Guerrilla History - Solidarity with Cuba w/ The Assata Shakur Brigade

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we are happy to be joined by four members of the Assata Shakur Brigade to discuss their solidarity brigade to Cuba, as well as anti-Cuban propaganda, international law and how it relates to Cuba, Cuba's historical role in Africa, and the history of solidarity brigades to Cuba.  This is a very important episode, and we want to make sure that you check out the Brigade's website at https://assatashakurbrigade.org/, and if you are able to do so, support their fundraiser: https://fundrazr.com/aidtocuba Also follow them on all social media platforms: @assatashakurbrigade (Instagram mainly) Nuvpreet is cofounder of the Assata Shakur Brigade, and an organizer and writer based in London. Alfie is cofounder of the Assata Shakur Brigade and an anti-imperialist and anti-war activist in London including with Friends of Socialist China, Codepink Britain, and the US-UK Bases off Cyprus campaign. Alessandro Zancan is an artist, developer and independent researcher. They are the founder and lead developer of MatGen, an associate editor and graphic designer at Iskra Books, and member of the Friends of Socialist China Britain Committee. Follow on Instagram and X: @ale_zancan, and be sure to check out Ale's Mindlessness Video: https://youtu.be/TcD5wubqZn4?si=9YDr-gJmE92e-llt Grace Balchin is currently studying a Master's degree in international law at SOAS, with research focusing on the imperialism of international institutions. She is an editorial assistant at Iskra Books, as well as being a member of the Assata Shakur Brigade. She also works as a veterinary care assistant. Follow Grace on Instagram: @gracebolshevik Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory   

You remember Dan Van Boop? They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to Gorilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki. Unfortunately not joined by my usual co-host, Professor Adnan Hussein, who of course

is a historian and director of the School of Religion at Queens University in Ontario, Canada, as he has a departmental meeting today. So those of you in academia can probably commiserate with him, and those of you who are not in academia probably resent academia for stealing him away from us today. With that being said, though, we do have a really excellent topic today, and we have a fascinating panel of guests that we're going to be talking with about this discussion, about this topic rather. But before I introduce them or have them introduce themselves,

I'd like to remind you listeners that you can help support the show by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. That's a G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. Just a reminder, we're 100% listener-supported, listener-funded. We don't have any commercials. We don't have any advertisements. We don't have any external funding other than what comes in on Patreon.

So if you appreciate what we do, do consider signing up there again, Patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. So with that out of the way, we have four representatives of the Asada Shakur Brigade on today to talk about the brigade to Cuba, what's happening currently in Cuba, anti-imperialist, internationalism, Cuban law, propaganda, and much more. It's a really big discussion ahead of us today. So I'm glad to introduce onto the show. I'm going to call them one at a time and have them actually introduce themselves.

First up, Nufpreet, can you introduce yourself to the listeners? Hi, thank you so much for the introduction as well. That's great to be here. My name is Nuffrey. I am based in London and England. I'm one of the co-founders of the Asatisha Corps Brigade. And I organize in different anti-imperlist groups, doing organizing and writing, including Code Pink. and others.

Excellent. I'm going to turn it to Alfie now. Alfie, can you please introduce yourself to the listeners? Thank you. My name is Alfie. I am the other co-founder of the Asatashakur Brigade to Cuba. I'm involved with anti-imperialist and anti-war organizing in London, including with friends of socialist China and Code Pink. I mainly work on the UK-US bases off-Cyprus campaign. Yeah, and a topic that, as I mentioned, before we started recording,

that I would love to talk more about on the show sometime or perhaps off the show. because Cyprus is a really big topic that we haven't spent that much time on the show talking about as of yet. But hopefully that'll change soon. Grace, I'm now going to turn over to you. Can you introduce yourself to the listeners? Hi, everyone. I'm Grace. I'm currently doing a master's degree in international law at SOAS with my research focusing on imperialism of international institutions.

I'm also an editorial assistant at Iskra Books, as well as being a member of the Asatashikor Brigade. And that's pretty much it. Excellent. And last but not the least, we have Alessandro. Alessandro, can you introduce yourself to the listeners? Hi. So I'm Alessandro Zankan, member of the Asatashikor Brigade, as well as an associate editor and graphic designer, Iskra Books, and a member of the Friends of Socialist China, Britain, committing.

It's a great pleasure to have all of you on the show. today and I'm really looking forward to this discussion. Like I said, there's a lot of topics that we can hit. We'll see how many we actually have time for before we all drop from exhaustion. But I really want to start with discussing the brigade itself in basic terms because I'm guessing most of our listeners don't know about the Asada Brigade, Asada Shakur Brigade yet. And I'm hoping that we will change that very quickly in this and then by the end have the listeners ready to support the brigade. So before we dive into the specifics of what the brigade is exactly going to be doing, the situation in Cuba, I would like you to talk a little bit about what it means for this brigade to be named after Asada Shakur.

Her importance and more broadly speaking, what her legacy does to connect us to Cuba. And in addition, if you can talk about the brigade itself, which is named after Asada Shakur, when it was founded, what is its purpose? And then also, it might be interesting to think historically because there have been solidarity brigades from the 1960s to Cuba, starting with, as my memory recalls, the Venceramos brigades back in the late 1960s. So how do you also see this brigade fitting into that longer history of Solidarity Brigades to Cuba? Yeah. So I think the importance of the name is it's a big one, because, you know, the Venteramos Brigade, which was the first one, which I think we can talk about in a minute, obviously means we will win. And that is a big, big name because it was founded just 10 years after the revolution itself.

And that's a really major way that they were supporting. For us, well, Satta Choucault had died in September of last year. And that was around the time that we were formalizing the brigade. And so her as a symbol of everything that we're trying to channel this brigade of, you know, anti-imperialist revolutionary solidarity and action, we think she symbolized that. And to, you know, give a bit of a history of who this is for anyone who might not be familiar, firstly the name Asata Shakur was chosen. It means she who struggles, that's Asata. and then Shakur was in honour of Asata's comrade who was killed by US police at the same time that Asata was also arrested in the shootout

that kind of began the chain of events that led her to Cuba and Shakur itself means the thankful. So even without the context of the person, I think naming a brigade, meaning that she who struggles and is thankful is also really in kind of the tradition and the feeling that we are having. But in story, Asata was a member of the Black Panther Party. She grew up in New York. She was born in a very working-class family.

I think anyone who's read her autobiography, and if you haven't, I really encourage you to. She grew up with a lot of struggle in her life and her upbringing, which led her to socialist, anti-imperialist politics. She organized with the Black Panthers in Oakland and California before she led the Harlem branch of the Black Panthers. At this point, she was very much known to the US and was a target of the FBI's Quintel Pro program, where she was targeted and harassed and discredited as a person, as an organizer,

as part of this kind of structural attempt to discredit this growing movement in the era of the 60s and 70s in the US, which was fairly revolutionary times. This led to her being pulled over in a car with her comrades, with also with the Black Panthers. And during this, she was, I think, pulled over for like something about the car. And it ended up with Assad being shot in the stomach, her comrades aid being killed, as well as one of the cops that actually pulled them over also dying. Of course, this was, and all forensic evidence shows that this was because of the other cop's

own gun. but instead Asata was charged with his murder. Again, in the autobiography you'll see how from her being in hospital for this wound, how much she was intimidated and harassed by police and physically abused by them. And then up until her trial as well was completely like it was all really a farce. And so she was sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. This led to in 1979 the incredible escape. also supported by her other comrades where she escaped from jail before being sentenced

and she traveled to Cuba in exile. This again was potentially the worst thing for the U.S. to have happened both for someone that they wanted to try and discredit, but also to a place that they were actively in the process of discrediting and waging war on. So when she went to Cuba, the U.S. labeled the country a state sponsor of terrorism. They put a bounty of a million dollars on her head. They put her on the FBI's most wanted list years later and then set it to $2 million. Whereas in Cuba, she was given political asylum.

Fidel called her a true political prisoner and said very correctly that she was a victim of the fierce repression against the Black movement. And so she lived in Cuba initially quite openly. Like I think a lot of people traveled there to meet her. But after the bounty was placed in 2005, she kind of lived a much more quiet life. And she lived freely until September 26th of last year where she passed away. And I think it's really beautiful. There was an event, I think, honoring her life in New York. And someone from the foreign ministry had said that we fulfilled our duty.

And so for us, we want to honor. her life, as it panned out from her organizing, which is obviously continuing and in many ways, much worse the situation in the United States right now. There isn't the same kind of militant movements as they were, but also her moving, being in Cuba. And her being in Cuba also is part of a real history of Cuba providing the support to organizers and the oppressed in the imperial corps. You know, it wasn't Asata, who was the only person in Cuba. In fact, She's not the only person there now who is there for asylum. This was actually, like, you know, one of the policies of the government after the revolution was Fidel said to Latin Americans who came to the country in celebration of the revolution, different organizers and guerrillas saying, like, when you're persecuted, Cuba is your homeland.

And so after the coup in Chile, you know, three, I think between three and five thousand revolutionaries, escaped the dictatorship and went there. Many other members of the Black Panther Party, famously Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver also sought asylum there. And so I think seeing this kind of history and current solidarity, very material solidarity that Cuba has provided

as potentially one of the only places in the world you can go as a communist, as a revolutionary, and actually be safe, is incredible. And again, this is something that the brigade itself will be doing. For many people,

it would be their first time going somewhere like Cuba, but you get to go and see a place where your views aren't the fringe, they aren't the ones under attack, but actually they are the mainstream. And so that's also part of what this is. And so this brings us to today in the brigade,

I went on the one of the ones you mentioned, I think, the national network on Cuba, have a media brigade. And they've been running this for quite a while now. And a lot of it is in partnership with the Venceramos Brigade, which continues. And I've been to Cuba once before, but this is my first time going in a brigade. And it was like, it's truly a life-changing experience you have. But it's also one that sharpens, like, the recognition of what material solidarity and what principled and disciplined solidarity with a place and with a revolution is. And

I felt that I went with the US group, but it made me think there was a lot more to do and that we should be doing in Europe itself. There was also kind of an ask for more solidarity work in Europe. And so, especially in Britain and kind of the different strands of organising we have. And I think this is, you know, we started doing this before the escalation by the Trump administration. But I think now it's clear that this is like a vital time for us to be having way more brigades. way more solidarity efforts, many of which are happening. And you mentioned, yeah, the events for Ramos Brigade, which is kind of the, is still the style that we're going from.

And to briefly mention, that was organized in response to Fidel announcing that for this year, 10 years after the revolution, they wanted to harvest 10 million tons of sugar in one single harvest. And this was a call out for Cubans. And it was, you know, in many ways for agricultural self-sufficiency. and generating hard currency. But some students in the US heard about this and decided to go to Cuba to go and support this effort. And surprisingly, they were let in.

I feel like I wouldn't have done that at the time, but it worked clearly and it was successful. So I think a few hundred US students went to Cuba and volunteered their labor. And they helped cut some of the sugar. They went and learned about the revolution because that's another major element of it is that, you know, there's such little information about the revolution to the point of us being purposely

misinformed, of course, about the reality in Cuba. And so this is none of the history that we're continuing. Our brigade is like continuing very much like a revolutionary solidarity for us. We're not, we're going and we're bringing at this point over a ton of material aid. and we're taking a couple dozen brigadistas with us. And while we're bringing this humanitarian aid, you might see it as, we're not bringing it in a sense of charity. We're bringing it as like a revolutionary support for a place that we see

as like the beacon of hope for humanity. And so we're going to learn about the block A, but we're also gaining so much. And a lot of it is because our anti-imperialist organizing and maybe other people will mention this later, in Britain is so minute and weak and really it's quite terrible here. I think we look to the US often and think at least they have organizations and movements that understand what imperialism is here when we're kind of, you know, a lackey to the US.

And you mentioned like Cyprus before. And that's, I think, a big point that people are seeing is that the US can only operate using lackey states like Britain and their colonies, form. colonies. And so a lot of this is we want to sharpen our own organizing in Britain. We want to expand what Cuba has been able to do and use that to helping our organizing here because we recognize that harming, you know, the British imperial state as well here is a way that we can harm the U.S. Empire to stop the blockade and the war on Cuba. So of course, if others have things that they want to say on this opening topic, they of course can. But before I get to talking

too much about what the brigade is doing specifically, I think that we should take a step back and remind the listeners about the blockade itself, which is, of course, what is the precipitating factor for the necessity of brigades like this. So I know one of you is an expert in international law. And so therefore, I would like to direct this question to you. The U.S. blockade of Cuba, which Cuba calls an economic commercial and financial embargo has been condemned for decades every single year at the United Nations General Assembly. Overwhelmingly, with votes like,

if I remember correctly, the most recent one was 187 to 2 or something along those lines. And yet, despite this overwhelming condemnation of the blockade, it continues. So, can you walk us through the legal architecture of the blockade. How is it maintained despite being widely considered a violation of international law, including the Geneva Convention's prohibitions on collective punishment?

Yeah. So I don't really know where to start because it's a big one. So what you said was right about it's been 32 votes at the UN General Assembly that every single time they have condemned it. And always it's been around the same number of people, which is 187 to 2, with a few abstentions sometimes. But if I go back to thinking about, I think a very core aspect of this actually is about the terminology that we use. So the US uses the word embargo. And they do this for a very specific reason.

And I think it's not considered often enough. So everyone else calls it a blockade. Cuba calls it a blockade. I think a large part of why the US calls it an embargo is because of the optics. So embargo is quite a technical term that makes it sound like a routine kind of trade restriction. But then there's other things. So a blockade itself is considered an act of war under a number of different international laws, but specifically the San Remo manual, which isn't a treaty in itself,

but it was developed by some international lawyers, and it's widely cited by courts. So blockades are actually only legal during an armed conflict. That's the only way under humanitarian law, which is ridiculous to me even that we have those kind of laws that say it's legal to blockade people, but that is the law. And even under those laws, it's not legal what the US is doing right now. I think another reason why they call it an embargo is because it hides the, extra territoriality. So an embargo itself is a bilateral agreement, if you can call it that. That was very air-quoted. So it's a bilateral thing. Normally a blockade is as well. But by calling it an

embargo, you're hiding the fact that it's not just Cuba and the US that are involved. It's the US imposing restrictions on so many other different states in a way that we've not really seen before in the history of the world and in international law itself. Then the other thing I think is to maintain the facade of the humanitarian exceptions. But then you have the other thing, which is the way that Fidel actually saw it. So he in a speech said that it's not an embargo, nor is it a blockade, it's a war. And I think that's the key thing. If you look at it in terms of international law, this is something that should be considered economic war. that is done through legal instrumentation.

So the next bit to talk about, I think the history of the blockade itself. So people just kind of see it as this like overarching being that has kind of always been there. But it's a lot more than that. It wasn't always like this. The blockade initially started actually with not what Nepri was talking about earlier with the sugar industry. So the initial blockade was in 19. which was when the Cuban government that had had the revolution in 1959, when they nationalized all of the US assets, they then had repercussions from the US, which was that the US said that they were not going to allow Cuba to fulfill its sugar quota for the year of 1960. So this was about 700,000 tons. of sugar that the US didn't allow for Cuba to sell to them, which was a massive, massive blow

to their economy. That then turned into a partial embargo later on that same year, and then it was a total embargo in 1962, which is now what we refer to as the blockade. But initially, it was a bit more of an embargo than a blockade. So there were additional acts that came into force through US law, which created extra conditions, and it's been building and building and building to the point where it is now, where it's honestly infuriating and ridiculous to see because we all know that it's illegal.

And we also know that the UN hasn't been and isn't going to do anything about it. So the first act that was added was the Torricelli Act in 1992. So this prohibited foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba. It banned ships that had visited Cuba from entering US ports for 180 days. It reduced aid to countries that provided assistance to Cuba. It made it illegal for US citizens to spend money in Cuba. And it banned US companies from providing phone, internet or something.

satellite services to Cuba. So this was kind of when it became more, when it became less about US and Cuba, and you start seeing more of these elements of extra territoriality, where you have the US trying to impose these same restrictions on other countries as well. And then that was made even worse with the Helms-Burton Act, which was in 1996. So that made the blockade federal law, meaning that a president alone couldn't change it. It also established an explicit policy of regime change. It mandated a reduction in US contributions to any UN agency that allowed Cuba to be a member. So they still had to pay their compulsory contributions, but any optional ones were completely slashed to sometimes nothing. And then there was also the famous Title III,

which was that US nationals can sue any foreign company that, air, traffics in property that was confiscated by the Cuban government. So I want to jump in here, Grace, with the follow-up question, because you've been mentioning that this blockade has been going on since 1960. There have, however, been ebbs and flows and how stringently the blockade has been enforced. I know that on our show in the last couple of years, we had talked about the fact that even during the Biden administration, there were new layers being added to enforcement of the blockade and further restrictions against Cuba. And as we've alluded to in this conversation already today, Trump's second administration has only dramatically escalated things further. So within the last two administrations, Cuba was re-designated as a state sponsor of terrorism that happened in 2021.

A designation that has been widely criticized as politically motivated, not only within the United States context, but globally it's been pretty widely criticized as just being a political instrument to punish Cuba. So what are the concrete material effects that that designation has had on ordinary Cubans? Again, we've had an episode on this topic, but from a legal standpoint, I guess also, what effect has that new designation had on Cubans? And how does international law address the extraterritorial application of U.S. laws, like the Helmsburtan Act that you just had mentioned, Grace, to punish third countries for trading with Cuba. Okay, there's a lot in that question.

So, um, my specialty, overloading the guests. So maybe let's talk about the oil blockade. I think that's one kind of more recent addition that we've seen. So the US has been threatening punitive tariffs on any country selling oil to Cuba. And this is quite a good example of the US, just doing what the US does with imperialism, which is they have no legal standing when it comes to threatening those kind of tariffs on other countries like Mexico, for example. But just the threat of doing it, saying that they might do it, has stopped countries, like Mexico, from shipping oil to Cuba. And that, I think, is the core part of imperialism and what

US imperialism does. It's not so much about... what the law itself says because and I could go on about this for a long time international law is not meant to work in favor of the global self so you can have it written down into international law as many different ways as you want that every nation is equal but then when you have things like the way that an ICJ judgment goes through is through the Security Council. The Security Council has a veto by the US. So even if the US is held accountable for something, it can never actually be punished for that thing because they are the cops. They are the people who are saying yes or no to this

going through. And no one's going to say, oh yes, I'm going to allow this judgment to go through against myself. And I think that's my core thing is that is how it was set up to work. So I think like a lot of things with the US, just the threat alone is making things worse. So having this designation is making a lot of different countries that aren't Cuba scared to do business with Cuba. Even though this is just a label, in terms of international law, it doesn't mean anything. There is no label for that. But by putting this label on to Cuba,

it means that, for example, you have, there was a Swiss bank that was fined in 2024 just for processing Cuban payments. Fined by the US. There was a French bank fined for transactions relating to Cuba, Iran and Sudan, which even the French minister, said that he didn't think it was illegal.

He didn't think that it was legal. The US has been threatening so many different institutions. It's not just banks. It's telecommunications companies. You now have so many different internet companies that are refusing to kind of do any kind of business in Cuba. And therefore, you have people on the ground in Cuba who are now without oil, without...

Without internet, a lot of the time, without all of these things that we in the West would say is vital to survive. All because the US has been threatening constantly, different countries, different companies, no matter where they're based. It doesn't matter if they're a US company or not. So there was also a recent report that the Cuban government did for the UN with their vote that you mentioned at the beginning. about 187 to 2. For that resolution, they wrote a very, very long piece that went inside the document.

If anyone wants to read it, it's U of N document. A slash 80-83. It's a very, very good read, but some key points that I took out of it was that they put the blockade in terms of human cost. So two months of the blockade is worth the same. same amount of money as the fuel for the entire electricity grid for a year.

16 days of the blockade is the same monetary value as all of the essential medicine needs for the year. And then you have, it keeps going down the list, but then you get all the way to 10 minutes worth of the blockade would pay for all of the hearing aids for all children in Cuba. And I think that's something we don't think about a lot. We think, yes, it's a blockade. their economy is struggling, but we don't think about it in terms of the actual value of how much money they are stripping away from Cuba and how much Cuba is struggling and suffering because of the US's actions. And then lastly, I think the final part of your question was, why is the blockade illegal? So there are a few different treaties that come into play, but it's also a lot about

customary international law, which is not something that's in a treaty. So as you mentioned already, you've got the UN General Assembly, which keeps voting to condemn. It keeps condemning and nothing happens. You have other parts, so the Hague Convention as well, specifically the Convention concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War. So this is one of the key instruments that establish that a blockade is only legal during war time. Then, as you mentioned already, the Geneva Convention, but as well as that, you've got the UN Charter. So you have the Article 2, Part 4, prohibits the threat or use of force against territorial integrity or political independence. And then finally, the Nicaragua case,

which was the key case that established that an economic blockade constituted unlawful use of force and the economic coercion may violate Article 2, 4 of the UN Charter if it impairs political independence, which we can clearly see that it does. Absolutely. When you mentioned about international law never having been intended to work for the global self, it just reminds me that we have an episode on that exact topic that I'd like to refer the listeners to at this point. An episode on International Law with International Law Scholar, Nina Fulner.

Farnia, it came out last year, late last year, I want to say. So listeners, you can find that in the guerrilla history feed wherever you get your podcast, just type in Nina Farnia and you'll find that episode on International Law, where we made that exact point ad nauseum, because it is extremely clear if you look at the application of international law. Now, with that being said, I want to turn to a slightly different topic, and that is on anti-Cuban propaganda. And the reason I want to turn to this topic now is because while we were talking about these different restrictions that are on Cuba and different justifications for why the blockade has to be strengthened, that it's a state sponsor of terrorism, et cetera, et cetera, the existence of

anti-Cuban propaganda and the perpetuation of anti-Cuban propaganda through mass media, which, of course, it begins with the government wanting a desired outcome, the propaganda then being constructed, and then being disseminated through various channels to people, this very propaganda also provides justification for the ongoing blockade as well as any other actions that take place against Cuba. And so the question is, I know that Alessandro, I believe that this is you that wants to talk about propaganda, the question is,

how does this construction of anti-Cuban propaganda come to be, And I also will just make a small note here, listeners, the next episode of guerrilla history is actually a deep dive. It's about two and a half hours long on propaganda. It's an introduction to propaganda. It's already been recorded. We're just going to release this episode first because it's timely. We want to let you know about it before the brigade sets out. But you can look forward to that really deep dive into propaganda.

But in the Cuban context, how does that propaganda get constructed and what are the impacts of that antithes? Cuban propaganda and what are some of the various forms of propaganda that are constructed. I know I have a book actually on this exact topic on Cuban propaganda on my bookshelf in the other room. If I would have thought about it, I would have brought it out here and showed you. There's a nice photo of Fidel on the cover. But in any case, Alessandro, I'm going to turn it over to you. Can I just ask what book is that? Because I don't have that. If I remember correctly, manufacturing the enemy. And if I remember the author's name correctly, it's Keith Bolander, or something along these lines.

Believe it or not, I got both the title and the author correct. Ah, look at that. Okay, so where to start? I think one important thing to talk about here is the fact that the propaganda playbook that the US is used against Cuba is not really fundamentally different

to the propaganda playbook they've used against pretty much every anti-imperialist country in history. Perhaps one of the more relevant things to talk about when it comes to Cuba is based of what, something that Grace mentioned earlier. So she mentioned the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act. So what they did was they established a legal framework that authorized funding for programs in Cuba that were aimed at promoting democracy. That was in air quotes.

So basically what the US could then do is what they've done with the DPRK, what they've done with China, what they've done with in every single anti-imperalist country or even just non-aligned country. They have these networks. They have USAID. They have stuff like Radio Free Asia.

They've got... They create TV and radio programs and they bombard these countries with propaganda. And I think one important thing to mention here is, and this is something that I always stress

when I talk about propaganda, is a lot of the time we kind of use the same terminology but we don't necessarily agree on what propaganda actually is so I do find it quite useful to actually first discuss as to what propaganda actually is so then we can have a shared framework but basically I like to define propaganda

as any kind of speech or action really that is ideological in nature and I like this framing specifically because it allows us to include covert propaganda, overt propaganda, explicit propaganda, implicit propaganda, or even intentional and non-intentional propaganda. Because I would argue, for example, that my grandparents at the dinner table asking me when I'm going to have kids, I would argue that that is pro-capitalist propaganda.

But basically, like, in everyday conversation, we repeat notions, we repeat ideas that further entrench the status quo, the further entrench the current system. So why did I feel the need to say this? The way that U.S. propaganda operates against Cuba is both in the overt way of depicting Fidel as a tyrant, a dictator, the same way they would depict Kim Jong-gun and DPRK, the same way they depict Putin and Russia. They can do that.

Or a lot of people portrayed Che Guevada as a murderer. You know, stuff like that. But also some of the more insidious propaganda instead is, for example, a grace mentioned earlier, about using the term embargo rather than blockade. It's about using specific terminology. It's about obscuring the reality of things. So how is that done? We have these networks, you know, most of them run by the CIA, but basically run by the U.S. state, that try to infiltrate. so to speak, our common sense.

So basically they create this kind of concept of normality, which just so happens to reinforce what the US wants to reinforce. And it's done through controlling how the media apparatus in every country in the world operates, for example, or at least countries they have control in. And we've seen it play out with news coverage in the UK, news coverage in the US, in Italy, in France, in Germany, around what is actually happening in Cuba or what is happening with Maduro in Venezuela, where people will say it wasn't a kidnapping,

it was an intervention. Like, there's a use of specific language that use on a daily basis reinforces specific notions that favor the U.S. And another thing to note as well is we often misframe, if that is a word,

What the actual aim of propaganda is, is often we have this kind of notion of brainwashing. So when the U.S. sends, you know, airplanes over Cuba to fly a bunch of leaflets over saying that the revolutionary government is a dictatorship, they're not trying to convince people necessarily. When they tell us that the DPRK is run by a madman, they're not trying to convince this effect. when Maduro and first combatant Silla Flores were kidnapped we saw a swirl of propaganda but the propaganda took the form of contradicting statements

stuff like oh Dios Diozade the revolution no actually it was Delci Rodriguez but actually Desi Rodriguez was in Russia when this happened but actually no she was in Venezuela but she betrayed Venezuela because she worked with the US if we were to believe all of these different forms of propaganda, we would not have a coherent worldview. The objective is not necessarily to make us

believe specific things, but it's to cause confusion. Why would they cause confusion that specific moment there, multiple reasons, to, for example, undermine international solidarity when it comes to observers outside of a country. So when we get propaganda that tells us specific things about Cuba, when we hear the Cuba's a state sponsor of terrorism, it kind of makes a step away for a second, potentially. But then you have to also think about how the propaganda affects people within the country. And for example, specifically with the so-called cognitive warfare campaign that was waged upon Venezuela, the attempt there was to get those elements which were already closer to the US ideologically to align with them and create a power vacuum or a moment where the more

reactionary elements in Venezuela could then take over amidst the confusion. And yeah, so this brings me to two things. And I might have strayed a little from the original question, but basically, one is, what is our duty when it comes to propaganda, us people in the global north? I'll speak for the global, I won't speak for the global south because I'm not in the global south. But so our duty is, for starters, I don't necessarily know how useful it is to just counter every bit of propaganda. Because otherwise we'll end up playing an endlessly defensive game where the US comes up with a claim, we debunk it onto the next one. And we just spend our time debunking rather than actually developing ideologically, rather than actually doing material work.

I think we have a duty for starters to have more discipline, to be more diligent. When we see claims, we do not spread them if they're unverified. We actually ask ourselves, who would benefit from this being true? Is this true? Like, what is actually going on? And we... Basically, revolutionary patience. Let's put it that way.

You know, Gramsci would talk about... I don't actually know the terms in English. I've only read Gramsci in Italian, but he would talk about war of position and war of maneuver. Right now, the best thing we can do when it comes to propaganda is building a competing cultural hegemony. So we're in a phase of war position, because we do not have the power to actually contrast it in...

any material serious way at the moment because we're too fractured, as Nafriot was saying earlier, the anti-imperalist movement in the West is fractured, it's small, it's not, it's not good enough. Let's put it that way. So that is one of our duties. And the other one, which brings me to our last point, is we have to recognize one fundamental thing about propaganda, which is why it works. There's no such thing as brainwashing. You don't get otherwise, you don't get people who are otherwise against something, to believe something out of the blue. People have material incentives to believe things. You know, us in the West, we actually benefit from imperialism. We benefit it in the products we can buy in our stores, in our inflated wages compared to

the global South. So there is this implicit, so there is this implicit knowledge that were there to be a global revolution, were the US to fall, hopefully one day, were the UK to fall, where all these imperialist countries to fall, at interim, the situation would not be good for the subjects of those countries. In the short term, it would not be good. And that's just part of the process. It's, it is a process.

So it is understandable why people would believe propaganda. So how can we think that our job is to convince people otherwise using words when actually we need to show them, you know, the way the Black Panthers did, you know, the way of Satashikor did, the way the Soviets did convince them materially. We build dual power.

We actually provide those things and show them by both giving them hope, but also actually showing them the hope in action. So the Black Panthers had breakfast programs. They had a healthcare program. You are showing people that they don't have to side with the state because there is an alternative.

And you show them the alternative in action rather than just telling them, Oh, by the way, it's all a bit shit in it and then just ending there. Yeah, I hope I didn't go too far away from the original. No, that's fine. And I have just to a brief follow-up, Alessandro. We've been talking about anti-Cuban propaganda. And one of the most persistent tropes about Cuba is that it is a failed state and that the

people are desperate to flee at any opportunity. Yet when we actually look in Cuba, we see that they have universal health care. They have free education through university. they have a maternal mortality rate lower than in the United States, and that's been the case for decades. And something that, by the way, I believe I just saw, was it Pramila Gaiapal talking in Congress about that today? It's not like these are secret things. It's not like this is hidden information that you have to actually travel to Cuba 4 to find the case. We have active congressional members talking about it in Congress, about the fact that the maternal mortality rate is lower than the United States.

States. Their literacy rate has been 100% for decades, which is not something that the United States is anywhere near even today. Yet, despite all of these metrics, there is still this definite gap between the accepted propaganda and the reality of the situation. So the question is, and you've already answered this in a more theoretical way, but I'm asking it in a more concrete way. Why is it that Western media refuses to cover the achievements of Cuba, things in the field of biotechnology, for example, where they were developing their own COVID vaccines? They developed their own cancer vaccine in the face of a blockade in which they couldn't get many of the critical resources, including syringes that they needed for the creation

and administration of these groundbreaking biotechnological advancements. that they were making. Why is it that even when these things come out, the Western media refuses to cover them? So I think this is specifically a Cuba thing, as in, like, we've seen Western media be somewhat, you know, ambiguous about China, for example, and China's achievements,

but you do actually hear about what's happening. And that's met with, you know, oh, China's doing it because it's not really socialist. But the specific special quality that Cuba has, is, I mean, it's not necessarily, I was going to say that it's an uncompromising socialist country, but that's not even true. That's not even true, because Cuba's been very, very pragmatic, very dialectical in its history, trying to, you know, react to the different stages of its economic development,

different stages of, you know, being, exporting all that sugar to the USSR, then the USSR gradually reducing its export of oil and then this, this, removing it completely. But I think like the first thing it comes to mind is they cannot admit all the ways that Cuba

is thriving because if you think what's the most socialist country right now that you can think of the first one that comes off your head. It is Cuba. Cuba has for a number of reasons

entered like the collective like a public imaginary as the socialist country like the dream, the hope of so many socialists around the world. And I guess for us in the West as well, if you think about all the other actually existing socialist countries at the moment, which one is the most intelligible, as in which one is the closest one to Europeans, this maybe speaks the same language or speaks similar enough languages or has the same alphabet? it. I think that's a part of it as well. I think specifically due to Cuba's position in the world, both geographically and specifically because it's achieving so much, the moment you admit

the Cuba has this much success, despite everything, you're implicitly saying that if we stop depressing them, they would probably inspire the rest of the world to get rid of us. I think that's a part of it. And just to answer the specifically the thing of, you know, people leaving Cuba, the bit of propaganda that says that people desperately want to leave Cuba. So specifically when it comes to that, I think the basis of the accusation that a lot of people want to leave stems from the special period in Cuba, you know, the period when the USSR fell and conditions in Cuba got really, really dire. What did the Cuban government do then? Did they actually restrict their population from leaving, like propaganda says, or did they sign, did they negotiate a migration agreement with the U.S.?

That allowed Cuban safe passage to go to the U.S.? Now, here's the interesting thing. What happened after Cuba signed this migration agreement that gave legal pathway to Cuban citizens to go to the U.S.? The US refused to accept so many of the people who tried to leave, so then they could claim that Cuba wouldn't let them leave. And it's so insidious because it's all constructed right from the beginning. They will create the conditions for the propaganda, and then they'll enact it. And it's infuriating, because as you say, like, it's not, no one's hiding this.

Like, we all know, it's all there to see. Like, you can find this information on Wikipedia. You can find this information in all Western sources. But what I think is happening here is kind of always spring it back to Mark Fisher when it comes to how people believe in act in the UK specifically. But it's just, I think it's abject nihilism to some extent. Like the embargo, the blockade has been going on for so long that if I told you, oh yeah, it's getting lifted tomorrow,

even if it actually were, you wouldn't believe me. Like it's just kind of accepted. And I think that just kind of makes people just let it happen. And it was only recently that, you know, with the latest escalations, when we're seeing conditions that, you know, remind us of the special period, I think with the ubiquity of social media, with the fact that it cannot be hidden in any way, I think also amidst the whole, you know, Trump doing what he did in Venezuela, in Iran, every on the world, amidst the general. amidst the genocide in Palestine. I think that's why specifically now, Cuba is also in the limelight, so to speak, again. Otherwise, it's slow attrition.

Now, I want to make sure that we get Alfie into this conversation. Alfie, I believe you're the representative that's going to be talking with us about African liberation today. Am I correct? Yeah, that's right. I have a few things to say about Cuba's involvement in Africa. Great. That's exactly where I want to turn to now. We've talked about Cuba's role in Africa. I mean, we've had like 360 episodes of the show. So basically everything that we've talked about in this conversation, I can point at conversations that have been connected with it at some point in the past. But it's a topic that I'm extremely interested in. And I have a guest planned to talk about this specifically in depth for our African revolutions and decolonization series. But, I'm also really excited to talk about it today.

So just in brief introduction to tee you up for what you want to talk about, Alfie, Cuba has such a rich history of involvement with international solidarity with Africa and African liberation, everything from sending over 300,000 troops to Angola between 1975 to 1991, fighting alongside the MPLA against apartheid South Africa, to sending doctors. teachers, military advisors to Algeria, Congo Brazzafil, Guinea-Bissau, Ethiopia, etc., etc. Che Guevara being involved with Patris La Mumba and his supporters in the Congo. Why? This is the question now that I've gotten some of my favorite things to mention out of the way, which feel free to pick up any of those threads as you wish.

But the main question that I would like to push towards now is, why did Cuba? A small, blockaded island commits so much to African revolution. And what did Fidel mean when he said, the destiny of Africa is also the destiny of Cuba? Yeah, that's a really important topic to touch on. And I just wanted to go through a little bit of the history first, before I talk about maybe the reasons why and some of the impacts of it, just to kind of sketch out some context.

I think you did a good job of summarizing it. I just wanted to highlight a few more things. So especially talking about Angola, which, as you mentioned, was the main side of Cuban intervention in national liberation struggles of the 20th century. So after Angola won independence from Portugal in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, the MPLA, which is the movement for the liberation of Angola,

had by this time, that's 1975, liberated much of the country from Portuguese rule. The NPRLA were a Marxist-Leninist organization, which started fighting against the Portuguese all the way back in 1961. So this has sort of been a very protracted history, protracted war, if you will, by the National Liberation Movement there. And just as an extra thing, there is a great film about this called Sam Basinga by Sarah Maldor, which is about the kind of prelude to the beginning of the struggle by the NPL in 1960, 1960. which I'd really recommend watching. So upon independence in 1975, the Civil War broke out during the NPL and other factions, which emerged in this newly independent Angola,

the main faction being the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, which was really a kind of CIA front and a South African proxy as it became during the Civil War, and the NPRA became Soviet-aligned, and obviously Cuban-aligned, as I'll talk about in a minute. The Cuban intervention in Angola was crucial for the NPRLA to eventually win this war, and Cuban troops directly participated in the fighting. They didn't only provide supplies or provide military advisors that they entered into the war as a full participant. And this is important to highlight because I think we often think of the model of Soviet intervention and Soviet in the Cold War, where it wasn't necessarily a forethroated contribution to every single nation that it assisted in the Cold War, where it wasn't necessarily a forethroated contribution to every single nation that it assisted in the Cold War,

their national liberation struggles, but with Cuba, this was certainly probably a kind of more intense engagement with Angola. And Castro named this Operation Black Carlotta after the leader of a historic slave rebellion in Cuba. So I think this already is getting to your question about how Cubans themselves understood this intervention by linking the history of slavery in Africa and in the Caribbean with the kind of continuation of slave rebellions, which I think in the framing had continued in the Cuban Revolution and then continued in these operations as well. I want to touch on that again in a minute. But by the end of 1976, 35,000 Cuban soldiers were in Angola, and all of these soldiers had volunteered to go on this mission. And there was an oversubscription

within the Cuban army of soldiers who wanted to volunteer for this mission. And over 700 of them were killed in combat over the course of the war. This really shows how the kind of ideals of revolutionary solidarity had permeated Cuban society and indeed the army by that time. And our ordinary Cubans felt that they were ready to go and fight for this cause, all of their own volition, not sort of because they had to, because the government was selling them to. The first waves of Cuban troops were inserted into Angola with limited Soviet assistance,

and Cuban and MPLA forces jointly defended the capital Luanda from a state. South African offensive. Cuban support in the first phase of the war directly defeated the South African offensive. And South Africa was so heavily defeated that it was forced to entirely withdraw from Angola by 1976. Now, this shows the incredible bravery of Cuba to take on this fight almost on their own, but it also shows the value in a broad socialist alliance of which Cuba was a part of at the time with the Soviet Union and other socialist and communist states in the world.

that Cuba was maybe being more decisive and operating within different parameters than the Soviet Union was able to at the time. Cuba really led the communist bloc policy on Angola and always kind of stepped first before the Soviets, and the Soviets often followed the Cuban policy in Angola. It wasn't always the case, but I think at the start, that was quite decisive. And Cubans, Cuba's intervention is acknowledged as one of the main factors in the beginning of the end of apartheid South Africa. immediately after the defeat in Luanda, there was the Switu uprisings in South Africa in 1976, which were linked very consciously to Angola

and the struggle of various other national liberation movements in Southern Africa. In Cuba's interventionally, the groundwork for the renewal of revolutionary forces across Southern Africa, Angolan territory hosted the basis of national liberation movement from Namibia, Zimbabwe, and also the ANC from South Africa. and Cuba began training Swapo troops, which was the National Liberation Movement of Namibia, in Angolan Territory. Now, there was a second phase, which I'll briefly talk about, of the Cuban intervention, which came in the late 80s. And the Civil War in Angola had been going on all this time since 1975. And this was a renewed apartheid, South African offensive against the Angolan state.

South Africa was trying to turn the tide of the Civil War and to wipe out the basis of the Namibian guerrillas in the south of Angola. The MPLA requested Cuban intervention, which was quickly granted because the Soviet response was too slow, and Cuba surged its troop numbers in Angola

all the way to 55,000 at one time. And there might not sound like a lot, maybe in Soviet terms, but if you think about the population of Cuba, which I think the state around 10 million. 55,000 is really an enormous number. I think that's the total troops that Britain has in its army right now. So for such a small country, that was really a significant engagement in this war. And Cuba managed to hold a line against the African attacks

and eventually repelled the offensive. And this engagement in the southeast corner of Angola was the largest battle in Africa since the Second World War. And so Cuba really had helped the NPL defeat a kind of full onslaught of the South African army. And this was also crucial in the liberation of Namibia and the later collapse of Ata South Africa. The Namibian guerrillas fought alongside Cuba and the MPLA

in these battles, and they later advanced into Namibian territory with Cuban air support. The South Africans even sued for peace and negotiations because they were afraid of a full Cuban offense into Namibia, and they entered into these negotiations, which then led to the independence of Namibia in 19, So this sort of Cuban intervention went beyond Angola itself. And then there were further examples of Cuban material solidarity with national liberation

struggles around the world at the time, especially in Palestine. Cuba hosted PLO training camps in Cuba itself. They sent a tank brigade to Syria to defend against the Israeli invasion to Golan Heights in 1973, engaging in direct combat with Israeli forces there. and Cuba maintains non-recognition of Israel up to now. We hear a lot about states breaking ties, expelling ambassadors, but Cuba doesn't even recognize Israel at all. So when we talk about the kind of thresholds and the kind of bars,

the moral bars that we've set up for states now, Cuba is a really good example of the kind of maximum that we should be expecting states to do in relation to Palestine. So I want to come to the main part of your question, is why Cuba was doing all of this, kind of sacrificing its own people, 700 soldiers, as I mentioned. The Cuban Revolutionary Interventionism was part of its strategy to safeguard their own revolution and to support other revolutions as part of a global struggle against imperialism. And Cuba really put these ideas into practice and proved itself to be a revolutionary state

that was willing to engage in revolutionary action beyond its own borders, because it saw the Cuban Revolution not only is a national phenomenon, but it's part of a global struggle against imperialism and against racism. Now, Cuba understood these actions as fighting for black liberation against white supremacy that was tied up in the West. Fidel often evoked Cuba's history of slavery and its large black and mixed population as a link between the Cuban Revolution and the Starbursts in Africa, consciously understood as a continuation of slave rebellions against plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries, as I mentioned earlier. So ultimately what this history shows us is that the positive history that we talk about now in regard to the end of colonialism and empire should not be taken for granted as the inevitable march of history, but that is something that required conscious, intense, revolutionary action and sacrifice from others acting in solidarity to make these victories possible.

This is not rhetorical support, but real material action in a form of a revolutionary army that had to move physically across the ocean to create their history that we now look back on us. fact. Cuba is sometimes prevented as well, like it was a proxy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But Cuba influenced the whole socialist alliance policy. In this case, we talked about Cuba's own reasons for solidarity with black liberation struggles, because of its own black population and involvement in black liberation and its understanding of the Cuban Revolution as a kind step towards global black liberation. Cuba is now facing a peerless attack and aggression and is suffering internally on unprecedented scale. Cuba gave a lot for the struggles of others,

and it's a shame that the world, with the exception of Russia and China, cannot reciprocate this so much now in their hour of need. Cuba didn't do all of these things because they wanted something in return. It wasn't a transactional thing. It was based on this ideological principle and a kind of geopolitical calculation, which saw the Cuban Revolution tied up with other global revolutions. But I think in the spirit of the brigade,

what we can do is learn from the ideology and the spirit that drove those actions, which indeed still lives on in Cuba today, and try to act in accordance with that kind of spirit. So we believe that taking some actions in solidarity with Cuba, such as this brigade is acting as a small initiative kind of in the same spirit of revolutionary solidarity that Cuba showed to the world all those years ago. It's really well put, but I also think that it's worth mentioning that Cuban's international solidarity, anti-imperialist solidarity, is not something that's confined only to history, but also continues today in many cases. So I mentioned earlier the medical brigades in the

hundreds of thousands of trained medical professionals being sent from Cuba around the world to places that are lacking in qualified medical professionals. And I'm thinking specifically about in recent history the Ebola crisis in West Africa and also in the COVID pandemic. I bring up Ebola first because as long, long, long time listeners of the show will know, before I left from the track of academia and entered education as a field, I was an Ebola specialist. So I, yeah, always bring up Ebola first whenever it's on a list of things. Cuba did send a huge number of medical professionals to West Africa. They were the first country, as far as I remember, to send medical professionals when the Ebola outbreak in

West Africa was taking place and only were then joined after by European specialists and specialists from the United States, World Health Organization, organized specialists coming in thereafter as well. But Cuba swooped in right away with their medical brigades that were already organized. They didn't ask for anything in return. And in fact, they were denigrated by the Western media for being amongst the first to go into these areas. You may have seen various news reports saying that the medical brigades are quote unquote forced labor, where the Cuban government forces medical professionals to go and do civic duty to the world. Now, on its face, this sounds ridiculous.

But those narratives came out even when the Ebola outbreak was happening. Look at what Cuba is doing. They're forcing their people to work with this deadly virus. It kills between 50 and 80% of the people that get it. And Cuba is forcing their medical doctors to go and work in these areas. But of course, you know, a few weeks later, when the United States sends its doctors, it's not sending them at gunpoint or whatever. That's, you know, a difference.

situation entirely. And during the COVID pandemic, the exact same thing happened. Cuba stepped up immediately when the pandemic began to break out and offered to send medical brigades around the world. And believe it or not, the United States criticized them and threatened might be a little bit strong, but the United States encouraged various countries to not accept medical brigades from Cuba to assist with their public health response to the COVID pandemic in those very early stages. But nevertheless, Cuba did send hundreds and thousands of medical professionals around the world at the same time that, again, a blockade was in place. They were prevented from getting syringes.

There was a specific blockade for syringes from the United States during the early phases of a pandemic. Think about the insanity of that situation where you have a pandemic, they're developing their own vaccine on the island, people are going to be needing injections, whether it's vaccine or whether it's some other treatments, and they are being prevented from getting syringes onto the island. And despite this situation, they are still sending their medical professionals to other places that don't have the public health capacity within them. So while it is absolutely true that Cuba has a very storied history of internationalist solidarity. I think that it's also extremely important that we focus on the fact that today Cuba still continues its internationalist solidarity with places around the world. And as you mentioned, Alfie, unfortunately, in a time where Cuba could use a little bit of international solidarity in return, not that they were doing it to have this be returned to them, but in the name of solidarity, it would be nice for them to get something back for all that they

have given and only China and Russia are stepping up to the plate as of now and really providing any sort of aid to them, which is something that we talked about on a recent episode as well, with the Farnias. Navid and Nina Farnia were on the show recently and we talked about this point in passing, although we mostly talked about Iran in that episode, but check out that episode, listeners. It was a really fun one. I do want to turn, though, to the closing question. And I believe that I'll turn this to Nupri to begin with, but then as it's the closing question,

anything that anybody wants to add on it, feel free. We're turning our focus from the situation with the blockade, the history, the history of Cuban solidarity, anti-Cuban propaganda, to what is happening now. So some questions that might help concretize this in the minds of the listeners a little bit. What does the brigade do? What is the Asada Brigade, Asada Shakur Brigade doing? How long are you going to be in Cuba? Where will you go?

What will you see? Who will you meet? What do you want? You mentioned that you were going to be bringing something back intellectually from this trip. What are you hoping to be able to bring back? from this trip. How is this pot? I know I'm asking a lot of questions.

The point is that I'm sure that the listeners really want to know about what the overall situation regarding the brigade is. The blockade is very tight. How is the brigade going to be dealing with the fact that there is a really tight blockade on Cuba? What are the situations, what are the conditions going to be like when you're there for your brigade members? And most importantly.

once we understand all of these aspects that are connected with the brigade itself, what can our listeners do to help support the brigade in its mission? Okay. I think through going through some of the questions you asked. Sorry to give you like 20 things at once, but, you know, feel free to take any that you want. I was going to say I have so many more things to say as well. So I'm going to try and weave them together because I think from what everyone else has mentioned, I just get so excited to talk about Cuba.

So I had so many other things that people were making me think of. But I think they closely and very neatly work with the questions because the reason we're doing this brigade is because of what everybody has said, either positively or negatively. And so I think to begin with to set this scene of the current moment. So two days ago was the anniversary of 65th anniversary. of the US failed invasion of Cuba with the Bay of Pigs. And this, for anyone who doesn't know, you should know,

it's one of the most glorious passages in the history against imperialism. As Fidel said, it was at the first defeat of imperialism in Latin America. It's when the US tried to invade Cuba, with all their military might, they lost up to 66 hours against the Cuban Revolutionary forces. And I think over the weekend at the anniversary of it, the president, Diaz Canal said something very beautiful about, like, the Bay of Pigs invasion is as important to Cuban history as the revolution itself, because it showed that Cuba can prevail and succeed against this monstrous empire, which is, you know, based 60 miles away. that's the closest point between Cuba and the United States of Florida, which is, I think, also really important, if people don't know their geography,

to recognize this is why Cuba is under particular, like, attack by the US. So I think we're in that situation where it's the 65th anniversary, the victory of Giron, as they call it, in Cuba. But also, this is potentially one of the most, you know, you know, moments of, like, overt threat by the US against Cuba since around then, really, by Trump saying that, you know, they lost in Iran and now they're ready to go and attack Cuba. And so there are, there's a lot of fear in Cuba, of course, itself. Some of my comrades there were saying, you know, when, when you come, you might be fighting

alongside Cubans against imperialism. And so I think there's like a, there is definitely a fear of invasion. in Cuba itself, but they're not scared and they're ready to fight. Millions of people will fight as they have before. And so I think this is the current situation we're in. But on the other side, like people mentioned, that Cuba has received so much solidarity right now. You know, China has sent 60,000 tons of rice in the past few months.

They've been able to, they've helped Cuba achieve 20% solar production, which is like tripled in one year and the Russian oil which was delivered a couple weeks ago has been refined so there's 730,000 barrels of oil which are now being used to power Cuban society and there's been

some other declarations also over the weekend by Spain, Brazil, Mexico whether that it becomes more concrete action I think is yet to be seen but I think this is there so we're kind of at like a critical moment where the US threats are escalating. Like you mentioned, the brigade is incredibly,

the blockade is incredibly tightened. But there is also countries and people, importantly, coming to the support of Cuba. So this is our inaugural brigade, and we're going for the international delegation that goes for May Day. So we'll be going for two weeks. And it's a program that is going to be,

it's coordinated by ECAP, is that the Friendship Institute in Cuba, and it will be with lots of other delegations from across the world. So it's internationalist at its core, and a big part of this is to bring together revolutionaries, people coming to the defense of the revolution together as well. And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways is where else in the world can you go somewhere and meet with people who are in struggle in other countries with such similar conditions as you, because particularly it's people in the imperial core, and when can you ever otherwise have these conversations? And so this is the beauty again of Cuba that it continues to provide for the world.

It continues to strengthen our movements every single year when these brigades meet. People make connections that then blossom into further strengthening for organizing, further strengthening for the network for the kind of global anti-imperial struggle. So like you mentioned, the medical missions are continuing across the world, but also the fact that Cuba is hosting these brigades itself is another major impact. One other thing I want to mention about, you know, who will be meeting? We're going to meet some of the Palestinian students who are at the School of Medicine in Cuba. and this is one of the most incredible instances of Cuba's solidarity across the world.

And I think, again, it's kind of what you were mentioning before. Why don't people know about this? Why don't people know that it's not just like what Alfa was mentioning before. Like, oh, it's great. This one country maybe made a statement against Israel. Now, Cuba not only has no recognition of the Zionist entity, but not only that since the 80s, it has been providing scholarships for Palestinian students,

particularly from Gaza, to come and learn for free in Cuba, learn medicine to then go back and serve the people. And this has been continuing and despite the blockade, there are, every single year they still hand out scholarship. So we're going to go and meet with some of these students there as one way of combating the propaganda that is installed in all of us, both because we don't we have to learn about the existence of this rather than you know the other ways that we would learn about some other random European country doing some kind of liberal activities so one of the things we'll be doing is yeah meeting some Palestinian students who are studying medicine will be visiting hospitals schools different medical centers both to physically hand over donations we've been packing suitcases all of this week full of medical supplies, school supplies. You know, this has also been a process of like realizing the blockade from people who haven't been before packing a suitcase with like painkillers and syringes and needles and the things that we take for granted milk powder.

So many of the basic essentials for life that you can't imagine people are going without. That is the reality of the blockade. And so for us to pack suitcases that we're then going to go to Cuba and give to people who will be incredibly grateful to receive, you know, things that are fairly inexpensive, incredibly accessible to all of us. I think already this is a process of what people learn when they go to Cuba, is they see what a blockade is, and they see the other side is when you go there, you see why it's under blockade. So that's one of the things we'll do is meeting people.

Well, also in the hospitals, you know, because of the medical missions and, you know, you know, Cuba, another achievement is that they have the world's most doctors per capita. The most blockaded country in the world also has the most doctors for its citizens. It's incredible, but when you talk to these doctors, they will also tell you all of the countries around the world they've served. Not only your people, they have enough for, but they also have enough doctors to go to all these countries. I remember the times I've been, the doctors, again, this is why it's so, I think the propaganda against the Cuban doctor missions is actually the most hilarious to me because the US, a settler colony founded on genocide and slavery, wants to tell Cuban doctors that they are slaves for going to support

anti-colonial, anti-imperial struggles. It's so unbelievable that, but that's the U.S. propaganda machine, of course. You meet these, you meet doctors who are so proud about the different places they've served in. And, like proud to tell you that they just got back from Bolivia. They had been to Angola. They had been to all these places across the world. And the only comparison you can make of something like that is thinking, oh, in the US, you might have like some soldier you have to meet who's somewhere else.

And he's like, oh, I've served in like Iraq. I've served in Afghanistan. I've served in Vietnam or something. You're like, you see the polls, I think, of society when it comes to Cuba and the US. So that's a big part is, you know, we'll be visiting places and meeting with the people that are doing this material solidarity across the world as well. And I think that's a big, important element of what we'll be doing there. But, yeah, another major part is we're going to volunteer our labour. And so we're going to be conducting, you know, like productive work wherever it's basically needed in a similar tradition to what the Vens

Ramas Brigade did to go and help the harvest. We'll be helping cooperatives. We'll be volunteering at the schools, whatever we can do. And I think a big element is how can we go and contribute something. So it would be like meeting with people and then volunteering our labor. And also getting the basic knowledge about Cuba and keeping history and learning about, yeah, they developed five vaccines under blockade and they also developed vaccines that didn't require refrigeration because of the blockade, but also that meant that they could export them across the world to other countries that didn't, don't have access to refrigeration, former colonies. And so it's these kind of connections you make in your head that not only unveils the reality of the

blockade in Cuba to you, but unveils the world to you. So that's one side of it. In terms of the the blockade and going to Cuba. We have a very different relationship with Cuba in Britain than people do in the US. For context in the US, it's, you know, it's difficult to travel to Cuba. It's made to be difficult to travel to Cuba because you have to have a very specific, like, license to go. And so there's a license called support the Cuban people. And so you can do that, but under conditions that you don't give any money to the Cuban state. And so that's why they, you know, you have to stay in particular hotel. which is what the flotilla and convoy to Cuba recently did, and you have to stay in luxury hotels,

which then when you go back, all the right media can say that you were living lavishly, but, you know, you're actually just following, like, sanctions laws. But also, so the blockade stops people in the US going to Cuba, and again, kind of what you were saying before about the propaganda, it's so that Americans can't see that Cuba is actually totally aligned with their classic. interest and they can have healthcare and 90 miles away, but they can't in the country they're in. And they can die from not having insulin and they can die from, you know, going bankrupt and becoming homeless because they didn't have access to health care. Whereas Cuba, they can't

learn about the reality of that because otherwise it would totally unravel all the lies that the United States is based on. But for us, recently, Britain changed the travel kind of advice that they give to everybody about every country across the world. And they have said now that Cuba is someone not to travel to unless necessary. And so while this doesn't have any implications directly on us going, it has implications on travel insurance and makes it slightly more difficult. But luckily, we aren't in the same situation as they are in the US where you go back and you're interrogated, you're intimidated. They'll ask you certain questions. If you slip up on the questions, then you will be detained and your devices will be seized.

But it is more about the conditions that will face in Cuba. There are blackouts. There's limited food. And also seeing a place that, you know, we all uphold it with such a place that's hoped for humanity. Seeing it, seeing the poverty that, of course, exists because of the blockade, how can it not? I think is something that we've all prepared. We've spent weeks kind of having political... education about Cuba preparing ourselves for the reality of going to somewhere that's under blockade.

And I think, to be honest, that will be a big hurdle for a lot of people to go through, but also I think it is necessary for us to actually recognize what the blockades reality is on daily life. And this is what Cubans not only have, you know, dealt with every single day, but dealt with it and then continue to maintain the revolution. And so when we see that the rallies and hundreds of thousands of people, it really, it shows you how much hope we have for Cuba. But I think a big part of what we'll be bringing back is,

I've never been to a place in the world apart from Cuba where there's no advertising on the streets. You walk around and there's no laws against loitering. People are in the streets because this is their homeland, this is a place that's theirs. It's not run by, companies, it's not owned by different private enterprises. I think for many of us, that would be a

really life unraveling opportunity. And I think for us, have been educated in capitalist, imperialist societies, actually go into a place that opposes these materially. And as is the antithesis to the United States, is something that changes your worldview, fundamentally transforms you as a person, not to overdo that. But I think it is the case when you, once you go to Cuba. And so that's, I think, a big thing we want to bring back is how the revolution can survive and sustain itself despite the blockade and the war against it. And I think another big thing is going to Cuba, you can tell people in your life that you're in Cuba and you can do the liberal lived experience thing as well, which I think is actually quite useful. And

obviously is also used as a tool of propaganda by, you know, all the different. Gassanos and Cuban exiles who tried to talk about how they left because right now they'd be like billionaires but unfortunately that land is now producing you know life-saving medicine for Cuban people so that's one other thing we'll bring back but in general I think this is the ways that you know people can help what our brigade is I think is threefold one is you can join us on a further brigade and you can also join a brigade in general, I think based on where you are. I think going to Cuba, if already what everyone said, hasn't sold you enough. I think it is one of the most important things you can do, both to learn about all the lies that

your entire life has been based on, but also to bring hard currency to the island and that is something that is incredibly important to do is that Cuba has been forced to rely on tourism and the past few months has really, really damaged it. Since the pandemic, tourism has been on the decline, and now with the US threats, it's even worse. So if you want to join our brigade, for the next time we do it, you can go to Asartashikorbrigade.org,

or you can have a look at all of the other brigades that exist across the world. The national network on Cuba have a really great website, and they list a lot of the brigades that exist. You can go with the National Network of Cuba. You can go with the Vent Ceramos Brigade. In Canada, there's a Che Guevara Brigade. There's a lot of brigades that you can go with.

You can also just go as a tourist and go to a beautiful Caribbean island and go to a resort. And that is actually also very useful. But the other two ways you can contribute. One is, you know, like we mentioned, a big part of the brigade is bringing material aid to break the blockade. It's taking things that Cubans can't import. They can't trade with, of course, the United States, but they can't trade like they were mentioning before with countries across the world because the US imposes secondary sanctions, because they're cut off from international financial systems. A large part of that is due to the designation of the state sponsor of terrorism list. So you can donate and support our work, which is to purchase material aid and take it to Cuba itself.

We have a fundraiser, which is also linked on our website, but you can also donate at, it's fundraiser, but it's F-U-N-D-R-A-Z-R-A-R-A-S-R-C-R-C-R-LATES. And now you can share our fundraiser, you can donate to it, and this, every penny goes to us buying aid that we will take to Cuba itself, everyone in the brigade, self-funds to carry the as well. So it's, you know, this is our way of exciting solidarity. So if you can donate to fund getting this, you know, urgent aid, that would be, of course, incredible as well. And I think the third way that you can support the brigade is actually through organizing against imperialism, wherever you are, whether that's combating propaganda against Cuba or against Venezuela, China, North Korea, like anywhere across the world that is under the boot of the United States. Organising against that is also how you can ultimately help Cuba.

We can't, that end of the blockade will come when the US Empire falls. And to do that, we all have to do our bit to organize it. And one of my favorite quotes from Fidel is that the world is big and the imperialists are everywhere. And so for the Cuban revolutionaries, the field of the battle against imperialism takes on the whole world. So there's a role for every single person in supporting Cuba and defending Cuba. And so if you can't do the other two things and you also should do the other two things, then supporting struggles against imperialism, supporting actually existing socialist countries, is a way of defending Cuban sovereignty and the Cuban Revolution too.

Absolutely. And of course, we will have all of those things that you had mentioned in the show notes below, linked so listeners, you can just scroll down and click on each of those links. Final notes from anybody else who wants to add in on this final point before we close for today. The floor is yours. Maybe I just wanted to add, just going off of what Nafprecha said, how important it is to focus on our political education, as in we need to be consistent, we need to be principled, anti-imperialists, We cannot support Cuba, but then not support Iran.

We cannot support Venezuela, but then not support China. We need to understand what the principal contradiction is, imperialism. We need to understand what forces are at play. So basically, I think where possible education should be a huge focus. As we have seen, all revolutions and the Chinese revolution, the Cuban revolution, I think it's something that us in the West tend to gloss over. to put it gently. All right.

If no final notes from the others, I'll just turn it over to those of you who want. So I know two of you are on social media. And so I can turn it to you to let you tell the listeners where they can follow you. Grace, I'll start with you. It was a pleasure meeting you for the first time for this recording today. Can you tell the listeners how they can keep up to date with what you're doing? Yeah, thank you so much for having us on as well. If you want to find me, my Instagram is at Grace Bolshevik.

I post a lot about international law on there. I can see Henry likes the name. But yeah, you can find me on there. Yeah, I mean, the listeners of the show know that I would appreciate a name like that. I mean, the cup I was drinking out of during this session is an old Soviet Union cup. So very much my style. Alessandro, you also are on social media. Can you let the listeners know where they can follow you?

Yeah, I mean, my social media handle isn't nearly as interesting in graces. So it's Ale underscore Zankan, so A-L-E-U-N-C-A-N. I don't post that often currently. But, yeah, if you follow me, you'll just see like work I do with Fiskra Books. you'll see work I do in the tech sphere and few articles and writings are going to pop up sooner or later. And not to interrupt you, Alessandro,

for your own bio, but you are a lovely musician and you have a single out that everybody should listen to. I'm going to embarrass you by having you tell the listeners where they should find that because really they would be remiss to not hear it.

It's a terrific song. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I wasn't expecting that. We've been friends for a long time, Ali. You should expect it. I should, I should. Yeah, it's a single I released quite a while,

a year ago or something now, called Mindlessness. The name of the band is very catchy. It's Anasandr, Zangana, kind of the dialectical band, in case you were wondering where my allegiances lie. But, yeah, no, so I do music as well. and at some point I'll be posting more music stuff. It's just the political work never stops. Never find the time.

Yes, as I was mentioning in the chat, I also write songs on the side, but those are only for me because the quality of work that I do is nothing remotely close to what Alessandro can do. So do check out his single. I'm not just saying it because I am friends with him, but it really is a terrific song. I was amazed when I heard it for the first.

time. So kudos to you and I will link it in the show notes whether you like it or not. People need to hear it. Appreciate it. Sure. Newfrit, you're not on social media yourself but you can let the listeners know where they can find the brigade on social media. So I'll turn it to you and say that it was nice to meet you as well for the first time today. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for having us on. It's been lovely to meet you. Yeah. So if you want to have any updates on the brigade when we when we're there, when we come back, you can find us at the Asata-Shakur Brigade. So that's Asata-Shakur-Brigade, not with the that I added, on most platforms, and we'll be updating on everything we do there.

And so you can also get in touch with us there as well if you're interested in anything that we mentioned. But yeah, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Yes, drop all articles. And it'll be just like the Russian language. Not that my Russian is great, but I do like. that I don't have to worry about articles with that. I just have six cases to deal with, which is a problem. Elfie, you're not on social media, but I do want to thank you also for

coming on the show and say that it was a pleasure to meet you today. I hope that you enjoyed coming on. Thank you. It's really nice to talk to you about this important topic. Yeah, absolutely. So, listeners, then I'm just, I can tell you that you can find me on social media at Huck1995 on Twitter, but as you've probably gotten tired of hearing, I haven't been online for over a year because sanctions make everything difficult to impossible, somewhere on that spectrum. But if you want, you can follow me. More importantly, you can help support guerrilla history by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history.

That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. But, you know, today, instead of supporting guerrilla history on Patreon, do support the Asada Shakur brigade if you do have disposable income that's burning a hole in your your wallet. A problem that some of us may envy, but that just means that you can do more to help these important initiatives. So with that being said, Len listeners, and until next time, solidarity.