Celia Sanchez's Cuba

As Opposed to Fulgencio Batista's Cuba
Updated for: Sunday, April 19th, 2015

     Although Americans are not supposed to know it, a petite doctor's daughter named Celia Sanchez -- "The Flower of the Cuban Revolution" -- was by far the most important player in the Cuban Revolution. In Cuba's Revolutionary War and then in Revolutionary Cuba, she stands alone as the top recruiter of rebels and supplies, a fearless guerrilla fighter, and the only revolutionary decision-maker that routinely over-ruled Fidel Castro, her primary disciple. Her greatest contribution to Cuba and to history was kicking the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship off the island and then laying down parameters that have, for almost six decades, kept them from recapturing the island, even with the financial and military aid of the superpower United States. As the prime decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba in 1960, she proclaimed, "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died of cancer in 1980 but Fidel Castro still lives, and thus...so does her proclamation. Americans are not supposed to know either her iridescent significance or her actual existence because the Batistianos she chased out of Cuba have, since 1959, controlled the Cuban narrative from safe havens in the U. S. Unable to vilify the child-loving doctor's daughter, the Batistianos choose to re-write Cuban history where the all-time greatest female revolutionary is concerned. That being said, it was interesting this week -- in the middle of April, 2015 -- that England's top newspaper -- The Guardian -- made prominent mention of another contribution Celia Sanchez made to Cuba and to history -- Coppelia Ice Cream!!

        England's top newspaper, The Guardian, used this Lisette Poole photo to illustrate an article this week entitled "Cuba's Ice-cream Cathedral." Written by Jason Matlagh, is also illustrated the difference between Celia Sanchez's Cuba and Fulgencio Batista's Cuba. Typically, this "ice-cream cathedral" in Havana's Vedado neighborhood was fully occupied with a mix of Cubans and tourists. It is, after all, the flagship branch of Cuba's famed Coppelia Ice-cream Parlor. As Mr. Matlagh points out, Coppelia ice-cream was one of Celia Sanchez's gifts to the Cuban people "right after rebel forces ousted Fulgencio Batista, a U.S.-backed dictator who turned Havana into a playground for the Mafia." The insightful article gave Celia Sanchez full credit for creating the ice-cream parlors and pointed out that "she named it Coppelia after her favorite ballet." Since the 1960s, Coppelia ice-cream has been thoroughly enjoyed by Cubans and by tourists. I am also reminded that such frankness by the British press is routine but the America media seems to want Americans to believe that Batista was a veritable Mother Teresa-type, not "a U.S.-backed dictator who turned Havana into a playground for the Mafia." I suppose that lie is designed to justify Cuban exile-fueled antagonism against the island from 1959 till this month of April, 2015. Of course, in addition to Coppelia ice-cream, Celia Sanchez -- the most important revolutionary in defeating the Batista dictatorship -- also quickly, beginning in 1959, gifted the island with such still-vibrant things as the block-by-block Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and The Federation of Cuban Women, positive features that have contrasted quite sharply with the Batista-orchestrated brutality heaped on Cuban women and children.

         The Guardian used this Lisette Poole photo to illustrate a typical Coppelia table.

          This Lisette Poole photo for The Guardian shows a young Cuban couple leaving the Coppelia Ice-cream Parlor. Americans are told that Cubans exist on about $18 per month. All Cubans get a small monthly stipend but they are also guaranteed free educations through college, free health care for life, free food if needed, and free shelter when needed. Many Cubans actually work and many also receive financial help from relatives living abroad. I have traversed the island, making it a point to live with everyday Cubans. I never met one that wasn't friendly to Americans and I never met one existing on $18 a month. That myth is the product of Cuban exiles who have succeeded in denying everyday Americans the freedom to travel to Cuba, apparently so they can distort the island to perpetuate their own financial and political agendas.

Celia Sanchez

May 9th, 1920 -- January 11, 1980

       This AFP/Getty Images photo was taken this week in Celia Sanchez's Cuba. It shows a young Cuban man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with an image of U. S. President Barack Obama. Polls show that Mr. Obama has an 80% approval rating among Cubans. They are enamored of him with reason; he has shown more guts and integrity concerning Cuba than the ten previous U. S. presidents since the 1950s, and he has done so while confronting a cowered right-wing U. S. Congress in which Cuban policy is dictated by six vicious and self-serving Cuban-Americans. By the way, two U. S. polls this week revealed that the U. S. Congress has an 11% approval rating in the U. S. and that, apparently, is the 11% that have bought-and-paid for it.

      This photo shows Cuban President Raul Castro in a sit-down meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week at the Summit of the Americas in Panama City. Note the smirky, holier-than-thou smile on Harper's face. The leaders of 35 nations were in Panama and Harper was the only one who showed disrespect for Cuba. When he met Raul Castro, the Canadian press was not notified and the only photo was released by Cuba. Harper is an unabashed right-wing conservative who, at age 55, has been Canada's Prime Minister since 2006. He had earlier sided with the George W. Bush administration to form a two-man forum that kept Cuba from attending the previous Summit. With the pragmatic and decent Mr. Obama now the U. S. President, Harper is the only one of the 35 leaders in the Americas exercising an archaic right-wing view of Cuba. Over a million Canadians visit the island each year, almost 40% of the overall total tourists, but their leader represents the randomness of right-wing zealots who continue to make life very difficult for innocent Cubans.

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