I have, I admit, a particular bias about Cuba.
I was in high school at the time of the Cuban Revolution, and when the OAS (Organization of American States, for those not into acronyms) kicked Cuba out.
In Philadelphia, the social studies programs from the area schools, both from the city and the suburbs, annually came together for mock meetings or conventions at which students would represent various interests. They had, for example, done mock UN, mock House of Representatives, etc.. My senior year, they did a mock OAS meeting. The item on the agenda was the same proposition which had recently been put before and debated by the OAS itself: Resolved, that Cuba should be expelled from the OAS. Of course, in real life, Cuba was.
My social studies/current events teacher was a firebrand teacher known to us all as Mad Ella Rhodes. She was a flaming liberal, probably a communist, an ardent admirer and friend of IH (Izzy) Stone, for those of you who remember him -- his newsletter and the NYT were staples of her current events classes. Anyhow, nothing would do for Mad Ella but that we went to the OAS convention representing Cuba. I was, for my sins, selected as Chair of our delegation.
There were perhaps 200 schools represented, so all the other countries were represented by delegations from several schools. But no other school had been willing to take on the part of Cuba. With average delegations of generally 15 to 30 or more students per school, we stood alone in a mass of thousands of hostile high school students.
I can say without reservation that we were the best prepared delegation there. We had all the facts and figures to lobby the various countries to oppose the wiles of the imperialist Yanquis and stand up for the embattled and oppressed peoples of the free nations of South America. But you can imagine us trying to put this proposition forward to middle class American teenagers in 1961.
To nobody's surprise, we were voted out of the OAS. At which point, our whole delegation, which had been seated near the front of the center section on the main floor of the huge auditorium, I believe it was at Temple University, stood, unfurled and started waving our Cuban flags, and started to march out of the assembly hall shouting "Cuba Si, Yanqui No!"
Absolute pandemonium erupted. Students were yelling, jeering, cursing us, even throwing things at us, trying to tear our flags out of our hands. One student even spat on one of our delegates. The convention chair was helplessly pounding her gavel screaming for order, but to absolutely no avail. The students playing masters at arms had absolutely no idea what to do. The teachers were trying to keep control of their students, but in vain. It was, almost literally and quite figuratively, a riot. And through it all, up the aisle we marched, waving our flags and chanting.
It was one of the most memorable days of my high school life.
And since that day, having thoroughly studied the history of Cuba and the revolution, including the fact which most people don't know that right after he ousted Batista, Castro came to the US seeking our aid and was soundly rebuffed, which is the reason he turned to the Soviet Union for help (if we had been open to him at all and given him even a small aid package, the whole mess including the Cuban missile crisis would never have happened--he never wanted to be in the Soviet camp, but it was his only alternative to support his people), I have felt our Cuban policy was shortsighted, dumb, and inhumane.
And I still do. |
