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CUBA: Twenty Years with God and the Revolution
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
IPS - Apr 30, 2007
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37550
CUBA: Twenty Years with God and the Revolution
by Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Apr 30 (IPS) - Close to one of the busiest crossroads in the
Cuban capital, but peaceful nonetheless, the non-governmental Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Centre (CMLK) has been active in Cuban
society for two decades, working for a more participative social system.
According to its own definition, the Centre is "a Christian-inspired
organisation engaged in inter-faith dialogue, which works prophetically
and in solidarity with the Cuban people and its churches, on training
and education to promote informed, organised and critical popular
participation to bring about social justice."
"Out of commitment to the Cuban Revolution's socialist project, and out
of religious conviction, we take our stance looking towards the South,
because the South is where the Good News is happening, the South is
where the poor are," said Reverend Raúl Suárez, head of CMLK, at last
week's celebrations of the 20th anniversary of its foundation.
Suárez, pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Havana district of
Marianao, was a prominent agent in the foundation of the Centre, which
was created as a means of incorporating his Christian congregation into
action for "building a fraternal society."
He is also a parliamentary deputy, and says he is a "firm believer in
the revolution." He has been criticised by Cuban spokesmen for the
Roman Catholic Church for what they described as his "complete
submission to the Castro regime."
The CMLK, named in honour of the legendary U.S. civil rights leader,
runs four main programmes: participative popular communication;
pastoral and socio-theological reflection and training; popular
education in support of local groups; and a solidarity action programme.
The popular communication programme teaches the alternative forms of
communication needed by the other programmes. It also tries to bring
its influence to bear on cultural and academic circles in Cuba, and to
strengthen communication skills among Latin American social movements.
To further these ends, it publishes the magazine Caminos, a forum for
Cuban socio-theological thought, and a bulletin in print and digital
formats with updated information on the Centre's work. It houses
Caminos, a publisher, and an audiovisual production unit of the same
name, as well as the Paulo Freire information and documentation service.
The goal of the socio-theological and pastoral training programme is
preparing young leaders for the Cuban churches. It encourages social
commitment and responsibility from the religious perspective.
Founded Apr. 25, 1987, the CMLK originally adopted Brazilian pedagogue
and philosopher Paulo Freire's (1921-1997) ideas about popular
education, developed in the 1960s. Although at first the Cuban
authorities were wary of these ideas, they were actually a means of
furthering the cultural transformations engendered by the Cuban
Revolution.
Popular education is "profoundly anti-capitalist, anti-hegemonic, and
critical of Western culture that takes it for granted that some social
groups are naturally dominated by others," the programme coordinator,
María Isabel Romero, told IPS.
Romero said that these relations of domination are seen in such
everyday contexts as the family, the school, or relationships between
men and women, all of which to a greater or lesser extent are
characterised by asymmetrical, and not infrequently authoritarian, uses
of power.
"Popular education brings about a change in individuals' visions and
conceptions which is reflected in their social practices," said Romero,
who gave as examples of these transformations "learning to listen, to
work in groups, to construct proposals in a collective way, to
communicate as equals -- in brief, to enter into dialogue."
The CMLK regularly offers training workshops on the theory and practice
of popular education, on its own premises or as distance learning
courses. It also advises community work projects and similar schemes
that are working to support field workers, social participation and
grassroots empowerment.
By working together with the CMLK in popular education, the department
of agricultural extension at the Agrarian University of Havana
understood that it should incorporate participative principles in the
training of agronomists and other agricultural extension workers and
experts, and as a result, the curriculum and the basic tenets of
agricultural extension work have been reformed.
So now the knowledge already possessed by small farmers is taken into
account before technical innovations are introduced, Communications
Professor Julia María Fernández told IPS.
The governmental Local Development Centre is another example of an
organisation that has established close contacts between academia and
grassroots sectors. In this case, popular education methods and
principles are being incorporated into the activities of municipal
governments, especially in Jatibonico, about 360 kilometres east of
Havana.
"This has been an uphill struggle, because we live in a society which,
like nearly every other society in the world, has an ingrained culture
of domination," said engineer Humberto Pomares, an expert with the
Local Development Centre.
"Although in Cuba there is plenty of revolutionary rhetoric, the
methods and customs of domination are still maintained," he said.
"There is an abundance of prejudices to deal with when people start
thinking and discussing about power, because there is a belief that
changing the styles of leadership, or distributing power, weakens the
revolutionary process," he said.
The CMLK's solidarity programme, which is linked to social
organisations in the United States and other countries, has been hit
hard by the restrictions on visiting Cuba imposed in 2004 by the George
W. Bush administration. Exchange visits with groups from the U.S. have
dropped sharply since then.
However, the work with church groups in the U.S. has been very useful,
as "the programme was able to transmit another view of Cuban and Latin
American reality," said Ariel Dacal of the CMLK.
The CMLK participates actively in the annual World Social Forums, the
Hemispheric Meetings of Struggle Against Free Trade Agreements and for
the Integration of Peoples, and in campaigns against militarisation and
indebtedness in poor countries.
In Dacal's view, it would have been impossible to express solidarity in
these ways if the Centre that was started 20 years ago in a small
church in Havana "had not transcended its own limits and gone beyond
the borders of Cuba."
The CMLK was awarded the Alejo Carpentier medal by Cuba's Council of
State, in recognition of its work over two decades.
(END/2007)
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
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Hash: SHA1
CUBA: Twenty Years with God and the Revolution
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
IPS - Apr 30, 2007
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37550
CUBA: Twenty Years with God and the Revolution
by Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Apr 30 (IPS) - Close to one of the busiest crossroads in the
Cuban capital, but peaceful nonetheless, the non-governmental Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Centre (CMLK) has been active in Cuban
society for two decades, working for a more participative social system.
According to its own definition, the Centre is "a Christian-inspired
organisation engaged in inter-faith dialogue, which works prophetically
and in solidarity with the Cuban people and its churches, on training
and education to promote informed, organised and critical popular
participation to bring about social justice."
"Out of commitment to the Cuban Revolution's socialist project, and out
of religious conviction, we take our stance looking towards the South,
because the South is where the Good News is happening, the South is
where the poor are," said Reverend Raúl Suárez, head of CMLK, at last
week's celebrations of the 20th anniversary of its foundation.
Suárez, pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Havana district of
Marianao, was a prominent agent in the foundation of the Centre, which
was created as a means of incorporating his Christian congregation into
action for "building a fraternal society."
He is also a parliamentary deputy, and says he is a "firm believer in
the revolution." He has been criticised by Cuban spokesmen for the
Roman Catholic Church for what they described as his "complete
submission to the Castro regime."
The CMLK, named in honour of the legendary U.S. civil rights leader,
runs four main programmes: participative popular communication;
pastoral and socio-theological reflection and training; popular
education in support of local groups; and a solidarity action programme.
The popular communication programme teaches the alternative forms of
communication needed by the other programmes. It also tries to bring
its influence to bear on cultural and academic circles in Cuba, and to
strengthen communication skills among Latin American social movements.
To further these ends, it publishes the magazine Caminos, a forum for
Cuban socio-theological thought, and a bulletin in print and digital
formats with updated information on the Centre's work. It houses
Caminos, a publisher, and an audiovisual production unit of the same
name, as well as the Paulo Freire information and documentation service.
The goal of the socio-theological and pastoral training programme is
preparing young leaders for the Cuban churches. It encourages social
commitment and responsibility from the religious perspective.
Founded Apr. 25, 1987, the CMLK originally adopted Brazilian pedagogue
and philosopher Paulo Freire's (1921-1997) ideas about popular
education, developed in the 1960s. Although at first the Cuban
authorities were wary of these ideas, they were actually a means of
furthering the cultural transformations engendered by the Cuban
Revolution.
Popular education is "profoundly anti-capitalist, anti-hegemonic, and
critical of Western culture that takes it for granted that some social
groups are naturally dominated by others," the programme coordinator,
María Isabel Romero, told IPS.
Romero said that these relations of domination are seen in such
everyday contexts as the family, the school, or relationships between
men and women, all of which to a greater or lesser extent are
characterised by asymmetrical, and not infrequently authoritarian, uses
of power.
"Popular education brings about a change in individuals' visions and
conceptions which is reflected in their social practices," said Romero,
who gave as examples of these transformations "learning to listen, to
work in groups, to construct proposals in a collective way, to
communicate as equals -- in brief, to enter into dialogue."
The CMLK regularly offers training workshops on the theory and practice
of popular education, on its own premises or as distance learning
courses. It also advises community work projects and similar schemes
that are working to support field workers, social participation and
grassroots empowerment.
By working together with the CMLK in popular education, the department
of agricultural extension at the Agrarian University of Havana
understood that it should incorporate participative principles in the
training of agronomists and other agricultural extension workers and
experts, and as a result, the curriculum and the basic tenets of
agricultural extension work have been reformed.
So now the knowledge already possessed by small farmers is taken into
account before technical innovations are introduced, Communications
Professor Julia María Fernández told IPS.
The governmental Local Development Centre is another example of an
organisation that has established close contacts between academia and
grassroots sectors. In this case, popular education methods and
principles are being incorporated into the activities of municipal
governments, especially in Jatibonico, about 360 kilometres east of
Havana.
"This has been an uphill struggle, because we live in a society which,
like nearly every other society in the world, has an ingrained culture
of domination," said engineer Humberto Pomares, an expert with the
Local Development Centre.
"Although in Cuba there is plenty of revolutionary rhetoric, the
methods and customs of domination are still maintained," he said.
"There is an abundance of prejudices to deal with when people start
thinking and discussing about power, because there is a belief that
changing the styles of leadership, or distributing power, weakens the
revolutionary process," he said.
The CMLK's solidarity programme, which is linked to social
organisations in the United States and other countries, has been hit
hard by the restrictions on visiting Cuba imposed in 2004 by the George
W. Bush administration. Exchange visits with groups from the U.S. have
dropped sharply since then.
However, the work with church groups in the U.S. has been very useful,
as "the programme was able to transmit another view of Cuban and Latin
American reality," said Ariel Dacal of the CMLK.
The CMLK participates actively in the annual World Social Forums, the
Hemispheric Meetings of Struggle Against Free Trade Agreements and for
the Integration of Peoples, and in campaigns against militarisation and
indebtedness in poor countries.
In Dacal's view, it would have been impossible to express solidarity in
these ways if the Centre that was started 20 years ago in a small
church in Havana "had not transcended its own limits and gone beyond
the borders of Cuba."
The CMLK was awarded the Alejo Carpentier medal by Cuba's Council of
State, in recognition of its work over two decades.
(END/2007)
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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