somewhat belatedly) is also evidenced in the administration's recent personnel changes.

Despite his reported aversion to Wall Street people, Bush nominated chairmen and chief executive of the globally connected Goldman and Sachs Company Henry Paulson for the Treasury Department. Some analysts have highlighted the China factor in Paulson's nomination. Together with Condoleeza Rice at the State Department, we have a decided tilt of this administration towards multilateralism both in the economic as well as the political sphere. As I said at the beginning, economics and politics are inextricably linked.

Remembering Langston Hughes

2006-05-29T17:43:00.000-04:00

I cannot let the month of May end without remembering the Poet Laureate of Harlem:

WHAT HAPPENS TO A DREAM DEFERRED?

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Copyright © Langston Hughes.

I also have a special place in my heart for this one:

CROSS

My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?
Copyright © Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes died on May 22, 1967.

As Doha flounders, CARICOM Countries get second wind

2006-05-02T14:12:00.000-04:00

Despite reported “modest” achievements attained during the Sixth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference held in Hong Kong, a number of important issues were left unresolved. With regard to agricultural negotiations, Ministers had agreed in Hong Kong to establish trade liberalizing formulae or modalities and tackle such issues as state trading, food aid and export competition, no later than April 30, 2006 as well as to submit comprehensive draft schedules based on these modalities no later than July 31, 2006. As it turns out, the United States and the European Union failed to reach agreement on agricultural subsidies by said deadline thereby preventing negotiations from proceeding on to new global trade rules, according to a timeline set out for 2006.

Nevertheless US officials feel a more important date than the missed April 30 deadline is the end of 2006. They maintain that negotiators could agree on the 'modalities' at some point in the summer without derailing the overall talks. However, if a Doha Round agreement is not concluded by the end of 2006, there will likely not be enough time for the U.S. Congress to consider the document before President Bush’s trade promotion authority expires in mid-2007. The real critical date for getting a new trade reform agreement, according to US officials will most likely be December 2006.

In the meantime, a group of nine Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries have taken advantage of the impasse to petition the WTO to extend their export subsidy programs to the year 2018, on the basis that they are of great importance to their economic and financial needs. The WTO Committee reportedly decided that the request for an extension will be given consideration in October this year.

Bolivian President emits Hydrocarbons Decree

2006-05-02T12:29:00.000-04:00

During May 1 International Worker's Day celebrations, President Evo Morales
emitted a decree requiring foreign companies to give the government a majorioty share in Bolivia's natural gas industry. In what some sources called a symbolic move, troops were deployed to the gas-fields. Bolivia has around 50 trillion cubic feet in natural gas reserves and exports most of it to Brazil and Argentina. Since these resources were privatizatized in the 1990s, there have been demands to re-nationalize them. Although Evo Morales won a stunning victory in the December 2005, he has made it clear that his "nationalization" plans will not infringe on the assets of the corporations.

Remembering the 1965 Revolution in the D.R.

2006-04-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

Today marks the 41st anniversary of the popular insurrection to restore renown author and head (at that time) of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), Juan Bosch, to the Presidency of the Dominican Republic. President Bosch was overthrown in September 25 1963 after being rightfully elected to lead the country nine months earlier in the first free elections held following the demise of the infamous dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (an ally of the United States). A group of military personnel led by Colonel Elias Wessin y Wessin spearheaded the coup with the tacit acquiescence of Washington, abolishing the constitution in the process.

The popular insurrection that aimed to restore President Bosch to power came to be known as the Revolution of 1965, and was led by Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deño. Four days after the initial uprising, the United States intervened and occupied the country militarily (tens of thousands of troops were stationed on the island for the duration of the occupation which lasted about a year and a half – during this period, thousands of Dominicans reportedly died fighting for constitutionalism).

Howard Wiarda, in his book The Dominican Republic: Nation in Transition, notes that restoration of the revolutionary Constitutiton of 1963, as drafted by Bosch's PRD, rapidly became the focus of the Revolution: “Later, it became clear, ...that the issue of 'constitutionalism' and the principles for which this term served as a symbol were among the most important of the revolution – perhaps even more important than any of the personalities or groups involved in the conflict.” He added further on that “The revolutionary Constitutiton of 1963... did not differ substantially from the previous constitution insofar as the mechanics of government were concerned – the powers of the executive, legislature and judiciary were virtually unchanged. Where it did differ radically from all previous constitutions in Dominican history was in its emphasis on the state as a positive force in promoting social justice. In keeping with the Bosch administration's orientation, the 1963 Constitution committed the government to far-reaching social reforms ... .”

Tribute to my Father

2006-04-14T09:16:00.000-04:00

Six years ago this day, my father passed away. While it is tempting to write something very personal about someone as central to one's life as my father was to mine, that is not my purpose here. Instead, I am presenting (and remembering) him in his role as a researcher. He was an historian, an educator and one of the leading Caribbeanists of the twentieth century. It should also be recalled that perhaps his most important work was about Puerto Rico. In this vein, I would like to reproduce here part of a report he submitted (before I was even born) on materials related to Puerto Rico held (at the time) by the U.S. Library of Congress:

General Survey of the material related to Puerto Rico held by the Library of Congress. Report submitted by Thomas G. Mathews, August 8, 1956. Published by Historia 6 (2) October 1956.

Following the suggestion of Dr. Howard Cline, Director of the Hispanic Foundation in the Library of Congress, The University of Puerto Rico granted me permission to spend four weeks surveying the material related to Puerto Rico in the Library of Congress. The Foundation requested that a report of this survey be drawn up in the hopes that it would offer a clear appraisal of the strength and weakness of the Library's material on Puerto Rico. This report could also serve as a guide to future action by the Library by indicating obvious gaps in the material or collections which needed rounding out. Obviously such a report would also enable the Library to better serve its readers and researchers in this particular field.

The University of Puerto Rico and scholars concerned with insular affairs should find the survey helpful in view of the fact that no previous effort has been made to describe in one study the Puerto Rican material found in the various divisions of the Library of Congress. In 1901 there was drawn up under the guidance of A.F.C. Criffin A List of Books on Porto Rico found in the Library of Congress. This, of course, is long out-dated and made no effort to explore the holdings of other divisions. It is hoped that the following survey will supply the reader with a ready guide to the material of the Library related to Puerto Rico, as well as an appraisal as to the quality of those holdings.

I wish to express my appreciation to Dr. Cline for the ready cooperation which he and his staff offered me during my four weeks. In all divisions of the Library I was willingly and readily served to my complete satisfaction, even when the requests were sometimes obviously out of the ordinary. I am indebted to Mr. Jorge Morales Yordan for the time he took to orient me as to the procedures, holdings, and classifications of the Law Library. If I have any criticisms to make in no way should they be interpreted as personal but rather in an effort to enable an under-staffed Library to serve more efficiently its readers.

Introduction

The material concerning Puerto Rico in the Library of Congress forms the largest single holding outside of the Archivo General de las Indias in Spain and the Library of the University of Puerto Rico. In the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, the New York Public Library and the National Archives [1] Puerto Rican material of importance can be located. For the most such holdings are limited in scope, in period covered, and by obvious national interests.

[1] The holdings of the National Archives is a residue of a collection of official papers relating to the Spanish Government in Puerto Rico which was shipped to the United States by a representative of the Library of Congress shortly after the American occupation. The body of material --some 200 boxes-- was returned to the island where it is reputed to have been partially destroyed by fire in 1926. The remaining material was sent from the Library of Congress to the National Archives where it can now be consulted.

The Library of Congress holdings relating to the period of discovery, conquest, and period of colonization can be located principally in the divisions of Rare Book and Manuscript. Copies of the classics of Latin American history in which there is always some mention of Puerto Rico--even though it be just in passing--can be found in the card catalog of the Rare Book Room. To the known accounts of Oviedo, Gomara,, Herrera, Las Casas, Laet,, etc. I would like to add a hitherto unknown visitor to Puerto Rico. "Captpitaine Gourges" writes of his brief visit to the shores of "Sainet Germaine de Porterique" in the latter quarter of the year 1569. [2] In the Manuscript Division the reproduction of material in European archives contains material on Puerto Rico, even though the reproductions were made with the purpose of securing material relative to North America. These holdings will be studied in detail below.

[2] "La Reprise de la Floride” in Histoire de la Floride franaise by
Paul Gaffarel, pp. 489-490 refer to Puerto Rico.

The holdings of the XVII and XVIII centuries should also be sought in the Rare Book and Manuscript Divisions. For works related to the lost half of the XVII century the general card catalog should be consulted in the general shelf area of Puerto Rico a copy of the 1788 Madrid edition of Fray Iigo Abbad y Lasierra’s Historia, geografica, civil.y politica de la Isla de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico (Imprenta de Don Antonia Espinosa) can be found. This of course should be placed in the Rare Book Collection. On this period, the Map Division also has material such as the four items of the Howe Collection which are described below.

The Library's holdings in the XIX century broaden out considerably, particularly toward the latter half of the century. Not only can more material be found on Puerto Rico but the quality is better. For example, the Manuscript Division can boast of not just mere reproductions of European archival holdings by an impressive collection of original material. The same is true of maps. Only the Divisions of Prints and Photographs and Music fail to show any holdings in the XIX century.

As would be expected, the material concerning the Spanish American War, as it is related to Puerto Rico, is plentiful. The collection of Col. Hoes, a U.S. Army chaplain, which has been integrated into the general holdings helps to explain this more complete coverage. A spot check on the more recent publications seems to indicate an adequate coverage as far as printed books are concerned. There may be a few exceptions to this which will be taken up later.

After this generous introduction, each division will be separately examined. It should be noted that I am not pausing to call attention to generally known material, but rather I prefer to single out that which can not be readily found. In some cases, such material may have little value in comparison to the more commonly known works but I prefer to run this risk since to do otherwise would be to reproduce what is found in the general card catalog under Puerto Rico (or Porto Rico since some divisions, like Rare Books, have failed to change their file to be in accord with the proper spelling) and thus give little justification for the report.

Manuscripts Division
Aside from the general collection of' the Library, this division has the largest amount of material on Puerto Rico and, in spite of the fact that a great number of the holdings are reproductions, the manuscript collection, while quite sparse as to the XIX century, is very valuable. A list with a brief description of the reproductions from the British Archives can be found in Appendix A; the French in Appendix B; and the Spanish in Appendix C.

Among the few reproductions of the French archives there is a hitherto unknown collection of outstanding interest to Puerto Rico. These manuscripts are found in the Museum d' Histoire Naturelle, having been sent there by one August Plee.

August Plee was, according to the Biographie Universalle (Tome Trente Troisime 1856) a botanist by profession. In 1819 at the age of thirty-two, he was sent by the royal government of France on a botanical excursion of the new world. He visited Canada and the United States collecting samples of plants and animals of all varieties. What he could not collect and ship back to France he carefully described and sketched.

From Norfolk, Virginia he journeyed south by boat into the Caribbean arriving at Puerto Rico the first month or two of 1822. He continued to collect specimens of fish, fowl, and sea life, such as mollusks. He also continued to sketch. As he traveled all over Puerto Rico from Mayaguez and Cabo Rojo, through Adjuntas and Ponce to Fajardo, and back to San Juan, he created beautiful sketches of the towns and countryside. His drawings which are listed in Appendix B are carefully done in perfect perspective and with such precision that one can recognize familiar buildings, such as churches, which are still standing today.

Mon. Plee in the brief introduction to his sketches explains that they will serve as a visual guide to the Journal of his explorations. Careful search in the catalog of the manuscripts of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle [3] has failed to indicate that this Journal is among their collection. An effort should be made to locate it in the Museum. However, the chances are very good that the Journal failed to reach Europe just as its author failed.

[3] Mss.de la Bibliothque du Museum d' Histoire Naturelle por A. Boinet in Catalogue General des Mss des Bibliothques Publiques, Paris II (Librairee Plon 1914)

Leaving Puerto Rico in 1823 Plee passed through the Virgin Islands and the Leeward Islands stopping finally at Martinique. Here he contracted some tropical malady and died the 17th of August, 1825 at the age-:of thirty-eight. His collections of plant and fowl have found their way into proper care. His journal should be diligently sought. The reproductions of his sketches held by the Library are disappointing in that they are photocopies (white on black surface). My recommendation to the University of Puerto Rico is that they secure actual size black and white (if original are pencil sketches) photographs of this valuable collection of art works.

With the reproductions of the vast holdings of Spain, I utilized the unpublished work of two former employees of the Library of Congress. Dr. John Finan was working on a guide to the Spanish reproductions held by the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress before he severed his relations with this division of the government. The state of the notes for this guide was such that with some effort Puerto Rican references could be singled out. This list of references is included in Appendix C.

Dr. Arturo Morales Carrion spent three months in 1946 in the position I temporarily hold, as consultant on Puerto Rican documents. Appended to this present report is a list of Spanish reproductions located by Mr. Morales pertaining to Puerto Rico. Copies of these reproductions were secured by the University of Puerto Rico for use by the History Department.

As can be seen by examining the list of Puerto Rican material drawn up from the work of Dr. Finan, the holdings are sparse and scattered over a three hundred year period. The reproductions held by the Library of Congress, and this is true of the French and British more so than the Spanish, pertain primarily to material concerned with North America. Therefore, while a diligent search would undoubtedly turn up more concerning Puerto Rico than has been revealed by Dr. Finan’s work, it is obvious that such time would be better spent in the Archivo General de las Indias of Spain. However, it goes without saying that Dr. Finan’s valuable work should be brought to completion and published so that researchers might be better served.

The manuscript material on Puerto Rico which is listed in the Handbook and can be found on the shelves in the general area assigned to Puerto Rico is so scattered and disorganized that it would be hopeless to do other than list the material with a brief description for each item. This is done in Appendix D. These documents are from the XIX century, although there are a few items-- as noted-- pertaining to the previous and the present century. In some cases (a lottery ticket or a canceled stamp) the value as historical material is negligible, in other cases-- the listing of foreigners or the memorandum on the telegraph system of the island-- the importance for historical research is obvious. On the whole, this material is very spotty and considered as a unit - which it is not - has little value.

The Puerto Rican Memorial Collection, donated to the Library by Miss Alice Gould, is the most valuable material of the Manuscript Division concerning Puerto Rico. Dr. Morales Carrion in his report discussed the manuscript part of this collection. His report is also appended to this study. (Appendix E) I have added to his work a more complete guide to the material found in the collection. The Library wisely adopted Dr. Morales' suggestions for the sorting and classification of these documents.

The Manuscript Division holds two very valuable microfilms, one of these is the original inventory typed under the direction of Sr. Cayetano Coll y Toste, of the 289 boxes of official documents shipped to the Library shortly after the United States occupation of Puerto Rico. This useful inventory of a vast quantity of material--much of which has been lost at this point--is in sufficient detail to be of service to historians interested in searching for material in the residue held by the National Archives. I urge the University to secure a copy of this microfilm for its own readers.

The other microfilm is not available to researchers until 1972. It is a copy of a diary of Eugenio Mara de Hostos. The original is in the possession of the sons of de Hostos but with their agreement and with the noted restrictions, the Library of Congress was able to secure a film of this priceless journal.

Material relative to Puerto Rico can also be found in the collections of private individuals donated to the Library of Congress. The manuscript Division holds some material donated by Chaplain Hoes of the Spanish American War. In Box 1 (Ac. 4159) can be found a collection of Correspondence with Congressional leaders concerning the War and federal relations with the newly acquired possessions. This material provides an excellent guide to congressional comments on Puerto Rico at the turn of the century.

Victor Clark, former Commissioner of Education of the island has also turned over material, which is indispensable to any study of the educational problems of the island. As Clark notes in his own description of the gift, many of the problems encountered when he was serving as Commissioner are still unsolved today.

The collection of two members of Congress also provide some scattered comments on Puerto Rico. One is a collection of letters of John Benson Foraker in which there are brief comments on Puerto Rican affairs by Nicholas M. Butler, Theodore Roosevelt and others, as well as the Senator himself. A list of some of these items is appended. The very extensive collection of John Sharp Williams, Senator from Mississippi contains very meager references to Puerto Rico. His material prior to 1914 in which should be found more material on Puerto Rico, has not been received by the Library. The material which is present contains comments on the island affairs and the general political scene but most of the correspondence refers to patronage. Since spot checks in the 192 boxes failed to turn up any extensive material on Puerto Rico, the limitation of time prevented a thorough search. There is in Appendix D a guide to the material which was located.

Two fairly recent donations to the Manuscript Division containing material relative to Puerto Rico complete the results of the search of this Division. Admiral William Leahy has turned over his diaries to the Library of Congress. Diary 5 covers the period from 1939 to 1940 during which Admiral Leahy served as Governor of Puerto Rico. The diary is quite disappointing in that it merely records activity with little or no personal comment interjected. A person very familiar with the administration of Leahy could sense some subtle references.

The other recent donation is the extensive (157.30 ft.) collection of private papers of Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. This collection can be examined only with the permission of Mrs. Ickes and therefore cannot be fully described in this report. Mrs. Ickes was kind enough to grant me permission to examine the material.

Without violating any confidence, I feel free to state that while the Puerto Rico material is not as extensive as one would like, what is in the collection is of top historical value. For further information the reader is referred to my, forthcoming study on the New Deal and Puerto Rico.

The holdings of the Manuscript Division cover in time a four hundred year span: from the letter of Salazar, a reproduction from the Spanish Archives, to the late 1940's with the papers of Harold Ickes. This spreading out of course means very spotty coverage. However, the holdings are still of great value. Proof of this is found in the book by Dr. Morales Carrion, Puerto Rico and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean. Dr. Morales relied heavily on the reproductions of the European archives held by the Library of Congress. However, until Dr. Finan's work is completed, this material will not be fully utilized. The Gould material on Padre Rufo Fernndez is perhaps the only single collection of that pioneer educator who played such a key role in the training of the dominant figures of the latter half of the XIX century political scene. Any study of the Autonomista political party could not overlook the Gould material.

The Division's holdings of XX century material are also strong but could be made much stronger. The material on the Spanish American War could be added too. The Hoes Collection of manuscripts is disappointing. The veterans of this war and their descendents could be urged to turn material over to the Library. With the situation in Puerto Rico as it now is, the Library of Congress is in a much better position to secure this material, which is pertinent to one small branch of the Federal Administration, than any unit on the island.

Finally it should be admitted that a great deal of the odds and ends mentioned in the Appendix D is of little value unless there is wide knowledge of them by scholars. Even then I hardly know how one can make use of a lottery ticket but perhaps the fragmentary letter on the ambulance corp. could be utilized. Publication of this report and others--such as Dr. Finan's will serve this purpose.

Rare Books

The holdings of this Division related to Puerto Rico are quite unexpected and very limited. Unexpected is the word used because there are no examples of the very rare works on Puerto Rico such as the above--mentioned 1788 edition of Fray Inigo Abbad y Lasierra’s History, which is found on the general stacks. The two bound books of the Division relating solely to Puerto Rico are Las Clases Jornaleros de Puerto Rico by Salvador Brau and El Campesino Puertorriqueo by Francisco del Valle Atiles (this is an 1889 edition and not the 1887 edition noted in Pedreira).
Of course the Caribbean classics in which Puerto Rico is often mentioned are here. To those mentioned earlier in the general introduction the following authors could be added: Richard Blome, Johann Theodor de Bry, Pierre Franois Xavier de Charlevois, Thomas Coke, Thomas Jefferys, and Fathers Labat and DuTertre. In one book, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld: of Beschryving van America en t' Zuid-Land ... door Arnoldus Montanus t' Amsterdam 1671, there are several references to Puerto Rico (pp. 167-170; 406-408) and an engraved plate of San Juan dated 1625. The material refers to the Dutch exploits in the Caribbean and specifically, on the pages cited, in Puerto Rico. The artist, however, has let his imagination run away with him and as a result the view of San Juan, while artistically pleasing, is a mixture of fact and fancy.

One other unexpected holding of this Division is a beautifully bound volume of periodical publications of the Nationalist Party. With the principal periodical—Pro Republica de Puerto Rico Ao I 1925 Nums. 1-10-- there are diverse flyers mixed in. Most of these are reprints of articles published in 1939-1940. A list of some of these articles and other broadsides found in the Rare Book Room is found in Appendix G.

Music Division
Little can be said about the meager holdings of this division. For an island of the Caribbean which is as productive in folk and popular music-to say nothing of its own danza-as is Puerto Rico, it is surprising and disappointing to see that the Library of Congress can refer to only a dozen or so items relating to insular music. Some attention should be directed both on the island and in the Library toward a remedy of this gap.

Newspapers
The collection of island newspapers is deceptive. There are many titles listed under Puerto Rico in the card catalog but closer examination reveals that few have any unbroken run. In fact, most of the papers are represented by only one number. The oldest Library of Congress paper is El Fenix of Ponce which runs from October 13, 1855 to December 23, 1858 with many issues missing. The picture fails to improve with the XX century. There are fewer newspapers but La Democracia is the only one which has an unbroken run up to the time of the Second World War. Concerted efforts should be made to complete the files of important dailies like El Mundo, El Imparcial, and La Correspondencia. With these three papers something could be done, but for El Pas, El Da, and others the gaps are too great to be filled. It is unfortunate that there is no major run of periodicals in the XIX century. The National Archives has an excellent series of a St. Thomas newspaper for most of the XIX century. Although printed in Danish, enough is in English to make it useful to American scholars. Finally, an effort should be made to secure copies of two recent English periodicals The Island Times and The World Journal, both published in San Juan and both important. (See Appendix H for a list of newspapers)

Map Division
This Division has a fine collection of originals and reproductions concerning Puerto Rico. The reproductions include copies of works in the Archivo General de las Indias and the Vatican Library in addition to copies of material found in various rare atlases. Four items purchased from the descendents of Lord Admiral Howe, pertaining to the XVIII century, are described in the Appendix I.

One of the prize finds of my month's work was the turning up of three very pleasing water-colored paintings of San Juan, said to be about 1824. Just why they are Maps is a little difficult to understand. The three views are A. from the east looking toward the west into the town and its fortifications; B. from the south looking north into the harbour area of San Juan; and C. from the west, slightly southwest, looking into the fortifications guarding the entrance to the harbour of San Juan. The colors are cool and pleasing with pastel shades and the work is excellently executed. The coincidence of the discovery of these three views after finding the sketches of August Plee makes me jump to a probably erroneous conclusion which is drawn more from wishful thinking than any factual comparison. The facts that the paintings are marked 1824 and Plee's visit was in 1823 lead one to speculate. While the reproductions of Plee's work are hard to compare with the original paintings, superficial similarity to an untrained eye makes me want to believe that August Plee is the anonymous painter of the three views.

Two other interesting items are 1) a plan of the hacienda Sta. Barbara of Bayamon dated 1824, and 2) a plan of a section of the harbour of San Juan with proposed expansion of dock facilities (early XIX century). Notes on these two plans can be found in the Appendix I.

The Map Division has a number of old atlases in which Puerto Rico can be located. These atlases with the appropriate plate are noted in Appendix I.

The holdings of this Division broaden out considerably around the turn of the century and the files are well stocked with recent maps of the Puerto Rican Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Administration and the present division of the insular government such as the Planning Board. The material in the Map Division is efficiently organized and easily gotten to.

Prints and Photographs
There is nothing in this division before the XIX century. However, there is abundant material after the turn of the century. There are about two hundred and fifty colored pictures for stereoptican viewers of the towns and countryside of the island about 1900. Victor Clark, Carl Grassl and others have contributed private collections of photographs to this division. These and other collections of views taken during the first decades of American rule are listed in Appendix J.

In the thirties two government agencies undertook two projects which have produced valuable holdings for the Library of Congress. The Survey of Historical American Buildings carried out about 1938 has contributed various views and plans of La Fortaleza, Porta Coeli, El Polvorin, El Morro and other historical structures around the island. The other project was carried out by the Farm Security Administration from December 1937 to January 1942. This produced a collection of some 1,500 enlarged pictures of all phases of Puerto Rican life, from cock fighting to labor troubles. The material in this division is also efficiently arranged and easily gotten to.

The Law Library
The material which I saw on Puerto Rico in the Law Library is not extensive nor is it complete. Futhermore, except for the items on the XX century, Puerto Rican material would be hard to locate. Material on Puerto Rico when it was a Spanish colony is rarely cataloged separately since Spain handled her colonies as a unit. Thus legal documents referring to Puerto Rico can be mixed in with material on Mexico or Argentina. Of course, there are some XIX century compilations of laws and royal orders pertaining to Puerto Rico. Too, decisions of Audiencias should not be hard to find. Some material can also be found under legal treatises and miscellaneous matters. All of this is cataloged under the Spanish colonies--Puerto Rico.

The holdings since the United States sovereignty are cataloged under Puerto Rico and are divided into the eight conventional categories of the Law Library. These with comments are listed in the Appendix. Strangely enough, under the seventh division is found Baldorioty de Castro’s signed copy of J. J. Acosta's edition of Fray Iigo Abbad y LaSierra’s Historia. Since this was a donation of Miss Gould to the Library, the Law Library, so it would appear, has questionable title to the work. There are a few other items which are misfiled in this section.

In the Law Library there has also been dumped some 150 pamphlets of the Gould collection. Most of these pertain to the previous century and are listed in the Appendix. They have been jammed into the dusty shelf, unarranged, uncataloged and almost forgotten. The explanation for the inexcusable neglect of this valuable collection is the lack of an adequate staff. This collection should be processed and the duplicates (of which there are quite a number) should be transferred to other libraries.

Thomas Mathews' book The Caribbean: History, Politics and Culture can be purchased at Merino & Sanchez Distributors, Inc., Ave. Las Palmas 1108 Pda. 18, P.O. Box 9024, San Juan, PR 00908-0024; Tels. 787-723-7827 & 787-723-0088; Fax 787-723-5850; email merinoysanchez@excite.com

Run-off almost certain in Peru Elections

2006-04-09T14:22:00.000-04:00

It is not expected that any of the leading candidates, Ollanta Humala of the Partido Nacionalista Peruano, Lourdes Flores of the Unidad Nacional Front or Alan Garcia of the Partido Aprista Peruano will win an outright majority in today's Peruvian elections. There is almost certain to be a second round. For those interested in keeping tabs on the election, LANIC provides some essential links.

Breaking News!

As of 8:32 PM, Peruvian time, and based on 83.5% of the vote, Ollanta Humala leads with 30%, followed by Lourdes Flores with 24.9% and Alan Garcia with 23.5%. This according to Apoyo, Opinión y Mercado, as cited in El Comercio.

Is the U.S. Public Turning Isolationist?

2006-03-14T10:39:00.000-04:00

Does anyone else sense it?, because I certainly do. Furthermore, I think
the writing is on the wall for anyone who cares enough to look and the
U.S. politicians, in particular, had better take notice. The people of
the United States are shifting their concerns inward toward domestic
affairs after years of “outward orientation”, both economically and
politically as well as militarily. I think Iraq has a lot to do with it,
but also hurricane Katrina, the Mexican immigration issue and a host of
other salient US domestic problems. Even the whole Dubai Ports World affair
reflects what seems to be this growing trend “inwards”. Juxtapose these
rising domestic concerns with what is perceived as the insistent
determination of past and present US administrations to involve the
country in and “police” the rest of the world and I think we might be
witnessing a major “tectonic shift” in US public outlook that may if not
determine at least significantly influence the next presidential election.

It is widely known that the current Bush administration has been totally dominated ideologically (until recently) by the Neo-Conservatives which many see as being encapsulated or exemplified by the “Project for the New American Century.” Critics have called it a plan to establish American economic and military hegemony in world affairs following the “vacuum” left by the collapse of the Communist-block. The invasion of Iraq was certainly a part of that agenda as the first step in spearheading a wider democratic tranformation of the Middle East that would ultimately benefit the US. President Bush has said as much to the American public on numerous occasions.

Regardless of what one may think about the Neo-Conservative outlook or its
proponents, it is hard to escape the feeling that the entire “project” has
collapsed after colliding with the brick wall that is the Iraq debacle.
Conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. is the latest and perhaps most
important in a growing number of conservative leaders to have criticized
the war, even going so far as to call the effort a failure. One need
only look at a whole slew of polls over the last year related directly or
indirectly to US policy in the Middle East to get the distinct impression
that large (and growing) portions of the American public feel the policy
is flawed. Advocacy for democratic change in the region has come up
against a stark reality: Hamas in Palestine, the inroads made by the
Muslim Brotherhood in recent Egyptian elections, Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, not to speak
of the prospects of an Islamic theocracy in “liberated” Iraq. The US
public is inevitably asking if this is what their blood and treasure has
be expended for.

When people in the US look abroad they see a similar if not analogous
scenario in the economic realm that also affects them directly. In the
Far East, they see monumental economic developments taking place in China
and India. To the US public, the citizens of these countries are the
beneficiaries of an “outward economic orientation” or globalization
endorsed by alternating US administrations (both Democrat and Republican)
which translates into the loss of US jobs. To them, the scenario doesn't
look much different closer to home within their own hemisphere. Look
south and on the one hand you see a significant political shift of the
leadership in Latin America if not towards anti-American stands at least
towards policies at odds with the US. In the realm of economics and
trade, witness the resistance there was toward the Central American Free
Trade Area (CAFTA) as well as to other regional trade initiatives.

As I indicated above, when you juxtapose these international developments
with a series of domestic “problems” as perceived by the US public, I
think there is fertile ground for (lets say) a populist US candidate that
eschews the international ambitions of the country in favor of
an overwhelmingly domestic focus on solving such problems as immigration,
healthcare, disaster preparedness, poverty, jobs and corruption. I think
a growing number of Americans are asking: “Why must we take care of the
rest of the world when we cannot even care for our own?”

While this shift in US public sentiment may be imperceptible to some, I
can assure you it will become painfully obvious if (or rather when) an
economic downturn rears its ugly head in the US. Already, January's trade
deficit has been called the largest monthly imbalance yet for the country
and the day of reckoning might just be right around the corner. While
concerns about the deficit have been around for quite some time, most
economists agree the gap will have to be brought down eventually. The
question is whether it can be managed smoothly (ie a soft landing) without
creating much hardship or not. In the event of a sudden and painful
downturn, rest assured that the American public will make itself heard
unequivocably regarding whether the country should or shouldn't have such
a prominent role in world affairs.

International Women's Day

2006-03-08T14:30:00.000-04:00

Happy International Women's Day!

Note: Sorry I haven't been posting very often. The semester has been quite a demanding one for me so far, plus I am looking forward to participating in the Latin American Studies Association's XXVI Conference.

Aristide to Return to Haiti?

2006-02-23T09:38:00.000-04:00

Following the election of René Garcia Préval to the Presidency of Haiti, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide vowed that he would return to his country. Préval had served as Aristide’s Prime Minister from February 13 to October 11, 1991, and is considered a protégé of the former President.

Préval was named President after authorities, keen on avoiding further violence and bloodshed, agreed on February 16 to redistribute more than 80,000 blank votes (reportedly just over 4% of the total tally) on a pro-rata basis between the candidates, giving Préval 51.2 percent of the votes, rather than the 49.8 percent he had when the blank ballots were included in the total. A result less than 50 percent would have forced a runoff with second-place candidate Leslie Manigat. Manigat called the agreement "the imposition of a victor" and claimed it was "a reward for violence".

Préval had claimed that fraud prevented him from winning on the first round and called for an investigation. A Haitian television station had reported the discovery of thousands of ballots which were thrown out at a garbage dump near Cite Soleil. Some of them were cast in favor of Préval, and UN officials expressed concern because the bags were only supposed to include blank and annulled votes.

With the election finally resolved, the prospect of a return of Aristide brought mixed responses. Jonathan Clayton, writing for the Times of Britain, cited analysts as saying Aristide “would be deeply destabilizing and polarizing, and would destroy Mr. Préval’s hopes of reaching out to Haiti’s business elite — who orchestrated the ousting of the former President — the masses and the international community.” In an interview with that reporter, Aristide denied he had aspirations of returning to power: “I always knew that when I was elected my mandate would come to an end. My mandate ended and that is that.”

Protests follow Haitian Elections

2006-02-14T12:11:00.000-04:00

On Monday, irate protesters demanding the final results of the February 7 general election in Haiti erected roadblocks across Port-au-Prince and occupied the Montana Hotel in Petionville in the hills east of the capital, where election officials had been announcing the results. Barricades made of old tires were set afire across the capital, sending smoke into the sky while protesters allowed only journalists and Red Cross vehicles to pass. One protester was killed but UN peacekeepers denied witness accounts that they were responsible.

René Garcia Préval, the clear winner with about 90 percent of the votes counted, returned to the capital for the first time since the election. His supporters claimed that electoral officials were tampering with results to prevent him from getting the majority he needs to avoid a runoff. Préval had obtained 48.7 percent of the vote, according to the Conseil Electoral Provisoire (Haiti’s Electoral Council). His closest opponent, former president Leslie Manigat, had garnered 11.8 percent. According to press reports, about 125,000 of the 2.2 million ballots cast have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Préval supporters that polling officials were rigging the election. Another 4 percent of the ballots were reportedly blank but were still added into the total, making it more difficult for Préval to obtain the 50 percent plus one vote needed. The Director-General of the Electoral Council, denied accusations that the council voided many votes for Preval.

Preval headed for a Runoff in Haiti?

2006-02-11T17:44:00.000-04:00

Despite previous reports that placed René Garcia Préval with a comfortable lead in the elections for Prime Minister of Haiti, it now appears he might be headed for a run-off. The 61 percent the candidate had garnered by Thursday (9 February), with just 15 percent of the vote counted, was subsequently reduced to 50.3 percent on Friday with roughly half the votes counted. Leslie Manigat, a former President, was in second place with 11.4 percent while Charles Baker held third with 8.3 percent, according to the Provisional Electoral Council. Préval needs at least 50 percent of the popular vote to avoid a runoff on March 19.

Former World Bank official Marc Louis Bazin, who is running under the political party Union pour Haïti, an alliance between the Mouvement pour l’Instauration de la Démocratie en Haïti and the Fanmi Lavalas party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has claimed that the State Electoral Council is manipulating the results to force a run-off. International observers have reported some irregularities at polling stations but have not suggested the results were tainted by fraud.

René Garcia Préval was born on January 17, 1943 in Port-au-Prince, one of four children. He holds a degree in agronomy from the College of Gembloux in Belgium and has a background in both engineering and geothermics. He was an ally of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and a leader of the Fanmi Lavalas party but has since distanced himself from that party, choosing instead to run on the ticket of the Lespwa party which is the Haitian creole form of the French “L'Espoir”, meaning “Hope.” He was inaugurated President of the Republic of Haiti in 1996, making him the second democratically elected head of state in the history of the country. Prior to that, Préval directed the Fonds d'assistance èconomique et sociale (FAES) in 1995.

Préval served as Prime Minister in the administration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from February 1991 until the military coup of 29 September forced him to eventually flee and join the exiled Constitutional Government in the United States from 1992-94. Préval retained the Premier's portfolio as well as those of Interior and Defense until August 1993 when he was retained by President Aristide as chief adviser.

St. Kitts-Nevis economy rebounds according to IMF

2006-02-04T20:40:00.000-04:00

The economy of St. Kitts-Nevis is rebounding from a series of adverse shocks over recent years that included three major hurricanes and a decline in tourism following the 9/11 attacks in the United States. According to an International Monetary Fund Executive Board staff report, real GDP growth exceeded 6 percent in 2004, and is projected to approach 5 percent for 2005. Tourism surged since 2003 thanks to favorable global growth as well as large recent investments in infrastructure. A number of new tourism developments were undertaken along with preparations for the 2007 Cricket World Cup, spurring construction activity. Inflation has been contained despite higher oil prices.

Following the closure of the state owned sugar company after the July 2005 harvest, IMF officials expect fiscal balances and growth prospects to strengthen over the medium term. According to the report: “Burdened by high costs, the sugar industry had become a major contributor to the fiscal deficit, with annual losses on the order of 4 percent of GDP, and accumulated debt of about 30 percent of GDP. The situation was only set to worsen with the impending loss of preferential access to EU markets.”

St. Kitts Nevis was recently singled out in Finance and Development along with five other countries (three of which are also in the Caribbean basin) as particularly at risk from the loss of such trade preferences in general.

CARICOM Single Market Ceremony Held in Jamaica

2006-01-31T10:22:00.000-04:00

CARICOM member states Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago formally signed the document for implementation of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM) on Monday January 30, in a move towards greater regional unity. Although the CSM formally began on January 1 with the six member countries, it is expected to become the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) by 2008. The ceremony, which was held at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, did not see the ratification of CSM by the seven-member sub-group, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

While the OECS had originally planned to enter the single market by March 31, it was announced that they would now sign on by the end of June. Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and current Chair of the OECS, Ralph Gonsalves, said: "The OECS has taken the principled position that, while we are fully committed to the process of regional integration, and intend to be fully participants in the CSME, we must ensure that the provisions of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas which speaks to our own special needs are in effect."

The region is expected to finalize the single market and economy (CSME) by the year 2008. To this effect Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and current CARICOM Chair, Patrick Manning explained: "It is absolutely necessary to co-ordinate and harmonize, inter alia, our economic policies, interest rates, laws and tax regimes in order to create more even development across member states; enter more effectively and smoothly into trading arrangements and economic links with other countries and regional groupings; and ensure that our region improves its attractiveness for the increased inflows of new capital for the development of all our nations."

According to CARICOM data for most of the decade of the nineties, CARICOM intra-regional imports as a percentage of the region's total imports accounted only for between 8 and 10 per cent, while intra-regional exports accounted for between 12 and 23 per cent of the region's total exports.

Bolivia After The Election of Evo Morales

2006-01-29T21:31:00.000-04:00

Given the dearth of background information on the situation in Bolivia, I have reproduced an insightful article here by Rico Blanc, a university student and activist who has spent several months in Bolivia. While I may not share the viewpoint of the author, the information contained therein is important enough to outweigh any reservations I have in its reproduction here.

BOLIVIA AFTER THE ELECTION OF EVO MORALES: WHAT WAY FORWARD?

By RICO BLANC

On Dec. 18, 2005, Evo Morales, the indigenous peasant leader of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), won the Bolivian presidential elections by an unexpectedly large margin, receiving 54% of the votes. The runner up, right-winger "Tuto" Quiroga, received less than 25% of the votes.

This stunning victory for Morales -- in the 2002 elections he received only 20.9% of the votes -- is an expression of the massive revolutionary movement that has rocked the Bolivian nation during the last three years in its struggle for the nationalization of the oil and gas resources.

Hopes are high in Bolivia and around the world that Morales -- the country's first president of indigenous descent, who has self-proclaimed himself "America's worst nightmare" -- will break Bolivia, South America' poorest country, out of its dire situation of near-starvation and subordination.

"With this government, discrimination will come to an end, the xenophobia we have been living through will come to an end; we are going to work to bring an end to the neoliberal model," declared Morales upon receiving news of his electoral victory. "These are new times. This millennium will be for the peoples, not for the empire," proclaimed Morales, on Jan. 2, from Caracas.

The international media has presented the elections as a defeat for the U.S. government, highlighting Morales' friendship with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro and the fact he is the leader of the Bolivian coca (cocaine's base plant) growers, an important traditional plant in Bolivian culture -- which the U.S. government would like to eradicate.

Morales' victory has created tremendous expectations in the new government. For many workers, peasants, and students, the new government is seen as "our government." Their vote for Morales was a vote against the corrupt bourgeois parties and the subordination of Bolivia to foreign interests. It was a vote for the nationalization of the oil and gas, a vote for fundamental change.

Caught Between Two Fires

But the new Morales government will be caught between two fires from the moment it takes office on Jan. 22, 2006.

On the one hand, it faces immense pressure from U.S. imperialism to protect the considerable foreign economic interests in Bolivia -- particularly the "inalienable right" of the multinational oil corporations to dominate and pillage the country.

The U.S. government is using the threat of a possible military intervention in Bolivia to ensure that Morales doesn't break with the status-quo. As the newspaper El Diario reported on Dec. 17, 2005: "At the beginning of 2006, when the new government of president-elect Evo Morales takes power, special U.S. troops will march to the border between Paraguay and Bolivia to begin a series of counter-insurgency exercises."

But a military intervention is only "Plan B" for the U.S. government. From its perspective, the ideal situation would be for Morales to act as a "Bolivian Lula" who uses his left-wing prestige -- as Brazilian President Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva has done -- to contain and demobilize the mass movement and implement all the reactionary austerity measures that the traditional bourgeois parties could not push through.

On the other hand, Morales will face a powerful and radicalized popular movement which has overthrown four presidents in less than three years -- a movement, moreover, which Morales does not control and which has not at all given the new government a blank check.

The burning question is thus: Will Morales respond to the demands of the U.S. government or those of the Bolivian people?

Nationalization or Renegotiation of the Contracts?

The principal demand of the mass insurrections of October 2003 (which toppled President Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada, who wanted to export Bolivia's gas to the U.S. via Chile) and of May-June 2005 (in which a workers' and popular insurrection toppled President Carlos Mesa, but was demobilized when a deal was made to convene early elections in December) was "Nationalization, without Compensation, of the Oil and Gas!"

This is a demand for Bolivia's sovereignty over its abundant natural resources. Bolivia has more than 53 trillion cubic feet in natural gas reserves -- resources that were sold off through privatizations in the 1990s.

The demand for nationalization is so incredibly popular that all the presidential candidates, from the left to the right, in this electoral campaign were obliged to say they were in favor of "nationalization" -- though each of them gave a different content to this word.

Morales has made it clear that his "nationalization" plans will not infringe on the assets of the corporations.

In early December 2005, the Center for the Study of Labor and Agricultural Development (CEDLA), a respected independent political think-tank in La Paz, published its analysis of the different candidates' proposals concerning the hydrocarbons (the oil and gas). The Bolivian newspaper El Diario comments on this study:

"The positions taken by the main political parties participating in the elections in relation to the hydrocarbons [including the MAS- Ed. Note] is criticized by CEDLA, an institution which, moreover, blames them with 'trying to conceal their interests to preserve the multinational corporations' monopolistic control over the country's oil and gas resources with a few scant alterations.' ... CEDLA believes that the only way for the State to appropriate the surplus income generated from exploiting oil and gas resources is to radically alter the policy in this sector by having the State assume a 'monopolistic control' over all the activities involved in the oil and gas production." (Dec. 11, 2005)

The day after his election, Evo Morales announced: "We will respect property rights; our government will be dedicated to respecting the law" (El Diario, Dec. 20). One week later, Morales declared: "I don't want to harm anybody. I don't want to expropriate or confiscate anything." (Econotocias.com, Dec. 28)

Evo Morales was elected primarily on his promises to nationalize the oil and gas. Now the new government has reduced this pledge to a call to renegotiate the economic contracts with the energy corporations.

But how can the Bolivian people benefit from their natural resources if the real control of the gas and oil remains in private foreign hands?

Didn't President Carlos Mesa also say he was "nationalizing" the gas and oil by raising the percentage of taxes on foreign investments? And didn't the workers and people of Bolivia respond with the mass uprisings of May-June 2005 that declared Mesa a "traitor" and kicked him out of office?

For their part, the Bolivian employers have applauded Morales' declarations. After meeting with Morales on Dec. 27, the leader of the Chamber of Commerce of the Santa Cruz region expressed his relief that the new president "spoke of creating jobs, respecting the law, and attracting investments." Rosendo Babery, president of the Eastern Exporters of Bolivia, added, "I consider positive and conciliatory the position of the president-elect of Bolivia; moreover, he asked for help governingŠ Now let's see if these words will be translated into deeds." (Econoticias, Dec. 28)

Response from Workers' Movement

The workers' movement, not surprisingly, has responded differently to Morales' statements on the hydrocarbons.

The National Summit of Workers and Peoples, a representative gathering of labor and social movement activists, gave the new president 90 days to nationalize the hydrocarbons without indemnities. The Summit met on Dec. 8-10, 2005 in the city of El Alto at the initiative of the country's main labor organizations: the Bolivian Workers Federation (COB), the Miners' Federation (FSTMB) and the Regional Workers Federation of El Alto (COR-El Alto).

The Summit's Final Declaration stated that if the government failed to take action on nationalizations in the allotted time, mass mobilizations would begin again in April 2006.

Jaime Solares, the current general secretary of the Bolivian Workers Federation (COB), declared in the immediate aftermath of the elections: "Nationalization, without compensation, is a political act that does not require consultation with Brazil or the United States of America. We don't want them [Evo Morales and the MAS - Ed. Note] to tell us they need two or three years to implement this demand. During this time, the multinationals are going to continue making millions of dollars while the majority of our people continue to starve. We are not going to allow this." (El Diario, Dec. 20)

"Autonomies" or Unity of the Nation?

With the ascent of the mass movement for the nationalization of the hydrocarbons, the semi-fascist oligarchy of Santa Cruz -- a resource-rich region in eastern Bolivia that sits on most of the newly discovered natural gas reserves -- has raised, with full U.S. support and funds, the demand for its political, social, and economic "autonomy" from the rest of Bolivia.

The Bolivian Miners' Federation exposed the reactionary character of this "autonomy" demand in a document titled, "The Struggle for the Nationalization of the Hydrocarbons." The authors explain that the goal of the oligarchies of Santa Cruz and Tarija is to "create autonomous governments that in addition to dismembering the country permit the corporations to keep the control over the natural resources on a departmental level. Š Nationalization, in this way, could not be effective because the departmental government would forbid it. Š There is a very real danger that our country could be dismembered." (FSTMB, June 30, 2005)

But what is the position of Morales? In his meeting with the business and political leaders of Santa Cruz on Dec. 27, he was unequivocal: "We are going to guarantee your autonomy," he said. "It is necessary to recognize that Santa Cruz has been the vanguard spreading consciousness about this theme." (Bolpress, Dec. 28)

This autonomy/secession demand stems from U.S. imperialism's strategy to divide and dismantle nations throughout the world (e.g., Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq) in its drive to ensure super-profits. Thus, the National Summit of Workers and Peoples, in its Final Declaration, called for "the intransigent defense of the unity of the nation and the struggle against the divisive maneuvers of the oligarchy of Santa Cruz and Tarija, under the pretext of autonomy."

The Constituent Assembly of June 2006

During the insurrections of October 2003 and May-June 2005, the second most important popular demand (after nationalizations) was the call for the immediate convening of a Constituent Assembly that would write a new constitution and create a new State in the interest of the majority.

In June 2005, a deal was made for President Carlos Mesa to step down, for elections to be held in December 2005, and for a Constituent Assembly to be convened in June 2006. The Miners' Federation called it "an agreement between the multinationals, Mesa, the Parliament, and Evo Morales -- against Evo's own base. The objective was the preservation of the dominant political and economic system, with its corrupt parliamentarians." (FSTMB document, June 30)

Evo Morales has made the convening of the Constituent Assembly in June 2006 one of his main campaign promises. But what kind of Constituent Assembly can this be if the real power will remain in the hands of the very same corrupt institutions that are kept in place with the December 2005 election?

According to Limber Surco, a leader of the influential Regional Workers Federation of El Alto (COR-El Alto), this June 2006 Constituent Assembly "will be organized the way the bourgeoisie wants, with the goal of implementing its objectives." This is exactly true.

In an article titled, "Autonomies will be axis of the Constituent Assembly," La Razón newspaper explained that "six of the eight political parties participating in the election [the MAS being one of these six parties - Ed. Note] agree that the Constituent Assembly should be the framework through which the country shifts from a centralised State to a State based on autonomous regions." (Dec. 5, 2005)

La Razón reported that "the European Union authorized one million Euros to finance the Constituent Assembly and the Autonomy Referendum within the framework of an emergency program to permit the survival of Bolivian democracy." (Ibid.)

In response, the National Summit of Workers and Peoples held in early December in El Alto adopted the following motion: "We have been informed of the interference by the European Union into the electoral process scheduled next June for the so-called 'Constituent Assembly.' The sole purpose of this 'Assembly' is to promote the regional 'autonomies' and thereby dismantle the Bolivian nation.. Š We condemn this drive to finance the destruction of our nation."

In opposition to the fraudulent June 2006 Constituent Assembly, important sectors of the Bolivian mass movement have put forward the call for a Sovereign Constituent Assembly, with full powers to enact laws in the interest of the workers' and peasants' majority -- beginning with the nationalization of oil and gas.

As Surco of the COR-El Alto explained, "The Sovereign Constituent Assembly should be organized by the people themselves. Once such an Assembly is convened, all other branches of the State must submit to it. This would require the dissolution of the Congress and all other intermediate bodies, and the creation of new institutions to serve the people. ... This is the change the people were demanding in the streets."

Morales and the Workers' Movement

For the workers, the unemployed, the youth, and the peasants -- all of whom catapulted Evo Morales into office -- the presidential results are perceived as a great victory. But now the workers' and popular movements are faced with new and formidable challenges.

The workers and their organizations will face immense pressures to give up their class independence. The pressure will be most intense upon the COB, the Miners' Federation, and the COR -- all organizations that have been in the forefront of the mass mobilizations over the past three years.

Evo Morales' vice presidential running mate, Alvaro García Linera, argues that "Andean capitalism" is the solution for Bolivia. He and Morales are shining stars of the "alter-globalization" movement and the World Social Forums in their capacity as spokespersons for the "indigenista" cause.

The Bolivian Miners Federation has explained that such "indigenista" rhetoric does not serve the interests of the Quechua and Aymara majority of the Bolivian population. They write:

"Substituting this reality [the class struggle] with the valorization of ethnic, or 'indigenista,' concepts to the point of converting them into principles is part of the imperialist strategy to preserve and consolidate capitalism. Its effect, in practice, is to minimize the role of the trade unions and the organizations that base their action on the class confrontation between workers and capitalists. Thus the objective is the humanization of exploitation, not the conquest of political power and the overthrow of the oppressive system."

Evo Morales and García Linera already have begun an ideological offensive against the concept of class struggle and, thus, the necessity for the existence of independent workers' organizations.

In a post-election interview with the BBC, García Linera was asked, "Are you scared that you won't be able to fulfil the expectations of the most radical left in Bolivia?" He answered with a controversial provocation against the Bolivian workers' organizations, stating:

"There is a dying pseudo-Marxist left from the 1950s and 1970s which is already a ghost. They have never participated, or been decisive sectors, in the recent mobilizations. There is a new indigenous left -- which is something new -- that doesn't share the principles, political recipe-books, or conservative pseudo-radicalism of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. Š Thus, I would speak of confrontation between the last vestiges of an old pseudo-Marxist left and an emerging and vigorous indigenous left." (El Diario, Dec. 22)

What Way Forward?

In addition to this ideological offensive meant to divide the movement and discredit the workers' organizations, Evo Morales is seeking to co-opt the workers' and popular organizations into the new government by offering them cabinet posts.

Offers to participate in the new administration already have been made to the peasant federations, the COB, the Miners' Federation, the COR-El Alto, and the Federation of Neighborhood Councils (FEJUVE) of El Alto. So far only the Miners' Federation has categorically rejected the offer.

A heated debate is now in full swing within these organizations, with many leaders and rank-and-file members stating vehemently that it's not possible to defend the specific interests of the workers and peasants if their organizations participate in the new government, thereby assuming responsibility for its policies -- including its stated refusal to nationalize the oil and gas resources.

Clearly, a crucial task today is to guarantee the independence of the workers' movement by insisting that the workers' and popular organizations should refuse to be co-opted into joining the new government. Central to this task, as well, is the need for the workers' organizations to launch, as soon as possible, the much-talked about "Political Instrument of the Workers."

The proposal to form an independent workers' party was raised by the COB and has been championed by various sectors, particularly the mineworkers. The need for such a workers' party also was highlighted in the Final Declaration adopted by the National Workers and Popular Summit in El Alto.

A new situation is opening up for the Bolivian workers' and popular movements. Expectations -- and illusions -- are high in Morales and the new government. Large sectors of the Bolivian population hope the new government will implement profound and positive changes in their living situation.

Meanwhile, Evo Morales is redoubling his pledges to the employers and foreign investors, telling them they have nothing to fear from a MAS government. Prior to the election, Morales went so far as to tell the leaders of the Bolivian Private Business Association (CETB) that "the MAS is the only party capable of guaranteeing social peace in Bolivia." (El Diario, Oct. 6, 2005)

If the revolutionary mobilizations of the Bolivian masses are not to be taken back into safe channels for imperialism, it is imperative that the working class organizations that spearheaded the mass uprisings of October 2003 and May-June 2005 not relent in the struggle to win the central demands around which the workers and people have mobilized these past three years. This, of course, is bound up with the need to maintain the independence of the mass workers' and popular organizations in
relation to the government of Evo Morales.

To this end, sectors of the Bolivian labor movement, including La Chispa -- the sympathizing group of the Fourth International in Bolivia -- are calling on the main workers' organizations -- the COB, the Miners' Federation (FSTMB) and the COR -- to launch an Open Letter to Evo Morales that would essentially state the following:

"Compañero Evo: On Dec. 18, the people gave you their votes and a clear mandate: Immediate nationalization, without compensation, of the oil and gas! Unity of the nation, against all the reactionary secessionist attempts organized under the pretext of autonomies!

"We -- workers, unemployed, peasants, youth and shanty-town dwellers -- cannot wait any longer. You have the power to implement these demands. As Compañero Jaime Solares of the COB stated, nationalization without compensation is a political act that does not require consultation with, or authorization from, anyone else. He went on to note there is no reason to delay carrying out the demands of the people.

"Compañero Solares is right: We are hungry, we are unemployed, and we want the nationalization of the oil and gas now. If you were to take such action, you can be assured of the overwhelming support of the Bolivian people!"

Last December, just prior to the national election, the National Workers and Popular Summit, issued a call to organize Local and Regional Popular Assemblies and a National Originary Popular Assembly in April 2006. (1) It is necessary for the main workers' organization to reaffirm their pledge to organize these Assemblies. There, working people, organized in their own name, can take stock of the new political situation and discuss how best -- in these new conditions -- to wage the struggle to win their demands.

It cannot be ruled out in advance that the workers' and popular movements could succeed in pushing Evo Morales and the MAS to move further on the road to a break with imperialism than what's proposed in their program. But for that to happen, it will require the sustained independent mobilization and self-organization of the workers, peasants, and students.

It will require that the workers' and popular movement seize hold of the Local and Regional Popular Assemblies and the National Originary Popular Assembly, slated for April 10, to continue and deepen the struggle for the nationalization of the oil and gas, as well as the unity and sovereignty of Bolivia.

Roger Pardo Maurer, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, spoke of the danger of the "revolution going on in Bolivia, a revolution that potentially could have consequences as far-reaching as the Cuban revolution of 1959. ... The things going on in Bolivia could have repercussions in Latin America and elsewhere that you could be dealing with for the rest of your lives."

This is not an over-statement. The stakes are high in Bolivia.

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Rico Blanc is currently touring the United States to speak about the new
political developments and challenges in Bolivia. To contact him to speak at your
campus or to the members of your organization, please write to ryi_irj@yahoo.com
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The opinions contained in the article above are strictly those of the author and are not necessarily shared by Caliban.

Jihad in the Americas?

2006-01-25T07:12:00.000-04:00

Today marks the 171st anniversary of the famous Muslim uprising in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The slave revolt took place around the time of the Lavegem do Bonfim (Washing of Bonfim), which involves the washing of the steps of the Igreja (Church) de Bonfim by Candomblé priestesses who lead the procession from the Mercado Modelo to the church (my photo above depicts the area where the old Mercado Modelo used to be). Today the procession following the Candomblé priestesses is actually a huge festivity, with drumming, dancing, eating and drinking taking place in the area around the Mercado Modelo and spreading to the area around Bonfim (in the lower part of the city of Salvador). The faithful go to a room in the Church called Sala dos Milagres (Room of Miracles) to leave votive offerings. But I digress…

Back in 1835, the Lavegem do Bonfim (Washing of Bonfim) was just one in a cycle of religious celebrations held at this time of year, and it was during the early morning hours of January 25th, during the festival of Nossa Senhora da Guia (Our Lady of the Guide), that the Malês (as the Muslims were called) planned to attack. For a blow by blow account of this, see the seminal work by Joao Reis (some of which is referenced here)… Some authors believe that this rebellion was a jihad. According to Paul E. Lovejoy, “The wave of Muslim unrest (in Bahia) began a decade after the uprising in St. Domingue, and while the French Revolution may have had an influence, the unrest in Bahia can be better understood within the tradition of jihad in West Africa than with revolutionary events in Europe.”

Good Fences Make ...

2006-01-21T13:34:00.000-04:00

Though not one to prophesize, I nevertheless believe that the United States is going to confront a major domestic crisis this century. This particular crisis will overshadow most other domestic crises as well as all “foreign affairs” and overseas imperialist “adventures” (including the current crusade in the oil-rich Middle East) thus forcing the US to look inward and (hopefully) leaving the rest of the world alone (for a change). I am referring to the influx of Mexicans (so called “illegal aliens”) to the US. Prior to forming part of the Homeland Security apparatus the INS estimated that the “illegal alien” population from Mexico grew by nearly 2.8 million in the final decade of the last century, accounting for 80 percent of the total increase in the “illegal” population within the US. As we all know, this issue is not new and has been around ever since the US notoriously appropriated Mexican lands following the Mexican American War. There are signs, however, that the situation is reaching a boiling point (some argue it has been boiling over for some time already!). I am not necessarily referring to President Bush's recently announced temporary worker or bracero proposal, that - by the way - included a multi-billion dollar authorization aimed at further militarizing the border through hiring additional border patrol agents and creating more jails for immigrants, among other measures. Instead I am talking about H.R. 4313 which was unveiled by Congressmen Hunter (R-CA) and Goode (R-VA) as "the border fence bill." There is in my opinion a definite analogy between this "fence" and the wall in Israel purporting to protect that country against "terrorists".

The otherwise pro-US Mexican gov't has called the border fence bill “shameful” and has pledged to block the plan and organize an international campaign against it. There seems to be a groundswell of support among the US public for such a barrier. Just last month, a federal judge removed the final legal barrier to completing a border fence meant to stymie illegal immigrants in the southwestern corner of the US. Evidently this will be an issue to be watched closely in the years to come.

Brazil maintains command of U.N. force in Haiti ahead of elections

2006-01-19T09:56:00.000-04:00

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has named Brazilian General Jose Elito Carvalho Siqueira to head the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). This occurred following the apparent suicide of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Urano Bacellar, who was found dead of a gunshot wound in his hotel room in Port-au-Prince on January 7. Siqueira heads the 6th Military Region, based in Salvador, capital of the northeastern state of Bahia.

Despite the rise in violence and kidnappings, Haiti plans to go ahead with the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections as scheduled on Tuesday February 7. A runoff is scheduled for March 19, while the president-elect is due to take office on March 29. Although scheduled initially for mid-November of last year the vote has been postponed several times since reportedly due to technical reasons.

Of Tobacco and Sugar

2006-01-16T14:11:00.000-04:00

"From the time the Arabs with their alchemy brought 'alçucar,' as it was still called in the royal decrees having to do with America, into our Western civilization, it has been used in syrups, frosting, icings, cakes, candy, always with other flavors added to it. Tobacco is proud; it is taken straight, for its own sake, without company or disguise. Its ambition is to be pure, or to be so considered. Sugar by itself surfeits and cloys, and for this reason it needs company and uses a disguise or a chaperon. It must have some other substance to lend it a seductive flavor. And it, in turn, repays the favor by covering up the flatness, insipidness or bitterness of other ingredients with its own sweetness. A miscegenation of flavors. This basic contrast between sugar and tobacco is emphasized even more throughout the whole process of their agricultural, industrial and commercial development by the amorphism of the one and the polymorphism of the other." Extract from Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar by Fernando Ortiz; English translation made by Harriet de Onís from a text specially prepared in Spanish by the author. The book from which this was extracted has an introduction by Bronislaw Malinowski and a prologue by noted Cuban historian and sociologist Herminio Portell Vilá. It was published in New York by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1947.

Random musings on globalization and rice

2006-01-09T20:44:00.000-04:00

A great deal of the antagonism being generated towards globalization (defined broadly as the liberalization of markets) stems from the fact that there will inevitably be "winners" and "losers" arising from the process. Assuming that this liberalization of markets is carried out equitably across the whole spectrum of societies that compose this world of ours; that is, assuming that countries are allowed to specialize in those industries wherein they possess a comparative advantage while jettisoning those industries in which they don't -- then it would appear that the question of how one takes care of the "losers" ought ultimately to determine the success or failure of this entire enterprize. There are two important questions here. I would like to focus on the first (the "equitable" liberalization of markets)...

Although I don't even intend to scratch the surface here, the liberalization of the rice trade serves to highlight the complexities of this sticky unresolved problem of globalization. On the neighboring island of Hispaniola (as in various other locations throughout the Caribbean – during differing periods of our collective history), rice was a locally produced staple (I am old enough to remember the days when you could buy rice that was actually produced in Puerto Rico). Although it still remains so in some places, the panorama has changed dramatically from years past. In the late seventies and early eighties, Haiti was nearly self-sufficient in the production of rice. Eventually, its rice market was pried open under pressure from the international community and flooded with cheap subsidized imports from the US. The consequences were devastating for a country considered one of the poorest if not the poorest in the hemisphere. One could argue that the rich US farmer with a much wider range of economic alternatives benefited at the expense of the poor Haitian farmer with far less options at his disposal.

In 2002 the US Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (known as the "freedom to farm" bill, which had called for the eventual elimination of US government income support to farmers) was replaced by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act. This legislation put off many of the reforms contained with the "freedom to farm" bill and greatly expanded the level of government support to farmers. Contrary to US commitments during previous WTO trade negotiations to reduce its own agricultural subsidies, the new farm bill reportedly increased support for the agricultural sector by about 80 percent over the previous farm
legislation. (see * for a snap-shot of the rice industry in the US)

It is small wonder that some international agencies have characterized the
final text of the Declaration at the end of the WTO Hong Kong Conference
as a betrayal of development promises by rich countries. Here within our
own regional context, a similar sentiment was expressed recently by Caribbean farmers against what they claim will be an onslaught of imports of subsidized US rice and other commodities, consequence of the recently approved "Dominican Republic - Central America Free Trade Agreement". Complex issues indeed! Whither free trade? Is it not being applied equitably in all cases? Your feedback on the subject is welcome.

Netherlands Antilles at a Crossroads

2006-01-08T20:18:00.000-04:00

In the latter part of November, 2005, the Prime Minister of Holland and leaders of the federation of the Netherlands Antilles (made up of the five islands of Bonaire, Curaçao, St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius) agreed to modify the political relations of the federation with Holland. Since 1945, the Netherlands Antilles have enjoyed autonomy regarding their internal affairs while remaining within the Dutch Kingdom. Holland retains responsibilities for defense and foreign policy. Aruba was also a part of this federation until it obtained a “status aparte” on January 1, 1986. The Netherlands Antilles is governed by a unicameral parliament or "Staten" whose 22 members are popularly elected. The Staten chooses a "Minister President" and a Council of Ministers, while a Governor represents the monarch of the Netherlands. Each island has its own local government authority.

Under the recently negotiated arrangement, Curaçao and St. Maarten will adopt a “status aparte”, while Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba will become "Kingdom Islands". The latter is a newly created status that has yet to be defined, but nevertheless represents closer integration with Holland, possibly even signifying becoming a municipality. These changes are expected to take effect in July of 2007. A key issue in the November agreement was the federation's US$ 2.8 billion public debt which is seen as an obstacle to economic development. The Dutch government has committed itself to find a solution to this problem. A discussion of economic issues confronting the Netherlands Antilles can be gleaned from a recent International Monetary Fund Mission to the islands.

IDB begins year with new administration

2006-01-07T20:39:00.000-04:00

The world's oldest and largest regional development bank started off the year with a new administration and a new lending framework that purport to permit “greater flexibility and a sharpened country focus for loans and grants to support the economic and social development of Latin America and the Caribbean.” Former Colombian Ambassador to the United States, Luis Alberto Moreno assumed office succeeding Enrique V. Iglesias as head of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on October 1, 2005. Moreno's priorities reportedly include pushing forward the hemispheric trade agenda and competitiveness.

Bank lending grew 17% in 2005 over 2004, reaching US$ 7 billion. Over half of the IDB's lending in 2005 was destined to poverty reduction and social equity programs. The IDB, founded in 1959 to promote economic and social development as well as regional integration, currently has 47 member countries and offices in all borrowing countries plus the European Union and Japan. Its headquarters is in Washington D.C..

CARICOM launches Single Market

2006-01-06T14:26:00.000-04:00

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) launched the the Single Market component of its Single Market and Economy (CSME) on January 1, 2006. Under CSM, the member states of Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago agreed to remove tariffs among participant states. All citizens of CARICOM will reportedly be able to operate businesses, offer services and circulate capital throughout the single market area unrestricted. Plans are also in the works for a regional passport to replace national travel documents in 2007.

An official ceremony for the CSM is scheduled to take place in Jamaica on January 23. Not included in the agreement, however, were Haiti and the Bahamas. Haiti was suspended from CARICOM deliberations following the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power during a rebellion in February, 2004. Interim Haitian Prime Minister Gérard Latortue has expressed regret at CARICOM's decision to exclude Haiti but expressed confidence that his country will eventually resume active membership within the regional organization. Montserrat, a British dependency, is expected to join CSME by the end of the first quarter of 2006.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide: Man of the People?

2006-01-05T16:06:00.000-04:00

Irrespective of which side you may be on regarding the issue of the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in Haiti, it is becoming increasingly apparent that he was not all that “saintly” a leader as his supporters claim. According to two lawsuits filed recently in U.S. Courts, some US telecom firms struck secret deals with Aristide and his associates while he was Prime Minister to pay Haiti low-cost fees while providing the Haitian leader with hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.

EU Banana Regime Demise

2006-01-04T07:29:00.000-04:00

On August 1, last year, a World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitrator ruled against the European Union's (EU) proposed most-favored nation (MFN) tariff rates for banana imports. The request had been made by Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama under the Doha Ministerial Decision after the EU had proposed a new banana tariff of € 230 per ton. Following the ruling, the EU revised its tariff proposal to € 187 per ton. Further consultations followed, but the parties were still unable to reach a mutually-satisfactory agreement. Hence on September 26, the EU requested a second arbitration. Toward the end of October, the second arbitration report determined that the EU's new proposed MFN tariff of € 187 per ton failed to rectify the matter. So here we stand! In his statement before the recent WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, Charles Savarin - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Labor of Dominica referred to the new banana regime scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 2006: “The fundamental responsibility of this Organization is to balance those rights so that its prescriptions are fair, reasonable and equitable. Damaging the right of Caribbean and ACP countries to trade in bananas or any other commodity cannot be fair, reasonable or equitable.”

2006-01-03T08:33:00.000-04:00

Trinidad and Tobago wrote Footballing history in November 2005 by defying the odds to qualify for the 2006 summer World Cup finals in Germany. The Soca Warriors' success is an impressive achievement for a nation with only 1.1 million citizens, making it the smallest in next summer's competition. Congratulations Soca Warriors!

Economically, Trinidad and Tobago is the leading Caribbean producer of oil and gas, in addition to producing tourism services, cement, cotton textiles, various beverages and food processing.