Stories
The Seville Statement Newsletter
Mayor DiLieto and the Peace Commission
Plans for
a general human theory
Facing the internal culture of war
Student Conferences at Wesleyan
Shell mobiles
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The Seville Statement on Violence
Lindsay and I started going on vacations to Cuba in January 1986. Then we went almost every year, in January 1987 (when I wrote the final draft of Psychologists for Peace Activists), March 1988, January 1989, January 1991, and again one year from Paris when I was at UNESCO.
I had wanted to go to Cuba ever since Nina told me about her trip there in 1963, and when I first went to the Soviet Union in 1973, I had first wanted to go to Cuba. It has not been possible for many decades to go as a tourist to Cuba from the United States (since US governments are afraid of Cuban socialism as they would be afraid of a deadly virus that might infect our people!), so in 1985 I contacted the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Society and arranged for us to go on one of their trips leaving from Toronto.
That's how we met Bella Skup. Bella, a psychologist, and her husband Paul, a cultural anthropologist, both Canadians, had been working in Mexico at the time of the US invasion of the Bay of Pigs. They were so angered by this that they took their two young boys and their dog and set sail (like Fidel's Granma a few years before) from Mexico to Havana, and asked to see Fidel to do something for the Revolution in recompense. Fidel received them and gave Bella the task of setting up the special education system for handicapped kids and Paul the task of studying the effects of the revolution on a village in the mountains. For years, Bella and Paul did their good work and raised their boys in both Cuba and Canada. One of the boys then ran the travel agency through which we booked our trips to Cuba, and at their little resort we got to meet and appreciate Bella.
Bella had many great stories to tell. Once, the American authorities boarded a Canadian ship on which she had hundreds of boxes of books donated by Canadians for use by Cuban libraries, and they demanded that she give them "secret funds" that they claimed she was taking to aid Fidel. When Bella denied their claim, they took all the boxes out on deck and searched through all the books without finding anything. The Canadian Royal Mounted Police looked on in amazement, and when the Americans started the leave, they resisted and told the Americans they would have to repack and replace all the boxes of books.
Bella Skup with one of her ex-students (left) and Lindsay (right)
In addition to enjoying the vacations at Villa Tropico, with sun and sand, good food and new friends, snorkeling on the small coral reef offshore, and bicycling through the nearby villages, Lindsay and I went from time to time to Havana and came to appreciate Cuban culture. Unlike elsewhere in the Americas, racism was at a minimum and there was true equality and respect among people. There was not the same kind of ostentatious wealth that one found in socialist countries like Georgia, but a povery that was shared but not oppressive, since there was decent health care and education for all.
I especially appreciated a visit to their little literacy museum, and its record of the great literacy drive in the mountains and villages of Cuba which, like those of Chile and Nicaragua, provided the basis for a culture of peace on the island.
I went back to Cuba in 2013 with Kiki and found the same spirit as before. We rented a car and drove around the island, meeting people and finding beautiful scenery and beaches.
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Stages
1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme