Although proud of Cuba for most of my life, I was always ashamed of their human right's record (although I understand the need to defend the state and the system) especially around gay rights, (and of course the right to dissent, although with the U.S. big hammer, backing dissenters it is a different situation from most states, and this is not the place for that post!) and was not uncritical of the state.
I am pleased, however, to report that things are getting much better, and Cuba is called by some: "the most progressive Latin American Country on gay rights. " This may not be true as Venezuela is also quite progressive, at least "legally". In Cuba you can get a free state sponsored "sex change" operation (sex reassignment surgery) and free hormones to maintain your assigned gender. But relationships are not acknowledged. In Venezuela a law acknowledging same sex unions is expected, soon. It is written by several authors that Cuba does not acknowledge same sex unions because marriage has little meaning in the country for heterosexuals and so there is little demand for it. Which state has the most discrimination day to day, is not clear to me but is dealt with in several wikipedia articles dealing with this issue.
I got started thinking about this due to an article in Direct Action from Australia which says in part:
One of the factors that have helped change attitudes has been the government’s strong commitment to education, research and improvement. In 1972 it set up the National Working Group of Sex Education (GNTES). Composed of professionals of various ministries with a multidisciplinary approach, the group’s main mission was to create and implement the policy for a national program of sex education. Importantly, it was also tasked with research, counselling and education about issues surrounding sexuality. GNTES helped advise and advocate for gay, lesbian and transgender rights throughout the 1970s and ’80s. It set up municipal research, education and counselling services across Cuba and in 1989 became the National Centre of Sex Education (CENESEX).
That said, other Gay organizations are not allowed/acknowledged, gay relationships are not recognized, they cannot celebrate a "Gay pride" day, and there is still a lot of homophobia in the population. (And I have no way to gauge whether it is better or worse in other countries in central and south America.) But I am happy that Cuba is not a monstrosity of homophobia and that there is state sponsored education to teach people to stop being discriminatory. You can read more at:CENESEX has been leading the campaign against homophobia. On May 17, 2008, it organised activities to mark the International Day Against Homophobia. Associated Press reported at the time, “Cuba’s gay community celebrated unprecedented openness — and high-ranking political alliances — with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on Saturday”. Mariela Castro, director of CENESEX and daughter of President Raul Castro, joined government leaders and hundreds of activists at a one-day conference that featured shows, lectures, panel discussions and book presentations. Mariela Castro told Associated Press, “This is a very important moment for us, the men and women of Cuba, because for the first time we can gather in this way and speak profoundly and with scientific basis about these topics”.
The president of Cuba’s national parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, told reporters at the conference that the government needs to do more to promote gay rights, but many Cubans still need to be convinced. The previous night, during prime time, Cuban state television ran the US film Brokeback Mountain, the story of two gay cowboys.
Wikipedia - LGBT Rights in Cuba
BBC - Castro Champions Gay rights in Cuba
AP - Cubans March Against Homophobia
Havana Times - Being Homosexual in Cuba.
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Also musing (in terror) this morning on Gaza. A flotilla of nine ships, from Ireland, Turkey, Sweden and other countries, carrying 700 activists and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, are approaching Gaza by sea, in an attempt to break the Israeli Siege of Gaza. The siege continued since the 2007 election of Hamas, is a "collective punishment" of the people of Gaza for supporting the wrong government - this is illegal and an international crime.
According to wikipedia:
From my post earlier this month:The Gaza Strip (Arabic: قطاع غزة Qiṭāʿ Ġazza/Qita' Ghazzah, Arabic pronunciation: [qitˤaːʕ ɣazza]) lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and between 6 and 12 kilometers (4–7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 360 square kilometers (139 sq mi). The territory takes its name from Gaza, its main city.
The territory has a population of about 1.5 million people, as at July 2009,[1] 1 million of whom were, as of March 2005, refugees[2] who fled to the territory from other parts of Palestine as part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus arising from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and their descendants. The population is predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak a Western Egyptian dialect of Arabic. . .
The Gaza Strip is one of the territorial units forming the Palestinian territories.[7][8][9][10] Actual control of the area within the Gaza Strip borders are in the hands of Hamas, an organization that won civil parliamentary Palestinian Authority elections in 2006 and took over de facto government in the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority by way of its own political maneuvering and armed militia in July 2007, while consolidating power by violently removing the Palestinian Authority's security forces and civil servants from the Gaza Strip.
"Also thinking about Gaza today and the flotilla of ships on their way to hopefully break the seige of Gaza. See this article on Al Jazeera . . . Imagine 1.5 million people trapped in a prison strip of land, with no employment, not enough calories and no way to "escape" and no where to escape to. . . I cannot understand why there is not a huge outcry about Israel's policy of collective punishment of all of the people of Gaza. This piece says in part:
Ultimately Israel is faced with two questions: does it continue its policy of collective punishment and prevent the flotilla from entering Gaza until Gazans succumb to Israeli demands? Or does it allow the aid to enter and attempt to demonstrate to the world that Israel does in fact respect human rights?
Unfortunately neither of these options bode well for the Israelis, option one for the obvious public outcry that will spill out as a result of 800 people stranded in the water. And although option two would be smarter from a public relations perspective, it would be an indirect admission by Israel that its policy of collective punishment and continued siege is flawed, not to mention illegal. It seems Israel only has a few days left before it is to make up its mind on what could be one of its toughest tests yet."
Click on image below, for link to very recent article in Haaretz.Hamas police ahead of the arrival of an aid flotilla.
Photo by: AP
You can follow the flotilla and see where they are - live - on http://www.witnessgaza.com/
Crowd for send off of boat from Turkey to free Gaza:
Israel is threatening to stop the fleet and is insisting that humanitarian aid is let into Gaza (although this does not include cement or steel to rebuild houses, enough calories for everyone to eat without starving, lots of medical equipment.) Their siege is meant to "punish' the people, including the children, of Gaza, to get them to change their support for Hamas - anybody know when that worked!?
Other links:
Al Jazeera - Tensions Rise over Gaza Aid Fleet
Israel's Disinformation Campaign Against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
Protest letter Template
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An op-ed piece in the NY Times caught my attention yesterday. It is by Nicholas D. Kristoff and titled Sister Margaret's Choice. In it he tells the story of a Catholic nun - who some call a "Saint" who has been excommunicated by the Catholic Church because she did not stop an abortion.
According to the story:
“In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother’s life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy,” the hospital said in a statement. “This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee.”So not one priest who assaulted and sexually molested little boys and girls, has been excommunicated (I assume that I DO NOT have to provide links or evidence for that statement!) but, don't object to saving a woman's life, and get excommunicated. Kristof goes on to say:Sister Margaret was a member of that committee. She declined to discuss the episode with me, but the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmstead, ruled that Sister Margaret was “automatically excommunicated” because she assented to an abortion.
I am in a bit of a rage over that one. Ordinary church goers just seem to ignore these things (unless they happen to their family) - N.S. is full of Catholics who somehow see these actions of the church and hierarchy as outside their experience with the church - there is no way to change the church from within, as it is not democratic in any way - or responsive to "the people" so the only answer is to run away! run away! and I encourage that! If you feel compelled to attend mass - just don't leave any money behind! They have to get responsive and responsible for what they preach, or start selling off assets, and although that will keep a lot of men in gilded robes going for a long time - they will be rather meaningless without a flock!I heard about Sister Margaret from an acquaintance who is a doctor at the hospital. After what happened to Sister Margaret, he doesn’t dare be named, but he sent an e-mail to his friends lamenting the excommunication of “a saintly nun”:
“She is a kind, soft-spoken, humble, caring, spiritual woman whose spot in Heaven was reserved years ago,” he said in the e-mail message. “The idea that she could be ex-communicated after decades of service to the Church and humanity literally makes me nauseated.”
“True Christians, like Sister Margaret, understand that real life is full of difficult moral decisions and pray that they make the right decision in the context of Christ’s teachings. Only a group of detached, pampered men in gilded robes on a balcony high above the rest of us could deny these dilemmas.”
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Just for fun - this is interesting -- First Human Infected with a Computer Virus. It is really about the electronics that people carry with in them - pacemakers, hearing aids etc. - other electronics may be available for more "cosmetic" or "enhancement" purposes and they will be "like part of us" but they will be susceptible to computer viruses. This is one of those problems that exists in principle but not yet in fact - but it makes sense that it is coming.
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A good article on Straight Goods today (hey, and send them some money!) Partly pasted below but worth reading the whole thing. . .
Here's the difference between the bank levy and the Robin Hood tax.
Dateline: Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Kelly Crichton
With the G20 conference approaching, we have been hearing a lot of confusing talk about an international "bank levy" and also about the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) — also called the Robin Hood Tax. The two taxes are not at all the same thing and can't be conflated.
When discussions began prior to the G20 in Pittsburgh last year to "do something" about the banks and the mess the economy was in, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised the idea of a Financial Transaction Tax — a re-working of the old Tobin Tax idea to properly reflect the times.
The FTT would be a tiny levy of .05 percent on all commercial global financial transactions. (The Tobin tax was just on currency trading.) The FTT would earn a very substantial amount of money — estimated to be at least $650 billion per year.
Half of the funds raised would remain in domestic hands, and could be used in the event of another financial meltdown, or to shore up domestic social programs. The other half of the funds would go into a global fund to aid development in the world's poorest countries and to help developing countries adapt their economies to the realities of climate change.
. . .
The FTT is very different from a bank levy, which would simply impose a tax on the banks. The bank levy would not be an instrument of global redistribution as is the FTT. And, in fact, it has been criticized as possibly creating an atmosphere of even greater recklessness, because, in effect, the banks would now have an "insurance" fund to fall back on.
An FTT on the other hand, is seen as something that could stabilize markets by discouraging the most egregious kinds of market activity, day trading, and short term speculation — what has often been called "casino capitalism" on the exchanges of the world.
The FTT — also known as the Robin Hood Tax — has had a great deal of publicity in the UK and Europe, in part due to the Oxfam International campaign and the participation of Ben Kingsley and Bill Nighy, but also because it was seen by many to be a global tax whose time had come.
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