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We know Cuba before we get there. I was just as struck by this different universe but it also felt strangely understandable and familiar.

And it was this familiarity that allowed me to make the work. Here were the same questions and systematic challenges of survival that were familiar to me from the Soviet Union, but set against a magnificent tropical backdrop of the Caribbean. I found enormous strength of will and character in this small, floating state that stubbornly holds onto ideas and stands up to the world, its people generously compensating for the limiting grip of their regime with a great deal of inner freedom.

I think each image serves its role and carries a specific weight for the story. He is small in the distance, surrounded by sun and space, seemingly free, open. Directly above him is a bird, throwing off kilter his ease.

Cuba on My Mind

Suddenly he is smaller, trapped and stagnant. For a moment the bird and man are in equilibrium but we understand that while the bird has the freedom to move on, the man will remain behind. Can you share some insight into your process while working on Island in My Mind? Were you looking for specific images or did you act on instinct more? Cuba was a very concentrated, intense way of working but the idea is always the same for me: Special Edition Yoga Mats New. Special Edition Playing Cards New. Special Edition Skateboards New. Special Edition Wrapping Paper New. Go to wishlist Keep shopping.

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In recent times these same voices have been raised against the abuse of power in Argentina, Chile or Uruguay and have been the first to demand fair trials, external inspection of prisons and police and the establishment of democracy. Why then do these same people now accept without question an argument that under certain circumstances all of these rights and democratic instruments should be suspended? The tone is always moralistic and outraged. The argument is always comparative.


  1. See a Problem?.
  2. Panhandlers Blues.
  3. Cuba on My Mind | Hillel Schenker | The Blogs.
  4. How can you compare a few excesses by a Cuban government under siege with the appalling crimes of US imperialism? How can you criticise Castro's regime when his enemies are all financed by the CIA and backed by the Pentagon? It is a crude and simple formula - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It is also a dangerous and simplistic argument.

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    More importantly it is an evasion of responsibility. Years ago I debated the question at an early Marxism conference with a comrade from 'New Left Review'. His central argument was that what determined whether or not a society was socialist was the public ownership of the economy. The government could be a military dictatorship, he suggested, so long as there was no private property and the government declared itself to be socialist!

    Island in My Mind — Cuba as Seen by Irina Rozovsky | FotoRoom

    I replied that socialism was about freedom, about the emancipation of the working class from the tyranny of capital and the pursuit of profit. That liberation was worthless unless it was the act of workers themselves. Have we in Britain not yet understood how wide the gulf is between those who claim to act on behalf of the majority and the real interests of the working people? For 43 years Cuba has been under siege from the US - that is undeniable.