How Far We Slaves Have Come

by Nelson Mandela

Today those in the West are trying to ingratiate themselves with Africa, trying to ingratiate themselves with those who hate apartheid. But the fact is that apartheid was created by the West, by the capitalist and imperialist West.

  The real truth is that the West supported apartheid; they supplied it with technology, countless billions in investments, and vast quantities of arms; and they also gave it political support. No, imperialism did not break ties with apartheid, it did not blockade apartheid; imperialism maintained and continues to maintain excellent relations with apartheid. It was Cuba that had to be blockaded,11 Cuba, where the vestiges of apartheid – that is, racial discrimination – disappeared a long time ago. Cuba had to be blockaded as punishment for its revolution, as punishment for its social justice – but never apartheid. They took some half-hearted economic measures against apartheid, which did not have the least significance.

  And now, as Mandela himself told me, they are asking why the ANC is a friend of Cuba, why it has relations with Cuba and – as Mandela told me here – why it has relations with the South African Communist Party, as if the spectre of communism were still haunting the world. [Applause] They are asking why it has relations with this small country that was always so loyal to the cause of the South African people in their struggle against apartheid? This shows the logic of the reactionaries and the imperialists.

  It would not be right for us to emphasise Cuba’s modest contribution to the cause of those peoples, but on hearing Mandela’s speech, comrades, I believe that he paid the greatest and most profound tribute that has ever been paid to our internationalist fighters. [Applause] I believe that his words will remain, as if they were written in gold letters, as an homage to our combatants. He was generous, very generous; he recalled the epic feat our people performed in Africa, where all the spirit of this revolution was manifested, all its heroism and steadfastness.

  Fifteen years we spent in Angola! Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Cubans went there and thousands more went to other countries. That was the epoch in which imperialism would have given anything to see Cuba withdraw from Angola and end its solidarity with the peoples of Africa. But our firmness was greater than all the pressures and was greater than any benefit our country might have gained had we given in to imperialist demands – as if there could ever be any benefit in abandoning principles and betrayal.

  We are proud of what we have done, and our troops came back from Angola victorious. But who has said this the way he has? Who has expressed it with such honesty, such eloquence? What we have not said, because basic modesty prevented us, he has expressed here with infinite generosity, recalling that our combatants made it possible for the sister Republic of Angola to maintain its integrity and achieve peace; that our combatants contributed to the existence of an independent Namibia. He added that our combatants contributed to the struggle of the South African people and of the ANC. He said that the battle of Cuito Cuanavale changed the balance of forces and opened up new possibilities.

  We were not unaware of the importance of the effort we made there from 1975 up to the last great feat, which was accepting the challenge of Cuito Cuanavale. This was at a distance greater than that between Havana and Moscow, which one can travel in a thirteen-hour nonstop flight. To get from Havana to Luanda is about a fourteen- or fifteen-hour flight, and Cuito Cuanavale was over in the southeastern corner of Angola, more than 1,000 kilometres from Luanda. That was where our country had to accept the challenge.

  As Mandela was telling you, in this action the revolution put everything at stake, it put its own existence at stake, it risked a huge battle against one of the strongest powers located in the area of the Third World, against one of the richest powers, with significant industrial and technological development, armed to the teeth, at such a great distance from our small country and with our own resources, our own arms. We even ran the risk of weakening our defences, and we did so. We used our ships and ours alone, and we used our equipment to change the relationship of forces, which made success possible in that battle. I’m not aware of any other time when a war broke out at such a distance between so small a country and such a great power as that possessed by the South African racists.

  We put everything at stake in that action, and it was not the first time. I believe we also put an awful lot at stake in 1975 when we sent our troops to fight the South African invasion of Angola.

  I repeat: we were there for fifteen years. Perhaps it should not have taken so long, because the way we saw it, that problem had to be solved; simply put, South Africa had to be prevented from invading Angola. That was our strategic conception: if we wanted peace in Angola, if we wanted security in Angola, we had to prevent South Africa from invading Angola. And if we wanted to prevent the South Africans from invading, we had to assemble the forces and the weapons necessary to prevent them from doing so. We did not have all the equipment to do this, but that was our conception.

  The truly critical situation occurred in Cuito Cuanavale, where there were no Cubans at the time because the closest Cuban unit was about two hundred kilometres to the west. This brought us to the decision to employ the troops and the weapons necessary – on our own initiative and at our own risk – and to send whatever was necessary, even if it meant taking it from here.

  Cuito Cuanavale is the site that became historic, but the operations extended along a line hundreds of kilometres long, and out of these operations a movement of great strategic importance toward southwest Angola developed. All of this is symbolised by the name Cuito Cuanavale, which is where the crisis began; but about 40,000 Cuban and Angolan soldiers with more than 500 tanks, hundreds of artillery pieces, and about 1,000 anti-aircraft weapons – the great majority of these anti-aircraft weapons of ours were transferred from here – advanced toward Namibia, supported by our air force and an airstrip constructed in a matter of weeks.

  I’m not going to speak here about the strategic and tactical details of the battles, I’ll leave that to the historians. But we were determined, together with the Angolans, to put an end to the invasions of Angola once and for all. The events turned out the way we had foreseen – and we don’t want to offend or humiliate anybody – because when this new balance of forces developed (and by then we had assembled troops that were invincible and unstoppable), the conditions for negotiations were created, in which we participated for months.

  We could have waged big battles there, but given the new situation it was better to resolve the problem of Angola’s integrity and Namibia’s independence at the negotiating table. We knew – how could we not know! – that those events would have a profound effect on the life of South Africa itself, and this was one of the reasons, one of the motives, one of the great incentives that pushed us on. Because we knew that once the problem in Angola was resolved, the forces that were fighting against apartheid would also benefit from our struggles.

  Have we said it this way before? No, never, and perhaps we never would have said this, because, in the first place, we believe that above and beyond whatever international solidarity the ANC has had, above and beyond the enormous support from abroad – of public opinion in some cases, of armed action in our case – the decisive and determining factor behind the ANC’s successes was the heroism, the spirit of sacrifice and struggle of the South African people led by the ANC. [Applause]

  This man, in these times of cowardice and so many things, has come to tell us what he told us this afternoon. It is something that can never be forgotten and it reveals the human, moral, and revolutionary dimension of Nelson Mandela. [Applause]

  I have not only valued Mandela’s words about us and the beautiful homage he paid to our internationalist fighters, demonstrating to us that the bloodshed, the sacrifices, the efforts, and the sweat of so many Cubans were not in vain. I have also greatly appreciated his wise, intelligent, precise words, which reveal true revolutionary tactics and strategy.

  He has explained here with impressiv
e clarity what they propose and what they want, how they hope to achieve it and how they are sure they will accomplish it. So we have here this man who spent dozens of years in prison thinking, reflecting, studying, and struggling, and who became an extraordinary political leader, an extraordinary and invincible fighter.

  We are sure that now nothing and no one can prevent the success of this noble, humane, and just struggle, which he has summed up as a struggle for an egalitarian, democratic, and nonracial society.

  And believe me, comrades, the ANC is confronting a truly complex and difficult task, because despite the fact that it has the support of the great majority of the South African people, the reactionaries have quite a few tricks and stratagems, quite a few manoeuvres that they have used to block the South African people’s access to its goals. But I think that if there is something that rises above these difficulties, it is the talent of Nelson Mandela and the ANC leaders. [Applause]

  We feel encouraged on this 26 July, and we feel tremendously honoured by the presence and the words of such an illustrious political leader and revolutionary. We will never forget them! [Applause]

  Comrades, in the midst of so many things that are truly moving and of great historical significance, I feel it my duty to talk about other matters that are not so significant, not so historic, but that are also enormously important for us. I must speak a bit – and you won’t be able to demand a lot – about this place, this land where, as I was saying before, the slaves used to do the work and where it is now done by free men and women. [Applause]

  Now it is we who cut the cane. We used to carry it, but now this is done by machines; no one should be alarmed if at some point we have to carry it by hand again, and I wonder if we would carry it or not. [Applause and shouts of “Yes!”] Now it is we who pull out all kinds of weeds. Now it is we who cultivate the land, who harvest the fruit. Now it is we who create the wealth. This is the activity of a free people; this is socialism. It is not the activity of the poor, the outcast, the immigrants who replaced the slaves; it is not the unemployed who lined up outside the sugarcane plantations. It is we, all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, because in these times we have also seen engineers, doctors, and scientists participating in the agricultural mobilisations.12 And because every year we see our students, hundreds of thousands of students, participating in the programme where the schools go to the countryside and studying at the schools in the countryside, or working in factories, or assembling bicycles, or producing spare parts. We see all of our young people participating in these physical efforts that the slaves and later the outcasts, the poor, the disinherited, the unemployed, or the underemployed used to do. This also has great historical significance.

  When one talks about the work that the people of Matanzas have done, one talks about what they have created and are creating with their hands, everywhere. Let us not emphasise now that we’re imperfect, which we already know. Let us not emphasise that we have many deficiencies; we know that and we’re not going to forget it. Let us emphasise instead the efforts that our people are making today; let us emphasise their virtues, their capacity for sacrifice, the fruits of their efforts.

  We should note that in 1990 – a difficult year and the year in which the special period began13 – and in the first part of 1991, the residents of Matanzas completed 232 construction projects, some of a social and others of an economic nature, primarily economic ones. They range from the small port for supertankers to the highway between Matanzas and Varadero being completed, to dams, mini-dams, irrigation and sewage systems, rice irrigation systems, a steel foundry, light industry factories, food industry facilities, hog-farming centres, pasturing areas, and an infinite number of projects on which the residents of Matanzas have been working with special fervour in the last few months – because we should also include the special efforts they have made for the 26 July celebration – but it added up to 232 projects. There are also polyclinics, new hospital wings, and daycare centres – programmes that were in progress and that are now completed.

  We cannot forget that the most important petroleum deposits in the country are found in Matanzas and that Matanzas produces about half a million tons of petroleum. This is heavy petroleum with quite a bit of sulfur, but it solves a lot of problems. Various factories run on this petroleum, cement factories run on this petroleum, various products are being made from derivatives of this petroleum. I asked the director of this enterprise here what had been the level of production in 1990 and this year, and he said, “About half a million.” I asked him, “Couldn’t more be produced?” “Yes,” he said, “we could have produced 600,000 this year, but we haven’t had the ships to transport this petroleum.” I asked him how the wells were going, and the causeways, how the work was going despite the difficulties. The work is moving along; already some oil wells constructed on the causeways are functioning; because Matanzas Province is the country’s number one petroleum producer.

  Matanzas Province produces more than 40 per cent of the country’s citrus fruits. [Shouts of“Jagüey!”] Jagüey, yes, Jagüey, more than 40 per cent of the country’s citrus fruits! [Applause] And this production level has risen something like thirty or forty times, and nowadays it’s about 46,000 tons. This is one of the largest educational-production complexes that exists anywhere, with over sixty schools.

  Matanzas Province has the most important tourist resort in the country, Varadero – although it’s not the only one. [Applause]

  Matanzas Province earns $77 million in gross income – I say gross because we have to deduct some expenses in dollars – $77 million in 1990! And they hope to reach $100 million in gross income in 1991, so you can appreciate the rate at which this programme is advancing. Some day Matanzas Province could earn hundreds of millions of dollars, when this programme is finished – hundreds of millions of dollars every year, when we have the tens of thousands of hotel rooms that we should have there.

  The Varadero construction contingent, which also was awarded its certificate here, has built projects worth 50 million pesos in half a year – half a year!14 And they hope to reach a total of 100 million pesos worth of construction this year. [Applause] An extremely powerful construction work force of 7,000 people has been developed here.

  So that you have an idea, this construction contingent in Matanzas, in Varadero alone, will have constructed in one year buildings comparable in value to those for the Pan American Games,15 which have been built in thirty-three months. This is truly a great effort! [Applause]

  Yesterday we inaugurated the Pan American facilities; there were over twenty new facilities and over forty remodelled facilities. Thousands of full-time workers and hundreds of thousands of volunteers participated in these projects, which were worth about the same as what the contingent built in Varadero this year.

  Matanzas is one of Cuba’s great sugar producers. During the years of the revolution, Matanzas produced more than a million tons in three different years, and is working on making this the ordinary figure.

  In honour of Matanzas, we should mention that one of the new sugar mills built by the revolution, the most recent one, named after Mario Munoz, has become the most efficient of all the new sugar mills built by the revolution.16 [Applause]

  I talked with the comrades from one enterprise or another about these things when they came up here to receive their certificates. None of the other new sugar mills has produced as much as 118,000 tons. This also shows how the revolution has advanced, how it is capable of building a sugar mill with such a great capacity, with over 60 per cent of the components made in Cuba. [Applause] Look how far we slaves have come! How far we slaves have come! [Applause]

  In Matanzas we have university branches – one of the directors came here – that teach different specialities in mechanics, economics, etc. In Matanzas 1,300 students have graduated from the local medical school and thousands have graduated from the teacher-training institutes.

  H
ow far we slaves have come!

  Matanzas has complete educational facilities, from the Karl Marx School – whose name we don’t plan to change – to many schools of varying types. [Applause] There’s another school in Havana, a very important one, the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin School – whose name we also don’t plan to change. [Applause] And there is another one – I think it’s in Pinar del Rio, yes, it’s a very good one – called the Frederick Engels School – and of course we’re not planning to change that name either. [Applause] Just as we’re not planning to change the name of the José Martí School in Holguin, [Applause] or the Máximo Gómez School in Camagüey, or the Antonio Maceo School in Santiago de Cuba, [Shouts of “The Che Guevara School!”] or the Che Guevara School – you took the words right out of my mouth – in Santa Clara. [Applause] Because a revolution like ours does not change its ideas or its names. [Applause]

  How far we slaves have come!

  I repeat that Matanzas has a complete educational system. There are numerous schools of all kinds. I’m not going to enumerate them – a university, primary schools, teaching hospitals, cultural institutions – about two hundred, very appropriate for the Athens of Cuba, as Matanzas was rightly called in other times and should still be called, since it symbolises the educational level this province has achieved. [Applause] Its sports institutions – someone over there has the total number of medals that Matanzas residents have won during these years of the revolution. As Guillén would have put it, “Matanzas has what it had to have!”17 [Applause]

  But above all, we have our dignity and our independence, our bravery and our heroism, even in the difficult times in which we live – and we will have them even if times become yet more difficult.

  What are they going to tell us about? About the past? About capitalism? [Shouts of “No!”] About private property? About large landed estates? About corporations? [Shouts of “No!”] About imperialism? About neocolonialism? Do we want to hear about all that garbage? [Shouts of “No!”] What else can I call all that?