On the occasion of the International Day for the Remembrance of Slavery and its Abolition

Today, August the 23rd, is the International Day for the Remembrance of Slavery and its Abolition, in honor of the Haitian uprising on this day in 1791, a decisive event that led the Central American nation to become the first to gain independence from France.

Recognizing the slave trade as one of the greatest tragedies of humanity is part of the awareness-raising objective of this anniversary, approved during the 1997 UNESCO General Conference to encourage collective reflection on the causes, methods and consequences of this cruel history and to highlight the fight against all forms of oppression and racism that exist today.

For the Caribbean, slavery was the most important driving force of the economy, starting with the more than three million Africans who were forcibly uprooted from their territories and forced to work in subhuman conditions in the colonial nations of the region.

As a consequence of the cruel slave trade, around 1.3 million men and women arrived in Cuba, mostly from the sub-Saharan part of the black continent. The arrival of lucumíes, carabalíes, congos, gangas, yorubas and other ethnic groups impacted in a concurrent way in the colonial society of the time and after a complex process of transculturation and miscegenation our nationality is conformed, mixture, in its essence, of the Hispanic and the African.

Cuba is extremely proud of its African roots, which are present in our idiosyncrasy and cultural manifestations, but also materializes in the bonds of brotherhood and continuous cooperation programs with African and Caribbean nations and other peoples affected by the aftermath of that unjust practice.

Every year on the commemoration of this anniversary, the largest of the Antilles ratifies its commitment to fight against all forms of racism and discrimination.

As part of the political will of the Cuban State and government to confront this scourge in our society, a National Program against Racism and Racial Discrimination was implemented, approved by the Council of Ministers in November 2019 and executed by a Government Commission headed by the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.

Eighteen agencies of the central State administration and an equal number of civil society organizations are involved in its implementation. The Ministries of Culture, Foreign Affairs and Science, Technology and Environment, and the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba are involved in the direct coordination of the actions.

The Program shows progress and defines projections that reveal the consistency of a platform of concepts and actions on the road to eradicate, sooner rather than later, manifestations and attitudes that lacerate the human condition and are incompatible with the Cuban socialist model.

Written by Yovana Baró Álvarez.