The following was written by Jeremy Jimenez, who traveled on a Global Exchange Reality Tour trip to North Korea in 2010.  Jeremy Jimenez has taught Ancient History, Global Studies, and IB Economics at a variety of middle and high schools across the world, including urban and suburban schools in New Jersey, two international schools in Venezuela, and as a guest lecturer to dozens of schools across Norway as a Fulbright Roving Scholar. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in International and Comparative Education at Stanford University.

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Having now been to 110 countries, I would not hesitate to state that there is no place on Earth like North Korea. In just the 15 minute ride from Pyongyang’s airport, you feel immediately transported to another era. The city is immaculately clean, the whispered clanking of a bike or occasional car among the little noise you hear in its capital. This calming effect is, of course, somewhat mitigated by the proliferation of posters extolling agricultural production or anti-imperialist slogans. While it is not uncommon to see a solo traveler passing by with a friendly smile, more memorable is how often one encounters people gathered in groups. This mass organization of society manifests itself regularly as you are whizzing past countless brief slices of daily life, whether it be soldiers/civilians practicing some marching formation, women huddled in close proximity polishing the sidewalk clean with brushes, or ‘field trips’ of farmers to the ‘holy sites’ of North Korea. While this collectivist orientation is fairly typical of East Asian cultures in general, North Korea takes it to a whole new level.

Tours, like nearly every other aspect of society, are organized from dawn to dusk, with wandering around on one’s own generally not permitted even within buildings (except one’s hotel.)  Nonetheless, despite this regimented schedule, there were no lack of spontaneous moments that enabled us to see North Koreans as individuals in their own right.  When telling a cashier at a rest stop, upon being asked, that I was a teacher, she told me that I “have wasted my life…..(I) should have been a film star.” On another night, what was initially meant as a quick introduction to a game of rotating ping pong with our local guides became a lengthy, sweaty, and intensely hysterical competition. After the game, being particularly absent minded, I Ieft behind my camera; I had already done this several times before as North Korea is a particularly easy place to abandon one’s usual regard for potential thieves.  When one of the guides retrieved it and gave it to me, he quite humorously pointed out “a man can become very rich following you around.”

What makes a trip to North Korea so unique and important is to have your assumptions challenged, since there are precious few visitors there, or North Koreans abroad, who can share their outlook. For example, hearing so much about how ‘strict’ the government is and how anti-American its orientation, one might suspect to have an unpleasant grilling by customs officers upon arriving.  Would I be interrogated for having a South Korean stamp in my passport? Would my books and tech devices be confiscated as they might be considered against the regime? To my surprise, probably only Singapore had a quicker, more hassle-free passage through customs.

Another interesting observation I couldn’t help but notice is how traditional the society is both with regard to gender stratification as well as the classic Confucion respect for the elderly, no doubt a result of the country’s isolation from the norms of globalization brought by mass media and the lack of opportunities to interact regularly with foreigners. Regarding the latter, I particularly recall when a soldier guiding us to a lookout point at the DMZ was quite impressed and insisted we applaud a fellow 83 year old traveler who was able to climb the steep hill without assistance. Regarding the former, I recall our GX guide Alessandro at a rest stop requesting to drink strawberry milk, but was given coffee instead saying that the strawberry drink is only for girls. Similarly, when I accidentally dropped my shirt in the mud and inquired if there was a nearby sink I could use to wash off the mud, my guide Ms. Kim adamantly insisted I let her clean it because “men are not supposed to wash clothes.” Lastly, when I jokingly wanted my ability to distinguish male from female sculptures of dragons recognized by our guide, he replied that if I was so good at distinguishing the two, I wouldn’t have let a tattoo artist make a female dragon turtle on my leg (though when I explain this is just reflecting a harmonious Yin Yang balance, he mutters something along the line of “touché”.)

What was particularly insightful, though, were the extended conversations afforded to us on our long distance trip to Wonsan, a lovely beach resort town whose laurels I was asked to recount for a producer of a local documentary film. Sometimes these chats simply involved answering our guides’ fascination with our technological devices, such as my ipod or portable Macintosh. But more academic conversations were also more common than I had anticipated, such as when Ms. Kim wished me to summarize the American revolution with notes and diagrams in her notebook (in exchange, of course, for Korean lessons.)  Also of note was when our guides emphatically insisted that I would not be allowed to leave the country until I wrote down the lyrics to the Animaniacs countries of the world song, a rendition of which I frequently was asked to perform at our dinner engagements.

Perhaps most interesting, though, was an extended conversation of politics and economics. Mr. Kim gave a spirited defense of his country’s military first policy, putting the belligerence of its armed forces in the context of the international community’s repeatedly hoping and calling for the downfall of the regime, especially during the famine crisis following the death of Kim Il Sung. While it is hard to imagine a respectable position genuinely defending the human rights abuses perpetrated by the government against its own people, hearing from the perspective of a North Korean directly can help to bring one closer to the complex truth behind many of the governments’ policies.  Of course, despite the English fluency of our guides, cultural misunderstandings can still persist, as when I asked one guide if people are more likely to join political parties from rural or urban areas, it was hard to know if my guide’s deadpan answer “I don’t know – I don’t work for the central statistic committee” was a joke or merely a polite exchange of data.

Another fascinating topic of conversation to me, as an economics teacher, was whether or not North Korea will likely copy China’s liberalization, given its close relationship and dependence on China’s aid (the conclusion of the Mass Games this year involved a not so subtle praise of the country’s special relationship with China.) Surprisingly, Mr. Kim said any investment from China comes with “strings attached”, and that while laws concerning potential investment are “still at (a) conceptual phase” with a “newly formed commission addressing these issues”, Mr. Kim felt it was essential not to ignore the environmental damage of economic growth, for “we don’t wear Chinese clothes.”

In short, any day as an American in North Korea is sure to be an immensely rewarding and stimulating experience. While much of the trip involved a decades old itinerary of grand monuments as well as officially sponsored commercial areas or academic institutions (which in no way, though, makes any of these destinations any less fascinating), the real treasures of North Korea are its people, who are generally curious about the outside world and, despite their obvious reluctance to criticize their own government. have the same kaleidoscope of intriguing and genuinely warm personalities as anywhere else in the world.

Travel to North Korea!

If you’re interested in finding out about upcoming Reality Tour trips to North Korea, please visit our website.

The Gandhian Legacy 2008-09 Photo Credit: Garth Dyke

The following is a guest blog post by Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi (a.k.a. Mahatma Gandhi), and trip leader of Global Exchange’s Gandhian Legacy Tour.

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Mohandas K. Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence is like the iceberg – what is visible is only a fraction of what is hidden.

Scholars have analyzed over and over the part that deals with political conflicts and independence of nations, because they insist that nonviolence is simply a strategy of convenience. (Mohandas) Gandhi said:

This philosophy is not like a jacket that you wear when necessary and discard when not.  Nonviolence is a life style that one has to adopt which means allowing all the love, understanding, respect, compassion, acceptance and appreciation to emerge and dominate one’s attitude. Then we will be able to build good relationships not only within the family but outside of the family. We will no longer be selfish and greedy but magnanimous and giving.

It is no longer a secret that official India had abandoned Gandhi’s philosophy upon gaining independence. However, there are many at the grassroots level, young and old, who are still inspired by his philosophy and have put it into action to bring about a qualitative change in the Indian society. Many have started projects to bring solace to the poor of whom there are more than 500 million in India.

The Gandhian Legacy Tour explores these projects in the cities and in the villages to see first hand how people have used Gandhi’s philosophy in every day life. How they are trying to deal with conflict situations constructively. It is an unusual tour in as much as we visit places where normal tourists do not go, we are hosted by the poor in city slums and in traditional India.

Among the many diversities in India the one that divides the westernized urban India and the traditional rural India is the most odious. Urban India is not India at all and we shall explore this on the tour, while the traditional India is the true heart of India. The experience of traveling with the Gandhi Family is both educative and enjoyable. Come and experience it for yourself.

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For more information about our upcoming Gandhian Legacy Tour, please visit our website.

Sunday was my first Mother’s Day without my mother. She passed away in March, her birth month. She was the daughter of Dorothy Day, Catholic convert, radical journalist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement.

Both my mother, Tamar, and Dorothy continue to be a great influence on my life, and my recent trip to Iran with Global Exchange, a citizen’s diplomacy organization, was an outcome of that influence. As I traveled through the incredible landscape inhabited by calm, focused, hospitable, and physically beautiful people, I remembered my first introduction of appreciation for Middle Eastern culture coming from my mother and grandmother. They spoke of rosewater, pomegranates, mosques, geometry, the Five Pillars of Islam (especially charity), the Silk Road, sundials, and Persian carpets. In my childhood the seeds were planted for my pilgrimage to this land.

I am gravely disturbed about a possible U.S. military strike against Iran as part of the “war on terror.” Also one of our presidential candidate’s choice of words regarding her willingness as a world leader to “obliterate” this country makes my heart quake.

What did I see and hear in Iran? I saw beauty and a subtle daily thanks to God. I saw every day people dealing with inflation and working very hard to pay for food and housing. I heard of their concern about their president’s ability to lead. I felt their happiness at meeting Americans and listened to their praise for our country and for our pursuit of democracy.

Iran, or Persia, has an ancient history of civilization beginning in the 12th century BC. The people of Iran are very proud of their history and rightly so. Their cities had running water 7,000 years ago, and their ancient structures were earthquake proof. There have been many rulers, beloved and hated, endless invasions, and many layers of a rich history, one built upon the next. Much of our culture draws upon this “cradle of civilization” regarding language, food, architecture, and religion. One of my favorite examples is the word “paradise,” meaning walled garden. And the gardens! They are spectacular with water features, painted tiles, evergreens, roses, and symmetrical layouts.

We visited Roshyngar Girls’ High School, a high-ranking conservative high school in Tehran, where we were shown aspects of the educational system, which is supported by government funds, charities, parent donations, and endowments. The school consisted of 1,000 children from infants through high school. Several of the adults who worked at the school had their own children in their arms. Our meeting began nervously because the school administration was unsure of our motivations, due to the recent tensions between our governments, but by the end of our visit, we had to be dragged away by our guide.

We met a group of middle-school-aged girls out at recess, playing under shade trees with pup tents, and with their head scarves (hijabs) off. I struggled with the concepts of separating the boys and girls, and creating education with a religious focus. Also as an occupational therapist, I asked about students with special needs, and I was told that they are placed in special schools with well-trained staff. The overall impression of this school was one of happy, healthy-looking students and orderly, graceful classrooms.

In the city of Isfahan our group met with Grand Ayatollah Saide Hassan Emami, age 73, father of seven children, and considered a reformist. He was very soft-spoken and gave generously of his time. Our interview took place under a grape arbor surrounded by mulberry trees. A religious TV network that was to be broadcast to Iranians in Europe and America taped our discussion. (Look up salaamtv.com for further information.) When asked what he considered to be important characteristics of a spiritual leader, the ayatollah spoke of the need for a solid education in the sciences, sociology, all major religions, and the ability to teach people. He stated that it was important to be aware of the people’s condition and to care about improving their lives.

His son, who spoke to us before his father entered, also stated the need to work with opposition groups and to keep one’s own selfish instincts in check. On the question of what should we as American visitors bring back to the U.S. as a message from Iran, we were asked to spread the word about what the people were like. We were asked to think carefully, to learn more before making conclusions, to seek out information actively and not simply believe what mass media report. He also suggested that, when dealing with world issues, we consider the bigger picture, and that not using religious and political motivations could help resolve conflict.

On the question of war, the ayatollah stated that arming for war is haram, a sin. Seeking war, imposing war is unjust. If one’s rights are being threatened, they must be defended, but it is better to find nonviolent solutions. He said the American threat is not good for the minds of the Iranian people, but they have seen many crises and must carry on in their daily lives. When asked who he hopes to win in the U.S. election, he said he had no real knowledge of the candidates, but he hopes whoever wins will make the people happy and work for their well being.

On the question of Islamic teachings adjusting to modernity, he stated there is no threat as long as modern living doesn’t work in opposition to God’s teachings. I had to fall back on my understanding of those teachings in Christianity as well, the lessons of love and caring for one another.

My visit to Iran confirmed for me that this is a country with people like ours, with the same basic needs and desires in life, and that we share much of the same religious teachings. I also left feeling that there are attainable and viable solutions to our conflict. The people of Iran are ready for whatever comes. Are we?

Martha Hennessy is a resident of Weathersfield.

I recently returned from spending two weeks in Iran as part of a citizen diplomacy delegation organized by Global Exchange in San Francisco.

I am outraged that Sen. Hillary Clinton is perpetuating the warmongering approach of the Bush-Cheney administration by stating that if she were president, the United States could “totally obliterate” Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel ["Iran condemns Clinton for threatening force," News, April 30].

As our delegation visited the cities of Tehran, Yazd, Shiraz, and Esfahan, we were consistently met with generosity, kindness, hospitality and friendliness from the Iranian people. Everywhere we went we were welcomed. The many Iranians we talked with in bazaars, tea houses, schools, shops and historical sites were excited to have Americans visiting and learning firsthand about their country.

When conversations ventured into politics, we usually ended up agreeing that both our leaders are crazy. The Iranians we met were sophisticated enough to separate a country’s government from its people.

It is outrageous for Clinton to suggest she would consider obliterating any other country on the planet; the fact she has recently targeted the 75 million men, women and children of Iran, some of whom I was fortunate enough to meet, is like a knife in my heart.

She obviously does not possess the wisdom required to be president.

It is twilight and, as April and I sit back on their terrace sipping wine with John Pate and his wife, we enjoy a sense of tranquility hardly experienced in our almost three weeks in Venezuela.

Below us lies a verdant valley, framed by a wooded green mountain which mercifully blocks the down-at heels skyscrapers and ragged slum hillsides in downtown Caracas. In Venezuela this is heaven.

A few minutes earlier John had become excited as he drove us into his gated community. “Look,” he exclaimed pointing out the window. “See how these neighbors are able to take a leisurely stroll here without a bodyguard.”

***

John, 62, is an American lawyer, a graduate of Brown University and Boston University law school, and of Tufts University School of diplomacy, who heads a major law firm in Caracas. He has lived 34 years in Venezuela, the last eight of them in his charming hillside home with its tropical garden, decorated largely by Gertie, his professional-artist wife.

Yet, at a stage in life when most successful people are dreaming of retiring and enjoying the fruits of their labors, John and Gertie are seriously thinking of giving up their fabulous home, giving up the law firm, and fleeing their adopted country for the United States.

“Chávez is going after people like us,” he says, talking of the nation’s president, Hugo Chávez. “Many of this country’s successful people — and not just foreigners like us — have already left. Foreign companies, our clients, are pulling out their investments. And now Chávez’s new ‘socialism of the 21st century,’ is threatening us directly. Now he is saying that people with too much property should have to share it with others — i.e., the government would simply install strangers with us in our home,” like the communists did in Eastern Europe in the last century.”

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Seven hours earlier we are in a taxi. Our driver is Tony Antonetti, Italian-born, who tells us he had come to Venezuela as a teenager 50 years ago. It is a long ride in typically stagnant Caracas traffic and Tony uses the time to give us a sort of political sightseeing trip.

“See that school on the right,” he says. “Chávez built that.” “See that old folks’ home. Chávez built that” “See that clinic. Chávez built that”

“Chávez is good for the poor people that nobody in power used to care about. He cares.”

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Chávez, 52, who inherited the Latin-American country with the worst gap between rich and poor when he became Venezuela’s president in 1999, is regarded by many Venezuelans as their knight on the white horse, their new Robin Hood, the unchallenged, all-powerful keeper of the cash of the world’s fourth largest oil producer, who is capitalizing on soaring oil prices to elevate the lives of the nation’s long-neglected majority — impoverished people, the class into which he was born — with a new system he calls “21st century socialism.”

Other Venezuelans consider him an instigator of class warfare, a shrewd, ruthless and charismatic megalomaniac, an incipient dictator who is gradually whittling away the nation’s freedoms, an avowed Marxist-Leninist who is chasing away capitalist foreign investment and setting the stage for an economic catastrophe.

The United States considers Chávez’s virulent anti-American rhetoric and his successes in wooing friendships with several other Latin-American countries a threat to U.S. free-trade economic policies and political hegemony on an economically troubled continent already rife with anti-Americanism. And, perhaps most serious, it views him as a threat to U.S. oil supplies because Venezuela long has been — and still is — a major U.S. oil supplier.

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Who is, really, this flat-faced, pudgy, former paratrooper whose mulatto features reflect Venezuela’s multi-ethnic history (indigenous, Spanish, African) and whose fame goes back to a failed coup he led in the early 1990s, for which Chávez did jail time? First elected president in late 1998 after his behind-bars stint, he was re-elected last December in a 63 percent landslide after surviving a coup in 2002 and a referendum in 2004. He defeated a state governor but the feeble opposition parties offered no candidate.

Just before Chávez first took office, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, shared a flight with him from Cuba to Venezuela. Garcia Marquez was later quoted as having said, “I was overwhelmed by the feeling I had been traveling and chatting pleasantly with two opposing men. One to whom the caprices of fate had given him an opportunity to save his country. The other an illusionist who could pass through history as just another despot.”

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Recently, the despotic side of Chávez seems to be emerging. Increasingly, his government has been making use of “the list,” the names of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who signed petitions in the early 2000′s that brought about the a failed anti-Chávez referendum. These people mostly are blacklisted for government jobs.

Last year, for further intimidation, Chávez’s rubber-stamp Congress added another crime — “showing disrespect for the president.” And it has imposed stiff fines on publications which violate this law, even for newspaper cartoons.

Chávez controls every major element of government. In January, Congress (for which the cowed opposition also ran no candidates) voted him the right to rule by decree until July 2008.

Then he is expected to demand — and get — replacing a constitutional clause setting term limits with one permitting him to become president for life.

Still, Venezuela is not a full-blown dictatorship. Critics will look in vain for concentration camps here.

A majority of newspapers are critical of the regime — although, critics say, government intimidation has muted their voices. The nation’s two largest labor unions outside of Chávez’s own recently rejected his demand that they dissolve and join his “unity” socialist union (although they pledged loyalty to him).

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But he ran into big trouble the end of May when, its license expiring, he shut down the nation’s oldest television channel, RCTV.

The only TV station to criticize the president, it had parlayed a diet of schmaltzy soap operas, quiz show, talk shows, music, sports and a comedy program that often poked fun at Chávez to become the nation’s most popular station.

A poll showed 80 percent of Venezuelans opposed the shutdown. Chávez’s popularity ratings tumbled — from 63 percent on Election Day to 36 percent, according to Hinterlaces, a respected polling company.

Moreover, the shutdown brought to the streets a new potential source of anti-Chávez power — university students. Shunning cooperation with traditional opposition politicians, for the better part of a week banner-carrying students chanting “freedom, freedom,” many in black masks, their mouths taped shut to represent loss of freedom of speech, marched peacefully through the streets of Caracas and other cities — withstanding police detention and attacks by baton-wielding cops trying to beat them back with nightsticks, tear gas and water cannons.

The big question is whether over time, when the students have forgotten the loss of their favorite soap opera, they will retain their political ardor on behalf of free speech — or be permitted to.

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RCTV’s shutdown, and the public’s overwhelming opposition to it, evoked an angry Chávez reaction that indicated free speech in Venezuela, such as it is, may not last much longer.

“The current battle is for media power,” Chávez proclaimed during his 40 hours of television fulminations during the student demonstrations.

The government now controls seven TV channels, and has subdued all the others into self-censorship except for Globovision, a news channel that was the only one daring to report the student demonstrations.

This did not escape Chávez’s attention. He told his TV audience, threateningly.

“I want to warn Globovision to measure its steps, or the same medicine for RCTV will be administered if it continues to incite violence.”

He reminded listeners, “Hugo Chávez is a son of the Revolution.”

A Chávez alter ego specializing in media, academic Marcelino Bisbal vowed, “Venezuela will not have the information TV channels that differ from the point of view and opinion of power.”

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Until now Chávez’s power has come through the ballot box.

“He doesn’t have to be a dictator,” one journalist explained to me. “Just look at the election results.”

But. increasingly, as dissatisfaction over soaring crime, high inflation, vanishing products in stores and eroding freedoms spread, it appears that he may have to retain power through the barrel of a gun.

That’s because, despite a still-vibrant but sagging economy and continued economic progress for the poor, more of the public seems disaffected.

***

But Chávez, a former Army lieutenant colonel, has readied himself for a fight. He has greatly increased the military budget and military perks, as well as encouraging youths from the slums, wide-eyed followers of leftist heroes like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, to organize in militias that could bolster the military in a pinch.

“For all practical purposes this is a government of the armed forces,” Teodoro Petkoff, a former minister in a pre-Chávez government, a long ago communist who is an editor of Tal Cual (So what) said. “I didn’t divorce Stalin to marry Chávez.”

Chávez also has been diligent in encouraging the election of pro-Chávez local city councils who control police departments, assuring him of police support if push comes to shove.

***

One way Chávez woos police support, apparently, is to look the other way while cops commit crimes. Venezuela has long been Latin-America’s most dangerous country, and one hardly meets an urban Venezuelan who has not been a street-crime victim. I asked 23 Caracas residents if they’d ever been a crime victim, and 20 of them said yes.

In a poll, 89 percent of Venezuelans said their biggest fear was for their own personal safety.

A multi-year 57-nation UNESCO study reported Venezuela led them all in gun-related deaths.

The United Nations official who conducted the study called Venezuela “one of the most violent nations in the world.”

About half of the petty criminals are said to be police. Mostly wielding knives, they typically demand pedestrians open their wallets to them. His critics say Chávez is reluctant to crack down lest he need police backing in a counter-revolution. The police stand ready to do the regime’s bidding. When some of the more violent Chávez followers began seizing and destroying private farms this spring, the police stood by and did nothing. The regime then awarded the farms to the marauders, claiming the owners were not using the land to its fullest potential.

***

With oil accounting for 85 percent of the economy, until now there has not been a lot of emphasis on agriculture, which accounts for only 6 percent. Venezuela has to import, at considerable cost, a whopping 70 per cent of its food. Critics charge that Chávez has been squandering much of the country’s oil bonanza on ideological projects, and is not trying hard enough to diversify its economy should oil prices tumble.

On his socialist ideology, there are real questions as to whether Chávez has public support. A majority of the 63 percent which re-elected him in December are recipients of government benefits but this same majority, when asked if they would like a government like Cuba’s, resoundingly rejected the idea even though they appreciate having Cuban doctors at neighborhood clinics (whom Chávez obtained by giving Cuba cut-rate oil).

Chávez continues to make inroads on poverty. According to government figures, people living below the poverty line have dropped from 50 percent when Chávez first became president, and from a high of 62 percent in 2003 after a disastrous oil strike, to 44 percent at the start of 2006, last figures available.

And these figures take into account only cash income and not Chávez-introduce benefits such as discount food at stores in low-income neighborhoods and better education and health services. In the last three years. He has twice increased the minimum wage.

But the country is running big budget deficits. Last year it was 23 percent of gross domestic product (total of everything produced) and early this year Venezuela had to borrow $7.5 billion from Russia to pay its suppliers.

***

With oil priced at $60-70 a barrel, compared with $12 when Chávez became president, the economy is still strong but growth is slipping, from world-high of 17 percent in 2004 to 7 percent so far this year through May, and oil production is slipping too.

The government claims it produces 3.3 million barrels a day, but international oil institutions like OPEC and the International Energy Agency says the real number is about 800,000 barrels lower.

One reason is the government’s difficulty in attracting talented oil managers — the result of the disruptive strike over wages in 2003 and government’s taking control of most remaining foreign-owned oil operations in May. One foreign observer told us that, in a visit to several oil installations, he saw hardly anyone over 30 or under 50. Venezuela produces mostly tricky-to-handle crude oil which requires extra knowledgeable expertise.

PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela), the government oil company, funds and oversees many other governmental functions, particularly in social services and public information.

While world retail gasoline prices are as much as $5.50 a gallon in Europe and $3.50 in the United States, PDVSA sells a gallon to Venezuelans for only 17 cents.

To inflation-plagued Venezuelans, that’s a rare bargain.

Inflation, highest in Latin America, is 20 percent at midyear, far above the 12 percent target because of heavy government spending. Basic foodstuffs like chicken, cheese and eggs are vanishing from markets because producers won’t sell their products at low government-set prices, particularly in discount food stores.

The value of the bolivar, the local currency, has shrunk to about half the official rate on a lively black market, partly fueled by well-heeled Venezuelans stashing away dollars in anticipation of fleeing the country.

Even a waiter, speaking in a low voice as he savored a tip, told us he had his bags packed. Still, as Chávez rails against the luxury-loving rich and the middle class shrinks, some Venezuelans are richer than ever. Banks, the traditional targets of the kind of anti-capitalist rhetoric which Chávez spews forth regularly, have never had it so good.

The merchants of big-ticket items — cars, digital television sets, other fancy appliances — have found a big new market as government oil money poured into the economy funnels down to consumers.

***

Chávez says his ultimate aim is to mold Venezuelans into “a new type of person with a new mentality,” dedicated to their fellows rather than themselves. To this end he has been encouraging ideologically-motivated “21st century socialist” worker cooperatives and Venezuela is now said to have the most in the world. An economics expert told us two-thirds of them were failing, despite government efforts to throw them lots of contracts.

We decided to drop in on a few to see for ourselves.

In the countryside, on a bus trip, we stumbled into one being built on a vast grassland about 80 miles north of Caracas. It is intended for 2,000 people, mostly homeless and drug addicts who are expected to do a variety of work, from raising pigs to sculpturing to working computers.

They will receive “everything they need” for free, we were told, but will not be paid in money. It opened about six months ago with 100 residents, of which about 70 remain. The rest have left.

At another cooperative, which makes army uniforms on the outskirts of Caracas, the middle-age woman at the sewing machine stopped work briefly to answer my questions.

Does she like working for a government-financed cooperative better than a private boss?

“You bet,” she replies, a glow in her voice. “I’m an owner now!” “And your salary?” I ask her — “how does it compare with the minimum wage?” She hesitates. “Well,” she finally says, “it’s below the minimum now, but when we get more orders I think I’ll be fine.”

Banco de la Mujer (the Woman’s Bank) in Caracas, financed by the government, is not at all like the thriving privately-owned banks cited earlier in this article.

Its main purpose is to provide loans to fund the new cooperatives, especially those involving women.. The bank’s top officers, including the president, all women, told us about some successful cooperatives who’ve been given a start with the bank’s money.

But what is your default rate? I asked, for in normal banking excess losses on loans can put the bank out of business. The officers looked at each other uncomfortably; no one knew or had any idea. Finally one piped up. “I don’t know the figures but they’re high,” she said. “A lot of the people we loan money to don’t have much business experience so they can’t pay us back. But the government then gives us more money and we create a lot of jobs.”

To me, co-ops trumpeting “socialism for the 21st century” didn’t seem much different to me than Mao Zedong’s 20th century communes I had witnessed in China or Stalin’s collective farms in Russia or Israel’s we’ll share-everything kibbutzes. They all flopped, killed by bureaucrats who didn’t care and workers who didn’t work because, selfish or not, they didn’t see anything in it for them.

But, then, Mao and Stalin and the Israelis weren’t swimming in vast reserves of $70 a barrel oil to grease the skids. The ultimate fate of Hugo Chávez’s ambitious, but hardly new, experiment?

In a country notorious for its violence, some foresee a long succession of bloody battles to determine Venezuela’s future. Others aren’t so sure. But one thing is certain — no Venezuelans will be watching it on RCTV.

Just back from a two-week study tour in Venezuela with Global Exchange, I am inspired by what we heard and saw.

Many Venezuelans urged us to let people here know that “Democracy is alive and well in Venezuela”, “there’s no dictator here”, “for the first time we have hope”, and “we don’t need any lessons in democracy from the United States”.

In fact, region-wide polling by Latinobarometro shows Venezuelans nearly tied with Uruguay for first place in considering their country to be democratic, and again second only to Uruguay in their satisfaction with their democracy, as well as the most politically active of any Latin American country. These results, plus Chávez’ landslide victory in December with 63 percent of the vote (the highest of nine elections in Latin America last year), indicate that the government is delivering at least some of what its citizens voted for. Chávez, elected in 1999, has helped redistribute wealth and increased social services, including greater investment in education and health care and housing.

Nineteen of us, ages 24-75 (three social workers, two teachers, a law-yer, a union leader from Great Britain, a minister, and others), attended two to four meetings a day with the human rights commission, the major opposition party, the state-owned oil company, the women’s bank, three cooperatives, an adult education class, a health clinic, political scientists, a former Maryknoll missionary, the Afro-Venezuelan network, a community TV station, and more, in an attempt to see for ourselves how Hugo Chávez’ “Bolivarian Revolution” is working.

Images of Simon Bolivar, in all sizes, greeted us from many walls around Caracas as we crisscrossed the city: the great Liberator on his white horse, Simon with his girlfriend, Manuela, Bolivar with other Latin American heroes, José Marti and Miranda, and sometimes with inspiring quotations like “help me to speak truth to the strong and not to say lies to win applause from the weak” or another, “Be audacious when you plant, be prudent when you implement the plan.”

Some 47 percent of Venezuelans, mostly poor, buy subsidized food (40 percent off) at more than 15,000 “Mercal” centers established by the government. Much of the packaging has articles of the recently rewritten Constitution printed on it, to teach people their rights. On the soybean oil bottle: “The State guarantees to the elderly the full exercise of their rights, respects their human dignity, their autonomy, and guarantees them social security to assure their quality of life…” On the white flour: “Education is a human right and a fundamental social duty, democratic, free, obligatory… nourished with values of national identity and with a Latin American and universal vision…” Imagine our Bill of Rights feeling comfortable on the kitchen table! Imagine that we would all know our rights! “The Venezuelan people are now armed with ideas and the Constitution,” the former missionary told us. And indeed, at three different times, people on the street pulled out their copies of the Constitution to show us that they are participating in this Bolivarian process that is underway.

Organize yourselves into cooperatives and we will hire you, said the government. There were 800 cooperatives before Chávez, and now there are 200,000. We visited with some of the women making shoes at a co-op in Caracas and 70 others (former housewives) sewing shirts at a co-op in Barlovento. “We used to sit around watching our children grow up, then we took care of the grandchildren, and then it was time to die,” one woman with a gold-tooth smile related, and another woman chimed in, “We thought our future was set. We were hopeless.” A third quickly added, “But now we get to go out everyday, be with our friends, and bring money home. Now we are very happy here.” One woman got the others to laugh when she reported that her husband even has dinner ready for her when she gets home. (Minimum wage is $250/month.)

We also visited a cacao plant nursery coop, which grows replacement trees. The co-op members took classes in “cooperatism” (the common pursuit of the same goal) and work skills for 3-9 months and were responsible for the planning before the funding from the government came through. They will be responsible for the success or failure of their business, but the government buys most of what they are making, so there is some guarantee of success. The agricultural co-ops also sell most of their produce to the government, which distributes it to the “Mercals”.

Venezuela imports 80 percent of food needs. The government has distributed more than 4 million acres of state land to 200,000 families, along with credits and assistance and tractors and training, to try and increase the agricultural production of the country (which is only 6 percent of GNP). This is only half of the planned transfer of lands and people. Oil production since the 1920′s killed off other sectors of development, with 88 percent of the population now living in cities. Two thousand health centers have been created, staffed with doctors, mostly Cuban, who are available 24 hours a day. New houses and housing developments are everywhere and in every stage of construction.

We had an inspiring meeting with the directors of Bankmujer, the women’s bank, set up in 200l, modeled on the Bangladesh micro-credit model. The five women took turns telling us enthusiastically about their work: “This bank wasn’t created to make more capital, but to organize women and make them more productive. We are not interested in an increase of capital, but in social investment. The loan is like the hook to attract women. We are interested in the general development of women in this country. Our main interest is to promote solidarity among women so they can help each other. We help the most impoverished and oppressed and empower them to make the community grow. We provide education, self-esteem, and gender workshops. We have given 70,000 low-interest loans, created 292,000 jobs, and have helped 1,400,000 people. The bank is giving priority to agriculture and food security loans. Loans range from $1,000 for an individual to $83,000 for a cooperative.”

When I asked them to share their favorite stories, they positively beamed with pride as they told us of women who had never been in a bank before, of people who had been in debt forever and now had a thriving market business, and of women who received loans, who now have become Bankmujer representatives.

We had a very full and balanced report from the head of PROVEA, the human rights organization, who told us, “We have a democratic government with some authoritarian features. It is not a dictatorship, and it is not like Cuba. There is no surveillance here, and no intimidation of people by the government. No freedoms are restricted by this government.”

The annual report issued by PROVEA lists the positive changes which he recited to us: “The government’s policies are addressed to help the poorest people, levels of poverty have decreased, education levels are increasing, illiteracy is down, agrarian reform is underway, with lots of financial credit for small businesses. The government is promoting cooperatives, there’s a lot of political participation by the public, lots of freedom of expression. Chávez has not tried to limit speech. The Constitution is advanced on human rights.”

Then he went over the report’s negative findings: “The greatest threat to human rights is the concentration of power. The other public powers that could control Chávez are just doing what he says, which could lead to an abuse of power. There’s a strong presence of military around; police harassment has increased. It is hard to get a job in public administration if you are anti-Chávez. Violence in jails is terrible (but has always been).”

While we were there, the Enabling Laws were passed to accelerate what papers in the U.S. referred to as “Rule by Decree” and Chávez’ “Superpowers”. Venezuelans weren’t concerned. They explained that 4 or 5 presidents before Chávez had used this power, and that Chávez had also used it twice before to “deepen democracy” and to accelerate the social and economic development. He is still bound by the Constitution and 10 percent of registered voters can petition to rescind any laws.

Some of the colorful murals we passed on city walls had oil wells. ” Now it belongs to everybody” or “Now it is ours” was painted on each one in big letters. And indeed, when we spent four hours at PDVSA (“company of the people of the world”), the state-owned company with the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East and the most natural gas in South America (and the second largest corporation in South America), we discovered that oil revenues are being used as an instrument of development for the Venezuelan people. And it seemed that profit was not the motive. PDVSA’s goal for the next five years is to reduce poverty in Venezuela from 65 to 30 percent. (We spent a day visiting one of their 3400 social and economic projects, which included a large health clinic, employment training center, childcare center, shoemaking cooperative, and vegetable gardens.)

We were told, “It is also the responsibility of Venezuela to help poor countries afford energy and use oil to foster initiatives for regional cooperation.” Venezuela is building natural gas pipelines through Colombia and Panama, also to Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, and the Caribbean islands, to provide energy for South American development at discounted rates. Citgo, its subsidiary in the US, provides cheap fuel to some of our country’s poor communities.

Lots of people I talked with, mostly from the middle and upper class, were anti-Chavez, complaining about the police corruption (which has always been a problem because they are underpaid and under the control of the local mayors), poor quality of food and shortages in the state-subsidized markets, the lowering of educational standards now that there is a new community college system available to all, and the political polarization of the country.

“Venezuelans don’t like to work; they like to party. It’s a capitalist, consumer society, and socialism doesn’t have a chance here,” a computer-programmer told me. “People are hypnotized by Chávez and act like clapping seals,” confided the meticulous doctor I visited for a chest cold. The head of the opposition party, Primero Justicia, told us: “We are concerned that the international view is that we are allied with Cuba and that Chávez is buying political support internationally, instead of investing in Venezuela.” Several people who don’t like Chávez personally did readily admit that things were better for most Venezuelans.

With everybody talking politics, with people coming up to us on the streets asking our opinions and telling us theirs, I’ll share some of what troubles me. There is no strong women’s movement. No abortion is allowed, even in case of rape or incest. The air is filled with diesel fumes. Even with a fast clean subway, there’s always a traffic jam. There’s garbage in the ravines in the barrios. The toilets don’t always have enough water to flush. They speak Spanish too fast. The women are too beautiful. There are too many Simon Bolivar murals. But what troubles me most is that Venezuela is a thriving work in progress, a model of a participatory democracy, which deserves to have a chance, instead of having to fend off U.S. attempts to bring it down.

(Natasha Mayers is an artist and political activist who lives in Whitefield.)

On October 30th, 2006, amidst the smoke, scorched cars, police barricades, and remnants of various rubbish formerly used as blockades by La Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), six participants arrived from various parts of the United States to Oaxaca city for Global Exchange’s nine-day Dia de los Muertos Reality Tour.

Anxious to begin our strategic itinerary to explore Oaxaca’s rich culture through excursions of notorious archeological ruins, mezcal palenques, artisan workshops, and festivities of Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos, delegates, including myself, were confronted by the limitations of our possibilities. These limitations were due to the political reality of the police invasion on the teacher’s movement by troops of the Policía Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventative Police) that occurred October 29th. Formerly spearheaded by the Mexican National Educational Workers Union, APPO was formed on June 14, 2006 as a response to violent police intervention to dislodge the peaceful teachers strike, for higher pay and improved education, of 23 days.

Having just barely missed October 29ths expulsion of APPO demonstrators from Oaxaca’s main square, El Zócalo, (carried out by approximately 4000 federal police ordered by Vicente Fox) as well as the assassination of four demonstrators, including Indymedia journalist Bradley Will, we couldn’t have arrived at a more pivotal moment for the movement. Needless to say, it was an experience our Lonely Planets did not prepare us for. Armed and masked Federal Police occupied the entrances to the downtowns main streets, twenty-four hours a day, using shields as blockades with tanks and helicopters less than a mile away.

Nonetheless, we were determined to see and experience what we came for, even if that meant our travel itinerary would be altered because of police occupation. Our well-informed Global Exchange delegation leader, Juan de Dios Gómez Ramírez, supported our decision to continue with the delegation despite Global Exchange’s warnings and so we progressed for the following five days that circumstances allowed us.

Our days, though numbered, were an enriching experience; especially for those of us who are used to the comforts of living in a country where political demonstrations are limited by permits.

These excursions included witnessing the making of Mexico’s strong distilled spirit, Mezcal, from agave plant to finished product, presented by a family owned distillery whose market is threatened by the rapid growth of industrialized production. We also visited Teotitlan del Valle (about 28 kilometers from Oaxaca city) home of Zapotec weaving artisan, Jose Buenaventura Gutierrez, who demonstrated the use of natural resources to dye the yarn used to weave his beautifully crafted carpets.

Even while on the outskirts of Oaxaca city, features of the movement, such as the sounds of helicopters above and graffiti demanding the resignation of Oaxaca’s Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, were evident. Graffiti slogans read; ” Fuera U.R.O.!”, “Muera el P.R.I.!” and “Muera el mal Gobierno!” (Get Out Ulises! Death to the P.R.I.! Death to the Bad Government!)

The night of Dia de los Muertos we visited several candlelit cemeteries in Xoxocotlán where family and friends mourned the loss of their loved ones and celebrated the resurrection of their spirits through song, live music, dance, chanting, prayer and beautifully decorated altars.

Due to the reported sixteen recent deaths of APPO demonstrators and the overwhelming police occupation, the ethos of the evening was particularly spiritual and mesmerizing. The streets were filled with food vendors, live bands, and sand paintings of saints as well as art displays and altars commemorating the dead—including those who lost their lives to the movement. (We were later informed that compared to prior years this year’s festivities were sparsely populated.)

Our final day in Oaxaca coincided with the PFP siege of Oaxaca University, where APPO members transmitted the radio station pertinent to the mobilization of the movement. From the hills of the Zaachila archeological zone, we witnessed the smoke rising from the University as well as police helicopters that were being used to deposit tear gas onto protestors. In the town square of Zaachila we heard the clanging of church bells and amplified voices of locals encouraging community members to go to the University to support their comrades from the PFP siege.

Following our excursion we returned hear the testimonies of two indigenous women who were members of the Committee of the Wives of Prisoners in Loxicha, (CWPL). They spoke on behalf of their husbands who had been imprisoned and tortured as alleged members of the guerilla group, EPR, Ejército Popular Revolucionario. In 1996, the EPR had their first attack resulting in the mass subjected arrests of 150 indigenous peasants from Loxicha. These women were the wives of detainees and had camped in the Palacio de Gobierno de Loxicha, under nothing more than tarps, for four years demanding the release of their falsely accused husbands.

Their testimonies clarified alternative motivations behind the mass arrests, as a probable alliance between the government and powerful landowners, who had a history of disputes over the ownership of lands claimed by local communities. It’s no wonder why the majority of detainees are members of largely indigenous local city authorities. Their testimonies conveyed the repression of the Mexican government, the difficulty of supporting a family as single mothers, as well as their determination and successful ability to organize in response to government repression and injustice; resulting in the formation of CWPL.

Shortly thereafter, after police questioned our trip leader, and rumors of violent escalations were circulating, our delegation came to an end.

Several days after our departure, a march containing thousands of APPO supporters took place; police built barricades fenced by six feet of barbed wire blocking entrance to the Zócalo.

Despite the cancellation of the remaining week, we authentically experienced the fundamental meaning, importance, and reality of community organizing by being present during these crucial moments in the community of Oaxaca, in addition to observing the strength of non-violent protestors in response to State violence. We witnessed the occupation of a city, not only by PFP, but firstly by the ideas and determination of the people who were fighting, losing their lives, and integrating their cultural celebration for a cause that extends beyond the barbed wire barricades of Oaxaca City.

Please check our website for further information about Reality Tours and for ways to support the teachers movement in Oaxaca. To tune into APPO radio stream via cell phone call: (+US) 213-825-2000.

After only 18 days in South Africa I am hardly an expert, but I want to share what I saw and learned of this complex and beautiful country. I had to keep reminding myself that I was visiting a place that had undergone a huge transition just 12 years ago and is still struggling with the legacy of apartheid. We witnessed people and places going about the routines of daily life, some of it very familiar looking urban life, and yet most of these people, including our professional guides and drivers, had only had this kind of normalcy since 1994.

I was on a tour with 9 other Americans organized by Global Exchange, a San Francisco based organization dedicated to global human rights. I wanted to see the natural beauty and the animals for which Africa is famous. I was rewarded by an abundance of visual delights from oceans, plains and mountains to penguins, giraffes and elephants. I also wanted to learn about post-apartheid South Africa, and about the anti-apartheid struggle and how it was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, who started his nonviolent activism in South Africa. That is the story I want to tell.

Gandhi came to South Africa in 1893 as an Indian lawyer, young, naive and loyal to England, then the empire that ruled both India and South Africa.. But he soon learned that England was not loyal to him because of the color his skin and, finding himself sprawled on a railroad station platform because he refused to leave the first class coach he was riding in, he resolved to do something about it. He remained in South Africa for 23 years to organize and defend the human rights of his fellow Indians, at first just the merchants and later the indentured laborers who were brought in to work the cane fields. From the beginning, Gandhi’s approach was to resist unjust, racist laws without the use of violence. He and his Indian followers used people power and soul force, basically taking the higher moral ground.

Not only was Gandhi successful in obtaining some respect for Indians, but he encouraged Blacks to follow the same course. According to one source, the Black leadership did not think the Black culture of the time would tolerate receiving violence and not retaliating in kind. So the African National Congress (ANC), founded in 1912, did not initially adopt nonviolence as their strategy.

However, by the time Nelson Mandela became active as a leader of the ANC Youth League in 1944, nonviolence was the avowed policy of the organization, which adhered to it even while other anti-apartheid groups called for their followers to take up arms against the White oppressor. Mandela reluctantly gave up this policy in 1960 in the face of increasing state violence against peaceful protestors, but he and the other leaders of the ANC preferred to use sabotage against non-human targets in an attempt to avoid taking life. Still, Mandela stated in a ” Time Magazine” article in 2003 that he “followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could.”

With this history as background, we wanted to know if anyone recognizes Gandhi’s influence today and if there is a consciousness of nonviolence in the country. In one way Gandhi is recognized: formally via statues, plaques at historical sites, and in several museums. We were able to meet with his granddaughter, Ela Gandhi, and to visit the Phoenix Farm where she grew up, and which was founded by Gandhi himself. While Ela gave us hope for the continuation of Gandhi’s legacy in general, the condition at Phoenix Farm was more symbolic of his lack of influence today. The house where Gandhi lived– a simple but ample structure — had been destroyed by a fire and rebuilt. It contained a reasonable collection of documents and photographs, but it was not open except by appointment. The printing shop where Gandhi and later his sons and even Ela had hand printed the newspaper that was a major organizing tool for the movement for South African Indian rights was basically empty. There are plans to reinstall the old machinery, etc. when there are enough funds. A large, two- roomed library on the premises is being used as an elementary school for 250 children, in keeping with Gandhi’s practice of serving the community, but it was staffed by only 4 teachers with 114 kids to each classroom!

More poignant, though, is the state of South Africa’s current economy in terms of who is served by it. While Gandhi called for local self-sufficiency, and identified himself with the poorest of the poor, and while he sought Truth or God through being with the people he served, thus bringing morality and spirituality into the political arena, today’s South Africa is caught firmly in the grip of global corporate capitalism. Sadly this means that repayment of the apartheid -era debt, and adherence to the demands of the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which call for privatization of public services come before and in fact cancel out the needs of the poor. And the poor in South Africa are the majority. Apart from the elite and a small middle class, 75% of the population is poor and Black.

I admit I was very disappointed to learn that Mandela’s party, the ANC, had chosen a path that basically turns its back on the poor. There are those who say that Mandela had no choice, given the power vested in the global economic structures, that to defy their demands is to lose foreign investors and face the collapse of the country. Maybe they are right. And there are others who say that these were not decisions made by Mandela but by his vice-president who is now president, Thabo Mbeki. This does not absolve Mandela of all responsibility, but his focus as president and his legacy to the country is the process of unification across racial lines, the nonviolent transition of power from oppressor to oppressed, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that provided the nation a means to heal from the brutality of 50 years of apartheid.

These contributions raise Nelson Mandela above the stature of most world leaders, and seem miraculous coming from a man who spent 27 years in prison. I highly recommend the documentary film called “Long Night’s Journey Into Day”, about the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”

I imagine that Mandela, now retired, is also troubled by the state of affairs in his beloved South Africa. To quote the 2003 article again, he wrote, “As we find ourselves in jobless economies, societies in which small minorities consume while the masses starve, we find ourselves forced to rethink the rationale of our current globalization and to ponder the Gandhian alternative.”

The legacy of apartheid — a rigid system of separation of the races, enforced by intimidation and violence, and non-Whites marginalized in every way– is seen in the acres and acres of make-shift shacks that house squatters for whom there is no available housing, and in the “townships.” The latter are large isolated tracts of two-room, cement block houses, commonly called match-box housing. They were constructed by the apartheid government to contain the millions of Black and Coloured workers whose city neighborhoods were entirely demolished in order to remove them from proximity to Whites-only neighborhoods. Townships are like sprawling suburbs to the large cities, but no provision was made for stores or services, so people have adapted by selling small amounts of goods out of their homes. We visited a shack that had such a store in its front room, dark and unlit. In addition there was one bedroom and a tiny common room/cooking area with no running water. The whole house would fit into one of our living rooms.

Under apartheid townships, not to mention shack communities, were denied access to electricity and running water. The people used candles, coal and propane for light, heat and cooking. One of the first improvements after the elections of 1994 was to provide electricity (and public water taps) so that by now about 75% have electricity. However, the power grid was not upgraded to account for this new demand, resulting in a fairly new phenomenon: blackouts. The night we arrived in Capetown, we had to walk the twelve floors to our hotel rooms, because the power had just gone out in the entire city. Also until recently there was no sanitation in the shack communities. Now a ring of sturdy outhouses circles the communities and are cleaned out regularly by a municipal sanitation truck.

But perhaps the worst legacy of apartheid are the attitudes that are hard to change: by Whites that Blacks are inferior or violent; by Blacks that Whites are all well-off and racist; by Coloureds that neither Whites nor Blacks will be concerned for their welfare. One example of how this plays out is that Coloureds now resent the affirmative action policies that favor Blacks because they can result in Coloureds being displaced or subordinated to less well-trained Black supervisors. However, the country calls itself a rainbow nation, and there was no evidence of racial violence, surely a big achievement.

There is growing discontent in South Africa. Unemployment is over 30%, new housing is slow in coming, roads are not paved as promised, and privatized water and electricity are more expensive than most can afford. But still people remember how it was 12 years ago when only White people could move about freely, while all non-Whites had to carry pass books or ID cards and needed their employer’s written permission to leave their township. When every single facility and institution had a Whites-only section. When arbitrary arrests often resulted in beatings and imprisonment for indefinite amounts of time.

People remember, and so are still hopeful that the new South Africa where they are free to move about and to vote, will bring them more prosperity. Many are organizing to bring about the needed changes. We visited one group in the township of Soweto, that has decided not to wait for the ANC to deliver. Because of poverty and unemployment, the people cannot afford the high price of privatized water and electricity. The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee is ripping out the water and electric meters and connecting directly to the municipal grid and water mains. Then they call a meeting and march to the corporations that try to sell the electricity and water upon which life depends, and deliver the broken meters. It is an empowering, well organized protest that is gaining ground, and it is based on democratic decision making and on nonviolence. So, there is anger, there is hope, and there is action.

We had a chance to meet with the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, the Young Communist League and ICAP. Certainly we would learn the reasons why this island nation has been under an economic blockade by the U.S. for more than 45 years. Were we scared? The adventure began.

The first of the core organizations that we visited was ICAP, or the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos (the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the People), which is established to promote and enhance solidarity with people all over the world. They were the official hosts on our visit, and they also work closely with 18 organizations in the U.S. that support the country and its mission, of which Global Exchange is one. After learning details of how Cuba works, it was also pointed out to us that the U.S. harbors Luis Posada Carriles, who has been implicated in the terrorist bombing of Cubana de Aviacion flight 455 in 1976, in which 73 people were killed. He is supposed to be extradited to Venezuela to stand trial for this and other brutal acts against Cuban people, which he has boasted about, but hey, Bush says he’s OK. Bush also said that any country that harbors a terrorist is basically as bad as that terrorist, and it’s OK to attack them, or some such thing. But who’s paying attention anyway?

After leaving Havana, we made the four-hour trip to Villa Clara. There, we would meet with the Young Communist League, which surely would be a place where we would find a hotbed of repression. We met as a group with two very passionate men who explained their mission: to organize a program of social workers who serve as interns and who concurrently work their way through the university to get their degrees (for free). The social worker program was needed as a result of the change of the economy and the society, brought about by the collapse of the USSR in 1989. Overnight, Cuba lost access to its oil supplies and its main trade partner for its sugar, creating, over time, hardship throughout the country. Basically, with their idealism, energy and determination, these two men had helped to form this program to serve the families and children who needed help because of the major changes the country had faced. The social worker program mainly works with children who have health problems or teenagers who are not attending school and are not working. It serves as a model for the other provinces, which are following their lead. Well, not exactly the subversive gossip I wanted to bring back.

Then, finally, before leaving Villa Clara, we had an evening get-together with one chapter of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. For sure, after this meeting, we would understand the true justification of the blockade and our deep fear of Cuba. We faced off in an open courtyard below an apartment complex.

They, the revolutionaries, and ourselves, were both nervous. They began to introduce themselves, one by one: a professor of biochemistry, a professor in education, an environmental education professor, a chemistry professor, a preschool teacher, and their children, and then we weren’t nervous anymore. The two groups got closer as we introduced ourselves, all teachers. We had been paired with an all-teacher CDR and we were all curious to find out more about these, well, revolutionaries (for all teachers are). A couple of bottles of Cuban rum were opened and the conversation got lively. The CDR basically functions as a neighborhood group that watches out for the welfare of its area and its inhabitants. The members help to elect representatives who may go on to represent their municipality, city or province. Hey, isn’t that democratic? What is going on here?

Truly, what we found in the people and society of Cuba wasn’t at all repressive, scary or dictatorial. No, it isn’t an easy life for people in Cuba. Yes, they need social workers because many are poor, the divorce rate is about the same as in the U.S., and they have all the problems that poverty brings. Their freedoms are limited because you can’t exactly get up and travel the world when an average salary is less than $20 U.S. a month. Overall however, it sure appeared to us that the people we met were all trying to make their life a better place. Isn’t that all one can do? Why can’t we help them do that?

On our seven-day tour of Cuba, our delegation of educators from the U.S., on a trip sponsored by Global Exchange, was able to infiltrate some of the most powerful strongholds of the revolution.

We had a chance to meet with the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, the Young Communist League and ICAP. Certainly we would learn the reasons why this island nation has been under an economic blockade by the U.S. for more than 45 years. Were we scared? The adventure began.

The first of the core organizations that we visited was ICAP, or the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos (the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the People), which is established to promote and enhance solidarity with people all over the world. They were the official hosts on our visit, and they also work closely with 18 organizations in the U.S. that support the country and its mission, of which Global Exchange is one. After learning details of how Cuba works, it was also pointed out to us that the U.S. harbors Luis Posada Carriles, who has been implicated in the terrorist bombing of Cubana de Aviacion flight 455 in 1976, in which 73 people were killed. He is supposed to be extradited to Venezuela to stand trial for this and other brutal acts against Cuban people, which he has boasted about, but hey, Bush says he’s OK. Bush also said that any country that harbors a terrorist is basically as bad as that terrorist, and it’s OK to attack them, or some such thing. But who’s paying attention anyway?

After leaving Havana, we made the four-hour trip to Villa Clara. There, we would meet with the Young Communist League, which surely would be a place where we would find a hotbed of repression. We met as a group with two very passionate men who explained their mission: to organize a program of social workers who serve as interns and who concurrently work their way through the university to get their degrees (for free). The social worker program was needed as a result of the change of the economy and the society, brought about by the collapse of the USSR in 1989. Overnight, Cuba lost access to its oil supplies and its main trade partner for its sugar, creating, over time, hardship throughout the country. Basically, with their idealism, energy and determination, these two men had helped to form this program to serve the families and children who needed help because of the major changes the country had faced. The social worker program mainly works with children who have health problems or teenagers who are not attending school and are not working. It serves as a model for the other provinces, which are following their lead. Well, not exactly the subversive gossip I wanted to bring back.

Then, finally, before leaving Villa Clara, we had an evening get-together with one chapter of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. For sure, after this meeting, we would understand the true justification of the blockade and our deep fear of Cuba. We faced off in an open courtyard below an apartment complex.

They, the revolutionaries, and ourselves, were both nervous. They began to introduce themselves, one by one: a professor of biochemistry, a professor in education, an environmental education professor, a chemistry professor, a preschool teacher, and their children, and then we weren’t nervous anymore. The two groups got closer as we introduced ourselves, all teachers. We had been paired with an all-teacher CDR and we were all curious to find out more about these, well, revolutionaries (for all teachers are). A couple of bottles of Cuban rum were opened and the conversation got lively. The CDR basically functions as a neighborhood group that watches out for the welfare of its area and its inhabitants. The members help to elect representatives who may go on to represent their municipality, city or province. Hey, isn’t that democratic? What is going on here?

Truly, what we found in the people and society of Cuba wasn’t at all repressive, scary or dictatorial. No, it isn’t an easy life for people in Cuba. Yes, they need social workers because many are poor, the divorce rate is about the same as in the U.S., and they have all the problems that poverty brings. Their freedoms are limited because you can’t exactly get up and travel the world when an average salary is less than $20 U.S. a month. Overall however, it sure appeared to us that the people we met were all trying to make their life a better place. Isn’t that all one can do? Why can’t we help them do that?