I greet all the citizens of the world who have come
here — as they do every year — for this gathering of
such great importance for the world. I am very pleased
to be back in New York and at the United Nations
following a few years’ absence. I am very grateful for
all the cooperation and the manner in which our
delegation has been received.
Last night we visited Lincoln Center to see a film
made by Oliver Stone during the past year. The title of
the film already stirs your thoughts. It is called “South
of the Border”. In this film, you can see President Evo
Morales chewing coca leaves, together with Oliver
Stone. And, as President Morales says, coca is not the
same as cocaine. You can see Cristina, the President of
Argentina, and the automobile of General Perón. You
can hear what she has to say about events in South
America, in Latin America. And you can see Lula, the
President of Brazil, in the Guajira region of Venezuela,
working with us to help the indigenous peoples, who
were exploited for centuries, through core industrial
projects. You will see President Fernando Lugo, a
bishop and liberation theologian, living today in the
residence occupied for many years by Stroessner. And
you can see how a bishop became a president.
You can also see Rafael Correa, the President of
Ecuador, in Havana with President Raúl Castro. You
can see Fidel. You can even see Obama, in Trinidad,
chatting with a group of us, with his hand held out to
us and an open smile.
I think it is an interesting film, one of the many
made by this great filmmaker of the United States,
Oliver Stone. He had already made two films about
Fidel, “Looking for Fidel” and “El Comandante”.
There is a lot in this film, many messages that could
help us to decipher the enigmas of the times in which
we live.
We stayed behind after the film was over last
night, chatting with a group of people from the United
States and other parts of the world. And this contact
was very instructive and very symptomatic of the
importance of what Fidel calls “the battle of ideas”. A
lady in her fifties came up to me and said “I am very
happy”. She was a North American, very white; a
typical United States citizen, born in this country, but
she spoke some Spanish. She told me, “I am very
09-52425 2
happy”. And I asked her why. “Because, now having
seen this movie, I realize what you are. I thought you
were a very bad person”.
This person was a victim of the hostile media
bombardment, the ideological bombardment, of the
United States and of the entire world, whose aim is to
turn reality inside out and to turn the world upside
down, as Eduardo Galeano put it.
The film is called “South of the Border” and I am
taking advantage of this opportunity and that title to
tell you that, south of the border, a revolution is under
way. A revolution is under way in South America. A
revolution is under way in Latin America. There is a
revolution in the Caribbean. The world must see this, it
must truly realize this and accept it, because it is a
reality and it is not going to change. What is more, this
is a revolution that goes beyond ideology. It is a
geographical and geopolitical revolution. It is a historic
revolution; it is part of our times. It has very deep
roots. It is a total, moral and spiritual revolution. And
we believe that it is a necessary revolution. This
revolution is great in both spirit and magnitude, and it
is going to keep growing as the days, months and years
go by. And why is it great? It is great because it has
been a long time coming: centuries of history have led
up to this moment in time. It is great in terms of the
space that it covers.
I am not going to speak any longer than
Mr. Al-Qadhafi. Al-Qadhafi has said everything there
is to say. This applause is for Al-Qadhafi and his
speech. But nor will I speak any less than Mr. Obama,
or Lula.
I was explaining why this revolution is great.
First, because of time, the accumulated time that has
gone by. It is centuries, centuries of battles, of
struggles, of hopes, of suffering of millions and
millions of human beings in Latin America and the
Caribbean. This revolution is great in the area it
covers. This revolution is great in the depth of its
foundations. This revolution is great in the masses of
people that are joining it. No one seeks to slow it down
and no one will be able to.
Yesterday, it was said by President Morales here
(see ), by this great companion and
indigenous leader of the Aymara, Evo Morales. He also
said it in the film, which you should not miss, “South
of the Border”. Oliver Stone told me last night that
pressure is already being exerted to prevent the
American people from seeing it. Where is their
freedom of expression? It is just a movie. How can
they be afraid of a movie? But there is already pressure
from the monopolies that run the film industry, that
operate the theatres — these are all monopolies and
they are putting on pressure. But the movie will be
shown elsewhere. Fortunately, we are in the age of
computers and telecommunications. We no longer
depend on movie theatres run by monopolies.
In the film, Evo, speaking with Oliver Stone,
recalls a phrase pronounced by a great leader of the
Aymara, an ancestor of his who was murdered, just one
of the many millions that were murdered by the
Spanish, Portuguese and English invasion, by the
European invasion of our continent. I know that all
present are aware that when the European ships arrived
at the American shores there were approximately
90 million indigenous people living here.
Two hundred years later only four million
survived. This is one of the greatest genocides in
history — the genocide of the continent itself, of the
Abya Yala, as our indigenous people call it. So Evo in
the movie repeats the sentence uttered by this great
Aymara leader, who was drawn and quartered — he
was tied to four horses by the arms and legs and he was
torn apart, and as he died the Indian uttered a
prophesy: “Today I die,” said Túpac Katari, “today I
die, but one day I will return as millions.” Túpac Katari
has returned, and we are millions. We are millions.
Nothing and no one can hold back the great South
American, Latin American, Caribbean revolution. And
I think the world should support it. The United States
should support it. Europe should support it, because
this revolution — some brothers and sisters may not
have noticed — is the start of the road to salvation for
this planet, and to salvation for the human race,
threatened as it is by capitalism, imperialism, hunger
and war. This is the necessary revolution. For centuries
this has been called “the New World”. Now we can
truly call it “a new world”.
Years ago — as we recalled last night — I was
invited to a conversation — a large group of important
leaders. They were important in their own right. They
were trade union leaders here in the United States.
Some workers were complaining about a biscuit
factory that was not paying them. They were striking,
and one of them asked me, “Why don’t you buy that
factory?” And I said, “I’ll see. Maybe we can make it a
3 09-52425
socialist biscuit factory, if Obama gives me permission.
Maybe we could do that — buy it, give it to the
workers, let them make the crackers and distribute
them. Why should there just be one or two capitalists
exploiting a lot of people?” That is socialism and that
is the path to salvation for this planet.
Yesterday a journalist asked me — after the
movie there was forum at which he asked me — “Do
you defend socialism even though the Soviet Union
failed?” The reply is very simple. The Soviet Union
lost its way early on. There was never real socialism in
the Soviet Union. But this century, the twenty-first
century, will be the century of socialism — the
socialism of the human race.
I’m sure everyone listening to me has read
Einstein. Albert Einstein convinced the American
President to build the atomic bomb — to begin the
research before the Nazis did. Then later he regretted
what he had done when he saw the disaster of
Hiroshima and the disaster of Nagasaki. But Albert
Einstein, after all his years of study, the great scientist,
among the greatest scientists ever to have walked the
Earth, came to the conclusion — and this is written in
his own hand — “Why socialism?” Einstein came to
the conclusion that the only way for the human race to
live on this planet is socialism. Capitalism is the road
to extinction of the human species. We as a species
have only been around for what? This is Castro
territory, he knows these figures. But, whereas life first
appeared here at least three billion years ago, we the
human species only appeared maybe less than 300,000
years ago, hardly 0.01 per cent of the time that life has
existed on this planet. So we appear after so long and
we’re going to wipe out life on this planet?
We’ve heard it from everybody — Obama, Lula,
Cristina Fernández, Al-Qadhafi, Sarkozy — everyone
said the same thing. They have all clamoured for
change. And what is the change? Capitalism allows no
change. Let us not fool ourselves. It’s only through
socialism that we can bring about genuine change. And
the revolution in Latin America has it all and it has a
strong socialist element. As Mariátequi, the great
Peruvian thinker said, it is an Indian-American
socialism. It is our own socialism. It is a Bolivarian
socialism. It is a José Martí socialism. It is a new
socialism. It has not been copied from anybody else.
There are no manuals for socialism, said Mariátequi. It
is a heroic creation that has to be constantly reinvented.
Yesterday we were remembering what a North
American President, that is to say a United States
President, said shortly before he was assassinated, and
this is on the record, in a speech before the United
States Congress. John Kennedy spoke of a revolution
in the South, saying that the principal cause was
hunger. Only a few days later he was assassinated.
John Kennedy was not a revolutionary, but he was an
intelligent man, just as I think President Obama is an
intelligent man. And I hope God protects Obama from
the bullets that killed Kennedy. I hope Obama will be
able to look and see — genuinely see — what has to be
seen. It does not smell of sulphur here anymore. That
smell has gone. It smells of something else — it smells
of hope. And you have to have hope in your heart and
believe in the hope.
We cannot destroy this planet. What about our
children? What about future generations? Come, let’s
take on the challenge. Lula was saying yesterday that
there was no political will. Those words were whips. I
know Lula’s will. I am deeply aware of his humane
attitude. He is a true brother of mine, and he was right
to say what he said. But I would not exactly say that
there is no political will. I would say rather that some
political will is lacking, because Lula has it and we
have it, but it has to be increased. It has to continue to
grow in the leaders, in society, among the people,
among the youth — particularly in the hearts of the
young — and the workers, everywhere in the world.
Kennedy said it: there is a revolution in the
South. And he added, “Those who make peaceful
revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable”. Jack Kennedy said that. You can find it on
the Internet; you can find everything on the Internet.
My dear Maria Fernanda Espinosa, once
ambassador from fraternal Ecuador, whom I have not
seen for days. We’d like to say hello to President
Correa. The ambassador was Minister for Foreign
Affairs at the beginning of the citizens’ revolution,
with Correa leading the people of Ecuador, the people
of Manuela Saenz and Bolivar and Eloy Alfaro, the
noble and great people in Bolivia and that whole area.
Some are trying to block the path to our peaceful
revolution. And there’s another brave woman, Patricia
Rodas, the Foreign Minister of Honduras; please, a
hand for this brave Central American woman, from the
people of Morazán. Long live Honduras! Long live
Morazán! And long live the dignity of the people!
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At 1 p.m. exactly, I was jotting down these
notes — I don’t have much farther to go, Mr. President;
don’t anybody throw a shoe at me. The Cuban Minister
has taken off his shoe to throw it at me. He had some
rubber shoes — if you are going to throw me a shoe,
throw one of those. I spoke to Manuel Zelaya at 1 p.m.
sharp; I remember it was 1 p.m. sharp — we started at
1 and finished at 1.13.
While we are here, comrades of the world, there
is a President, firm, dignified, who with a small group
of people, almost martyrs, was able to escape those
trying to carry out a coup d’état. The perpetrators of
the coup had brought repression to the Plaza Morazán
in Tegucigalpa and had taken every single road. They
had an entire army; it was as if they had invaded
Honduras with their own army — what an indignity.
From here I make an appeal — I, who am a
revolutionary soldier — to the soldiers of Honduras, to
the sons of Morazán to not continue to repress an
innocent people.
While we are here, Manuel Zelaya, the President
of Honduras, is in the Brazilian embassy, which has
given him refuge. According to what the President has
told me, there are more than 200 soldiers surrounding
the embassy in the most brutal fashion. Were they
trying to go back to the Stone Age? It will not work. Is
that what the perpetrators of the coup d’état had in
mind? They will be swept away by the wind of the new
age. The coup cannot succeed, these regressive forces
cannot have their way, not in Honduras, not in any of
the countries of the Americas. These people have been
out in the streets for 90 days, resisting, resisting,
resisting.
So, there we have a President, firm in his
conviction, with a group of compatriots, with his wife,
the First Lady. Apparently they are not letting food
through; the water is cut off every now and then.
Luckily there is a cistern with water. This morning they
were able to get some of the most up-to-date telephone
interception equipment, which the President told me is
an Israeli brand. Israel has recognized the coup d’état
Government; I think it is the only country in the world
that has. They have all kinds of equipment to block
signals and jam communications, and they are also
trying to create panic among the few people inside the
Brazilian embassy, threatening them with incursion
into the embassy. Does the Assembly realize how
retrograde this is? It is like some kind of trolls or dark
giants or magicians, something from the age of the
cavemen. But they will not return.
The people are in the street, protesting. The
airport is closed now. Who is behind the coup d’état? It
is the Honduran bourgeoisie; the State is taken over by
the bourgeoisie, by the rich. Four or five wealthy,
powerful families own the State. I think we have to
pull out our copies of Lenin, his State and Revolution,
where he talks about the bourgeois State, the control of
everything by the bourgeois State including the
national congress, the judiciary, the army.
The people are in the street, but they are being
fired on. Yesterday the President told me that he knows
of at least three people in the vicinity of the Brazilian
embassy who were killed. And the President is asking
for dialogue, so as to return to the road to democracy.
So let us send the expression of our strongest solidarity
to the people of Honduras and President Zelaya, and let
us ask that the United Nations resolution be complied
with, and the resolution of the Organization of
American States.
The United States Government — and this is
strange — has not recognized that a military coup
d’état has occurred. President Zelaya told me today
that there is some friction between the State
Department and the Pentagon. Yesterday I was reading
Pentagonism, a book by the great Dominican author
Juan Bosch, who was overthrown by imperialism. The
Pentagon is the imperial cave. They do not want
Obama. They do not want change. They want to
dominate the world with their military bases, with all
their threats, their bombs, their soldiers and bases.
The Pentagon is behind the coup in Honduras.
President Zelaya was dragged out of his home, out of
his bed, at dawn on 28 June, taken to a plane, bundled
up by Honduran soldiers under command from the
United States base there, in Palmerola. The plane took
off from Tegucigalpa and landed at the Palmerola base.
They held the Honduran President there for some time.
Then they decided to take him to Costa Rica. The
American military in Honduras knew about the coup;
they supported it. They supported the Honduran
military. Hence the contradictions that Obama has to
face.
At times we wonder if are there two Obamas —
the one who spoke here yesterday and the other — a
double? The one who supports, or allows his military
to support, the coup on Honduras? I want to present
5 09-52425
this question for thought. Is there one Obama, or are
there two? Let us hope the one we heard yesterday will
prevail. That is what the world needs; that is what the
world is calling for.
What is the backdrop of the coup in Honduras? It
has to do with everything we are talking about here —
it is the revolution of the South. It is not the kind of
revolution where there are columns of guerrillas,
heroes such as in the Sierra Maestra, heroes of the high
mountains of Bolivia, where Ernesto Che Guevara was.
But this is not that kind of revolution. This
revolution is different. It does not break out in the
mountains with guerrilla groups. No, it starts in the
towns among the masses. It is a mass revolution, but it
is peaceful and wants to remain peaceful. It is
democratic, deeply democratic.
Do not be afraid of democracy. Here, I am
paraphrasing Noam Chomsky in another wonderful
work that I did not know until I obtained the book in
Madrid a few days ago. I went to visit my friend, the
King of Spain, mainly because an Ibero-American
summit was coming up in Portugal, and I said that I
would go if he did not tell me to shut up. He told me
that he would not. So, I am going. King Juan Carlos
and I are great friends. I went to a recommended
bookshop — La Casa del Libro — in Madrid, and I got
Chomsky’s book Fear of Democracy. We should all
read that book, Fear of Democracy.
The elite are afraid of the people. They are afraid
of true democracy, which Abraham Lincoln, another
martyr, defined very clearly in three ideas: democracy
is government of the people, by the people and for the
people. It is not government of the bourgeoisie or of
the elite when the people rise up and the thugs are
pushed out. That happened in Honduras, and in
Venezuela in 2002. It happened in Brazil with João
Goulart, and in the Dominican Republic. Why were the
peoples of Latin America and of the Caribbean not
allowed to build their own future in the twentieth
century? They did not let them.
This century is ours. This century, in Latin
America and in the Caribbean we will build our own
way and no one can stop it. No one can stop it.
Imperialism must end. At times, one wonders. I was
once asking Lula what America, our Latin America,
would be today if the Governments of the United States
had not dug their claws into our America to impose a
model by violently cutting off the hope and the
struggle of millions of people, extinguishing the dawn.
I was born in 1954. Fidel was already in prison,
and they were dropping bombs in Guatemala. They
invaded the Guatemala of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán; and
then the Bay of Pigs, although they failed there; then
this revolutionary Cuba — admirable, but blockaded.
I call on Obama to lift the blockade on Cuba.
What is he waiting for? Let him do what he says. Or
are there two Obamas? Yesterday, Obama said, and I
noted it — here, I noted down Lula, who spoke before
Obama, and then I noted Obama’s words — that a
political system cannot be imposed on any people and
that each people and its sovereignty must be respected.
Then what is President Obama waiting for to order the
lifting of the brutal and murderous blockade on Cuba?
Does anyone have doubts about that? Does anyone
think that it is rhetorical? No. There is persecution
against businesses in any part of the world that provide
even food to Cuba, and now also to Venezuela.
Not long ago, Fidel Castro mentioned in one of
his reflections that a company known throughout the
world that manufactures and supplies medical
equipment did not meet its obligations to the
Governments of Cuba or of Venezuela this past year or
the one before. They did not send the spare parts for
hundreds of pieces of medical equipment that the two
Governments had bought to bring free quality health
care to our peoples. These include 64-row CT scanners
and electrocardiogram machines that are now in the
poor areas of Caracas. Where the indigenous people
live, there are medical facilities. We have 30,000
Cuban doctors there and a free, good health-care
system for the people. We tried to quietly find solutions
with the company — Philips — but the company has
refused to send the spare parts for that high-tech
equipment. Why? Under pressure from whom? From
the Government of the United States? Is it this Obama
or another Obama? Is it Obama one or Obama two?
Who are you, Obama? Who are you? I want to believe
in yesterday’s Obama, whom I saw here, but these
things keep happening, and they affect the lives of
millions of human beings. Why? In whose name? Why
does the United States continue to do that?
It is fear of democracy, just as happened in
Honduras. It is the fear of the Bolivarian Alliance for
the Americas that rises up as a new and innovative
mechanism of solidarity, and we have brought into line
09-52425 6
the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our Americas
and the Governments and the countries of Cuba,
Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines. They attack us and try to stop us, but
they will not succeed. The Common Market of the
South and the Union of South American Nations are
being set up and are all part of the great historic Latin
American geographic and geopolitical revolution.
Along the same lines are the seven military bases
that the United States is going to establish in
Colombia. Yesterday, Obama spoke — I have it noted
here — about four pillars. Everyone remembers that.
So let us accomplish that. I take him at his word. We
take the President of the United States at his word:
nuclear non-proliferation, agreed? They could begin by
destroying all the nuclear weapons that they have.
Then go ahead and destroy them.
Obama’s second pillar — the first was
non-proliferation — is the pursuit of peace. So,
President Obama, let us pursue peace in Colombia, in
dear sister Colombia. There is a civil war in Colombia.
That some do not want to acknowledge it is another
matter. There is a long-standing, historical conflict in
Colombia. The United Nations must acknowledge it
and consider it, and we all should extend a hand to
Colombia, while of course respecting its sovereignty,
to pull it from and help it out of that tragedy that that
brother people is experiencing.
I remember that I mentioned that peace to Obama
in front of Lula in Trinidad and Tobago at the Summit
of the Americas. Let us seek peace in Colombia. If
only peace were achieved in Central America, in
Guatemala. When I was an active soldier, I was in
Guatemala. That was war. It was war, with thousands
and thousands dead and disappeared. Look at
El Salvador and Nicaragua. And now Daniel Ortega is
back in Government after almost 20 years. The
Sandinista people brought him back.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Farabundo Martí and the people of El Salvador brought
President Funés to the presidency of that sister
republic. Peace was achieved — I know President
Arias is here — and if peace was achieved in Central
America, my God, why can peace not be achieved in
Colombia? This is one of the greatest desires of my
life. I am Venezuelan, but I feel like a Colombian —
the Colombia of Bolivar, the Colombia of Miranda, our
Colombia.
Is President Obama thinking of seeking peace —
his second pillar — with seven more military bases in
Colombia? These seven bases are a threat, not only for
the possible peace in Colombia but for peace in South
America. We are right — we the Governments of South
America — to have said, each in our own way and in
our own degree of intensity, how concerned we are
about the installation of these seven American military
bases on Colombian territory. I would like to denounce
it and point it out. I ask President Obama to think about
it and that he apply his pillars.
Let us promote peace. The United Nations could
set up a peace commission in Colombia or Venezuela.
Naturally, we would cooperate, I am sure, all countries
that want peace. We do not want any more war among
ourselves.
I will skip some pages. There is another topic that
Fidel touches upon in his 21 September thoughts. It has
to do with climate change. I am going to take another
two minutes, Mr. President, to insist on this point.
Some people think this is a metaphysical concern, it is
for intellectuals. No, we are destroying our planet. As a
reputable Venezuelan journalist has said, this rocket we
are travelling on — because this planet is like a rocket
ship — we are destroying it.
Fidel says, in his piece entitled “A species in
danger of extinction”, from 21 September 2009, “At
the international environmental conference held by the
United Nations in Rio de Janeiro” — that was in 1992;
I remember because I was in jail at the time — “I
stated, as the then head of the Cuban State, ‘A species
is in danger of extinction — man’”. Fidel goes on to
say:
“When I uttered and backed up those words,
received and applauded by the heads of State in
attendance — including the President of the
United States, a Bush less dismal than his son
George W. — they still believed that they had
several centuries to confront the problem. I
myself” — Fidel — “did not envision a date any
closer than 60 or 80 years.
“Today we are dealing with a truly
imminent danger and its effects are already
visible.
7 09-52425
“Average temperatures have increased
0.8 degrees centigrade since 1980.”
That is scientific data, according to the NASA
Institute for Space Studies — 0.8 degrees in the last
almost 30 years. Fidel continues,
“The last two decades of the twentieth
century were the warmest in hundreds of years.
The temperatures in Alaska, the Canadian west
and eastern Russia have gone up at a pace that
doubles the world average. Arctic ice has been
quickly disappearing and the region can
experience its first completely ice-free summer as
soon as the year 2040. The effects are visible in
the 2-kilometre-high masses of ice melting in
Greenland, the South American glaciers, from
Ecuador all the way to Cape Horn, fundamental
sources of water, and the gigantic ice cap
covering the extensive area of Antarctica.
“Current carbon dioxide concentrations
have reached the equivalent of 380 parts per
million, a figure surpassing the natural range of
the last 650,000 years.”
We are destroying our planet. We must be aware
of this, and we must act, as Lula stated at the 3rd
meeting yesterday. With respect to climate change,
Lula said there is no will. The most developed
countries do not want to take decisions. But Obama
says they do. But we are told that the United States is
going to take some decisions. Please do, Mr. President,
do that. But now is time to move from words to action.
Let us save this planet. Let us save the human race.
Let us hope that the summit in Denmark in
December will produce decisions, truly forceful ones.
Venezuela is willing to accept those decisions.
Venezuela calls on everyone to take decisions
proportionate to the extent of their responsibility.
Now, what is the basic cause of this
contamination? It is hyper-consumption. We are
exhausting the petroleum, gas and other fossil fuel
reserves. Reserves that accumulated over millions of
years are being burned in a single century, in less than
a century.
And that of course has to do with the economy. I
shall not read this document, Mr. President; I shall
merely refer to it. It is the Stiglitz report. I invite the
Assembly to analyse it. Yesterday the President of
France also invited the Assembly to analyse it. It is
thanks to him that the report of the Stiglitz
Commission exists. But it is nothing more than a mere
gesture.
The report contains 12 recommendations of the
Stiglitz Commission. Let us assess them. I think that
they address the substance, although they do not
question the capitalist model. We socialists do question
that model, but let us talk about it, let us find
consensus solutions for the circumstances and later for
the medium and long terms.
In its recommendations, the Stiglitz report says,
first, that we should look at income and consumption
to assess material well-being. Second, it recommends
prioritizing the family perspective; third, taking into
account the heritage; fourth, giving more importance to
redistribution of income beyond the average. Fifth, it
recommends expanding indicators of non-commercial
activities. For example, certain services such as child
care, bricklaying, plumbing and carpentry appear in
national accounts only if they are carried out by a
salaried person.
Delegates know that this has to do with
accounting for gross domestic product (GDP). These
are merely capitalist mechanisms. According to the
report, the following is certain: the GDP rises with
traffic, while the anxiety of the people also rises, just
as the unhappiness of passers-by and passengers in
traffic rises as they lost precious time in the traffic.
The GDP rises. Why is it rising? It is rising
because more gasoline is consumed. Moreover,
pollution increases. We know why. The capitalist world
has created measuring methods for the economy that
are destructive. That is why I think the Stiglitz report
offers important considerations. Here, in its second
point, it says that we should establish a battery of
indicators for the environment and for climate change.
Turning to the economy, this report is very
timely. Let us now adopt it, and above all,
Governments, particularly Governments of the most
developed countries — I think they are meeting in
Pittsburgh today, not as the Pittsburgh Pirates, but as
Presidents of the Group of 20 — should discuss it.
Tomorrow I will ask Lula and Cristina how the meeting
went, because they are coming to Caracas on their way
to Margarita Island for the Africa-South American
summit.
09-52425 8
The economy, the economy, the economy. We are
in favour of socialism, but let us discuss it and talk
about indicators and methods and modes of production.
As President Obama said yesterday with regards to his
fourth pillar, we need an economy that serves human
beings. Well, President Obama, that is called socialism.
Come over to the side of socialism, President Obama,
come join the axis of evil and we will build an
economy that truly serves human beings. It is
impossible to do that with capitalism. Capitalism only
benefits a minority and excludes the majority. Besides,
it destroys the environment and destroys lives. That is
capitalism.
Finally — and I think I have now been speaking
for my allotted 10 minutes — I will end with a phrase
of Lula’s. He was the first speaker in the Assembly
yesterday. He said there is no political will. I have
already commented on that, and I would add to it
because I know Lula and I know exactly what he said
to us. He is calling upon all of us to strengthen political
will.
Unlike other Governments elsewhere, which have
doubts and do not want to change despite the terrible
crisis in which we are living, we in southern America
have a lot of political will — here I am speaking for
Venezuela and, I know, also for South America, for
Latin America — a tremendous political will for true
change.
I recommend this book by István Mészáros, a
great Hungarian philosopher and thinker who has been
a professor at various universities in London for many
years: Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition.
I think the book is among the greatest writings of the
twentieth century. It is a complete renewal of socialist
theory. In one of the interesting chapters Mészáros
quotes another great person, Karl Marx. We must not
be afraid of Karl Marx — he was the Einstein of
politics. Yes, he was demonized, but Karl Marx was
right about so many things.
Quoting Marx, Mészáros says in this book that
crises act as a general threat and thus urgently lead us
beyond presuppositions towards a new historic
paradigm. We need a new historic paradigm. For years
we have been hearing about a new world, but what
actually exists is this old, moribund order. We need the
new order to be born, the new historic paradigm, the
new political paradigm, a new global paradigm.
Yesterday Al-Qadhafi said here that we need a new
institutionalism, a new economy, a new society, but
truly new — a world that is new.
Now, I think Lula said yesterday — he finished
speaking at 10:10 in the morning — that we must
become the midwives of history. I agree. I would add
to what Lula said. Has the birth already started? The
birth is not a future event; it is here. Let us be, as
Comrade Lula said, midwives of the new history,
prevailing over those who would bury it. Let us
struggle on the planet for the birth of this new history,
this new time, this new multi-polar, free world, this
economy at the service of all people, not of minorities,
this world of peace.
I am a Christian. One day Christ said, “My
kingdom is not of this world.” It is of a future world,
the reign of love among us, where we can truly live as
brothers and sisters.
Last Sunday in Havana — and I will put my little
books away and I will wind up now — on the Plaza de
la Revolución there was a great concert, the “Concert
for Peace”, with Miguel Bosé, Juanes, Olga Tañó and
Cuban singers. Silvio Rodríguez was there — the Great
Silvio — and they sang to the whole world. Some
people in Miami went crazy and tried to destroy
Juanes’ CDs — that great Colombian — just because
he had gone to sing on the Plaza of the Revolution.
How crazy can you get? Fortunately they are a
minority. Silvio was there with his guitar, and I am sure
he sang, “This era is giving birth to a heart”. He ends
his song, Cita Con Angeles, like this: “Let us be a tiny
bit better and a little less selfish.”
Cheers!