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CUBAN LIBRARIES
SOLIDARITY GROUP 6 August 2003 Esteemed Cuban Librarians These times are not for us to lie down with a scarf on our head, but with the weapons as pillow, like the men Of John of Castellanos: the arms of justice, that defeat the others. Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stone. -José Martí Only creative work is the way to grow and in the question of work for us it always is the twenty sixth. -Carlos Puebla In this year that celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of José Martí Pérez, Cuban national hero; and on this day that the Cuban people commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of their achievement of July 26th, I address you in order to express some ideas. As library workers of the Republic of Cuba, you know thoroughly the dialectic-materialist relationship between libraries and people, between books and readers, between information and citizens, since you are those that continue establishing the concept of socialist library service to the length and breadth of your nation; you who continue supporting the arduous work to maintain Cuba as a “Territory Free of Illiteracy”; you are, together with professors and other cultural workers, the vanguard in the battle to preserve the values (like generosity, honesty, solidarity, gratitude, proletariat internationalism, anti-imperialism and social justice) in the community’s conscience of your people; you are the indispensable professionals of the National Program for the Reader that in order to promote the social use of the book, encourage the habit of reading and go beyond the limitations of the Cuban publishing industry- strengthening with particular social responsibility the role of publishing and librarians. Forged of rebellious spirits firstly, and secondly in the trenches of struggle for science, progress, liberty and action. Appropriate to the political-ideological fundamentals that belongs to society, you as active and spirited citizens have known to wake up in the population the interest for books and libraries. An interest without doubt full of optimism and revolutionary spirit, which today serves as the foundation and constant motivation in order to continue resisting the hateful attacks of an empire that harasses the world. In this sense, in your hands also is that Cuba doesn’t succumb before the predatory capitalist. Well before, when imperialism rose as the principal threat for world peace in general and for especially for Cuba, you have the commitment of the people’s revolutionary cause; with the defense of the interests of Cuban society that has been seen to grow professionally day by day, nevertheless the limitations that have come faced by the United States’ blockade during more than four decades. Because you belong to a revolutionary half that has granted to your people, since more than forty years, the right to read, you have known to strengthen and stimulate the social, political, ideological and cultural character of the printings and the libraries. Rights that in other countries, as in mine and the rest of Latin America, is still a chimera in spite of those national efforts fulfilled in this heading. The slogan “another world is possible” you have contributed to make it a reality through the practice of this right that without a doubt has contributed not to give in to defeats before the adversities derived by the siege of the great predator to the north. By this, the right to read, how well you know, you need to continue linking the role that you carry out in your society and to the service of book loans to the people as a mechanism as much a strategy like social justice. You have the full certainty, colleagues and comrades, that the library work that you perform with deep republican meaning, communal and shared for the people of Cuba, is a civic-revolutionary act that helps to combat and neutralize the unpopular activities of the self-titled “independent librarians”, who as is known around the world, represent part of the ALA counter-revolutionary support of the United States in order to destabilize the social, political, and ideological structure of the Cuban state. Before the Battle of Ideas that since 1998 has generated for this type of external and internal counter-revolution, you aren’t alone, since in various latitudes of the globe there exist various collectives and colleagues that keep alert in order to inform the international library community about the true nature of who has usurped the title of librarian or library professional, who are not more than, permit me to underline, political subjects of other professions, activists of a subversive court that make happen, without the least caution, for book professionals, libraries, and communication, that is to say, by “library directors” and “journalists” in order to deceive national and international public opinion, and some members and managers of certain professional trade associations. Deception that time and time again has been widely documented in order to unmask those opponents that receive direction, finances, and protection of the United States, it’s not in vain in some “mass media” shows them conclusively as “mercenaries of the empire”. For all the previous, as social professionals of books, libraries and information documents, you, the true librarians of Cuba, are responsible persons of a role that carries out the theory and strategy in the Battles of Ideas; and you know, as José Martí wrote, that “the books serve to close the wounds that arms open” in the clash of these and other fronts of struggle. From this perspective you know perfectly that your work materializes the liberated spirit and the revolutionary ethic of knowledge in order to: 1) maintain the chosen course of the people, 2) to defend your life project as a free, independent, and sovereign nation, and 3) to give continuity to your regime of government. Fundamental foundations of industrious, educated, and caring Cuba today. In this frame of mind, you personify an important front of social, political, ideological and cultural resistance before the capitalist attacks. Resistance with a notable display of professional energy and a clear ethical dimension that personifies a touching example of devotion, dignity and consequence. I send my farewells to you with a fraternal and warm hug, accompanied with a Martíesque thought: “The strength is in the sacrifice”. Sincerely, Felipe Menese Tello Mexican Circle of Studies about Political and Social Library Sciences Mexico City, July 26, 2003 Translated by Dana Lubow LA Valley College Library 8/4/03
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