Vol. 72/No. 28      July 14, 2008

MARTÍN KOPPEL: The revolutionary government of Cuba has campaigned on behalf of the independence of Puerto Rico and the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners. What is your view of what the Cuban revolution represents?

RAFAEL CANCEL MIRANDA: The hope of us all. As long as Cuba is there, there is hope that we will be able to go through those doors. If Cuba falls, our struggle will take many more years. I’m not referring just to Puerto Rico but to all our peoples. So far, Cuba is the only country that U.S. financial and military interests don’t control.

Cuba is also a psychological weapon for our peoples, because they instill these complexes to make us think that without the Yankees we just can’t survive. The sun would stop shining. The moon would fall… .

Yet Cuba has survived. Not only without the Yankees. In spite of the Yankees, and in spite of all the confrontations and the U.S. blockade. Without that blockade, Cuba would not have to go through these crises. But it has weathered the crisis and has survived.

Under the system that exists in Cuba, your worth is determined by what you are. And when I talk about the system in Cuba, I’m talking about the socialist system. Your worth is measured by how you share with others. Under this system your worth is measured by what you own, and they keep us at war with each other.

For me, Cuba dignifies people, it humanizes people. This system dehumanizes people. It’s dog-eat-dog. That’s the philosophy. And they keep indoctrinating you in order to strip you of your human values. They keep instilling money-grubbing values so you will serve them better as a tool and to make you accept degradation and humiliation because they’ve taken away your values. Only people who have values are capable of feeling indignation and anger.

I was always a nationalist and defender of my country. But I’m a nationalist because I’m a socialist. And I’m a socialist because I’m a nationalist. I believe in socialism for my country because I want the best for my country and for the world.

Don Pedro [Albizu Campos] always said that first you have to have the key to the house, so you can then decide what color to paint it. He said that first we have to fight for independence and be free; then we’ll be masters of our country. Then we’ll be able to decide what system to have.

But as long as we’re not a free country, it’s the United States, the financial interests on Wall Street, the military interests in the Pentagon—which are one and the same—that will decide what kind of life we live.

Cuba was able to be socialist because it was already sovereign. It was able to dictate, within its sovereignty, the way of life it would live.

I believe in socialism as much as I believe in independence for my country. I wouldn’t want a free country—with all we have sacrificed throughout our history of struggle—so that two or three parasites could take over the lives of our people, could enrich themselves at the expense of our people. I don’t want that kind of independence.

Now, as long as the Soviet Union existed, for many people it was almost a cachet to be a socialist—it was almost fashionable. Because there existed a power. Later it turned out that there were a lot of socialists because of the existence of the socialist power, not because they truly believed in socialism.

Many who once could even have told you how many hairs Marx and Engels and Lenin had on their beards, today don’t utter a word about socialism. Today some have thrown themselves into what they used to criticize, nationalism, which is the only door they have left to continue to struggle.

Previously, they wouldn’t use the portrait of Pedro Albizu Campos, who stood for the affirmation of Puerto Rico. They would use—and I don’t criticize them—the portraits of Lenin and the others. But now you don’t see portraits of Lenin or Marx or Engels anywhere.

But if you believe in socialism, you believe in it even if you’re alone. You don’t believe in it because there are twenty thousand socialist countries or because there is one socialist country.

So, now that many who used to profess themselves socialists—because of the existence of certain powers, because they could travel to the Soviet Union—no longer do so, now I say I’m a socialist. Now they can’t tell me, “He says that because the Soviet power is there.” No.

I’m not saying it because there are some socialist powers somewhere. I say it because I believe in socialism, period.  
 
 
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