Solidarity with Cuba w/ The Assata Shakur Brigade

Nupreet: You remember Dien Bien Phu? Yeah!

Henry Huckamacki: The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa.

Nupreet: They didn't have anything but a rifle. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on them.

Henry Huckamacki: Hello and welcome to Guerrilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckamacki, unfortunately not joined by my usual co-host, Professor Adnan Husain, who of course is a historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, as he has a departmental meeting today. So those of you in academia can probably commiserate with him, and those of you who are not in academia probably resent academia for stealing him away from us today. With that being said, though, we do have a really excellent topic today, and we have a fascinating panel of guests that we're going to be talking with about this discussion— about this topic, rather. But before I introduce them or have them introduce themselves, I'd like to remind you listeners that you can help support the show by going to patreon.com/guerrillahistory. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. Just a reminder, we're 100% listener-supported, listener-funded. We don't have any commercials, we don't have any advertisements, we don't have any external funding other than what comes in on Patreon. So if you appreciate what we do, do consider signing up there. Again, patreon.com/guerrillahistory. So with that out of the way, we have 4 representatives of the Assata Shakur Brigade on today to talk about the brigade to Cuba, what's happening currently in Cuba, anti-imperialist internationalism, Cuban law, propaganda, and much more. It's a really big discussion ahead of us today. So I'm glad to introduce onto the show— I'm going to call them one at a time and have them actually introduce themselves. First up, Nupreet, can you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Nupreet: Hi, thank you so much for the introduction as well. It's great to be here. My name is Nupreet. I am based in London, in England. I'm one of the co-founders of the Assata Shakur Brigade, and I organize in different anti-imperialist groups doing organizing and writing, including Code Pink and others.

Henry Huckamacki: Excellent. I'm going to turn it to Alfie now. Alfie, can you please introduce yourself to the listeners?

Alfie: Thank you. My name is Alfie. I'm the other co-founder of the Assata Shakur Brigade to Cuba. I'm involved with anti-imperialist and anti-war organizing in London, including with Friends of Socialist China and Code Pink. I mainly work on the UK-US Bases Off Cyprus campaign.

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah, and a topic that, as I mentioned before we started recording, that I would love to talk more about on the show sometime, or perhaps off the show, because Cyprus is a really big topic that we haven't spent that much time on the show talking about. as of yet, but hopefully that'll change soon. Grace, I'm now going to turn over to you. Can you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Grace: Hi everyone, I'm Grace. I'm currently doing a master's degree in international law at SOAS, with my research focusing on imperialism of international institutions. I'm also an editorial assistant at Iskra Books, as well as being a member of the Assata Shakur Brigade. Um, and that's pretty much it.

Henry Huckamacki: Excellent. And last but not least, we have Alessandro. Alessandro, can you introduce yourself to the listeners? Hi.

Alessandro Zancan: Um, so I'm Alessandro Zancan, member of the Assata Shakur Brigade, as well as an associate editor and graphic designer at Iskra Books and a member of the Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee.

Henry Huckamacki: It's a great pleasure to have all of you on the show today, and I'm really looking forward to this discussion. Like I said, there's a lot of topics that we can hit. We'll see how many we actually have time for before we all drop from exhaustion. But I really want to start with discussing the brigade itself in basic terms, because I'm guessing most of our listeners don't know about the Assata Brigade, Assata Shakur Brigade yet. And I'm hoping that we will change that very quickly in this, and then by the end, have the listeners ready to support the brigade. So before we dive into the specifics of what the brigade is exactly going to be doing, the situation in Cuba, I would like you to talk a little bit about what it means for this brigade to be named after Assata Shakur, her importance, and more broadly speaking, what her legacy does to connect us to Cuba. And in addition, if you can talk about the brigade itself, which is named after Assata Shakur, when it was founded, what is its purpose, and then also It might be interesting to think historically because there have been solidarity brigades from the 1960s to Cuba, starting with, as my memory recalls, the Venceremos Brigades back in the late 1960s. So how do you also see this brigade fitting into that longer history of solidarity brigades to Cuba?

Nupreet: Yeah, so I think the importance of the name is, it's a big one because The Venceremos Brigade, which was the first one, which I think we can talk about in a minute, obviously means we will win. And that is a big, big name because it was founded just 10 years after the revolution itself. And that's a really major way that they were supporting. For us, well, Assata Shakur had died in September of last year, and that was around the time that we were formalizing the brigade. And so her as a symbol of everything that we're trying to channel in this brigade of anti-imperialist revolutionary solidarity and action, we think she symbolized that. And to give a bit of a history of who this is for anyone who might not be familiar, firstly, the name Assata Shakur was chosen. It means she who struggles. That's Assata. And then Shakur was in honor of Assata's comrade who was killed by US police at the same time that Assata was also arrested in the shootout that kind of began the chain of events that led her to Cuba. And Shakur itself means the thankful. So even without the context of the person, I think, and naming a brigade meaning that she who struggles and is thankful is also really in kind of the tradition and The feeling that we are having. But in story, Assata was a member of the Black Panther Party. She grew up in New York. She was born in a very working-class family. I think anyone who's read her autobiography, and if you haven't, I really encourage you to, she grew up with a lot of struggle in her life and her upbringing, which led her to socialist anti-imperialist politics. She organized with the Black Panthers in Oakland in California before she led the Harlem branch of the Black Panthers. At this point, she was very much known to the US and was a target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, where she was targeted and harassed and discredited as a person, as an organizer, as part of this kind of structural attempt to discredit this growing movement in the era of the '60s and '70s in the US, which was fairly revolutionary times. This led to her being pulled over in a car with her comrades also with the Black Panthers. And during this, she was, I think, pulled over for something about the car, and it ended up with Assata being shot in the stomach, her comrade Zayd being killed, as well as one of the cops that actually pulled them over also dying. Of course, this was, and all forensic evidence shows that this was because of the other cop's own gun, but instead Assata was charged with his murder. Again, in the autobiography, you'll see how from her being in hospital for this wound, how much she was intimidated and harassed by police and physically abused by them. And then up until her trial as well, it was completely like a— it was all really a farce. And so she was sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. This led to, in 1979, the incredible escape, also supported by her other comrades, where she escaped from jail before being sentenced, and she traveled to Cuba in exile. This, again, was potentially the worst thing for the US to have happened, both for someone that they wanted to try and discredit, but also to a place that they were actively in the process of discrediting and waging war on. So when she She went to Cuba. The US labeled the country a state sponsor of terrorism. They put a bounty of $1 million on her head. They put her on the FBI's Most Wanted list years later and then set it to $2 million. Whereas in Cuba, she was given political asylum. Fidel called her a true political prisoner and said, very correctly, that she was a victim of the fierce repression against the Black movement. And so she lived in Cuba. Initially quite openly. I think a lot of people traveled there to meet her, but after the bounty was placed in 2005, she kind of lived a much more quiet life. And she lived freely until September 26th of last year where she passed away. And I think it's really beautiful. There was an event, I think, honoring her life in New York, and the Cuban Foreign Ministry, someone from the Foreign Ministry had said that we fulfilled our duty. And so for us, we want to honor her life as it panned out from her organizing, which is obviously continuing in many ways, much worse, the situation in the United States right now. There isn't the same kind of militant movements as there were, but also her moving and being in Cuba. And her being in Cuba also is part of a real history of Cuba providing the support to organizers and the oppressed in the imperial core. It wasn't Assata who was the only person in Cuba. In fact, she's not the only person there now who Mm-hmm. Who is there for asylum. This was actually like, you know, one of the policies of the government after the revolution was Fidel said to Latin Americans who came to the country in celebration of the revolution, different organizers and guerrillas saying like, when you're persecuted, Cuba is your homeland. And so after the coup in Chile, you know, 3, I think between 3,000 and 5,000 revolutionaries escaped the dictatorship and went there. Many other members of the Black Panther Party, famously Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver also sought asylum there. And so I think seeing this kind of history and current solidarity, very material solidarity that Cuba has provided as potentially one of the only places in the world you can go as a communist, as a revolutionary, and actually be safe is Incredible. And again, this is something that the Brigade itself will be doing. For many people, it'll be their first time going somewhere like Cuba, where you get to go and see a place where your views aren't the fringe, they aren't the ones under attack, but actually they are the mainstream. And so that's also part of what this is. And so this brings us to today in the Brigade. I went on one of the ones you mentioned, I think, the National Network on Cuba have the May Day Brigade, and they've been running this for quite a while now. And a lot of it is in partnership with the Venceremos Brigade, which continues. And I'd been to Cuba once before, but this is my first time going in a brigade. And it was like, it's truly a life-changing experience you have, but it's also one that sharpens the recognition of what material solidarity and what principled and disciplined solidarity with a a place and where the revolution is. And I felt that I went with the US group, but it made me think that there was a lot more to do and that we should be doing in Europe itself. There was also kind of an ask for more solidarity work in Europe, and so especially in Britain and kind of the different strands of organizing we have. And I think this is, we started doing this before the escalation by the Trump administration, but I think now it's clear that this is a vital time for us to be having way more brigades, way more solidarity efforts, many of which are happening. And you mentioned, yeah, the Venceremos Brigade, which is still the style that we're going from. And to briefly mention, that was organized in response to Fidel announcing that for this year, 10 years after the revolution, they wanted to harvest 10 million tons of sugar in one single harvest. And this was a call-out for Cubans. Yeah. And it was in many ways for agricultural self-sufficiency and generating hard currency. But some students in the US heard about this and decided to go to Cuba to go and support this effort. And surprisingly, they were let in. I feel like I wouldn't have done that at the time, but it worked clearly and it was successful. So I think a few hundred US students went to Cuba and volunteered there. labor, and they helped cut some of the sugar. They went and learned about the revolution because that's another major element of it is that there's such little information about the revolution to the point of us being purposely misinformed, of course, about the reality in Cuba. And so this is then of the history that we're continuing. Our brigade is continuing very much a revolutionary solidarity for us. We're going and we're bringing, at this point, over a ton of material aid, and we're taking a couple dozen brigadistas with us. And while we're bringing this humanitarian aid, you might see it as, we're not bringing it in a sense of charity. We're bringing it as a revolutionary support for a place that we see as the beacon of hope for humanity. And so we're going to learn about the blockade, but we're also gaining so much. And a lot of it is because our anti-imperialist organizing, and maybe other people will mention this later, in Britain is so minute and weak, and really it's quite terrible here. I think we look to the US often and think at least they have organizations and movements that understand what imperialism is. Here, when we're Kind of a lackey to the US. And you mentioned Cyprus before, and that's, I think, a big point that people are seeing is that the US can only operate using lackey states like Britain and their colonies, former colonies. And so a lot of this is we want to sharpen our own organizing in Britain. We want to expand what Cuba has been able to do and use that to helping our organizing here because we recognize that harming the British imperial state as well here, is a way that we can harm the US empire to stop the blockade and the war on Cuba.

Henry Huckamacki: So of course, if others have things that they want to say on this opening topic, they of course can. But before I get to talking too much about what the brigade is doing specifically, I think that we should take a step back and remind the listeners about the blockade itself, which is of course what is the precipitating factor for the necessity of brigades like this. So I know one of you is an expert in international law, and so therefore I would like to direct this question to you. The US blockade of Cuba, which Cuba calls an economic, commercial, and financial embargo, has been condemned for decades every single year at the United Nations General Assembly. Overwhelmingly with votes like, if I remember correctly, the most recent one was 187 to 2 or something along those lines. And yet, despite this overwhelming condemnation of the blockade, it continues. So can you walk us through the legal architecture of the blockade? How is it maintained? Despite being widely considered a violation of international law, including the Geneva Convention's prohibitions on collective punishment.

Grace: Yeah. So I don't really know where to start because it's a big one. So what you said was right about it's been 32 votes at the UN General Assembly that every single time they have condemned it. And always it's been around the same number of people, which is 187 to 2, with a Few abstentions sometimes, but if I go back to thinking about, I think a very core aspect of this actually is about the terminology that we use. So the U.S. uses the word embargo, and they do this for a very specific reason, and I think it's not considered often enough. So everyone else calls it a blockade. Cuba calls it a blockade. I think a large part of why the U.S. calls it an embargo is. Because of the optics. So embargo is quite a technical term that makes it sound like a routine kind of trade restriction, but then there's other things. So a blockade itself is considered an act of war under a number of different international laws, but specifically those San Remo— specifically the San Remo Manual, which isn't a treaty in itself, but it was developed by some international lawyers. And it's widely cited by courts. So blockades are actually only legal during an armed conflict. That's the only way under humanitarian law, which is ridiculous to me even that we have those kind of laws that say it's legal to blockade people. But that is the law. And even under those laws, it's not legal what the US is doing right now. I think another reason why they call it an embargo is because it hides the extraterritoriality So an embargo itself is a bilateral agreement, if you can call it that. That was very air quoted. So it's a bilateral thing. Normally a blockade is as well, but by calling it an embargo, you're hiding the fact that it's not just Cuba and the US that are involved. It's the US imposing restrictions on so many other different states in a way that we've not really seen before in the history of the world and in international law itself. Then the other thing I think is to maintain the facade of the humanitarian exceptions. But then you have the other thing, which is the way that Fidel actually saw it. So he, in a speech, said that it's not an embargo, nor is it a blockade, it's a war. And I think that's the key thing. If you look at it in terms of international law, this is something that should be considered Economic warfare that is done through legal instrumentation. So the next bit to talk about, I think the history of the blockade itself. So people just kind of see it as this overarching being that has kind of always been there, but it's a lot more than that. It wasn't always like this. The blockade initially started actually with what Navpreet was talking about earlier with the sugar industry. Yeah. So the initial blockade was in 1960, which was when the Cuban government that had had the revolution in 1959, when they nationalized all of the US assets, they then had repercussions from the US, which was that the US said that they were not going to allow Cuba to fulfill its sugar quota for the year of 1960. So this was about 700,000 tons of sugar that the US didn't allow for Cuba to sell to them, which was a massive, massive blow to their economy. That then turned into a partial embargo later on that same year, and then it was a total embargo in 1962, which is now what we refer to as the blockade. But Initially, it was a bit more of an embargo than a blockade. So there were additional acts that came into force through US law, which created extra conditions, and it's been building and building and building to the point where it is now, where it's honestly infuriating and ridiculous to see. Because we all know that it's illegal, and we also know that the UN hasn't been and isn't going to do anything about it. So the first act that was added was the Torricelli Act in 1992. So this prohibited foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba. It banned ships that had visited Cuba from entering US ports for 180 days. It reduced aid to countries that provided assistance to Cuba. It made it illegal for US citizens to spend money in Cuba, and it banned US companies from providing phone, internet, or satellite services to Cuba. So this was kind of when it became more— when it became less about US and Cuba And you start seeing more of these elements of extraterritoriality where you have the US trying to impose these same restrictions on other countries as well. And then that was made even worse with the Helms-Burton Act, which was in 1996. So that made the blockade federal law, meaning that a president alone couldn't change it. It also Established an explicit policy of regime change. It mandated a reduction in US contributions to any UN agency that allowed Cuba to be a member. So they still had to pay their compulsory contributions, but any optional ones were completely slashed to sometimes nothing. And then there was also the famous Title III, which was that US nationals can sue any foreign company that, air quotes here, traffics in property that was confiscated by the Cuban government.

Henry Huckamacki: So I want to jump in here, Grace, with a follow-up question, because you've been mentioning that this blockade has been going on since 1960. There have, however, been ebbs and flows in how stringently the blockade has been enforced. I know that on our show in the last couple of years, we had talked about the fact that even during the Biden administration, there were new layers being added to enforcement of the blockade and further restrictions against Cuba. And as we've alluded to in this conversation already today, Trump's second administration has only dramatically escalated things further. So within the last 2 administrations, Cuba was redesignated as a state sponsor of terrorism. That happened in 2021, a designation that has been widely criticized as politically motivated, not only within the United States context, but globally, it's been pretty widely criticized as just being a political instrument to punish Cuba. So what are the concrete material effects that that designation has had on ordinary Cubans? Again, we've had an episode on this topic, but—

Nupreet: Yeah.

Henry Huckamacki: From a legal standpoint, I guess also, what effect has that new designation had on Cubans? And how does international law address the extraterritorial application of US laws like the Helms-Burton Act that you just had mentioned, Grace, to punish third countries for trading with Cuba?

Grace: Okay, there's a lot in that question.

Henry Huckamacki: My specialty, overloading the guests.

Grace: So maybe let's talk about the oil blockade. I think that's one kind of more recent addition that we've seen. So the US has been threatening punitive tariffs on any country selling oil to Cuba. And this is quite a good example of the US just doing what the US does with imperialism, which is they have no legal standing when it comes to threatening those kind of tariffs on other countries like Mexico, for example. But just the threat of doing it, saying that they might do it, has stopped countries like Mexico from shipping oil to Cuba. And that, I think, is the core part of imperialism and what US imperialism does. It's not so much about what the law itself says, because— and I could go on about this for a long time— international law is not meant to work in favor of the Global South. So you can have it written down into international law as many different ways as you want that every nation is equal.

Henry Huckamacki: Right.

Grace: But then when you have things like the way that an ICJ judgment goes through is through the Security Council. The Security Council has a veto by the US. So even if the US is held accountable for something, it can never actually be punished for that thing because they are the cops. They are the people who are saying yes or no to this going through. And no one's going to say, oh yes, I'm going to allow this.

Nupreet: Mm-hmm.

Grace: This judgment to go through against myself. And I think that's my core thing, is that is how it was set up to work. So I think, like a lot of things with the US, just the threat alone is making things worse. So having this designation is making a lot of different countries that aren't Cuba scared to do business with Cuba. Even though this is just a label, in terms of international law, it doesn't mean anything. There is no label for that. But by putting this label onto Cuba, it means that, for example, you have— there was a Swiss bank that was fined in 2024 just for processing Cuban payments, fined by the US. There was a French bank fined For transactions relating to Cuba, Iran, and Sudan, which even the French minister said that he didn't think it was illegal. He didn't think that it was legal. The US has been threatening so many different institutions. It's not just banks, it's telecommunications companies. You now have so many different— Yeah. Internet companies that are refusing to kind of do any kind of business in Cuba. And therefore you have people on the ground in Cuba who are now without oil, without internet a lot of the time, without all of these things that we in the West would say is vital to survive, all because the US has been threatening constantly different countries, different companies, no matter where they're based, doesn't matter if they're a US company or not. So there was also a recent report that the Cuban government did for the UN with their vote that you mentioned at the beginning about 187 to 2. For that resolution, they wrote a very, very long piece that went inside the document. If anyone wants to read it, it's UN document AG— It's a very, very good read, but some key points that I took out of it was that they put the blockade in terms of human cost. So 2 months of the blockade is worth the same amount of money as the fuel for the entire electricity grid for a year. 16 days of the blockade is the same monetary value as all of the essential medicine needs for the year. And then you have— it keeps going down the list, but then you get all the way to 10 minutes' worth of the blockade would pay for all of the hearing aids for all children in Cuba. And I think that's something we don't think about a lot. We think, yes, it's a blockade, their economy is struggling, but we don't think about it in terms of the actual value of how much money they are stripping away from Cuba. And how much Cuba is struggling and suffering because of the US's actions. And then lastly, I think the final part of your question was, why is the blockade illegal? So there are a few different treaties that come into play, but it's also a lot about customary international law, which is not something that's in a treaty. So as you mentioned already, you've got the UN General Assembly.

Alessandro Zancan: Mm-hmm.

Grace: Which keeps voting to condemn. It keeps condemning, and nothing happens. You have other parts, so the Hague Convention as well, specifically the Convention Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War. So this is one of the key instruments that established that a blockade is only legal during wartime. Then, as you mentioned already, the Geneva Convention.

Alfie: Right.

Grace: But as well as that, you've got the UN Charter. So you have Article 2, Part 4 prohibits the threat or use of force against territorial integrity or political independence. And then finally, the Nicaragua case, which was the key case that established that an economic blockade constituted unlawful use of force and that economic coercion may violate Article 2 of the UN Charter if it impairs political independence, which we can clearly see that it does.

Henry Huckamacki: Absolutely. And when you mentioned about international law never having been intended to work for the Global South, it just reminds me that we have an episode on that exact topic that I'd like to refer the listeners to at this point, an episode on international law with international law scholar Nina Farnia. It came out last year, late last year, I want to say. So listeners, you can find that in the Guerrilla History feed wherever you get your podcasts. Just type in Nina Farnia and you'll find that episode on international law where we made that exact point ad nauseam because it is extremely clear if you look at the application of international law. Now, with that being said, I want to turn to a slightly different topic, and that is on anti-Cuban propaganda. And the reason I want to turn to this topic now is because while we were talking about these different restrictions that are on Cuba and different justifications for why the blockade has to be strengthened, that it's a state sponsor of terrorism, etc., etc., the existence of anti-Cuban propaganda and the perpetuation of anti-Cuban propaganda through mass media, which of course, it begins with the government wanting a desired outcome, the propaganda then being constructed, And then being disseminated through various channels to people. This very propaganda also provides justification for the ongoing blockade, as well as any other actions that take place against Cuba. And so the question is, I know that Alessandro, I believe that this is you that wants to talk about propaganda. The question is, how does this construction of anti-Cuban propaganda come to be. And I also will just make a small note here, listeners, the next episode of Guerrilla History is actually a deep dive. It's about 2.5 hours long on propaganda. It's an introduction to propaganda. It's already been recorded. We're just going to release this episode first because it's timely. We want to let you know about it before the brigade sets out. But you can look forward to that really deep dive into propaganda. But in the Cuban context, how does that propaganda get constructed? And what are the impacts of that anti-Cuban propaganda? And what are some of the various forms of propaganda that are constructed? I know I have a book actually on this exact topic, on Cuban propaganda, on my bookshelf in the other room. If I would've thought about it, I would've brought it out here and showed you. There's a nice photo of Fidel on the COVID But in any case, Alessandro, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Alessandro Zancan: Can I just ask, what book is that? Because I don't have that.

Henry Huckamacki: If I remember correctly, Manufacturing the Enemy. And if I remember the author's name correctly, it's Keith Bolender, or something along these lines. Believe it or not, I got both the title and the author correct.

Alessandro Zancan: All right, look at that. Okay, so where to start? Um, I think one, one important thing to, to talk about here is the fact that the propaganda playbook that the U.S. has used against Cuba is not really fundamentally different to the propaganda playbook they've used against pretty much every anti-imperialist country in history. Perhaps one of the more relevant things to talk about when it comes to Cuba is based off something that Grace mentioned earlier. So she mentioned the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act. So what they did was they established a legal framework that authorized funding for programs in Cuba that were aimed at promoting democracy. That was in air quotes. So basically what the U.S. could then do is what they've done with the DPRK, what they've done with China, what they've done with again every single anti-imperialist country or even just non-aligned country. They have these networks; they have U.S. aid, they have stuff like Radio Free Asia. They've got they create TV and radio programs, and they. Bombard these countries with propaganda. And I think one important thing to mention here is, and this is something that I always stress when I talk about propaganda, is a lot of the time we kind of use the same terminology, but we don't necessarily agree on what propaganda actually is. So I do find it quite useful to actually first discuss as to what propaganda actually is, so then we can, you know, have a shared framework. Uh, but basically, I'd like to define propaganda as any kind of speech or action, really, that is ideological in nature. And I like this framing specifically because it allows us to include covert propaganda, overt propaganda, explicit propaganda, implicit propaganda, or even intentional and non-intentional propaganda. Because I would argue, for example, that, um, my, uh, Grandparents at the dinner table asking me when I'm going to have kids. I would argue that that is pro-capitalist propaganda. Or but basically, like in everyday conversation, we repeat notions, we repeat ideas that further entrench the the status quo, that further further entrench the current system. So why why did I feel the need to say this? The way that U.S. propaganda operates against Cuba. Is both in the overt way of depicting Fidel as a tyrant, a dictator, the same way they would depict Kim Jong-un in DPRK, the same way they depict Putin in Russia. They can do that. Or a lot of people portrayed Che Guevara as a murderer, stuff like that. But also some of the more insidious propaganda instead is For example, what Grace mentioned earlier about using the term embargo rather than blockade. It's about using specific terminology. It's about obscuring the reality of things. So how is that done? We have these networks, you know, most of them run by the CIA, but basically run by the US state, that try to infiltrate, so to speak, are common sense. So basically they create this kind of concept of normality, which just so happens to reinforce what the US wants to reinforce. And it's done through controlling how the media apparatus in every country in the world operates, for example, or at least countries they have control in. Um, and we've seen it play out with, you know, news coverage in the UK and news coverage in the US. Uh, in Italy and in France and Germany around what is actually happening in Cuba or what is happening with Maduro in Venezuela, where people will say it wasn't a kidnapping, it was an intervention. Like, there's a use of specific language that use on a daily basis reinforces specific notions that favor the US. And another thing to note as well is we often misframe, if that is a word, what the actual aim of propaganda is. Because often we have this kind of notion of brainwashing. So when the US sends airplanes over Cuba to fly a bunch of leaflets over saying that the revolutionary government is a dictatorship, they're not trying to convince people necessarily. When they tell us that the DPRK is run by a madman, They're not trying to convince us of that. When Maduro and First Comandante Cilia Flores were kidnapped, we saw a swirl of propaganda, but the propaganda took the form of contradicting statements. Stuff like, oh, Diosdado Cabello betrayed the revolution. No, actually it was Delcy Rodríguez. But actually Delcy Rodríguez was in Russia when this happened. But actually, no, she was in Venezuela, but she betrayed Venezuela because she worked with the US. If we were to believe all of these different forms of propaganda, we would not have a coherent worldview. The objective is not necessarily to make us believe specific things, but it's to cause confusion. Why would they cause confusion in that specific moment there? Multiple reasons. To, for example, undermine international solidarity when it comes to observers outside of a country. So when we get propaganda that tells us specific things about Cuba, When we hear that Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism, it kind of makes us step away for a second, potentially. But then you have to also think about how the propaganda affects people within the country. And for example, specifically with the so-called cognitive warfare campaign that was waged upon Venezuela, the attempt there was to get those elements which were already closer to the US ideologically to align with them and create a power vacuum or a moment where The more reactionary elements in Venezuela could then take over amidst the confusion. And yeah, so this brings me to two things, and I might have strayed a little from the original question, but basically one is, what is our duty when it comes to propaganda? Us people in the Global North. I mean, I'll speak for the global. I won't speak for the Global South because I'm not in the Global South. But so our duty is, for starters, I don't necessarily know how useful it is to just counter every bit of propaganda, because otherwise we'll end up playing an endlessly defensive game where the US comes up with a claim, we debunk it, onto the next one, and we just spend our time debunking rather than actually developing ideologically, rather than actually doing material work. I think we have a duty for starters to have more discipline, to be more diligent. When we see claims, we do not spread them if they're unverified. We actually ask ourselves, who would benefit from this being true? Is this true? Like, what is actually going on? And we basically revolutionary patience. Let's put it that way. You know, Gramsci would talk about— I don't actually know the terms in English. I've only read Gramscian Italian, but he would talk about war of position and war of maneuver. Right now, the best thing we can do when it comes to propaganda is building a competing cultural hegemony. So we're in a phase of war of position because we do not have the power to actually contrast it in any material, serious way at the moment because we're too fractured. As Navpreet was saying earlier, the anti-imperialist movement in the West is fractured. It's small. It's not It's not good enough. Let's put it that way. So that is one of our duties. And the other one, uh, which brings me to my last point, is we have to recognize one fundamental thing about propaganda, which is why it works. There is no such thing as brainwashing. You don't get otherwise— you don't get people who are otherwise against something to believe something out of the blue. People have material incentives to believe things. You know, us in the West, we actually benefit from imperialism.

Alfie: Yeah.

Alessandro Zancan: We benefit in the products we can buy in our stores, in our inflated wages compared to the Global South. So there is this implicit knowledge that were there to be a global revolution, were the US to fall, hopefully one day, were the UK to fall, were all these imperialist countries to fall, ad interim, the situation would not be good for the subjects of those countries in the short term. It would not be good, and that's just part of the process. It's it's it is a process, so it is understandable why people would believe propaganda. So how can we think that our job is to convince people otherwise using words when actually we need to show them? You know the way the Black Panthers did. You know the way Assata Shakur did. The way the Soviets did. Convince them materially. We build dual power. We actually provide those things and show them by both giving them hope, but also actually showing them the hope in action. So the Black Panthers had breakfast programs. They had a healthcare program. You are showing people that they don't have to side with the state because there is an alternative. And you show them the alternative in action rather than just telling them, oh, by the way, it's all a bit shit.

Alfie: Yeah.

Alessandro Zancan: In it, and then just ending there. Yeah, I hope I didn't go too far away from the original—

Henry Huckamacki: No, that's fine. And I have just a brief follow-up, Alessandro. We've been talking about anti-Cuban propaganda, and one of the most persistent tropes about Cuba is that it is a failed state and that the people are desperate to flee at any opportunity. Yet when we actually look in Cuba, we see that they have universal healthcare, They have free education through university. They have a maternal mortality rate lower than in the United States, and that's been the case for decades. And something that, by the way, I believe I just saw— was it Pramila Jayapal talking in Congress about that today? It's not like these are secret things. It's not like this is hidden information that you have to actually travel to Cuba for to find the case. We have active congressional members talking about it in Congress, about the fact that the maternal mortality rate is lower than the United States. Their literacy rate has been 100% for decades, which is not something that the United States is anywhere near even today. Yet despite all of these metrics, there is still this definite gap between the accepted propaganda and the reality of the situation. So the question is, and you've already answered this in a more theoretical way, but I'm asking it in a more concrete way. Why is it that Western media refuses to cover the achievements of Cuba, things in the field of biotechnology, for example, where they were developing their own COVID vaccines? They developed their own cancer vaccine in the face of a blockade in which they couldn't get many of the critical resources, including syringes, that they needed for the creation and administration of these groundbreaking biotechnological advancements that they were making. Why is it that even when these things come out, the Western media refuses to cover them?

Alessandro Zancan: So I think this is specifically a Cuba thing, as in, like, we've seen Western media be somewhat, you know, ambiguous about China, for example, and China's achievements, but you do actually hear about what's happening. And that's met with, oh, China's doing it because it's not really socialist. But the specific special quality that Cuba has is, I mean, it's not necessarily, I was going to say that it's an uncompromising socialist country, but that's not even true. That's not even true because Cuba has been very, very pragmatic, very dialectical in its history, trying to react to the different stages of its economic development. Different stages of, you know, being, uh, exporting all that sugar to the USSR, then the USSR gradually reducing its export of oil, and then this removing it completely. But I think, like, the first thing that comes to mind is they cannot admit all the ways that Cuba is thriving. Because if you think, what's the most socialist country right now that you can think of? The first one that comes off your head. It is Cuba. Cuba has, for a number of reasons, entered like the collective, like the public imaginary as the socialist country, like the dream, the hope of so many socialists around the world. And I guess for us in the West as well, if you think about all the other actually existing socialist countries at the moment, Which one is the most intelligible? As in, which one is the closest one to Europeans that maybe speaks the same language or speaks similar enough languages or has the same alphabet? I think that that's part of it as well. I think specifically due to Cuba's position in the world, both geographically and specifically because it's achieving so much, the moment you admit that Cuba has this much success despite everything, you're implicitly saying that if we stopped oppressing them, they would probably inspire the rest of the world to get rid of us. I think that's a part of it. And just to answer specifically the thing of people leaving Cuba, the bit of propaganda that says that people desperately want to leave Cuba, So specifically when it comes to that, I think the basis of the accusation that a lot of people want to leave stems from the special period in Cuba, you know, the period when the USSR fell and conditions in Cuba got really, really dire. What did the Cuban government do then? Did they actually restrict their population from leaving like the propaganda says, or did they sign— did they negotiate a migration agreement with the US? That allowed Cubans safe passage to go to the U.S. Now here's the interesting thing: What happened after Cuba signed this migration agreement that gave you know a legal pathway to Cuban citizens to go to the U.S.? The U.S. refused to accept so many of the people who tried to leave, so then they could claim that Cuba wouldn't let them leave. And it's it's it's so insidious because. It's all constructed right from the beginning. They will create the conditions for the propaganda and then they'll enact it. And it's, and it is infuriating because, as you say, like, it's not, no one's hiding this. Like, we all know it's all there to see. Like, you can find this information on Wikipedia. You can find this information in all Western sources. But what I think is happening here is, is kind of always bring it back to Mark Fisher.

Nupreet: Yeah.

Alessandro Zancan: When it comes to how people believe and act in the in the UK specifically, but it's just I think it's abject nihilism to some extent. Like the embargo, the blockade has been going on for so long that if I told you, oh yeah, it's getting lifted tomorrow, even if it actually were, you wouldn't believe me. Like it's it's just kind of accepted, and I think that just kind of makes people just let it happen. And it was only recently that you know with the latest escalations. When we're seeing conditions that you know remind us of the special period, I think with the ubiquity of social media, with the fact that it cannot be hidden in any way, I think also amidst the whole you know Trump doing what he did in Venezuela, in Iran, everywhere in the world, amidst the genocide in Palestine, I think that's why specifically now. Cuba is also in the limelight, so to speak, again. Otherwise, it's slow attrition.

Henry Huckamacki: Now, I want to make sure that we get Alfie into this conversation. Alfie, I believe you are the representative that's going to be talking with us about African liberation today. Am I correct?

Alfie: Yeah, that's right. I have a few things to say about Cuba's involvement in Africa.

Henry Huckamacki: Great. That's exactly where I want to turn to now. We've talked about Cuba's role in Africa. I mean, we've had 360 episodes of the show, so basically everything that we've talked about in this conversation, I can point at conversations that have been connected with it at some point in the past. But it's a topic that I'm extremely interested in, and I have a guest planned to talk about this specifically in depth for our African Revolutions and Decolonization series. But I'm also really excited to talk about it today. So just in brief introduction to tee you up for what you want to talk about, Alfi, Cuba has such a rich history of involvement with international solidarity with Africa and African liberation. Everything from sending over 300,000 troops to Angola between 1975 to 1991, fighting alongside the MPLA against apartheid South Africa, To sending doctors, teachers, military advisors to Algeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea-Bissau, Ethiopian Ethiopia, etc., etc. Che Guevara being involved with Patrice Lumumba and his supporters in the Congo. Why? This is the question now that I've gotten some of my favorite things to mention out of the way, which feel free to pick up any of those threads as you wish. But the main question that I would like to push towards now is. Why did Cuba, a small, blockaded island, commit so much to African revolution? And what did Fidel mean when he said, the destiny of Africa is also the destiny of Cuba?

Alfie: Yeah, that's a really important topic to touch on. And I just wanted to go through a little bit of the history first before I talk about maybe the reasons why and some of the impacts of it. Just to sketch out some context. I think you did a good job of summarizing it. I just wanted to highlight a few more things, especially talking about Angola, which as you mentioned, was the main site of Cuban intervention in national liberation struggles of the 20th century. So after Angola won independence from Portugal in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, the MPLA, which is the Movement for the Liberation of Angola, had by this time— that's 1975— liberated much of the country from Portuguese rule.

Grace: Yeah.

Alfie: Now, the MPLA were a Marxist-Leninist organization which started fighting against the Portuguese all the way back in 1961. So this has sort of been a very protracted history, a protracted war, if you will, by the national liberation movement there. And just as an extra thing, there is a great film about this called Samba Zinga by Sara Maldoror, which is about the kind of prelude to the beginning of the struggle by the MPLA in 1960 and 1961, which I'd really recommend watching. So upon independence in 1975, the civil war broke out between the MPLA and other factions which emerged in this newly independent Angola. The main faction being the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, which was really a kind of CIA front and a South African proxy as it became During the civil war, and the MPLA became Soviet-aligned and obviously Cuban-aligned, as I'll talk about in a minute. The Cuban intervention in Angola was crucial for the MPLA to eventually win this war, and Cuban troops directly participated in the fighting. They didn't only provide supplies or provide military advisors, they entered into the war as a full participant. And this is important to highlight because I think we often think of the model of Soviet intervention and Soviet—

Alessandro Zancan: In Cuba.

Alfie: in the Cold War, where it wasn't necessarily a full-throated contribution to every single nation that it assisted in their national liberation struggles. But with Cuba, this was certainly probably a kind of more intense engagement with Angola. And Castro named this operation Black Carlota after the leader of a historic slave rebellion in Cuba. So I think this already is— Yeah. Getting to your question about how Cubans themselves understood this intervention by linking the history of slavery in Africa and in the Caribbean with the continuation of slave rebellions, which I think in their framing had continued in the Cuban Revolution and then continued in these operations as well. And I want to touch on that again in a minute. But by the end of 1976, 35,000 Cuban soldiers were in Angola. And all of these soldiers had volunteered to go on this mission, and there was an oversubscription within the Cuban Army of soldiers who wanted to volunteer for this mission. And over 700 of them were killed in combat over the course of the war. Now, this really shows how the ideals of revolutionary solidarity had permeated Cuban society and indeed the army by that time, and how ordinary Cubans felt that they were ready to go and fight for this cause all of their own volition, not Sort of because they had to, because their government was telling them to. The first waves of Cuban troops were inserted into Angola with limited Soviet assistance, and Cuban and MPLA forces jointly defended the capital Luanda from a South African offensive. And Cuban support in the first phase of the war directly defeated the South African offensive, and South Africa was so heavily defeated that it was forced to entirely withdraw from Angola by 1976.

Grace: Okay.

Alfie: Now, this shows the incredible bravery of Cuba to take on this fight almost on their own, but it also shows the value in a broad socialist alliance of which Cuba was a part of at the time with the Soviet Union and other socialist and communist states in the world, that Cuba was maybe being more decisive and operating within different parameters than the Soviet Union was able to at the time. Cuba really led the communist bloc policy on Angola. And always stepped first before the Soviets, and the Soviets often followed the Cuban policy in Angola. This wasn't always the case, but I think at the start that was quite decisive. And Cuba's intervention is acknowledged as one of the main factors in the beginning of the end of apartheid South Africa. Immediately after the defeat in Luanda, there was the Soweto uprisings in South Africa in 1976, which were linked very consciously to Angola and the struggle of various other national liberation movements in Southern Africa. Cuba's intervention laid the groundwork for the renewal of revolutionary forces across Southern Africa. Angolan territory hosted the bases of national liberation movements from Namibia, Zimbabwe, and also the ANC from South Africa. Cuba began training SWAPO troops, which was the national liberation movement of Namibia, in Angolan territory. Now, there was a second phase, which I'll briefly talk about, of the Cuban intervention, which came in the late '80s. And the civil war in Angola had been going on all this time since 1975. And this was a renewed apartheid South African offensive against the Angolan state. South Africa was trying to turn the tide of the civil war and to wipe out the bases of the Namibian guerrillas in the south of Angola. The MPLA requested Cuban intervention, which was quickly granted because the Soviet response was too slow, and Cuba surged its troop numbers in Angola all the way to 55,000 at one time. And that might not sound like a lot maybe in Soviet terms, but if you think about the population of Cuba, which I think has stayed around 10 million, 55,000 is really an enormous number. I think that's the total troops that Britain has in its army right now. So for such a small country, that was really a significant engagement in this war. And Cuba managed to hold a line against South African attacks and eventually repelled the offensive. And this engagement in the southeast corner of Angola was the largest battle in Africa since the Second World War. And so Cuba really had helped the MPLA defeat a kind of full onslaught of the South African army. And this was also crucial in the liberation of Namibia and the later collapse of apartheid South Africa. The Namibian guerrillas fought alongside Cuba and the MPLA in these battles, and they later advanced into Namibian territory with Cuban air support. The South Africans even sued for peace and negotiations because they were afraid of a full Cuban offensive into Namibia, and they entered into these negotiations, which then led to the independence of Namibia. In 1990. So this sort of Cuban intervention went beyond Angola itself. And then there were further examples of Cuban material solidarity with national liberation struggles around the world at the time, especially in Palestine. Cuba hosted PLO training camps in Cuba itself. They sent a tank brigade to Syria to defend against the Israeli invasion of the Golan Heights in 1973. Engaging in direct combat with Israeli forces there, and Cuba maintains non-recognition of Israel up to now. We hear a lot about states breaking ties, expelling ambassadors, but Cuba doesn't even recognize Israel at all. So when we talk about the kind of thresholds and the kind of bars, the moral bars that we set up for states now, Cuba is really—it's a really good example of. The kind of maximum that we should be expecting states to do in relation to Palestine. So I want to come to the main part of your question, which is why Cuba was doing all of this, sacrificing its own people, 700 soldiers, as I mentioned. The Cuban revolutionary interventionism was part of its strategy to safeguard their own revolution and to support other revolutions as part of a global struggle against imperialism. And Cuba really put these ideas into practice and proved itself to be a revolutionary state that was willing to engage in revolutionary action beyond its own borders because it saw the Cuban Revolution not only as a national phenomenon, but as part of a global struggle against imperialism and against racism. Now, Cuba understood these actions as fighting for Black liberation against white supremacy that was tied up in the West. Fidel often invoked Cuba's history of slavery and its large Black and mixed population as a link between the Cuban Revolution and the struggles in Africa, consciously understood as a continuation of slave rebellions against plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries, as I mentioned earlier. So ultimately, what this history shows us is that the positive history that we talk about now in regard to the end of colonialism and empire should not be taken for granted as the inevitable march of history, but that is something that required conscious intense revolutionary action and sacrifice from others acting in solidarity to make these victories possible. This is not rhetorical support, but real material action in the form of a revolutionary army that had to move physically across the ocean to create their history that we now look back on as fact. Cuba is sometimes presented as well like it was a proxy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but Cuba influenced the whole Socialist Alliance policy. In this case, we talked about Cuba's own reasons for solidarity with Black liberation struggles because of its own Black population and involvement in Black liberation and its understanding of the Cuban Revolution as a step towards global Black liberation. Cuba is now facing imperialist attack and aggression and is suffering internally on an unprecedented scale. Cuba gave a lot for the struggles of others, and it's a shame that the world, with the exception of Russia and China, could not reciprocate this so much now in their hour of need. Now, Cuba didn't do all of these things because they wanted something in return. It wasn't a transactional thing. It was based on this ideological principle and a kind of geopolitical calculation, which saw the Cuban Revolution tied up with other global revolutions. But I think in the spirit of the Brigade, what we can do is learn from the ideology and the spirit that drove those actions, Which indeed still lives on in Cuba today, and try to act in accordance with that kind of spirit. So we believe that taking some actions in solidarity with Cuba, such as this brigade is acting as a small initiative in the same spirit of revolutionary solidarity that Cuba showed to the world all those years ago.

Henry Huckamacki: It's really well put, but I also think that it's worth mentioning that Cubans' international solidarity, anti-imperialist solidarity, is not something that's confined only to history, but also continues today in many cases. So I mentioned earlier the medical brigades in the hundreds of thousands of trained medical professionals being sent from Cuba around the world to places that are lacking in qualified medical professionals. And I'm thinking specifically about in recent history, The Ebola crisis in West Africa and also in the COVID pandemic. I bring up Ebola first because, as long, long, long-time listeners of the show will know, before I left from the track of academia and entered education as a field, I was an Ebola specialist. So I, yeah, always bring up Ebola first whenever it's on a list of things. Cuba did send a huge number of medical professionals to West Africa. They were the first country, as far as I remember, to send medical professionals when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was taking place, and only were then joined after by European specialists and specialists from the United States. World Health Organization organized specialists coming in thereafter as well. But Cuba swooped in right away with their medical brigades that were already organized. They didn't ask for anything in return, and in fact, they were denigrated by the Western media for being amongst the first to go into, uh, these areas. You may have seen various news reports saying that the medical brigades are quote-unquote forced labor, where the Cuban government forces medical professionals to go and do civic duty to the world. Now, on its face, this sounds ridiculous, but those narratives came out even when the Ebola outbreak was happening. Look at what Cuba is doing. They're forcing their people to work with this deadly virus. It kills between 50% and 80% of the people that get it, and Cuba is forcing their medical doctors to go and work in these areas. But of course, you know, a few weeks later when the United States sends its doctors, it's not sending them at gunpoint or whatever. That's, you know, a different situation entirely. And during the COVID pandemic, the exact same thing happened. Cuba stepped up immediately when the pandemic began to break out and offered to send medical brigades around the world. And believe it or not, the United States criticized them and threatened might be a little bit strong, but the United States encouraged Various countries to not accept medical brigades from Cuba to assist with their public health response to the COVID pandemic in those very early stages. But nevertheless, Cuba did send hundreds and thousands of medical professionals around the world at the same time that again a blockade was in place. They were prevented from getting syringes. There was a specific blockade for syringes from the United States. During the early phases of a pandemic, think about the insanity of that situation where you have a pandemic. They're developing their own vaccine on the island. People are going to be needing injections, whether it's vaccine or whether it's some other treatments, and they are being prevented from getting syringes onto the island. And despite this situation, they are still sending their medical professionals to other places that don't have the public health capacity within them. So while it is absolutely true that Cuba has a very storied history of internationalist solidarity, I think that it's also extremely important that we focus on the fact that today Cuba still continues its internationalist solidarity with places around the world. And as you mentioned, Alfie, unfortunately, in a time where Cuba could use a little bit of international solidarity in return, Not that they were doing it to have this be returned to them, but in the name of solidarity, it would be nice for them to get something back for all that they have given. And only China and Russia are stepping up to the plate as of now and really providing any sort of aid to them, which is something that we talked about on a recent episode as well with the Farnias. Navid and Nina Farnia were on the show recently, and we talked about this point in passing, although we mostly talked about Iran in that episode. But check out that episode, listeners. It was a really fun one. I do want to turn though to the closing question, and I believe that I'll turn this to Nupreet to begin with. But then, as it's the closing question, anything that anybody wants to add on it, feel free. We're turning our focus from The situation with the blockade, the history, the history of Cuban solidarity, anti-Cuban propaganda, to what is happening now. So some questions that might help concretize this in the minds of the listeners a little bit. What does the brigade do? What is the Assata Brigade, Assata Shakur Brigade doing? How long are you going to be in Cuba? Where will you go? What will you see? Who will you meet? What do you want? You mentioned that you were going to be bringing something back intellectually from this trip. What are you hoping to be able to bring back from this trip? How is this— I know I'm asking a lot of questions. The point is, is that I'm sure that the listeners really want to know about what the overall situation regarding the brigade is. The blockade is very tight. How is the brigade going to be dealing with the fact that there is a really tight blockade on Cuba? What are the situations— what are the conditions going to be like when you're there for your brigade members? And most importantly, once we understand all of these aspects that are connected with the brigade itself, what can our listeners do to help support the brigade in its mission?

Nupreet: Okay. I think through doing— through going through some of the questions you asked—

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah, sorry to give you like 20 things at once, but, you know, feel free to take any that you want.

Nupreet: I was gonna say, I have so many more things to say as well, so I'm gonna try and weave them together because I think from what everyone else has mentioned, I just get so excited to talk about Cuba. So I had so many other things that people were making me think of. But I think they closely and very neatly work with the questions because the reason we're doing this brigade is because of what everybody has said, either positively or negatively. And so I think to begin with, to set the scene of the current moment, so 2 days ago was the anniversary of— 65th anniversary of the US failed invasion of Cuba with the Bay of Pigs. Yeah. And this, for anyone who doesn't know, you should know, it's one of the most glorious passages in the history against imperialism. As Fidel said, it was the first defeat of imperialism in Latin America. It's when the US tried to invade Cuba with all their military might. They lost after 66 hours against the Cuban revolutionary forces. And I think over the weekend at the anniversary of it, the president, Díaz-Canel, said something very beautiful about the Bay of Pigs invasion is as important to Cuban history as the revolution itself because it showed that Cuba can prevail and succeed against this monstrous empire, which is based 60 miles away. That's the closest point between Cuba and the United States of Florida, which is, I think, also really important if people don't know their geography to recognize this is why Cuba is under particular attack by the US. So I think we're in that situation where it's the 65th anniversary of the victory of Giron, as they call it in Cuba. But also, this is potentially one of the most moments of overt threat by the US against Cuba since around then, really, by Trump saying that they lost in Iran and now they're ready to go and attack Cuba. And so there's a lot of fear in Cuba, of course, itself. Some of my comrades there were saying, when When you come, you might be fighting alongside Cubans against imperialism. And so I think there is definitely a fear of invasion in Cuba itself, but they're not scared and they're ready to fight. Millions of people will fight as they have before. And so I think this is the current situation we're in. But on the other side, like people mentioned, that Cuba has received so much solidarity right now. China has sent 60,000 tons of rice in the past few months. They've helped Cuba achieve 20% solar production, which has tripled in one year. And the Russian oil, which was delivered a couple weeks ago, has been refined. So there's 730,000 barrels of oil which are now being used to power Cuban society. And there's been some other declarations also over the weekend by Spain, Brazil, Mexico, whether that it becomes more concrete action, I think, is yet to be seen, but I think this is there. So we're kind of at a critical moment where the US threats are escalating. Like you mentioned, the brigade is incredibly— the blockade is incredibly tightened, but there is also countries and people importantly coming to the support of Cuba. So this is our inaugural brigade and we're going for the international delegation that goes for May Day. So we'll be going for 2 weeks, and it's a program that is going to be— it's coordinated by ECAP, which is the Friendship Institute in Cuba, and it will be with lots of other delegations from across the world. So it's internationalist at its core, and a big part of this is to bring together revolutionaries, people coming to the defense of the revolution together as well. And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways is where else in the world can you go somewhere and meet with people who are in struggle in other countries with such similar conditions as you? Because particularly it's people in the imperial core. And when can you ever otherwise have these conversations? And so this is the beauty again of Cuba that it continues to provide for the world. It continues to strengthen our movements. Every single year when these brigades meet, people make connections that then blossom into further strengthening for organizing, further strengthening for the network for the kind of global anti-imperialist struggle. So like you mentioned, the medical missions are continuing across the world, but also the fact that Cuba is hosting these brigades itself is another major impact. One other thing I wanted to mention about who we'll be meeting, we're going to meet some of the Palestinian students who are at the School of Medicine in Cuba. And this is one of the most incredible instances of Cuba's solidarity across the world. And I think again, it's kind of what you were mentioning before, why don't people know about this? Why don't people know that it's not just like what Afi was mentioning before, like, oh, it's great. One country maybe made a statement against Israel. Now, Cuba not only has no recognition of the Zionist entity, but not only that, since the '80s, it has been providing scholarships for Palestinian students, particularly from Gaza, to come and learn for free in Cuba, learn medicine, to then go back and serve the people. And this has been continuing, and despite the blockade, there are Every single year they still hand out scholarships. So we're going to go and meet with some of these students there as one way of combating the propaganda that is installed in all of us, both because we have to learn about the existence of this rather than the other ways that we would learn about some other random European country doing some kind of liberal activities. So one of the things we'll be doing is Yeah, meeting some Palestinian students who are studying medicine. We'll be visiting hospitals, schools, different medical centers, both to physically hand over donations. We've been packing suitcases all of this week full of medical supplies, school supplies. This has also been a process of realizing the blockade for people who haven't been before.

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah.

Nupreet: Packing a suitcase with painkillers and syringes and needles and the things that we take for granted, milk powder, so many of the basic essentials for life that you can't imagine people are going without, that is the reality of the blockade. And so for us to pack suitcases that we're then going to go to Cuba and give to people who will be incredibly grateful to receive things that are fairly inexpensive, Mm-hmm. Incredibly accessible to all of us. I think already this is a process of what people learn when they go to Cuba is they see what a blockade is, and they see the other side is when you go there, you see why it's under blockade. So that's one of the things we'll do is meeting people. We'll also, in the hospitals, because of the medical missions in Cuba, another achievement is that they have the world's most doctors per capita. The most blockaded country in the world also has the most doctors for its citizens. It's incredible. But when you talk to these doctors, they will also tell you all of the countries around the world they've served. Not only your people they have enough for, but they also have enough doctors to go to all these countries. I remember the times I've been, the doctors, again, this is why it's so, I think the propaganda against the Cuban doctor missions is actually Yeah. Is the most hilarious to me because the US, a settler colony founded on genocide and slavery, wants to tell Cuban doctors that they are slaves for going to support anti-colonial, anti-imperial struggles. It's so unbelievable, but that's the US propaganda machine, of course. You meet doctors who are so proud about the different places they've served in and proud to tell you that They just got back from Bolivia. They had been to Angola. They had been to all these places across the world. And the only comparison you can make of something like that is thinking, oh, in the US you might have some soldier you have to meet who's somewhere else. And he's like, oh, I've served in Iraq. I've served in Afghanistan. I've served in Vietnam, or something. You see the poles, I think, of society when it comes to Cuba and the US.

Alessandro Zancan: Yeah.

Alfie: Yeah.

Nupreet: A big part is we'll be visiting places and meeting with the people that are doing this material solidarity across the world as well. And I think that's a big, important element of what we'll be doing there. But yeah, another major part is we're going to volunteer our labor. And so we're going to be conducting productive work wherever it's basically needed in a similar tradition to what the Venceremos Brigade did to go and help the harvest. We'll be helping cooperatives, we'll be volunteering at the schools, whatever we can do. And I think a big element is how can we go in and contribute something? So it would be meeting with people and then volunteering our labor and also getting the basic knowledge about Cuba and Cuban history and learning about, yeah, they developed 5 vaccines under blockade and they also developed vaccines that didn't require refrigeration because of the blockade, but also that meant that they could export them across the world to other countries that don't have access to refrigeration, former colonies. And so it's these kind of connections you make in your head that not only unveils the reality of the blockade in Cuba to you, but unveils the world to you. So that's one side of it. In terms of the blockade and Going to Cuba. We have a very different relationship with Cuba in Britain than people do in the US. For context, in the US, it's difficult to travel to Cuba, or it's made to be difficult to travel to Cuba because you have to have a very specific license to go. And so there's a license called Support of the Cuban People. And so you can do that, but under conditions that you don't give any money to the Cuban state. And so that's why you have to stay in particular hotels, which is what the flotilla and convoy to Cuba recently did. And you have to stay in luxury hotels, which then when you go back, all the right media can say that you were living lavishly, but no, you were actually just following sanctions laws. But also, so the blockade stops people in the US going to Cuba. And again, kind of what you were saying before about the propaganda, it's so that Americans can't see that Cuba is actually totally aligned with their class interests and they can have healthcare 90 miles away, but they can't in the country they're in. And they can die from not having insulin and they can die from going bankrupt and becoming homeless because they didn't have access to healthcare. Whereas Cuba, they can't learn about the reality of that because otherwise it would totally—

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah.

Nupreet: Unravel all the lies that the United States is based on. But for us recently, Britain changed the travel kind of advice that they give to everybody about every country across the world. And they have said now that Cuba is somewhere not to travel to unless necessary. And so while this doesn't have any implications directly on us going, it has implications on travel insurance and— Yeah. Makes it slightly more difficult, but luckily we aren't in the same situation as they are in the U.S. where you go back and you're interrogated, you're intimidated. They ask you certain questions. If you slip up on the questions, then you will be detained and your devices will be seized. But it is more about the conditions that we're facing in Cuba. There are blackouts. There's limited food, and also seeing the Seeing a place that we all uphold with such a place that's hope for humanity, seeing the poverty that of course exists because of the blockade, how can it not? I think is something that we've all prepared. We've spent weeks having political education about Cuba, preparing ourselves for the reality of going to somewhere that's under blockade. And I think, to be honest, that will be a big hurdle for a lot of people to go through, but also I think it is necessary for us to actually recognize what the blockade's reality is on daily life. And this is what Cubans not only have dealt with every single day, but dealt with it and then continued to maintain the revolution. And so when we see the rallies and hundreds of thousands of people, it really shows you how much hope we have for Cuba. But I think A big part of what we'll be bringing back is I've never been to a place in the world apart from Cuba where there's no advertising on the streets. You walk around and there's no laws against loitering. People are in the streets because this is their homeland. This is a place that's theirs. It's not run by companies. It's not owned by different private enterprises. I think for For many of us, that would be a really life-unraveling opportunity. And I think for us that have been educated in capitalist imperialist societies, actually going to a place that opposes these materially, and is the antithesis to the United States, is something that changes your worldview, fundamentally transforms you as a person. Not to overdo that, but I think it is the case.

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah.

Nupreet: once you go to Cuba. And so that's, I think, a big thing we want to bring back is how the revolution can survive and sustain itself despite the blockade and the war against it. And I think another big thing is going to Cuba, you can tell people in your life that you are in Cuba and you can do the liberal lived experience thing as well, which I think is actually quite useful. And obviously is also used as Yeah. A tool of propaganda by all the different gusanos and Cuban exiles who tried to talk about how they laughed because right now they'd be billionaires, but unfortunately that land is now producing life-saving medicine for Cuban people. So that's one other thing we'll bring back. But in general, I think this is The ways that people can help our brigades, I think, is threefold. One is you can join us on a further brigade, and you can also join a brigade in general, I think, based on where you are. I think going to Cuba, if already what everyone said hasn't sold you enough, I think it is one of the most important things you can do, both to learn about all the lies that your entire life has been based on, but also to bring hard currency to the island. And that is something that is incredibly important to do, is that Cuba has been forced to rely on tourism, and the past few months has really, really damaged it. Since the pandemic, tourism has been on the decline, and now with the US threats, it's even worse. So if you want to join our brigade for the next time we do it, you can go to assatashakurbrigade.org, or you can have a look at all of the other brigades that exist across the world. The National Network on Cuba have a really great website, and they list a lot of the brigades that exist. You can go with the National Network of Cuba. You can go with the Venceremos Brigade. In Canada, there's the Che Guevara Brigade. There's a lot of brigades that you can go with. You can also just go as a tourist and go to a beautiful Caribbean island and go to a resort, and that is actually Also very useful. But the other 2 ways you can contribute, one is, like we mentioned, a big part of the brigade is bringing material aid to break the blockade. It's taking things that Cubans can't import. They can't trade with, of course, the United States, but they can't trade, like we were mentioning before, with countries across the world because the US imposes secondary sanctions, because they're cut off from international financial systems. A lot of A large part of that is due to the designation of the state sponsor of terrorism list. So you can donate and support our work, which is to purchase material aid and take it to Cuba itself. We have a fundraiser, which is also linked on our website, but you can also donate at— it's fundraiser, but it's F-U-N-D-R-A-I-Z-E-R. Razr.com/aidtocuba, all letters. And there you can share our fundraiser, you can donate to it, and every penny goes to us buying aid that we will take to Cuba itself. Everyone in the brigade self-funds to carry this as well. So this is our way of exerting solidarity. And so if you can donate to fund getting this urgent aid, that would be, of course, incredible as well. And I think the third way that you can support the brigade is actually through organizing against imperialism wherever you are, whether that's combating propaganda against Cuba or against Venezuela, China, North Korea, anywhere across the world that is under the boot of the United States. Organizing against that is also how you can ultimately help Cuba. The end of the blockade will come when the US empire falls, and to do that, we all have to do our bit to organize it. And one of my favorite quotes from Fidel is that the world is big and the imperialists are everywhere. And so for the Cuban revolutionaries, the field of the battle against imperialism takes on the whole world. So there's a role for every single person in supporting Cuba and defending Cuba. And So if you can't do the other 2 things, and you also should do the other 2 things, then supporting struggles against imperialism, supporting actually existing socialist countries is a way of defending Cuban sovereignty and the Cuban Revolution too.

Henry Huckamacki: Absolutely. And of course, we will have all of those things that you had mentioned, Navpreet, in the show notes below linked. So listeners, You can just scroll down and click on each of those links. Final notes from anybody else who wants to add in on this final point before we close for today? The floor is yours.

Alessandro Zancan: Maybe I just wanted to add, just going off of what Navpreet just said, how important it is to focus on our political education, as in we need to be consistent, we need to be principled. Anti-imperialists. We cannot support Cuba but then not support Iran. We cannot support Venezuela but then not support China. We need to understand what the principal contradiction is, imperialism. We need to understand what forces are at play. So basically, I think where possible, education should be a huge focus. As we have seen in all revolutions, in the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, I think it's something that us in the West tend to gloss over, to put it gently.

Henry Huckamacki: All right. If no final notes from the others, I'll just turn it over to those of you who want. So I know 2 of you are on social media, and so I can turn it to you to let you tell the listeners where they can follow you. Grace, I'll start with you. It was a pleasure meeting you for the first time for this recording today. Can you tell the listeners how they can keep up to date with what you're doing?

Grace: Yeah, thank you so much for having us on as well. If you want to find me, my Instagram is @GraceBolchevich. I post a lot about international law on there. I can see Henry likes the name, but yeah, you can find me on there.

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah, I mean, the listeners of the show know that I would appreciate a name like that. I mean, the cup I was drinking out of during this session Is an old Soviet Union cup, so very much my style. Alessandro, you also are on social media. Can you let the listeners know where they can follow you?

Alessandro Zancan: Yeah, I mean my my social media handle isn't nearly as interesting and crazy. So it's Ale underscore Zancan. So Ale underscore Zancan. I don't post that often currently, but yeah, if you follow me, you'll just see like work I do with Fisker Books. You'll see work I do in the tech sphere, and a few articles and writings are going to pop up sooner or later.

Henry Huckamacki: And not to interrupt you, Alessandro, for your own bio, but you are a lovely musician and you have a single out that everybody should listen to. I'm going to embarrass you by having you tell the listeners where they should find that because really they would be remiss to not hear it. It's a terrific song.

Alessandro Zancan: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I wasn't expecting that.

Henry Huckamacki: We've been friends for a long time, Ali. You should expect it.

Alessandro Zancan: I should. I should. Yeah, it's a single I released quite a while ago, a year ago or something now, called Mindlessness. Uh, the name of the band is very catchy. It's Alessandro Zancano and the Dialectical Band, uh, in case you were wondering where my allegiances lie. But, um, yeah, no, so I do music as well. And at some point I'll be posting more music stuff. It's just that, you know, the political work never stops. Never find the time.

Henry Huckamacki: Yes. As I was mentioning in the chat, I also write songs on the side, but those are only for me because, uh, The quality of work that I do is nothing remotely close to what Alessandro can do. So, you know, do check out his single. I'm not just saying it because I am friends with him, but it really is a terrific song. I was amazed when I heard it for the first time. So, you know, kudos to you. And I will link it in the show notes whether you like it or not. People need to hear it.

Alessandro Zancan: Appreciate it.

Henry Huckamacki: Sure. Nufret, you're not on social media yourself, but you can let the listeners know where they can find the Brigade on social media. So I'll turn it to you and say that it was nice to meet you as well for the first time today.

Nupreet: Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for having us on. It's been lovely to meet you. Yeah, so if you want to have any updates on the brigade, when we're there, when we come back, you can find us at the Assata Shakur Brigade. So that's Assata Shakur Brigade, not with the the that I added, on most platforms. And We'll be updating on everything we do there. And so you can also get in touch with us there as well if you're interested in anything that we mentioned. But yeah, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Henry Huckamacki: Yes, drop all articles and it'll be just like the Russian language. Not that my Russian is great, but I do like that I don't have to worry about articles with it. I just have 6 cases to deal with, which is a problem. Elif, you're not on social media, but I do want to thank you also for coming on the show and say that it was a pleasure to meet you today. I hope that you're Thank you.

Alfie: It was really nice to talk with you about this important topic.

Henry Huckamacki: Yeah, absolutely. So listeners, then I'm just, uh, I, I can tell you that you can find me on social media @huck1995 on Twitter, but as you've probably gotten tired of hearing, I haven't been online for over a year because sanctions make everything difficult to impossible, somewhere on that spectrum. Um, but if you want, you can follow me. More importantly, you can help support Guerrilla History by going to patreon.com/guerrillahistory. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. But, you know, today, instead of supporting Guerrilla History on Patreon, do support the Assata Shakur Brigade if you do have disposable income that's burning a hole in your wallet. You know, a problem that some of us may envy, but that just means that you can do more to help these important initiatives. So with that being said then, listeners, and until next time, solidarity.

Alfie: Solidarity.