July 26th

Vietnamese liberation fighter, Ho Chi Minh, said that despite the successes of the anti-imperialist movement to wear down French occupiers in Indochina, the VietCong belief in itself was at a low ebb by the late 1950's.

Then he got a boost from halfway around the world, from a Caribbean island the US founders compared to a piece of fruit to fall in the US lap.

July 26th is Cuba's July 4th. That is, it is the day a band of men and women organized and led an assault on one of the US-backed regime's fortresses. As important as what happened in the bloody aftermath is why this assault took place.

Ho Chi Minh had once believed the hype and approached Western leaders to bring Vietnam into the Western liberal democratic tradition. He perhaps didn't know the West had already by early 1900's began to deplete itself of the last dregs of its moral authority fund. In any case, he was not even rebuked. Just ignored. He was after all a subject.

Fidel Castro had come from a new class Cuban family, held nationalist aspirations, became a lawyer, and was running as a Cuban senatorial candidate. When the Orthodox Party he had joined looked sure to win a majority of seats in Cuba's legislature, the US-backed regime cancelled the elections and declared a state of emergency.

Even a new class family, like Fidel's, were going to be ignored.

Down but not out, the cast-asides carefully arranged their assault on the Moncada Garrison in Santiago de Cuba. Their plan was to overtake the garrison, take the weapons, and if need be retreat into the mountains to fight the US-backed regime of Fulgencia Batista.

Many things went terribly wrong. The assault was foiled, many of the men captured, tortured, and killed. A few others were imprisoned, among them Fidel, and his brother, Raul.

The regime released the prisoners a few years later as a goodwill gesture to garner a bit of public support. Batista, backed by the US government, was expropriating the best land profits to the US, protecting the Mafia-dominated economy, and sending death squads to crush dissenters.
Of course, Fidel and the others fled to Mexico to re-organize their assault and returned a few years later on the little yacht, Granma. Viz., Washington crossing the Potomac, I suppose.

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution came January 1, 1959. The Moncada Garrison, long a symbol of the dictatorship and brutalization of the people, was turned into an elementary school, which I visited in 1992.

Ho Chi Minh writes that he was tremendously boosted by the site of this tiny, poor island masterminding the defeat of the forces of imperialism.

Present narratives being what they are, I write of two scourges to most of you. Vietnam and Cuba. Neither part of the US. Neither connected geographically to our landmass. Yet they are each heaped by official history with terrific burdens and the sort of expectations that would, frankly, fell the US allies in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt.

But the country that turned a large army garrison into a school for young children, gave land to peasants, and produces so many medical doctors they are exported to the Third World continues to be a US enemy. A country that stubbornly refuses to believe in this magic will equally stubbornly refuse to be the aspirations in the Mid East and will continue to arm "envoys" with strange expectations.

Happy anniversary, Cuba! May you inspire more brothers and sisters.

For more info: Cuba: How the Workers and Peasants made the Revolution