More courageous than the mealy-mouthed pros at the American Library Association, the Cuban Cultural Center in New York City has "adopted" an independent library in oppressed Cuba.
They chose one in Las Tunas, Cuba, the Felix Varela Independent Library, which is named for a Cuban priest famous for his work for immigrants and the Roman Catholic church in Lower Manhattan in the 1800's. The library itself, like some 100 others that have been founded since 1998, offers Cubans an alternative to the official media or state-run libraries. They carry newspapers and magazines from around the world or books considered taboo by the regime - like "Animal Farm" by George Orwell."I know firsthand what it is not having something interesting to read," said the jazz saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, who left Cuba in 1980 and who voted to adopt the library. "I know what it is like to have to hide to read something that the government calls subversive."
Almost two years ago, about 11 independent librarians in Cuba were among 75 dissidents, journalists and others arrested and given prison sentences of up to 28 years for essentially collaborating with enemies of the state. Most are still in jail, despite an international outcry.
Although New York is home to magnificent libraries, world-class publishers and fierce champions of free expression, the cultural center is the only group in the city so far to adopt an independent library. They hope their action will send a dual message.
"It's not just about sending whatever books we can, but we want the people in Cuba to know they are not alone and that someone here recognizes what they are going through," said Rafael Pi Roman, an anchor on Channel 13 who belongs to the cultural group. "The dilemma is, we are doing this in a city where people have too often seen Fidel Castro as a romantic figure."
Some members of the cultural group think that as more people in traditionally liberal circles begin to see what is happening in Cuba's dissident movement, they will realize that the idea of opposition to Mr. Castro goes far beyond old stereotypes of right-wing tropical exiles screaming for the cameras. The group itself is nonpartisan, and its members range from liberal to conservative.
"I have no idea what the politics are of anybody is in this room," Mr. Pi Roman said. "But none of us would say there should be human rights for Cuba but not for those people who are on the other side. None of us would have supported apartheid. One thing is sure: There is no hypocrisy. If you are for human rights for some, you have to be for human rights for all."
This follows a recent decision by a public library board in South Dakota to take a stand for intellectual freedom in Cuba, as reported by Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice.
Fidel Castro, I'm sure, never heard of the small town of Vermillion, South Dakota, until late last year, when the Vermillion Public Library—founded in 1902, on the eve of the Progressive era in American politics—began to gain international attention by becoming the first, and only, American library to call attention to Castro's imprisoning of 10 of Cuba's independent librarians to sentences of more than 20 years.Spurred by Mark Wetmore, vice president of the library's board of trustees, the Vermillion library voted on November 18 to sponsor and support the Dulce Maria Loynaz Library in Havana, Cuba.
In March 2003, Castro's State Security police arrested 75 Cuban dissenters: journalists, human rights workers, and labor organizers, along with independent librarians who provided access to books excluded from Cuba's censored library system. These "subversive" independent public librarians were sent to Castro's foul prisons, along with the other dissenters.
During the raids on these independent libraries, the offending books were confiscated, and many of them burned. The Dulce Maria Loynaz Library was one of the targets, but it remains under the directorship of Gisela Delgado, who was not imprisoned.
The Vermillion Public Library is now sending books to its sister independent library in Havana. The first two shipments included Spanish-language editions of George Orwell's 1984 and a collection of the works of that formidable freethinker Mark Twain.
What has made this signal of solidarity against repression most notable is that this small town in South Dakota has not only defied Castro but has also shown the hypocrisy of the national American Library Association—the largest organization of librarians in the world—whose governing council last year overwhelmingly defeated an amendment from one of its members to demand that Castro immediately release the 10 independent librarians, along with the other 65 "prisoners of conscience," as Amnesty International has described them.
Although American librarians stood up to John Ashcroft's Patriot Act provision empowering the FBI to seize library records, including the readers of suspect books, the policy makers of the ALA didn't want to overly offend the Cuban dictator. (Some members of the ALA governing council are Fidelistas who serenade Castro's health care system but are silent about his secret police—and the gulag in which he keeps Cubans who will not be silenced. The Fidelistas prevailed in that ALA vote.)
I have found it astonishing that not until the Vermillion Public Library's sponsorship of an independent Cuban library has an American public library reached out to any of the courageous freedom libraries in Cuba.
This isn't a groundswell yet. Most library boards and librarians themselves are either too uninformed or too submissive to take a stand. But it's a start.
Related:
• Freedom to read (not)
• ALA's shameful silence