Dear Comrade President Evo Morales
Our dear brother, the great grandson of the indigenous people of Aymara, the son of the heroic people of Cochabamba, the humblest revolutionary leader of the homeland of Simon Bolivar and to all the progressive forces of the great nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, we convey our fraternal revolutionary greetings.
I commence this conversation with you during this hostile and most complex historical epoch of our struggle for emancipation, when the oligarchy, the blue eye boys and girls of the imperial empire, have renewed their vicious onslaught to turn the fortunes of humanity into hopelessness and despair. The forces of imperialism and neocolonialism have gained the momentum to undermine the achievements of human progress.
Our beautiful hemisphere, our mother earth, has been transformed into a slaughterhouse against the world revolutionary movement. The strategic task of the enemy of our revolution is to obliterate any formation challenging the philosophical foundations of the system of capitalism.
From the ancient times humanity has been a witness to the brutality of the ruling class against those who challenge its ideas. Even today this continues to be a testimony of a painful episode embellishing the long odious historical path of the development of human society.
In his unfinished work, the dialectics of nature, Frederick Engels says the following about individuals of the ancient times, who challenged the ruling class on the basis of their convictions about modern science:
“It was the greatest progressive revolution that mankind had so far experienced, a time which called for giants and produced giants – giants in power of thought, passion and character, in universality and learning. The men who founded the modern rule of the bourgeoisie had anything but bourgeois limitations.
On the contrary, the adventurous character of the time inspired them to a greater or lesser degree. There was hardly any man of importance then living who had not travelled extensively, who did not speak four or five languages, who did not shine in a number of fields.
At that time natural science also developed in the midst of the general revolution and was itself thoroughly revolutionary; it had indeed, to win in struggle its right of existence. Side by side with the great Italians from whom modern philosophy dates, it provided its martyrs for the stake and the dungeons of the Inquisition”.
Four centuries ago, the Roman Catholic Church and the feudal aristocracy, condemned the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno by burning him alive on accusations of heresy. His executioners were ordered to tie his tongue so that he could not speak to the people before his death.
He was stripped naked with his tongue tied to avoid him speaking to the people gathered there about his heresies. He was made to mount a pile of firewood, charcoal, kindling and pitch, and thereafter the flames of the fire consumed his body, as he was burned alive.
The verdict imposed by the Inquisition against Giordano Bruno reads as follows: “We hereby, in these documents, pronounce sentence and declare the aforesaid Brother Giordano Bruno to be an impenitent and pertinacious heretic, and therefore to have incurred all the ecclesiastical censures and pains of the Holy Canon.
We ordain and command that thou must be delivered to the Secular Court, that thou mayest be punished with the punishment deserved, though we earnestly pray that the Roman Governor will mitigate the rigour of the laws concerning the pains of thy person, that thou mayest not be in danger of death or of mutilation of thy members.
Furthermore, we condemn, we reprobate, and we prohibit all thine aforesaid and thy other books and writings as heretical and erroneous, containing many heresies and errors, and we ordain that all of them which have come or may come in future into the hands of the Holy Office shall be publicly destroyed and burned in the square of St. Peter before the steps and that they shall be placed upon the Index of Forbidden Books.”
Philosopher Bruno paid the ultimate price for his scientific belief that the sun, and not the earth, is the centre of gravity, with the planet revolving as an orbit around it. His scientific interpretation of the forces of gravity, was seen as a blatant disregard of the authority of the church and the hierarchical order of feudalism.
Receiving the harsh verdict of the death sentence, he stood before the Inquisition and proclaimed the following profound words: “Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.”
Indeed, we derive our being from the epic heroic feats of outstanding revolutionaries such as Tupac Katari, the leader of the struggle of the indigenous people of the great nation of the Socialist Republic of Bolivia. He was condemned to death by the Spanish imperialists for his determination to free his people from oppression and exploitation.
The declaration of his court martial court reads thus: “Neither the King nor the State should be left seed or race of this or all Tupac Amaru or Tupac Katari for the much noise that this damn name has made among the natives. Because, otherwise, there would be a perpetual ferment.”
Emboldened by the worst form of adversity, death, he remained defiant to the end, when he said the following profound words before his execution: “is I alone shall die, but I will return in millions and millions”.
Indeed Tupac Katari, belongs to the category of rare warrior men and women, whose determination to the revolutionary ideas of our struggle, distinguished them to be amongst those who make immortal their sacrifice and virtue.
The recent coup against the democratically elected government of the socialist republic of Bolivia, is the testimony of the painful episode of the brutality of monopoly capital, against the rising ferment of the revolutionary movement for socialism in the Latin America and the Caribbean. The fallacious dream of the Yankee is to hamstring the revolutionary struggle of the heroic people of Cochabamba, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, Granada, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Honduras, and the whole of the revolutionary movement throughout the world.
The enemy of our revolution is rising its ugly head all over, rightwing fundamentalism is mounting a vicious onslaught against the popular elected governments and is therefore undermining the foundations of the democratic will of the majority of the people. Their agenda is to subvert the power of the people and therefore the sovereignty and territorial independence of nation states.
The US led regime change strategy is perpetuating political and socio-economic instability in the region. The oligarchy is hellbent to halt the growing advance of the progressive forces towards the building of one of the most powerful movements since the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, and in the Eastern European states.
The unfolding events demonstrate the enormity of how deeply imperialism and neo-colonialism are anchored to marginalise the vast majority of the poor people of the world from the commanding heights of our economy. The milestones of human development are juxtaposed by the gruesome barbarism of the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
The Yankee empire have declared you a fugitive of your own homeland, they are carrying guns hunting for you dead or alive and are all out to find you guilty of your supreme conviction, that socialism is the future of humanity, that socialism is the necessary logical advance of the development of human society. What they forget is that the brave never die, though they always walk in the valley of death, their courage blossoms thousands and millions of living men.
They do not know that it does not take a hero to order men and women into a battle, but it takes a hero to be one of those men and women who go into the battle. The most distinguished are men and women of your caliber, who are prepared to die on the battlefield, hoisting high the flag of the homeland into the beautiful skies.
Millions of the people of the world know that you are not a sell out, you are an honest revolutionary, a leader who is prepared to die for the supreme ideas of our revolution, the idea that the next logical step in the development of human society is socialism. This is the reason why they have declared you a fugitive from your own country, but what they do not understand, is that the future will mention your name, to be amongst those of the galaxy of the outstanding revolutionaries, who comprehended the necessity of the important theoretical question, that the final stage of the development of human society is a classless society.
During this day and hour, when the Yankee empire has declared you a fugitive of your homeland, when they have overthrown a popular and democratically elected government, the government by the people and for the people, our solidarity is with you. We do not have any other option, but to foster our common struggle for the achievement of the supreme ideal of socialism.
The indigenous people of the great region of Latin America and the Caribbean, and many others in the former colonies and semi colonies, in Africa and the Middle East, are subjugated to the worst forms human oppression and exploitation. The marauding criminal cartels of the monopolies are undermining the democratic will of the people, and therefore the sovereignty and territorial independence of our nation states.
Apostle José Marti has taught us that we must never loose faith in humanity, that humanity is like a peaceful ocean, and that if a few drops in the ocean are dirty, that does not mean the whole ocean is dirty. We are confident that the real revolution is the aspirations of the heroic people of Bolivia, the revolution is in the masses of the indigenous people as the ocean is in the waves.
The people of the African continent, and the region of Latin America and the Caribbean are woken together as one, by the echoes of the sounding waves of the Atlantic Ocean, the echoing sounds of the battle cries for freedom by the millions of our dear brothers and sisters, who were forcefully chained and from their own homes and sold as slaves to the empire.
From the dungeons of the slave forts at the Cape Coast in Ghana, the house of slaves in Senegal, Albreda in Gambia, Ouidah in Benin, Quillimane In Sofala Mozambique, Robben
Island in South Africa, and many other holding areas along the coast of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, millions were shipped through the beautiful waters of the Atlantic Ocean into the American hemisphere. The enslavement of the African people into the Latin America is one of the prolonged and most vicious genocides ever recorded in the history of the struggle of humanity.
Indeed, our solidarity and internationalism is kindled by the echoes of the sounding waves of the Atlantic and the Caribbean, by the battle cry of these great sons and daughters of the African continent. We revere their heroism to the cause of our struggle for the development of human society.
Today we are marching holding our hands together following in their footsteps, we are marching as one through the deep swamp, our solidarity and internationalism have fostered our brotherhood and common struggle, we are marching together in the face of unprecedented adversity, and indeed together we are determined to march until to the final victory of our struggle for total liberation.
Today we salute their outstanding heroism, we salute the men and women whose names have enriched the pages of human history, heroic men and women whom the future generations will without doubt regard as having shaped the world, and therefore, propelled the development of human society. Indeed, our hearts and souls embrace their heroism and magnanimous contribution to the noble cause of our struggle.
Our enemy may think that the aspirations of the generations of man, of fulfilling the revolutionary task of our struggle for the total emancipation of humanity, of a free world of equality and freedom may be a mere dream. But we are confident, that following the footsteps of these heroes and heroines of our struggle, and infusing this great sense of hope to our future generations, the day of reckoning shall most certainly come – the day on which our dreams shall be the supreme dreams of humanity, the day of the triumph of human freedom and dignity.
Small triumphs and large hearts can change the course of history, trees that grow slow bear the best fruits. We are confident that we shall achieve this daunting historic task, slowly but surely, humanity shall achieve its final stage of development, ushering itself from the realms of necessity into the realms of freedom.
The struggle of the people of the socialist republic of Bolivia is our struggle. Their victory is our victory, the victory of the whole of humanity.
This is how the future shall cherish the dreams of hope as we continue with our long journey into prosperity. No-one else but ourselves must be the architects of the change we wish to see in the world.
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Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador of South Africa to Cuba and chief of staff in the office of the Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC), and he wrote this article on 25 November 2019 in his personal capacity.