Alice Walker on Cuba and Fidel Castro (1996)

I was very fortunate in having parents like mine my father was this was almost before I knew him by the time I really knew him he was he had worked so hard and struggled so much that he was different man in his youth he was also you know something of a political person very much interested in education my mother was just a goddess actually she just was like an earth spirit my mother could make anything grow my mother could you know feed us glow the shelter us just like this just incredible being I mean I have never known anyone it would impress me as much as my mother did and just in a very natural way so my foundation in the home was was very good because I could see that even though my father was declining in many ways there were still glimmers of the person he had been and my mother continued to be magnificent you know until she had a huge stroke about 15 years ago and so you know I went to school I would did very well in school I started when I was four and I started when I was four because my mother had to work she had about five jobs all the time she was a dairy person she was a farmer she took care of all of us she cooked it I mean she just did all these things and she always managed to have magnificent gardens so my sense of beauty was always encouraged just by her example so I went to school at four because she had to work all the time and so she asked the first-grade teacher in a little school if I could come even though I was so young and this teacher who was alive today it was a wonderful woman said of course son baby Alice and I went and I loved it and I you know she was really good too and she knew my family you know from even before I was born so my my association with with learning was very positive I remember when I was four or five mostly what I did was make ducks out of bars of ivory soap and I made coloring I did coloring and coloring books and then people would always give me books because they understood that I loved to read and they were always amazed that I read so early and so I was really in a sense pampered by the community in a very gentle and sweet way and I just continued I went off to college and I joined the movement while I was in college at Spelman in Atlanta and then because Spelman was so traditional and restrictive I went on to Sarah Lawrence where I could have more freedom and throughout I was as active as I could be since I was pretty much a penniless student but I was as active as I could be in the movement and then when I graduated from Sarah Lawrence I worked in the welfare department hated it I was writing just stories and articles at night I was very tiring and then a friend who had offered me a scholarship years before which I had turned down because it had strings attached reappeared and was shocked that I was living in a building that didn't have a front door and gave me the money the scholarship and I went to Mississippi and I worked in the movement there well I lived there for about 7 years and I got married and I had my daughter 26 you know Estella you asked me about these people and I keep thinking you'd have to see them you know she she's she likes Cuba I sent her there she is very outspoken very courageous in her way lovely well I wanted her to see that there is a different way that there really is a different way I mean it is so painful to realize that our children by and large live in this culture thinking that this is the cream of the crop in terms of how you live and basically this society is a society that worships money period and what you can buy with it it's a very consumer oriented place you know where you know necklaces and blue jeans and all of those things are more important than thought you know not to mention feeling and not to mention community you know and I kept thinking I cannot allow this I cannot allow my daughter to grow up thinking that this is really all you can get I mean I like that this is it and so I sent her and I've sent several people I said young people I send my relatives you know I tried to send my brother before he died because he was completely brainwashed about Cuba he really thought each time I went that I wouldn't return because the Cubans would have locked me in a dungeon and tortured me and he would never you know I could never convince him otherwise he was you know a wonderful man but just completely brainwashed he never went his son went his son his daughter-in-law I sent them came back you know dad this is what happened here the photographs you know look we're here then you know he never ever could be changed and then what you know what change did I remember he had leukemia and the whole last year of his life he was struggling with this horrible disease but but you know hit the other side of hills that he was doing wonderful he was he was a Buddha you know the other side was the Buddha nature so I would go to see him and we would sit and talk about different things and the only time I think it really got to him what the embargo meant to the Cubans was that I patiently explained to him that the medication that he was receiving arrests you know his leukemia could not be had in Cuba and that the people with leukemia were suffering because they couldn't get the treatment that he was getting and he just couldn't believe it and I think that was just before he died he finally got it that you cannot keep medicine or food or any kind of assistance that people need from them that this is absolutely amaru wrong and that there's just no question about it ah yes in the newspaper and on television we were very late getting a TV when I think in around 1961 in the newspaper in 59 of course but then later but I wasn't immediately I mean I was there was something really wonderful about the way they all looked of course you know very you know the beards and you know just the passion that mannerisms and you know the stature but because I was coming out of a place where white people were totally oppressive I couldn't really feel them because they were white I felt that these are white people and when they get in power they'll be just like all the other white people who've ever gotten into power and so I didn't really you know but then I started as a student of course to read to read everything that came out of the the struggle and and they just made so much sense the figure of Fidel Castro so I said okay but it's also akin to a child's mind and then Fidel Fidel's mind he maintains his child's mind and that is very wonderful not many people can hang on to the child's curiosity and he does and I've seen it I mean I when when he reunited with Angela when we all went to see him and they were embracing and he thought nobody was looking he was examining her dreadlocks yeah you know that's really what a child would do but by the time you're grown up you know you're not supposed to you know you but of course you should you should touch the world you should continue to examine it you should look at it you should smell it you should know what it's made of you know it's all wonderful no but you know this of course writers always noticed but you were saying that your second visit to Cuba oh yes different well you know I I was very disturbed about this thing about you know gays and what was happening and I thought oh Lord you know the machismo is gonna kill off you know this wonderful forward momentum that they have you know just seemingly across the board because you know everything seemed to be from the heart I mean it didn't seem you know like in Russia or things have seen time you know dry and gray and drab it early but anyway I went back and I asked to be taken to a sanitarium and I was you know able to talk to some of the people who were there I mean gay people with AIDS this is not to say that everybody had AIDS but I wanted to know how the sick people were treated because I knew that would tell me a lot about how everybody is treated that was 93 I think and so you know I was able to see that they were well cared for and talked to people who just said basically they were bored you know that they were getting good food and good care but you know they were just really bored and so there was a new policy that would permit people to go out on the weekends to spend with their families and you know I felt much better because before I'd left people were saying that you know gay people with AIDS were in sort of a gulag situation and of course that would have just been intolerable and then I've seen now a film not strawberry and chocolate which I didn't particularly like actually but another film about gay people in Cuba and there seems to be such an improvement I mean just so much more freedom and so much more understanding and also a real countrywide effort to understand this new very old way of life and you know I feel that that there is much more respect you know for gay people and that gay people themselves are just beginning to be able to blossom and to really you know give all that they have to give to their country without feeling like there's a part of government we have to shut up what do you think Alice that Fidel Castro the figure of Fidel Castro evokes so many some emotions strong emotions people in favor and people against I think is this character I think that he himself is so incredibly towering ly passionate that he himself is just you know very volatile in his in his sort of natural way you know of speaking of convincing you know of cajoling of you know whatever I mean he is really very powerful and I think that that that is one very basic place where where people feel that they have to meet that passion somehow and since they're not very many people in the world who can meet that passion with the same kind of good-heartedness that I think he has they bring what they do have which is you know all sort of passionate disagreement a passionate dislike a passionate you know whatever and so someone like me I mean where I feel I mean I I enjoy the passion I mean I I you know I can you know appreciate every change of mood because it seems to me that that is what is wonderful about meeting with people they're supposed to be different you know and they're supposed to have many ways of expressing themselves and they're supposed to go through changes but if you're not used to that and if you're in a culture like this one where people just do everything they can to be you know Talking Heads you know they think that to be a talking head is the highest mark of civilization you know you're just supposed to be there with nothing else moving but you know kind of here you know no light in your eyes you know your heart totally you know just chilled out so I think that's that's part of it and then of course that's what he's saying and there's what he's doing and there's the fact that they haven't been able to kill him I mean that must really be upsetting that they have not been able to kill this man who has persisted and being exactly who he is for all of these years against the mightiest power on the earth it's quite phenomenal it's wonderful I mean it's it's something that it seems to me that people should appreciate you know just just as a as a phenomenon you know he's his own kind of redwood it's what I think of it there I often think of him as a redwood tree you know in California we're down to really fighting for the very last or the old ones these precious old trees and the lumber companies you know in which good clinton has just given freedom to start cutting them again but we fight for these old trees i mean they are magnificent and they do the heart good i mean you may not like redwood you may prefer oak you know our pine but actually you know they are magnificent and and i think that just to have them just around encourages the spirit and Fidelis like that whether you like it or not he is incredible he's he's 17 years old he's old he's 70 years old yes well you know i think it'd be great for him to be a hundred you know and more just so we could see it you know we need to see all revolutionaries you know i mean think of all of our revolutionaries they mostly die young well that you know that's that's glorious too but how wonderful to have a really old revolutionary and then he could be 85 and he could have a beard down to his waist you know and hair out to here on none you know and how good for us to see this that is possible to be a revolutionary and to grow old people say that he's been in power too long the 37 years is too long well they do and maybe it is you know i don't feel like i can say what's too long for the people of Cuba or what's too long for Fidel having been there I think that if the people felt like it was too long they would give him his gold watch well he's in power so long thanks to his adversaries well I don't know I mean I think he's in power so long partly because people really like him now and actually love him really and I sometimes think that he's too much of a father I mean I think it's about father now and I think that's why people feel such loyalty and such devotion I mean he is just like the aisle the country's father and there might be a real problem with that you know but I don't know and I figure you know if there is a real problem with it the people can take care of it they are well educated they really think for themselves you know they can really talk you under the table you know and there they're armed so you know if they are sick of the father I think father will not be there forever u.s. presidents exactly as some presidents have said terrible things about him yes yes well you know they would Johnson said he would like to take that Castro fellow wash him shave him and spank him sounds like a sexual thing to me that really tells us a lot about Johnson he doesn't say that about ladyfrozen in South Africa because I think without the Cubans help they would not have been able to overthrow apartheid you know I mean Cubans not only sent word and you know support and you know but they actually died there fighting against the South African armies so you know and I think Fidel at some point mentioned that you know he felt himself to be a part of Africa he is never it seems to me that he has never really traded on being white and it's because he doesn't you know have that white trip that we often in the third world tend to forget it I mean I don't think I know I don't wake up thinking about Fidel as a white person you know ever except when I was very and I thought he was just like all the rest but I think when I realized that he was interested in teaching people to read and write and he wanted you know free health care and education and cheap food for everyone you know he didn't resemble the oppressors anymore so that was very good many important personalities in the United States have tried to meet Fidel Castro people who have different ideologies you see the Rockefeller is going to Cuba Ted Turner going to Cuba Hank Aaron going to Cuba Muhammad Ali mmm what do you think it is so I think that you know many people have a great deal of affection for Fidel and we you know I think love is the most mysterious thing anyhow you never know really why you love people you just do you know you just do and for some people it could be that he strikes in them a memory of you know a the kind of world they wish they could have had when they were children I mean that's how I often feel you know what would have been what would have had would it have been liked like I've got that but what would it have been like growing up to not have to worry about health care you know for me and my family what everybody was often sick you know or free education so I I don't know about why everybody else you know wants to affirm Fidel but for me it's because he reminds me of what could have been in my own life so much hostility to Fidel Castro here well because of all those Cubans that came to Miami I think if they weren't here in Miami constantly bending the ear of the white house many people wouldn't think about Cuba the other thing is of course is that this is a capitalist country and Cuba is a socialist one and very near and if if people could just see it you know see what the Cubans are doing as socialists I think the critique of capitalism here would be much stronger and much clearer have you been criticized because of your attitude or your activities in relation to Cuba yes my favorite criticism was from an Australian news person he was interviewing me I thought he wanted to talk about my books but instead he just started you know raving about why are you supporting this dictator you know and don't you know that this man is blah blah blah you know he had a whole list of things but I was struck by his choice of the word dictator because I couldn't believe he thought he lived in anything other than a dictatorship because it is so ridiculous I think to think that there are democracies that we live in you know I mean what we have is a corporate white male dictatorship and they very cleverly change whatever white man is at the head every four or eight years well they're all pretty much the same I mean even the ones who you know a really good quote you know do good things they're usually forced to do good things you know if they pass a bill that helps poor people it's usually because they can't do anything else and rich people are getting upset you know because the poor people have to drive over them you know they're sleeping in the street you know are they you know stumble against them and they don't smell good I mean you know I mean it's so so I always think that the Cubans even if Fidel is a dictator have come out much better than we have because you know they've had only one dictator in 35 years we've had nine you know so I have been criticized so much in my life that this is just one more you know and I I can't really care but you feel connected to your well-known writer but you continue doing the things that you think are right always absolutely that is where the joy is as I'm sure you know did you said that Fidel would be considered a traitor if he would retire in the middle of all this hostility not in Cuba yes I think that's true those are the ideas right but well you know and not only that I mean I don't see how he could have just stepped away now you know would make sense no god I'd lost that thought well anyway let's go on maybe we'll come back a more open society if the US was not so hostile and that he would be considered a traitor right if he if he retired in the middle in the middle of this situation mm-hmm oh I know what it was accident well you know in this country they think by now people have been programmed to think that you actually have to have elections you know every driver you know and these this is the Democratic way but in fact can you imagine Cuba trying to afford an election like the kind we have you know these things cost so much money where is that money come from I mean I just you know is there has to be you know if there there's gonna be an election in a poor country like Cuba like Kati like you know Ghana there has to be some other way of doing it you know I mean maybe they can come up with the way and I don't know about the elections that they had I think they there was an election have your elections there's a different kind of election I would think and they have this one party but there are different sectors in that one party they said they can fragment they can't for the unity sake ready to have to keep together well in any case it's their choice I mean I don't understand I don't understand this one here except that I now know it is completely controlled by corporations you know who have even called themselves trustees of it you know so if in our country it is very corrupt the system of elections of elections right and I wouldn't wish that on anybody and there's no point in wishing that on anyone it's been said that people not individuals make history do you think this applies to Cuba and Fidel Castro people not individuals what does that mean the history is made by the people and not by individuals but oh hey to me yuba yeah do you think the Castro stroll was shaped history oh I do I think so [Music] well I think that Castro's role in shaping Cuba is major it really is there's no getting around it I don't think but I would say that the Cuban people you know and I get so annoyed that they are overlooked I mean people insist it seems to me on sticking Fidel's head on top of every Cuban body that you ever try to see you know so you never see the people I mean but I think that's that's that's um partly the way things of the image is managed you know especially here in this country so that you know when I think of Cuba I don't automatically think of Fidel I mean I do think of him because he is so large but I also think of the people there you know the ones who are our teachers and you know doctors and you know just regular people and they've made it I mean you know they you know you you do sometimes have to have leadership you know people who have a vision and who benefited from an education you know which he definitely did but you know you also are important in carrying forward what is you know considered by consensus the best you know for your society some people have said that Fidel Castro was a lonely man did you get a sense of that I did I didn't know but I also am modest enough to understand that that I know nothing about him you know his what his life his private life so you know who am i to even presume that he may be lonely but I must say I felt I felt that he was it's just a feeling he keeps his private life very private and what do you think it's oh well I've had many thoughts about that over the years you know I thought well you know if you're constantly being worried that somebody's going to assassinate you you would you would hide your children you would hide your young you know like any creature in the forest you know and that has always made the most sense to me I mean for someone so large so visible so hated you know that you know you you mean wouldn't want anybody standing next to you really do you think is ever any possibility of Clinton and Fidel coming together and talking um as an optimist I am I mean I do I think that um that is is possible but I don't feel that it will necessarily mean very much because I think Clinton is so easily persuaded you know against his better judgment I think that if they did talk he would be and I think he may be fearful of this he would be in some ways captivated but because Fidel's personality is just so you know it's interesting and he is an interesting person and Clinton I think could benefit from you know his knowledge his experience it could be a really good thing if they talked and if they develop some kind of relationship I mean even if they were not heads of their countries it seems to me that especially in these times we really need all the mentoring we can get and I think Fidel would be a very good mentor for Bill how do you think history fifty years from now we'll remember Fidel positively you know when I was in Russia when I was a student I was 18 I took the train from the Finland station all the way down through you know so Union and through Kiev and I was reading history will absolve me the whole time and I was so moved because you know at last here was someone actually writing about the condition of my own people and I think that that is perfect prophetic the title of his book history will absolve me because look at the world you know where is it going it is going in the direction of rich people being excessively greedy and rude and mean and killing off the earth people everything and all this is so clear it's not as if you know is it all hazy is very clear and poor people on the other hand are more and more destitute they are being treated much more badly you know that anyone thirty years ago would have expected I didn't expect it our communities are being drugged into oblivion you know by people who then take the money and you know just buy it whatever is left so in the context of this kind of world you know students people of color poor people women will absolutely begin if they haven't already to understand what he intended even if they never understand what Cuba has accomplished what do you think will happen after Fidel well that worries me a little bit you know because I don't know who is there to to carry on and what kind of power they have and you know I can illustrate the kind of thing I fear by telling you that I'm very close to the Native American community in this country many Native American communities and I was very good friends with one leader named Bill wah Kapaa and he was like Fidel but and but not you know volatile and you know he was he was very powerful in a very sort of soft-spoken way very you know almost Buddhist in his manner but he could connect everyone I mean he there was just something about him you know he was also a focal point for people and especially for the Native American community locally but he died and a younger Native American man took his place and he just didn't have that he wasn't able to bring us together we just you know so you know that I am concerned I mean I don't know if there's someone you know they don't have to be a you know carbon copy by any stretch but they do have to have a certain ability to keep people together I mean to keep them feeling that they are our country you know they're not an island could you just tell me in one sentence what is Fidel Castro a revolutionary and I would say now he may be upset to be called old and I hope he won't be but I would just say he's a beautiful old revolutionary what would you say Madame Maduro said she spoke by the French Resistance how she heard about in the first time and whatever and then when I asked her that she says well it's like the French Resistance he's the man who's resisted or was opposed to or something like that and a friend she said it all the dictatorship of the money yeah right [Music] he had ikata back so he should dress him [Laughter] [Music] restaurant thank you but but see that's what they mean though you know what they mean by dictatorship is basically you know that that poor people I mean let me let me back let me do this yeah because I really want to speak to this though I can't get it I'm too tired but it's like what they what they want is a dictatorship of the rich you know not a dictatorship of the poor you know what I mean but when you have a workers party that is in power that's what you have I mean you have the I mean they don't I wouldn't want to call them a dictatorship but if the people rule you know instead of the rich people then you know they rule and they're the majority you know in pierre cardin you know it's not gonna have his restaurant right in the middle of Havana no Minister of England and we what we were looking for you know critical he wouldn't he goes down to Cuba um all the time and he's very fascinated by the figure Fidel Castro visits and yeah I just and did you not write a letter to Clinton somebody told me that cuz he spoke to us about that he said he we were there in London at the time of downing of the plane oh yeah so he was very mean hundreds dates where the hell was Berkman all of that no I did I wrote to him what did you say well I was just trying to make him understand that you cannot starve people you can't star children and you can't you know stand necks shoulder to shoulder with Jesse Helms who was one of the segregationists who tormented my grandparents my parents and me you know that I had to give years of my life and many people had to die because of laws against black people that that man put into effect you know so Clinton by signing the helms-burton bill next shoulder-to-shoulder with this man was to me just the gravest insult possible to all people of color you know so anyhow he wrote back uh-huh and actually the what had happened was he had he had invited me to the White House you know to me and I mean I I didn't go and I wrote this letter instead you know and he wrote back in the first line you know the rule got the formal stuff and then he just launches into all this Cold War ideology you know about how Cuba would be like Chile and Haiti and you know and you know I mean it was just really uninformed and again I would say that you know he would have to see for himself and he has to stop listening to the Cubans in Miami you know we're not gonna vote for him no matter what he does and also they were trying to be like Hillary's brother you know to some I mean it's all just unbelievably inhumane you know that you'd sell out a whole country to like somebody's brother you know order to get votes for yourself I mean it's unreal how can you sleep at night do you think after the election of things might change well you know Stella we we're such pitiful people really I mean we we hang on every hope you know I mean why should we think that things will change just because he's re-elected I mean is it because he will you know you can only go there for me there for eight years and then we think that in these four he's gonna just come back and be really great I don't know if greatness is there and I certainly you know don't think you both should after all these years put much hope in it I think that their best bet is what they're doing you know just trying to be as independent as they can be given what they're under not in the form that they would really ideally want it to know and I mean that's totally an impossible dream I think you know tourism which I really despise is the kiss of death I think to anything that is really authentic I left San Francisco because it was like living on a postcard they have no other choice oh I know that I know that and that's what's sad you know and I just hope that somehow because of you know 37 years of trying to be new people you know they will will maintain some of that but it's a tragedy to lose that you know they are themselves a different kind of you know redwood tree know and every other country has been clear-cut and you call Fidel redwood he is a redwood tree he's an old-growth redwood tree and all around him has been clear-cut and he's still standing and they're lusting to go in and make that final cut and then we will have nobody really you know will have I mean not like that will have many other wonderful people and we ourselves will be you know whoever and whatever we are but he is an inspiration I never expected to I always wished I could you know but yeah I'm really happy to have met him I think he's a really really a special person and also you know I never feel I have to agree to every single thing that anybody does really I mean I I feel quite free to just appreciate what is wonderful and affirm that you know it was a good beating and I I think to you know you cannot meet Fidel without also in spirit feeling that you're meeting che and you know Camilo Cecelia or is it Celia Celia and Abel you know a battle uh-huh and Maria so all of that was in the moment of meeting you know and I brought with me Malcolm and I brought with me Martin and I brought with me Fannie Lou and I brought with me Rosa Parks you know so that is what makes you know a moment really rich and real when you know that you are embracing you know all the dead then what they hope for and I will never forget che lying dead with his hands cut off and I think you know one of the places where you meet Fidel is knowing that in his loneliness whatever it is he has to think about that - these are hands that he knew his daughter we traveled with her uh-huh and she just was going coming from Europe with us at the same time she was going there to say all these stories - trying to start old history things that Fidel had said he'd get along and he sent him to his death I know that I've heard them so she was been traveling talking about that well they said everything make it possibly say you know but am i feeling about that is that if you had sent someone deliberately to his death you wouldn't have his face stuck up all over the place you couldn't bear it as a human being I mean you would have to be so devious so twisted you know so no I never really believed that the children grandchildren Jays grandchildren call him the grandpa they should I think well he when I saw him the next time and he said yes you know very interesting and I was thinking you know you don't remember a word of it well that was you know the embrace that says you know I come from the world where they killed everybody that you know spoke up and you come from a world where they killed everybody but you and he looks like the redwood tree there you know see and dressed in green that's the wonderful thing you know about struggle though you know people think it's really just all wrong and it's true a lot of it is that but there is so much happiness you know just just to survive another day to do something more in the world that expresses your vision of how things should be and to make people happier he's made so many people happy he always has to win yeah well I know well you know he's got his I think he's arrogant you know he has this arrogance but I think he's actually needed it in fighting this country you know I would not do to have a leader in Cuba I think who was more conciliatory use like a fixation well but you know compared to him they look wimpy and I think that's very hard because they try to be you know macho you know I mean they do horrible things in the world but personally they just don't have his power he has personal power they have political power you know I mean he has that too but he also has personal power and we our leaders rarely have you know actually Johnson did have personal power you know Kennedy had style and charisma and youth and you know a sense of humor got some good things but basically not strong enough you know and from a class that was too rich that is oh yeah but women what was the mistake with Cuba I'm curious Nixon Nixon speech right it wasn't a study about that and now he tells us we were telling him that all the while Nixon is the kind of man that you just want to say jerk stay that and Mandela said oh my della said if it wasn't for Cuba you know there were 18,000 African students in the class studying yeah I didn't know the number but I knew they would you know I know that I mean the thing is that Cuba has been extremely generous and this is a spirit of heart you know that is cultivated and promoted and cherished it is not an accident that people want to go and teach somewhere in the backwoods of you know some swampy land you know this is definitely something that has been fostered as a revolutionary spirit and I think you know Fidel has had everything to do with that we were really sad cuz it's true you know he was saying how I think you and they all got up there and I mean I I really I watched television I give myself two hours a week of it and I often don't use them so I don't know a lot of things but he was saying how you know they got up and then you and they were all talking about how glad they are that apartheid is dead and you know they all act like you know it's so wonderful now that the bad races are not in power and blah blah blah and that nobody said a word you know you know fighting is so well I was just saying that when I listened to Fidel speech that he gave in Harlem and he was talking about having gonna be UN he was saying that you know one person after another got up and they praised the UN and they praised this one and that one for ending apartheid in South Africa and no one mentioned the sacrifice that Cuba had made you know not just in terms of material aid but in actual lives to the battle against South Africa which actually led to the liberation of South Africa this is not small you know and I just felt such pain and such anger really that this have been of course with great deliberation ignored their contribution had been ignored but we we mustn't forget it you know we won't I mean I will always be very grateful for what Cuba has done in Africa

Channel: AfroMarxist

Views: 14,607

Rating: 4.889535 out of 5

Keywords: Socialism, Communism, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Cuba, Black Feminism, Marxist Feminism

Id: Z9xo2b-QHjg

Length: 53min 13sec (3193 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2020