Politics in Practice

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The Perspectives of The Colonized

Charles McKelvey is Professor Emeritus at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, USA. His book is published in the Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice series.

Read a free chapter, Renewing the Historic Quest for Socialism, until February  2.

My book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The light in the darkness, is the culmination of a life-long quest to understand the perspective of the colonized. This quest first began in the late 1960s with rap sessions with black students who had a “black power” perspective.  In the early 1970s, I immersed myself in the black community of Chicago and the study of African and African-American nationalist thought, which led me to the conclusion that European colonial domination and settlement of the earth has shaped the fundamental structures of the modern world.

Appreciating the fundamental difference between black thought and white social science, I studied epistemological issues from 1976 to 1990.  I arrived to understand that a universal understanding would be possible, if we from the colonizing and imperialist nations of the North were to encounter the popular movements of the neocolonized peoples, taking seriously their understanding.

I traveled extensively to Honduras during the 1990s, listening to the views of leaders and participants in the Honduran popular movement and academics tied to it, and I paid attention to the views of journalists, politicians, and the people.  I discerned that Latin American anti-imperialism shares fundamental premises with Black Nationalist anti-colonialism.

I first arrived in Cuba in 1993, and I was surprised in a number of respects:

  1. The Cuban socialist project has vitality, which enabled it to endure through the economic crisis of the early 1990s, and has enabled it to persist in the construction of socialism.
  2. Cuban socialism is a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and the Cuban struggle of national liberation in the tradition of José Martí, such that Cuban socialism is providing the practical basis for the evolution of Marxist-Leninist theory in the Third World context of national liberation.  As such, it is an advanced manifestation of an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist perspective, formulated in theory and practice.
  3. Cuba has popular democracy, including assemblies of popular power and mass organizations, which is an alternative to representative democracy, and which is characterized by higher levels of voter participation and legitimacy.
  4. Cuban public discourse is dignified, and it is characterized by an understanding of fundamental historical facts and contemporary dynamics with respect to the Cuban nation and the world, very much in contrast to the public discourses of the nations of the North.  Political leaders, leaders of mass organizations, academics, and artists actively participate in Cuban public discourse.

The subtitle of the book, “the light in the darkness,” was inspired by Cuban poet, essayist, and novelist Cintio Vitier, who called the Cuban Revolution “the sun of the moral world.”

At the age of 71, I live in an apartment in Havana with my Cuban wife, and I continue to strive to deepen my understanding of the Cuban Revolution and global dynamics.  My ongoing reflections can be found on my blog, “The View from the South: Commentaries on world events from the Third World perspective”.

Charles McKelvey

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