My name is Arturo O'Farrill. I am a composer, pianist, and educator. I am also the founder of Belongó, formerly known as the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, a nonprofit institution that will be establishing itself in the coming weeks in a cultural center in Harlem called Casa Belongó. I am an associate of Bill Evans at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Studies. I am the winner of 6 Grammy Awards and 2 Latin Grammys. I hold an honorary degree, an honorary doctorate from Tufts University, and have served as Distinguished Faculty and Associate Dean at the University of California, Los Angeles.
I speak today in support of Cuba’s sovereignty. The President of the United States and his administration are reinforcing a cruel decades-old economic blockade and have extended this cruelty to block the supply of oil to the island. They are imposing tariffs on nations willing to supply oil and humanitarian aid to the island. In short, they are literally starving 10 million Cubans. The richest nation in the world is literally watching human beings suffer and die just 90 miles south of Key West. Every year, the United Nations unanimously approves a resolution demanding that the United States lift this embargo and withdraw from this monstrous act of cruelty.
The reason given is that Cuba represents a threat to the security of the United States. There is no greater lie. Cuba does not possess weapons of mass destruction, does not harbor foreign terrorists, does not traffic illegal narcotics, nor does it have biological weapons. From a thousand perspectives, Cuba not only poses no danger to the United States but is also a nation that immensely respects American culture, hosting a world-renowned jazz festival and producing some of the best baseball players in the world.
Cuba’s love for American culture reflects its commitment to respect for all culture, education, and the arts. Cuban institutions have consistently produced some of the best dancers, musicians, writers, and artists in the world. Compared to the United States, Cuba has a longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rate, and one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Cuba poses no threat to the U.S., except perhaps to its ego. On the contrary, the U.S. presidential administration has attacked all facets of culture, education, the arts, and sciences, decimating funding for universities, research, laboratories, performing arts centers, and all kinds of enlightenment for our people.
The reason for the criminal hatred toward this island stems from the rejection of predatory capitalism. Cuba is a socialist state led by the Communist Party. It is not the playground for the corruption and bribery we see coming from the White House. The Cuban president and his family are not the recipients of the billions of profits made from public service. Cuba's legislative body is not filled with NRA lobbyists showering them with blood money while children and citizens are killed in mass shootings. Their president, assembly, or courts are not for sale to private billionaire citizens who buy favor through backdoor deals.
Now that I think about it, there are other things Cuba does not have, besides mass shootings. The United States, with all its wealth capture, is failing its people economically, with millions living on the streets and millions more unable to feed their families, find affordable housing, health insurance, or a comfortable retirement. The Cuban government has its weaknesses, but indifference to human suffering is not its hallmark.
So the United States does not have an imminent threat from Cuba. What the United States has is an unequal system of influence where the political machine and its power are highly concentrated in Florida by a certain class of Cuban expatriates who use their influence to favor right-wing extremism and seek revenge against those they feel have stolen from them.
The president depends on the right-wing political support that aligns with his own theory of self-enrichment at the expense of the working and middle classes and has learned to use Florida's political machine to expand his "kingdom."
This is why we are starving a nation that is already suffering. Greed, avarice, and more avarice. It is disgusting and constitutes one of the most atrocious crimes in modern history. What we do not see in our ideological battles is babies starving, the elderly unable to obtain medicine, human beings 90 miles south of the huge Piggly Wiggly supermarkets lining up to compete for what’s left on the shelves. They can barely afford to feed their families, and all of this caused by our economic dominance over Cuba and over the nations that have economic relations with Cuba.
I urge anyone who hears the sound of my voice to act strongly, to reject the weak reasons given to inflict cruelty on American compatriots (Cuba, as Bad Bunny pointed out, is part of the Americas) and to demand that this cancerous policy of hatred toward Cuba be immediately revoked.
I was in Havana when the joint announcement by Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama in 2014 declared that the United States and Cuba would begin a process of normalizing relations, and for a moment, Cuba was freed from the criminal treatment we had inflicted upon them for decades. Businesses sprang up, bellies were full, tourists were abundant, cruise ships were docking, and the dignity of the Cuban people was reaffirmed because they were allowed self-sufficiency, dependent only on their own ingenuity and the free market that was created without violating their sovereignty.
This is what can happen when this nation, led by the last great president, can do for others. This is what can happen when this nation does not practice invading and dictating how other sovereign entities must govern and think. Non-consenting entities, whether countries or individuals, must not and cannot be forced into relationships of any kind.
That was the America that was great—the one that respected the rights of other nations and protected its citizens instead of executing them through finely disguised racism passed off as the pursuit of so-called criminal immigration.
I ask you again to take the side of human compassion and imagine standing on the brink of unnecessary destruction. Imagine your child, parents, or loved ones literally dying because the richest nation in the world, driven by greed and partisan politics, demands that it give up its sovereignty and adopt its broken system.
-Putnam Valley, New York 2/14/26
(Tomado de la página de Facebook del autor)
https://www.facebook.com/reel/3313611798795486
