Changing The World With Margaret Randall In Salem

Margaret Randall was in town this evening to read from her new book, sell copies and engage people in critical thinking about Cuba and her work. Randall has written many books. "Change the World: My Years in Cuba" may be her best effort yet. You can read a review of it here.

Randall did a long reading from her book and talked about her life in Cuba. She pointed out in her reading and in the discussion which followed both what works well in Cuba and what has blemished the Revolution. She states her views frankly and speaks from experience.

As a writer and cultural worker Randall has a great grasp on what literacy means and what forms it can take. She devoted much time to talking about the literary and cultural achievements of the Cuban Revolution and her roles in carrying some of these achievements forward when she lived in Cuba. As a feminist and as a theoretician she could also speak knowledgeably about the steps taken forward and backward in Cuba. She ably cited how debates were carried forward in her neighborhood, how schools either hit the mark or missed the mark in educating and transforming the young, how beauty contests were politicized while she was in Cuba and how they maintained their essentially oppressive features and how race and racism were confronted and partially transformed. She also spoke about the repressive measures put in place in Cuba in the 1970s and how these were confronted and overcome.

Randall's talk--and, I imagine, her book--concerned the ethics of revolution and revolutionary change. She is examining power relations and the promises, fulfilled and unfulfilled, which arise in revolutions. These are not new questions, but Randall's experiences and work over the years in Latin America give her a special perspective and one which needs to be heard and debated. In her reading she left many political questions unanswered, allowing us to look at them as questions of ethics, politics and revolution and allowing us to appreciate the ambiguity present in a decisive historic moment.

The questions this evening were particularly good. Randall had the opportunity to talk about her struggle in the 1980s to regain her US citizenship, the use of culture and literacy in Cuba and the current situation in Latin America.

I think that Randall missed her own mark in being too critical of the old left and in rejecting following a "party line" as a way forward. At least some of the young people present were looking for a path and Randall could have urged revolutionary regroupment, visiting Cuba, defending the Cuban 5 and build a revolutionary party as necessary steps forward. Still, her great and inspiring work speaks for itself and she is right in reminding us that the historic "ends-versus-means" formulation doesn't work.