A Cuban postcard for African Liberation Day

This is a tribute to Motherland Africa, and one of her sons, Dr Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, wherever he now be.

On 25 May, we celebrated African Liberation Day. When I say ‘we’ I mean those African citizens up there in Motherland Africa, and ‘we’ African Descendents across the Atlantic Ocean, in the Western Hemisphere; in the Caribbean Sea; in Cuba.

This year is a special celebration of African Liberation Day, because it also marks the International Year of African Descendents, declared by UNESCO. Here in the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is a celebration of our African heritage, in culture and life.

Every 25 May in Cuba – and even days before to 25 May, a whole week of events – there different events all over the Island. As part of the African Diaspora we preserve the legacy of those who came from so far away to mix in a magnificent melting pot to form what we call the Cuban National Identity, an ethnic-cultural phenomenon, know in Cuba as ‘transculturation’.

Congos, Mandinkas, Bantus, Ewes, Igbos, Efiks – as many as 200 ethnic groups came from Africa, to mix with other ethnic groups that even came from as far as the Middle East – Palestine, Syria and Lebanon – to form what are well-known as ‘Cubanos’ (Cubans in English).

Africa is everywhere in Cuba. You can find it in the glamorous, elegant way of walking of women; the braveness of men; the taste and smell of food; the way we create our family; the care of elder people; the ornament plants in houses, buildings and cities; the way we worship African Orishas; it is in every corner of this crocodile-shaped island in the Caribbean Sea.

No matter the colour of the skin, either white or black, you can find traces of Africa in Cuban faces.

As African daughters and sons, we embarked once in a liberation endeavour, and crossed the seas, and we went to the deep forest and savannas of Motherland Africa, to help our brothers and sisters to let them be free. On 23 April 1963, Cuban medical doctors landed in Algiers; on 24 April, 1965, Che Guevara and his groups of combatants reached Congo; Cuban internationalist combatants also went to Angola and Ethiopia, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde and other African countries. We decided to pay our debt with Humanity, because African slaves fought alongside Cubans headed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, on 10 October 1868 to free Cuba from Europe’s Colonialism.

As I previously wrote, this is my tribute to Africa and one of her sons who passed away two years now, on African Liberation Day on 2009: Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem; my dear brother, brother of so many Africans and Cubans.

I hope this message will get to him wherever he might be now; let the spirit of Pan-Africanism get to all of us, and ‘Organize, Do Not Agonize!’ for a world of justice and peace, as Tajudeen wanted for all of us.

This is my Cuban Postcard for Africa and my brothers and sisters in Motherland, for this African Liberation Day.

Long Live Africa and Cuba!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Daisy Díaz is executive secretary of Cuban-African Friendship Association.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.