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From: Femi Falana <falanafemi15@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 03:36:47 +0000
To: Michael Vickers<mvickers@mvickers.plus.com>
Cc: Prof Ayo OLUKOTUN<ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>; Toyin Falola<toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>; Usa dialogue<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>; Richard Joseph<r-joseph@northwestern.edu>; Dr. Awolowo Dosunmu<toksx@yahoo.com>; Obadiah Mailafia<obmailafia@gmail.com>; Odia Ofeimun<odia55@yahoo.com>; Oladipupo Adamolekun<dipo7k@yahoo.com>; Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso<jumoyin@yahoo.co.uk>; Pa Uoma<pauoma@gmail.com>; Pius Adesanmi<piusadesanmi@gmail.com>; Prof. Lere Amusan<lereamusan@gmail.com>; Prof Bayo Adekanye<profbayo_adekanye@yahoo.com>; Prof Alli<alliwo@yahoo.co.uk>; Tade Aina<tadeakinaina@yahoo.com>; Taiwo Owoeye<sistertees@hotmail.com>; TaleOmole<taleomole@yahoo.com>; Tiwa<tiwaolugbade@yahoo.com>; tola sunday<sonyto1@yahoo.com>; Toks Olaoluwa<olaoluwatokunboh@gmail.com>; Adebayo<adebayow@hotmail.com>; Adebayo Olukoshi<olukoshi@gmail.com>; Adigun Agbaje<adigunagbaje@yahoo.com>; Admin<babaidanre@gmail.com>; Ajibabi Omotoso<bankomotoso77@gmail.com>; adele jinadu<lajinadu@yahoo.com>; aiolayinka@yahoo.com<aiolayinka@yahoo.com>; Banji Oyeyinka<boyeyinka@hotmail.com>; Bolaji Akinyemi<rotaben@gmail.com>; Bolaji Ogunseye<erinje@yahoo.com>; bukky dada<bukkydada@hotmail.com>; Bunmi Makinwa<bunmimakinwa@hotmail.com>; Nimi Wariboko<nimiwari@msn.com>; Nwulu, Paul<p.nwulu@fordfoundation.org>; chibuzo nwoke<chibuzonwoke@yahoo.com>; cyril obi<cyrilobi@hotmail.com>; edwarddickson2009@yahoo.com<edwarddickson2009@yahoo.com>; Dele Layiwola<delelayiwola@yahoo.com>; david atte<david_atte@yahoo.com>; Gbenga Dr. Owojaiye<gbenjaiye@hotmail.com>; Ebunoluwa Oduwole<ebunoduwole2k2@yahoo.com>; Egbokhare Francis<foegbokhare@yahoo.com>; Osaghae Eghosa<osaghaeeghosa@yahoo.co.uk>; Femi Osofisan<okinbalaunko@yahoo.com>; Francis Irele<abiolairele@gmail.com>; friday Okonofua<feokonofua@yahoo.co.uk>; Gabriel Ogunmola<gbogunmola@yahoo.com>; Haastrup, Deji Olaolu<deji@chevron.com>; Hafsat Abiola<hafsatabiola@hotmail.com>; Mohammed Haruna<ndajika01@gmail.com>; Hassan Saliu<hassansaliu2003@gmail.com>; Ibrahim Gambari<Ibrahim.gambari@gmail.com>; Innocent Chukwuma<I.Chukwuma@fordfoundation.org>; Isaac Albert<ioalbert2004@yahoo.com>; Lanre Idowu<lanreidowu@gmail.com>; Noel Ihebuzor<naihebuzor@live.com>; Kayode Soremekun<paddykay2002@yahoo.com>; jadesany@yahoo.co.uk<jadesany@yahoo.co.uk>; Jibo<jibo72@yahoo.com>; Jide Owoeye<babsowoeye@gmail.com>; Attahiru Jega<attahirujega@yahoo.com>; Mamora<senatormamora@yahoo.com>; Meda<medaton@yahoo.com>; Michael Faborode<michaelfaborode@gmail.com>; Remi Sonaiya<remisonaiya@yahoo.com>; Ronke Ako-nai<riakonai@yahoo.com>; Royal Gardens<royalgardensnet@gmail.com>; rsuberu@bennington.edu<rsuberu@bennington.edu>; Vice-Chancellor, Redeemer's University<vc@run.edu.ng>; sat obiyan<satobiyan@yahoo.com>; SEGUN GBADEGESIN<gbadeg2002@yahoo.com>; segunawo<segunawo@yahoo.com>; shirleygreta@yahoo.com<shirleygreta@yahoo.com>; Ayanfe Ayeni<bolaayeni2@gmail.com>; Ayobami Salami<ayobasalami@yahoo.com>; ayodunmoye<ayodunmoye@yahoo.com>; S.O. UWAIFO<so_uwaifo@yahoo.co.uk>; BISHOP CROWN<bishopisaaccrown@gmail.com>
Subject: HUGE GIFT‹Re: IMG-20161203-WA0022.jpg
The "despotic rule" of Fidel Castro is not worse than that of any of the democratic regimes in the United States with respect to the observance of political and civil rights. With billions of dollars spent on elections, liberal democracy cannot be said to be a government of the people, for the people and by the people. With racism and extrajudicial killings it is incorrect to say that "human rights have become normative" in the US. With torture routinely inflicted on criminal suspects by US security forces in the Guatanamo Bay prison in Cuba the US has contempt for human rights to dignity and fair hearing including the presumption of innocence of accused persons.
While the US sends soldiers to effect "regime change" and kill millions of people around the world Cuba has sent doctors and nurses to no fewer than 150 countries to save lives. For instance, while the US and other western countries were stigmatising West Africans during the ebola crisis Cuba dispatched a team of medical personnel to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone to combat the disease. The New York Times was forced to write an editorial which called on the Obama administration to lift embargo on a nation that is ahead of the West in providing humanitarian services to the needy and vulnerable segment of humanity.
Throughout the tenure of Castro there were 276 executions including that of the General who engaged in drug trafficking in Angola. In the US, the bastion of liberal democracy, 875 people, mostly blacks, have been extrajudicially killed by the police in 2016 alone. A country which claims to respect human right to life has continued to justify the execution of hundreds of convicts.
Unlike in the very rich western countries, there is no prostitution, no homelessness, no child nourishment and no street beggars in the poverty stricken Cuba. With literacy rate of 98.7 percent Cuba is ahead of the many western countries in the area of education. With a life span of 75 and the lowest infant and maternal rates, Cuba is ahead of the US in the provision of health services.
While I agree that Cuba should respect the civil and political rights of dissidents it is indisputable that Cuba is ahead of western countries in the observance and provision of socioeconomic rights for the majority of her citizens.
In the words of the late Fela Anikulapo-kuti this is an occasion we should tell the West, "Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense."
Femi
On Sunday, 4 December 2016, Michael Vickers <mvickers@mvickers.plus.com> wrote:
Ayo, This is wonderful stuff. Brilliant observation. In death Castro has given us a huge gift. He has opened doors to imaginative and inspiring thought. …Africa of course holds the key to the future. It has the fast-rising presence, the resources, the folk of fresh and innovative genius/ the great hunger for achievements/ explorations of every kind. It is carrying us forward. It is the force of now and of the future. It has much to abstract from the Castro/ Cuba Presence. And then to place it in Africa Life Experience; and duly to open it to a world that has long been failing and falling under IMF/ World Bank/ Global Corporate Models, which no one who knows bothers/ dares to tell us are long obsolete.And the Africa Message? It is rooted in an Ethic and Attitude to life that incorporates a good deal of what Castro held close. But then, if you care to think on't it, how much of Castro's Value base had its roots in Africa Life Values going back at least 3000 years? America Values, with nothing but a surface Fantasy Engagement—one which spurned/ treated with contempt, values of those whose land they stole; values with Pedigrees of Evolved presence reaching back 7000 years—is a wondrous high-wire exercise. Its whiz-bang rocketry and fabulous material wonders, have given our life much; and its heritage will persist; and will gain ever further heights. But Fantasy Engagement, with no root, no flow-up of steady nourishment, can have but a limited life. As we all know, but are never permitted to say, the Fantasy High-Wire Engagement of America and the West has broken/ snapped. We in the West are in free-fall. And have been for some time.My point? I am waiting to hear an Africa voice. A confident voice from Africa that has turned in, has drawn up, has selected and shaped its basic and extended messages, and then put them forward to a world in disarray—nothing new in that—a world that may hear, see and most of all sense, that powerful and exotic force; that Humane and Inclusive Root from which ALL human life proceeds; the root of Energy Release and Actuation that for many decades, behind/ beneath the blankets of meedja and political posturing, has been extending its messages in lives of individual folk in communities world-wide.There are some, women and men, in Africa and indeed Nigeria who know perfectly the reality of what I say. I look forward to the sound of their voices, to the long with-held release of their advocacy, to the sweet, warm and up-lift of their sense and sensitivity in common sense policy projection.Africa, such folk, such policies, such uplift, such humane instruments of communal Energy Release worldwide are with us. Let us hear their voices. We need to hear their voices. Now. …Fidel is nodding his head, laughing, lighting another monster Havana Cigar. …He knows/ he knew from the start that guidance can no longer hope to come from West or East. Their day is long done. Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" brought home this message to Leading Folk and 98ers worldwide. Where man is set loose on the "money-making path," with Guaranteed Rights, and no Required Responsibilities, he sets the seeds for his own demise and that of his fellow folk who inhabit it. …Castro recognised and understood this. …He worked hard for the presence he and his helpers created. …And that was nearly sixty years ago.Africa's time has long arrived. It has and indeed has long-extended the Ethic and Message from which this modern world as it moves on, needs to and will absorb. Put another way, Africa has arrived at an harmonic/ a lyric moment. When the material/ the mechanistic met its fabulous apogee; Africa was already making its timely entry. All part of the Creator's/ Dame Fortuna's Plan? All we know is that it is slipping the cushion of a humane humanity, between the accelerating descent of the modern Developed/ Western/ Eastern World, and the hard earth of a cruel and savage reality. A reality already experienced by far too many billions—Nigeria's 98ers high-ranking amongst the victims.Again Ayo. Great stuff on Castro. And an engaging debate. It is so good to "hear" great minds let loose. Such minds, such folk of great intellectual/ creative force, are the very precious fruit of their communities; in larger and smaller Africa contexts. We treasure and celebrate them. All of them.Pardon my intrusion. And if I got a little carried away. There is a reason. England's Ruggie Team not only has completed an Unbeaten Season (with an unbeaten string of 16 matches). But today they socked the Aussies. Wonderful.Dear friend; all goes to show. Yes, we are all savage infants at heart. Does Ruggie do more harm than good? Does it merely encourage/ validate/ elevate just the attitudes and behaviours I've indicted by implication in the above? Is not Ruggie merely a substitute for war? Preparation for us to be ordered by our oligarchs, yet again, to kill each other by the millions? …Mmmm.No snow yet on these Sussex hills. But very chill in my office.Time for beddies.Baba mOn 03/12/2016 17:57, "ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com" <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com> wrote:Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
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