Alice Walker (1944) is an American author and civil rights activist. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 for her critically acclaimed novel "The Color Purple". She wrote the prologue for “The Sweet Abyss”, a book of letters of the Cuban Five and their wives and children.
To the Children (especially) and Families of The Cuban Five:
Dear Friends,
I am relieved to learn that the media in my country, the United States, and Britain, are showing interest, after almost a decade, in the wrongful incarceration of your loved ones. I imagine you, the children, as so much bigger now than you were when your parents left. I pray you are still able to feel connected to them: through letters, phone-calls; perhaps, by now, visits? It is painful to realize what joys of connection between you and your fathers have been stolen from you. And yet, how great their love for you remains. For they wanted you to grow up in a safer country, a place where you could play and grow, go to school and to work, without fearing for your life. I admire your fathers very much.
In my own experience everything to do with attaining justice has been very hard, very difficult, a very long struggle. Apparently endless, in fact. That is unfortunately the experience of much of the world. Still, we persist in our hope of justice, our belief in it, our dedication to it as a noble ideal, worthy of the best humans, those who seek it at the expense of themselves. As your fathers have done.
When I was growing up in the North American South in the middle of the last century, if a black person was attacked by a white one it was considered a death sentence for the person of color to defend himself. This led to a community of people who suffered from the many illnesses associated with humiliation and stifled rage: hypertension, eating disorders, diabetes, heart disease, depression, stroke and so forth. It also led, ironically, to the creation of a lot of amazing art. Especially music, which we then showered generously on the world. I offer this memory ( we changed the scenario about not fighting back!) not to sadden you, but to remind you of the fact that suffering is not without its gifts. And to warn you, I suppose, to be sure to share the pain and sadness you are feeling about what has happened to your parents. Share it with others. Don't neglect to talk about it. You are not alone in this world. Though some of your friends, like me, are far away in miles, we are near in consciousness. We recognize that we are caught in the tangles of the same bizarre nightmare. That Earth itself is captive these days to a mad vision of what a few out of balance people insist that it is. Our vision is different, and worth holding to: that people have a right to defend themselves. That people have a right to justice and peace. That torture, whether it is being placed in isolation for 17 months or having our children kept from us, is something evolved human beings have long outgrown.
We insist on a better world! We know a better world is possible. We have seen it.
This is the world your fathers know, kept from the sunlight of freedom as they are. Holding this place of knowing, enduring such sacrifice- especially not seeing and being with you - is their gift to us. And, even more so, to you.
Yours in peace and compassion,
Your Tia, Alice (Walker)
Danny Glover (1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is presently chair of the TransAfrica Forum, "a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the general public — particularly African-Americans — on the economic, political and moral ramifications of U.S. foreign policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America". He narrated documental film "The Trial: The Untold Story of the Cuban Five".
Danny Glover’s Message
Hello, I’m Danny Glover, chairman of the board of TransAfrica Forum. I regret I cannot be with you today tonight at Howard University, the pinnacle African American and African diaspora education.
Howard has been an historic board working against injustice and the legal soul of African Americans. I can not think of a better venue to present a film on the case of the Cuban Five.
These five Cuban citizens acted in the self defense of their nation and their families. They had to act because the United States government in violation of its own laws and in contravention of its own calls to prevent and step out terrorists activities failed to act.
The US government failed to prevent murderous terrorist attacks being repeatedly launched from within the US for many decades against the sovereign nation of Cuba.
These five Cuban citizens have been unjustly imprisoned and condemned to unusually harsh and cruel punishments for exercising their moral obligation to self defense, a right agreed upon by all nations.
Rogue acts of violence against the Cuban people by cold blood US-based terrorists and supported by the inaction and the irresponsibility of our government, demands critical intervention by the American people. Across the ideological and political spectrum, people who honestly stand against terrorism must speak out against these terrorist acts that operate outside US and international law. They speak out in defense of the Cuban Five.
I invite you to join in and organize fellow students, faculties, administrators, families and friends to bring to life the spirit of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. who said “injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere”, and call on our government to implement our nation’s moral and legal obligations to justice and international law.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2007 6:00 P.M.
HOWARD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, MOOT COURT ROOM
FOREIGN POLICY, POLITICS AND THE LAW: THE CASE OF THE CUBAN FIVE Civil rights lawyer and activist, LEONARD WEINGLASS, speak about this highly controversial case
Presentation of "The Trial--The untold story of the Cuban Five", 56 Minutes documental film. English language version. Produced by Cuba's world renknowned film institute, El Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematograficos (ICAIC) in association with Telesur. Narrated by Danny Glover.
