Bibliotecas independientes
By Marijke van der Meer
16-05-2008
Listen to the re****t:
http://download.omroep.nl/rnw/smac/cms/tswi_080517_bibliotecas_mp3_en_080517_44_1kHz.mp3
Bibliotecas independientesOne of the showpieces of Cuba's socialist
revolution is the nearly 100 percent literacy rate of its people.
Fidel Castro proclaimed at the 1998 Havana International Book Fair,
"There are no banned books in Cuba, only the lack of funds to purchase
them." This prompted two young political activists to open their home
library to the public.
Ten years later, there are now over a hundred of these informal
libraries-- bibliotecas independientes-- in Cuba. The books are supplied
by visiting foreign tourists.
The Dutch peace organization Pax Christi, for example, has set up a
project called 'Open the Door for Cuba'. Marianne Moor, head of the
organization's Latin America department explains:
"What we do is send volunteers to see what is needed and then we ask
Dutch tourists who go to Cuba to take the books with them in their
backpack and personally deliver them to one of the independent
libraries. One tourist we spoke with dropped off books in a library they
found in a very small house in a poor neighborhood in Santa Clara, and
she said the experience was both "very special" and also "a little bit
freaky": "A man opened the door. He looked very nervous but he was happy
to see us and to hear that we were bringing books. He then very proudly
showed us his library, a small room with two bookshelves and a small
table. He also showed us very proudly a box with cards in it, with the
names of the people who come to borrow books, and he told us it was not
safe to have this box in his house. So every night he brought it
somewhere else so that when the police came it was not clear who was
borrowing books." Critics respond
Pro-Cuban critics of American foreign policy say the bibliotecas
independientes are a front for political dissidents and are CIA-funded.
Moor does not believe this is true. "Some librarians are politically
active, which is their right, and people who fight for democracy also
tend to be more active in culture."
book shelveMoor explains that Cuban readers are very interested in what
is being written about Cuba, and in books and magazines that describe
Europe, such as the transition of the former communist countries to EU
member****p.
Books for everyone
There is also a strong need for children's books. "Some libraries have a
more political focus, but when I say political I refer to history, civil
rights, also academic work not available in Cuba's official communist
libraries. So in our view they aren't even political books." At the same
time, there is no official black list of forbidden books in Cuba. "What
happens is that in fact no one knows which books are forbidden and which
aren't. Sometimes people are harrassed only for having academic work in
their house...You never know how far you can go."
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/southamerica/tswi-080517-biblioteca
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