“There are many brilliant black writers who should have won the Pulitzer Prize long before I was even born.”
April 28, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Photo by Lazar Simeonov / Flickr
Born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, into a farming family of eight children, Alice Walker experienced racial segregation in the South of the United States from an early age. In her teens, aware of the reality of oppression, she became involved in the struggle for equality against the discriminatory policies imposed by the supremacist authorities.
After brilliant studies, she took up writing and published her first book of poetry at the age of 24, while simultaneously pursuing an academic career at prestigious universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught a course on The Roots of Spirituality in African-American Survival. In 1983, she became the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple, which is now one of the five most widely read books in the United States.
A feminist activist, Alice Walker placed freedom and social justice at the heart of her work. Strongly influenced by the Cuban Revolution and its universal message of emancipation, she has been fighting for years against the economic sanctions that hit the island’s population. She is also deeply committed to the fight for environmental preservation and human progress.
In these conversations, Alice Walker recalls her childhood in the segregated South and her commitment to fighting institutional racism. She recounts her meeting with Howard Zinn, the famous historian committed to fighting all forms of injustice, who had a major influence in shaping her political conscience. She looks back on winning the Pulitzer Prize and the obstacles erected against black writers. Finally, she talks at length about the Cuban Revolution, which was a profound source of inspiration for her and for many intellectuals of her generation.
Salim Lamrani: Alice Walker, where were you born and what memories do you have of your childhood, marked by racial segregation?
Alice Walker: I was born in the South of the United States, in the countryside, a beautiful place, and grew up with my parents, brothers and sisters. One of my sisters left when I was a year old because there was no high school for black children in our town. I loved my parents and was very close to my grandparents. I remember often sneaking off to visit them. Their lives were so basic: planting, growing, cooking, eating, indulging my every desire… the simple way they lived represented heaven to me. As I am now at the age they were when I knew them, I understand I have in my choice of how to live, very simply, with chickens and garden, emulated their ways.
We had our own community. Of course, there was segregation, but we didn’t notice it as children. We lived in a community of people who cared about our well-being.
We never had decent housing. We could be forced to move almost every year. My father and mother worked very hard to keep us from feeling the oppression on a daily basis. We rarely saw white people. We only saw the landowner and whoever could force us out.
SL: How was racial oppression expressed in a system run by rich, white men?
AW: It has to be said that, in most cases, they were not that rich. They were simply white, and not always men. Our most harsh landowner was a woman and possibly a relative. Though she would have denied this possibility, at least in public. In that society, a white person was automatically considered superior to any black person, even one with a university degree, and even one that was a relative.
When one considers the deep illness of America whose foundation was the exploitation of Africans and part-African relatives, it becomes easier to comprehend the tragedy of our political situation today. Where America owes more money than it will ever be able to repay, and where depredation and enslavement of the country itself is not an impossibility.
I was very aware that we were poor. We were poor because we worked for people who owned all the land, all the good housing and all the schools. My parents managed to build a school for our community, but the whites burned it down to deprive us of an education. So, we built another one. We were very aware of the struggle for education in our community. The whites hated us, but we felt love for ourselves. I have to say that, as children, we were protected to a large extent from the daily humiliation suffered by our parents.
Then, at 17, I left home to join the movement against racial oppression and for civil rights. My parents were somewhat frightened by our commitment, but their love had given us the energy to fight.
SL: Tell us about Professor Howard Zinn, whom you knew at Spelman College. How do you remember him?
AW: The whole world knows him as a famous historian and progressive. For my part, he was my friend, and I discovered that he had also been poor. He grew up in a modest Jewish family. He worked in the shipyards like his father, until he was drafted into the army, where he became a bombardier during the Second World War, a task that taught him never to bow to demands, by politicians who sit at home, for war.
Howard helped us at Spelman. Our school was very strict and it was difficult to become a rebel. But I was a rebel, not least because I was a poet and studied French. I was in the school’s French House and studied all the great poets. I translated their works. I took part in demonstrations and made sure I didn’t get arrested so I wouldn’t get expelled from school. In the end, Howard was dismissed because he was involved in the fight against racial segregation. So, I decided to leave the school in solidarity.
SL: What other personalities had an important influence on your personal and activist life?
AW: Staughton Lynd was also a history teacher at the same school, Spelman, and he had a big influence on me. He had traveled to Hanoi to learn about the atrocities committed during the Vietnam War. Later, he was a professor at Yale University and was fired because of his opposition to the war. He also, always, stood up for what he believed in.
I’ve been lucky throughout my life to be surrounded by people with good values, who looked out for each other and defended world peace.
SL: You married a white man, Melvin Rosenman Leventhal, even though mixed marriages were illegal in the state of Georgia. What were the consequences of this union in an America that refused equal rights for all?
AW: Intermarriage was illegal throughout the South, not just in Georgia where I was born. We got married in New York and were very happy. Then we went to Mississippi to defy the law and challenge the iniquitous legal ruling that made it illegal for certain people to marry. I’m not a big fan of marriage. But after 300 or 400 years of oppression, you couldn’t keep telling people they couldn’t get married, that they couldn’t marry someone they loved. So, it seemed very natural to rebel against this discrimination.
SL: Could you tell us about your experience as a university professor?
AW: It wasn’t the job I enjoyed the most. I liked some of my students, but it was essentially a job for survival. I needed the funds to be able to write my novels. As you know, to write a book, you need time, a place to live, resources to raise your children.
In Berkeley, at the University of California, I taught a course called “Visions and the Spirit”. It focused on stories of enslaved women and how they managed to survive thanks to an incredible spiritual imagination that enabled them to mentally escape extreme misery and forge a bond with their notion of “God.” In this way, they had a spiritual partner in their suffering, and they were able to hold on.
SL: In 1982, you became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for your tenth book, The Color Purple. What changed for you? Has it had an impact on the way black women are perceived in American society?
AW: People often like to say that this is the first novel by a black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize. But you have to remember that in the past, black people weren’t generally considered for the Pulitzer Prize. America was as Apartheid as the old South Africa. Not many black people were even able to find a publisher. There’s a certain hypocrisy in all this, because we seem to want people to believe that, for all those years, anyone – white or black – could win the Pulitzer. That’s just not true. Even on the jury that awarded me the prize, there was at least one person – a white woman – who was absolutely against it because my book was about African Americans about whom she apparently knew nothing.
There are many brilliant black writers who should have won every conceivable prize, long before I was born. I say this because I know you understand the structure of racism in our country. They say I’m the only one, as if there were never any other potential candidates. There are many black writers who could have won any award that was offered, if only, before the end of American apartheid, they had been allowed to compete.
SL: You say The Color Purple is a remedy for a lot of people because it frees them up, and that’s the reason for its success.
AW: I think the book helps women realize that they don’t have to accept relationships with men who are damaging their physical and mental health. There are plenty of other relationships in the world. They can have relationships with other women, and that’s a great liberation. Why should you only have relationships with men if you haven’t found someone who treats you well?
It’s a liberation for men too. “Mister” is a particularly loathsome character, based unfortunately on my beloved grandfather decades before I was born. It’s an opportunity for men to see that they have other sides to their personality than just brutalizing women. They can learn to see women as equals. It’s not impossible.
So, I think it’s a very good remedy for many people in the United States, but also around the world because the oppression of women is global. It’s something really unworthy of human behavior. It shouldn’t exist, just like child abuse. In fact, women are often mistreated when they’re pregnant, which really should encourage all humans to take time out from our busy schedules to ponder why this is so.
SL: The oldest form of domination is that of men over women. You are fully committed to the fight for women’s rights. What remains to be done to achieve true equality?
AW: Everything remains to be done, which is really despairing. In our country, women have lost the right to abortion. If you can’t control your own body, you’re a slave. So, we’ve gone back 100 years, which means that the fight for freedom is constant and eternal. We don’t even need to think about the plight of women in other parts of the world where they’ve never had a breath of freedom.
I worked for many years, ten years, on female genital mutilation and the danger it poses to people, particularly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, but also in other regions. It’s one of the greatest insults to humanity imaginable.
SL: Which causes have been a source of inspiration for you?
AW: The Cuban Revolution. When I discovered that Fidel was speaking on behalf of people who were exactly like my parents, people whose children had no shoes, who had to build their own schools just to see the landowner burn them down, it was very natural for me to feel that I had found a brother, that there was someone in the world who could see all these injustices and denounce them.
At his side was Che. I’d also like to mention the revolutionary Celia Sanchez, who was very close to Che and Fidel, but who barely gets a mention. In Cuba, she is honored, but beyond its borders she is ignored because the world sees only the male revolutionary, even though she played a fundamental role in the Cuban Revolution.
SL: What does the Cuban Revolution symbolize for you? What does it symbolize for people who are victims of racial, social, colonial or imperial oppression?
AW: The Cuban Revolution symbolizes one thing, among others: if you rebel, you will be punished. Cuba was punished for rising up, for trying to be different. Let’s face it: the oppressor will always seek to punish the oppressed who refuse their condition. They will make life impossible for them, and prevent them from devoting themselves to building a more just society. This is exactly what is happening with Cuba.
So, what should we do? Should we continue to rebel? Should we persevere in building a different system? Should we resist? Should we give in?
I often think of Cuba, which is suffering today and has always suffered. I remember going there at a time when there was no gas. Cars ran out of gas and had to be pushed. Today, food is in short supply in Cuba for the poorest people. There are constant shortages.
This gives the impression of failure, but we have to ask ourselves the right questions. Is it a failure when most Cubans, who would never have been educated without the Revolution, now have university degrees, despite the state of siege to which they are subjected? Cubans who leave their country in search of a better life are educated and will have better opportunities. That’s something to emphasize. Cuba really is a fascinating subject.
SL: What do you think of U.S. policy towards Cuba?
AW: U.S. policy is one of collective punishment. It feels like we’re being run by 18th-century Calvinists, by people who would burn you at the stake. It’s an odious policy. It really gives America a bad name. I’d like people to understand the consequences of such hard-heartedness, when we claim to be a Christian country. We make sure that children go hungry, that they don’t have shoes, that the elderly don’t get medicine. I remember visiting a maternity hospital in Cuba and there was almost nothing. There was no soap. I don’t know how the staff kept the place so clean with such a lack of means. It was so sad.
Life never rewards meanness. That’s one of the reasons why my country suffers so much. We think we’re great, but just look at the reality in our own cities, with so many people hungry and living on the streets. We suffer because our leaders have lost all compassion, if they ever had any.
SL: You met Fidel Castro on several occasions. What can you tell us about him?
AW: He loved to talk, as everyone knows, and had a good sense of humor. He was the most knowledgeable person I’ve ever met. On the other hand, he had never heard of female genital mutilation and when I mentioned it to him, he literally turned pale. He was very disturbed and wanted to find a way to put an end to this barbaric practice. It was great because I had finally met a man who could feel women’s suffering. It was remarkable. I really liked him. I found him very human, with a very open mind.
I learned that neither he nor Che knew how to dance, which is a pity because dance is really essential for understanding the body’s connections to the earth and nature.
I was also very impressed by his ability to listen. One day, at one of our meetings, we were a big table and he listened to each and every one of us. That’s something that would never happen in the United States, if we ever had the opportunity to share the President’s table.
SL: You published a poem entitled “Earnest and Faithful” in tribute to Che. Tell us about him.
AW: I love translating names. Ernesto and Fidel mean “Earnest and Faithful” in English. It’s beautiful and poetic. They were both earnest and faithful, devoted to their cause. They had unshakeable faith and great love for the people.
I had the opportunity to visit the crypt where Che’s remains lie in Santa Clara. He had been assassinated and buried in secret in Bolivia. Nobody knew where he was. I remember that terrible photo of his lifeless body, surrounded by the generals and people who had taken part in his capture. It was very painful for many people around the world. Fidel then undertook a search, and the place where his remains lay was finally discovered, and he was repatriated to Cuba. I have great admiration, respect and love for Che.
SL: You are committed to promoting human rights. Yet in the West, Cuba is often singled out on this issue. What do you think of these accusations?
AW: They’re typical. If Cuba had succeeded in carrying out its project without external pressure, almost all other countries would have looked backward, with the possible exception of the Scandinavian countries. I’m very fond of Finland. The elites hate Cuba because it tried to build something new and different.
They say Cuba wanted to be communist. I think we have to remember history. Cuba drew closer to the USSR because it had no other choice. The hostile policy of the United States plunged the island into such a state of penury that it had to forge a strategic alliance with Moscow.
What else can they do but accuse Cuba of failure, when they’ve done everything in their power to stifle the country? I remember seeing a program entitled “How Castro destroyed the Cuban economy”. Which economy are we talking about? The peasants – who lived in the same conditions as my parents and my people – cut sugar cane from sunrise to sunset. They had no shoes, no school and couldn’t even read or write. It was the Revolution that taught them to read and write.
SL: Who are the people who inspire you today?
SL: It’s the people who don’t give up. I’m amazed at how resilient people are. The situation seems so dire. We’re on the verge of a Third World War. As Einstein said, World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones, if we have a nuclear conflict.
There’s an organization called Code Pink that I really like, because it has never stopped demanding justice, whether for Cuba or other countries around the world. I admire people who continue to fight despite adversity. I admire people who see the truth, who don’t abandon their principles, who remain true to their convictions, like Fidel, Che and Celia.
SL: What do you think is the duty of intellectuals?
AW: I think we have to be clear-headed enough to see what’s real, and not let ourselves be fooled by mirrors and smoke. The world situation is terrible, and it’s our duty to remain as vigilant as possible. This is our duty to the people who have fought so hard in the past. We mustn’t let ourselves be fooled by the dark powers who know so well how to manipulate reality.
SL: What outrages you today?
AW: I’m scandalized by the scale of child trafficking. We hear horrible stories about child concentration camps and child trafficking. Many of these children are used for organ trafficking. It’s terrible to imagine that humanity has sunk so low that there is a trade in children. It’s shocking and something you’d never see in Cuba!
SL: Let’s end with one of your quotes: “Love is the foundation of change and transformation”.
AW: If you have love in your heart, you will be guided to who needs love and who responds to love. It’s a bit difficult to explain this to people who don’t understand it. It’s almost like a forgotten language, a forgotten emotion. Leonard Cohen says: “Love is the only engine of survival”. And it’s true. We won’t get anywhere if we think we can do it without love. It’s just not possible.
We have to develop love for ourselves, for everything around us, for plants, animals and water. Love has become an overused word that people say without any feeling attached to it. Develop love in your heart because it’s our only hope of surviving and being happy.
We all deserve to be happy. Happiness is not something unattainable. We must try to discover what really makes us happy, and love is one of the things that will certainly make us happy. I am not talking about romantic love, though there is great emotional strength to be gained from loving another person selflessly. I am speaking more of a cosmic love that is rooted in appreciation of our mere existence in such a wonder as this Universe, this world, where humans are themselves extraordinary creations, like everything else that exists here.
Salim Lamrani holds a PhD in Iberian and Latin American Studies from Sorbonne University, and is Professor of Latin American History at the Université de La Réunion, specializing in relations between Cuba and the United States.
His latest book in English is Cuba, the Media and the Challenge of Impartiality: https://monthlyreview.org/product/cuba_the_media_and_the_challenge_of_impartiality/
Photo by Lazar Simeonov / Flickr
Born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, into a farming family of eight children, Alice Walker experienced racial segregation in the South of the United States from an early age. In her teens, aware of the reality of oppression, she became involved in the struggle for equality against the discriminatory policies imposed by the supremacist authorities.
After brilliant studies, she took up writing and published her first book of poetry at the age of 24, while simultaneously pursuing an academic career at prestigious universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught a course on The Roots of Spirituality in African-American Survival. In 1983, she became the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple, which is now one of the five most widely read books in the United States.
A feminist activist, Alice Walker placed freedom and social justice at the heart of her work. Strongly influenced by the Cuban Revolution and its universal message of emancipation, she has been fighting for years against the economic sanctions that hit the island’s population. She is also deeply committed to the fight for environmental preservation and human progress.
In these conversations, Alice Walker recalls her childhood in the segregated South and her commitment to fighting institutional racism. She recounts her meeting with Howard Zinn, the famous historian committed to fighting all forms of injustice, who had a major influence in shaping her political conscience. She looks back on winning the Pulitzer Prize and the obstacles erected against black writers. Finally, she talks at length about the Cuban Revolution, which was a profound source of inspiration for her and for many intellectuals of her generation.
Salim Lamrani: Alice Walker, where were you born and what memories do you have of your childhood, marked by racial segregation?
Alice Walker: I was born in the South of the United States, in the countryside, a beautiful place, and grew up with my parents, brothers and sisters. One of my sisters left when I was a year old because there was no high school for black children in our town. I loved my parents and was very close to my grandparents. I remember often sneaking off to visit them. Their lives were so basic: planting, growing, cooking, eating, indulging my every desire… the simple way they lived represented heaven to me. As I am now at the age they were when I knew them, I understand I have in my choice of how to live, very simply, with chickens and garden, emulated their ways.
We had our own community. Of course, there was segregation, but we didn’t notice it as children. We lived in a community of people who cared about our well-being.
We never had decent housing. We could be forced to move almost every year. My father and mother worked very hard to keep us from feeling the oppression on a daily basis. We rarely saw white people. We only saw the landowner and whoever could force us out.
SL: How was racial oppression expressed in a system run by rich, white men?
AW: It has to be said that, in most cases, they were not that rich. They were simply white, and not always men. Our most harsh landowner was a woman and possibly a relative. Though she would have denied this possibility, at least in public. In that society, a white person was automatically considered superior to any black person, even one with a university degree, and even one that was a relative.
When one considers the deep illness of America whose foundation was the exploitation of Africans and part-African relatives, it becomes easier to comprehend the tragedy of our political situation today. Where America owes more money than it will ever be able to repay, and where depredation and enslavement of the country itself is not an impossibility.
I was very aware that we were poor. We were poor because we worked for people who owned all the land, all the good housing and all the schools. My parents managed to build a school for our community, but the whites burned it down to deprive us of an education. So, we built another one. We were very aware of the struggle for education in our community. The whites hated us, but we felt love for ourselves. I have to say that, as children, we were protected to a large extent from the daily humiliation suffered by our parents.
Then, at 17, I left home to join the movement against racial oppression and for civil rights. My parents were somewhat frightened by our commitment, but their love had given us the energy to fight.
SL: Tell us about Professor Howard Zinn, whom you knew at Spelman College. How do you remember him?
AW: The whole world knows him as a famous historian and progressive. For my part, he was my friend, and I discovered that he had also been poor. He grew up in a modest Jewish family. He worked in the shipyards like his father, until he was drafted into the army, where he became a bombardier during the Second World War, a task that taught him never to bow to demands, by politicians who sit at home, for war.
Howard helped us at Spelman. Our school was very strict and it was difficult to become a rebel. But I was a rebel, not least because I was a poet and studied French. I was in the school’s French House and studied all the great poets. I translated their works. I took part in demonstrations and made sure I didn’t get arrested so I wouldn’t get expelled from school. In the end, Howard was dismissed because he was involved in the fight against racial segregation. So, I decided to leave the school in solidarity.
SL: What other personalities had an important influence on your personal and activist life?
AW: Staughton Lynd was also a history teacher at the same school, Spelman, and he had a big influence on me. He had traveled to Hanoi to learn about the atrocities committed during the Vietnam War. Later, he was a professor at Yale University and was fired because of his opposition to the war. He also, always, stood up for what he believed in.
I’ve been lucky throughout my life to be surrounded by people with good values, who looked out for each other and defended world peace.
SL: You married a white man, Melvin Rosenman Leventhal, even though mixed marriages were illegal in the state of Georgia. What were the consequences of this union in an America that refused equal rights for all?
AW: Intermarriage was illegal throughout the South, not just in Georgia where I was born. We got married in New York and were very happy. Then we went to Mississippi to defy the law and challenge the iniquitous legal ruling that made it illegal for certain people to marry. I’m not a big fan of marriage. But after 300 or 400 years of oppression, you couldn’t keep telling people they couldn’t get married, that they couldn’t marry someone they loved. So, it seemed very natural to rebel against this discrimination.
SL: Could you tell us about your experience as a university professor?
AW: It wasn’t the job I enjoyed the most. I liked some of my students, but it was essentially a job for survival. I needed the funds to be able to write my novels. As you know, to write a book, you need time, a place to live, resources to raise your children.
In Berkeley, at the University of California, I taught a course called “Visions and the Spirit”. It focused on stories of enslaved women and how they managed to survive thanks to an incredible spiritual imagination that enabled them to mentally escape extreme misery and forge a bond with their notion of “God.” In this way, they had a spiritual partner in their suffering, and they were able to hold on.
SL: In 1982, you became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for your tenth book, The Color Purple. What changed for you? Has it had an impact on the way black women are perceived in American society?
AW: People often like to say that this is the first novel by a black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize. But you have to remember that in the past, black people weren’t generally considered for the Pulitzer Prize. America was as Apartheid as the old South Africa. Not many black people were even able to find a publisher. There’s a certain hypocrisy in all this, because we seem to want people to believe that, for all those years, anyone – white or black – could win the Pulitzer. That’s just not true. Even on the jury that awarded me the prize, there was at least one person – a white woman – who was absolutely against it because my book was about African Americans about whom she apparently knew nothing.
There are many brilliant black writers who should have won every conceivable prize, long before I was born. I say this because I know you understand the structure of racism in our country. They say I’m the only one, as if there were never any other potential candidates. There are many black writers who could have won any award that was offered, if only, before the end of American apartheid, they had been allowed to compete.
SL: You say The Color Purple is a remedy for a lot of people because it frees them up, and that’s the reason for its success.
AW: I think the book helps women realize that they don’t have to accept relationships with men who are damaging their physical and mental health. There are plenty of other relationships in the world. They can have relationships with other women, and that’s a great liberation. Why should you only have relationships with men if you haven’t found someone who treats you well?
It’s a liberation for men too. “Mister” is a particularly loathsome character, based unfortunately on my beloved grandfather decades before I was born. It’s an opportunity for men to see that they have other sides to their personality than just brutalizing women. They can learn to see women as equals. It’s not impossible.
So, I think it’s a very good remedy for many people in the United States, but also around the world because the oppression of women is global. It’s something really unworthy of human behavior. It shouldn’t exist, just like child abuse. In fact, women are often mistreated when they’re pregnant, which really should encourage all humans to take time out from our busy schedules to ponder why this is so.
SL: The oldest form of domination is that of men over women. You are fully committed to the fight for women’s rights. What remains to be done to achieve true equality?
AW: Everything remains to be done, which is really despairing. In our country, women have lost the right to abortion. If you can’t control your own body, you’re a slave. So, we’ve gone back 100 years, which means that the fight for freedom is constant and eternal. We don’t even need to think about the plight of women in other parts of the world where they’ve never had a breath of freedom.
I worked for many years, ten years, on female genital mutilation and the danger it poses to people, particularly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, but also in other regions. It’s one of the greatest insults to humanity imaginable.
SL: Which causes have been a source of inspiration for you?
AW: The Cuban Revolution. When I discovered that Fidel was speaking on behalf of people who were exactly like my parents, people whose children had no shoes, who had to build their own schools just to see the landowner burn them down, it was very natural for me to feel that I had found a brother, that there was someone in the world who could see all these injustices and denounce them.
At his side was Che. I’d also like to mention the revolutionary Celia Sanchez, who was very close to Che and Fidel, but who barely gets a mention. In Cuba, she is honored, but beyond its borders she is ignored because the world sees only the male revolutionary, even though she played a fundamental role in the Cuban Revolution.
SL: What does the Cuban Revolution symbolize for you? What does it symbolize for people who are victims of racial, social, colonial or imperial oppression?
AW: The Cuban Revolution symbolizes one thing, among others: if you rebel, you will be punished. Cuba was punished for rising up, for trying to be different. Let’s face it: the oppressor will always seek to punish the oppressed who refuse their condition. They will make life impossible for them, and prevent them from devoting themselves to building a more just society. This is exactly what is happening with Cuba.
So, what should we do? Should we continue to rebel? Should we persevere in building a different system? Should we resist? Should we give in?
I often think of Cuba, which is suffering today and has always suffered. I remember going there at a time when there was no gas. Cars ran out of gas and had to be pushed. Today, food is in short supply in Cuba for the poorest people. There are constant shortages.
This gives the impression of failure, but we have to ask ourselves the right questions. Is it a failure when most Cubans, who would never have been educated without the Revolution, now have university degrees, despite the state of siege to which they are subjected? Cubans who leave their country in search of a better life are educated and will have better opportunities. That’s something to emphasize. Cuba really is a fascinating subject.
SL: What do you think of U.S. policy towards Cuba?
AW: U.S. policy is one of collective punishment. It feels like we’re being run by 18th-century Calvinists, by people who would burn you at the stake. It’s an odious policy. It really gives America a bad name. I’d like people to understand the consequences of such hard-heartedness, when we claim to be a Christian country. We make sure that children go hungry, that they don’t have shoes, that the elderly don’t get medicine. I remember visiting a maternity hospital in Cuba and there was almost nothing. There was no soap. I don’t know how the staff kept the place so clean with such a lack of means. It was so sad.
Life never rewards meanness. That’s one of the reasons why my country suffers so much. We think we’re great, but just look at the reality in our own cities, with so many people hungry and living on the streets. We suffer because our leaders have lost all compassion, if they ever had any.
SL: You met Fidel Castro on several occasions. What can you tell us about him?
AW: He loved to talk, as everyone knows, and had a good sense of humor. He was the most knowledgeable person I’ve ever met. On the other hand, he had never heard of female genital mutilation and when I mentioned it to him, he literally turned pale. He was very disturbed and wanted to find a way to put an end to this barbaric practice. It was great because I had finally met a man who could feel women’s suffering. It was remarkable. I really liked him. I found him very human, with a very open mind.
I learned that neither he nor Che knew how to dance, which is a pity because dance is really essential for understanding the body’s connections to the earth and nature.
I was also very impressed by his ability to listen. One day, at one of our meetings, we were a big table and he listened to each and every one of us. That’s something that would never happen in the United States, if we ever had the opportunity to share the President’s table.
SL: You published a poem entitled “Earnest and Faithful” in tribute to Che. Tell us about him.
AW: I love translating names. Ernesto and Fidel mean “Earnest and Faithful” in English. It’s beautiful and poetic. They were both earnest and faithful, devoted to their cause. They had unshakeable faith and great love for the people.
I had the opportunity to visit the crypt where Che’s remains lie in Santa Clara. He had been assassinated and buried in secret in Bolivia. Nobody knew where he was. I remember that terrible photo of his lifeless body, surrounded by the generals and people who had taken part in his capture. It was very painful for many people around the world. Fidel then undertook a search, and the place where his remains lay was finally discovered, and he was repatriated to Cuba. I have great admiration, respect and love for Che.
SL: You are committed to promoting human rights. Yet in the West, Cuba is often singled out on this issue. What do you think of these accusations?
AW: They’re typical. If Cuba had succeeded in carrying out its project without external pressure, almost all other countries would have looked backward, with the possible exception of the Scandinavian countries. I’m very fond of Finland. The elites hate Cuba because it tried to build something new and different.
They say Cuba wanted to be communist. I think we have to remember history. Cuba drew closer to the USSR because it had no other choice. The hostile policy of the United States plunged the island into such a state of penury that it had to forge a strategic alliance with Moscow.
What else can they do but accuse Cuba of failure, when they’ve done everything in their power to stifle the country? I remember seeing a program entitled “How Castro destroyed the Cuban economy”. Which economy are we talking about? The peasants – who lived in the same conditions as my parents and my people – cut sugar cane from sunrise to sunset. They had no shoes, no school and couldn’t even read or write. It was the Revolution that taught them to read and write.
SL: Who are the people who inspire you today?
SL: It’s the people who don’t give up. I’m amazed at how resilient people are. The situation seems so dire. We’re on the verge of a Third World War. As Einstein said, World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones, if we have a nuclear conflict.
There’s an organization called Code Pink that I really like, because it has never stopped demanding justice, whether for Cuba or other countries around the world. I admire people who continue to fight despite adversity. I admire people who see the truth, who don’t abandon their principles, who remain true to their convictions, like Fidel, Che and Celia.
SL: What do you think is the duty of intellectuals?
AW: I think we have to be clear-headed enough to see what’s real, and not let ourselves be fooled by mirrors and smoke. The world situation is terrible, and it’s our duty to remain as vigilant as possible. This is our duty to the people who have fought so hard in the past. We mustn’t let ourselves be fooled by the dark powers who know so well how to manipulate reality.
SL: What outrages you today?
AW: I’m scandalized by the scale of child trafficking. We hear horrible stories about child concentration camps and child trafficking. Many of these children are used for organ trafficking. It’s terrible to imagine that humanity has sunk so low that there is a trade in children. It’s shocking and something you’d never see in Cuba!
SL: Let’s end with one of your quotes: “Love is the foundation of change and transformation”.
AW: If you have love in your heart, you will be guided to who needs love and who responds to love. It’s a bit difficult to explain this to people who don’t understand it. It’s almost like a forgotten language, a forgotten emotion. Leonard Cohen says: “Love is the only engine of survival”. And it’s true. We won’t get anywhere if we think we can do it without love. It’s just not possible.
We have to develop love for ourselves, for everything around us, for plants, animals and water. Love has become an overused word that people say without any feeling attached to it. Develop love in your heart because it’s our only hope of surviving and being happy.
We all deserve to be happy. Happiness is not something unattainable. We must try to discover what really makes us happy, and love is one of the things that will certainly make us happy. I am not talking about romantic love, though there is great emotional strength to be gained from loving another person selflessly. I am speaking more of a cosmic love that is rooted in appreciation of our mere existence in such a wonder as this Universe, this world, where humans are themselves extraordinary creations, like everything else that exists here.
Salim Lamrani holds a PhD in Iberian and Latin American Studies from Sorbonne University, and is Professor of Latin American History at the Université de La Réunion, specializing in relations between Cuba and the United States.
His latest book in English is Cuba, the Media and the Challenge of Impartiality: https://monthlyreview.org/product/cuba_the_media_and_the_challenge_of_impartiality/
