The IV Cuban Book and Culture Fair

Cuban Ambassador in Argentina inaugurates an event with Cuban culture
The IV Cuban Book and Culture Fair took place in the city of La Plata, capital of the province of Buenos Aires. Organized by the Cuban Embassy in Argentina, the Cultural Movement Acercándonos, the Union of Cuban Residents in Argentina (URCA) and the Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, among others, it also had the support of the Municipality of La Plata and the Cultural Institute of the Province of Buenos Aires.

This fair is part of a program of activities carried out on the island and in its representations abroad to celebrate the manifestations of Cuban culture and Resumen Latinoamericano was present to spread the scope of the cultural event.

The scheduled activities took place during the day of October 26 at the Cultural and Memory Center of the Malvinas Islands, located at 50 and 19, where the Malvinas Veterans' Center CECIM La Plata operates.
The central activity was led by the Cuban ambassador to Argentina, Pedro Pablo Prada, with the presentation of a compiled work of his authorship, "The War of the Two Centuries", where he analyzes the reasons and consequences of the Monroe Doctrine 200 years after its enunciation.

Prior to the beginning of the discussion, members of the Malvinas Veterans' Center (CECIM La Plata) Rodolfo Carrizo and Ernesto Alonso, presented Prada with a bicontinental map along with the CECIM emblem, within the framework of the defense of the Malvinas Cause and Argentine Sovereignty, battered by the current national Government.

The Cuban ambassador said that “For Cuba, Malvinas will always be a reason for defending Argentine rights over that territory. We do not have a protocolary position, but this is part of our commitment, in terms of foreign policy” while Alonso’s response was “We always say that we will return to Malvinas with the help of Latin America” after which a round of applause broke out from the audience, who accompanied and embraced the scene that was taking place.

Regarding the dialogue that the members of the panel maintained with the audience present, the intervention of Raimundi, in charge of opening the presentation, stood out. He emphasized the importance of considering the world’s multipolarity and no longer the unilateral view that the US wants to permanently impose. He called for the unity of the peoples as the only way to confront the pressures and attacks of US imperialism.

In the case of Prada, author of the book, his message was situated in the Monroe Doctrine in the current context, in the political situation of the new world order that Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America are going through. With absolute detail and pedagogical sense, the diplomat explained the scope and effects perpetrated by the two-hundred-year-old Monroe Doctrine, a political and military theory of domination, with a profound impact of penetration of US imperialism in the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. He delved into the metaphor of “ripe fruit,” that perverse concept, born from the entrails of the monster, as Martí said in reference to the most rancid colonialism. That prediction was brought to the present and reinterpreted by Prada when he recalled that according to the American narrative “Cuba should fall like a ripe fruit in the hands of the United States,” he affirmed.

He briefly reviewed the history of the struggles for Cuban independence while pointing out the multiple interferences of the US empire in the policy of self-determination, emphasizing that the Helms Burton Act and the blockade, in addition to the expulsion of the Island from the OAS as a consequence of the triumph of the Revolution, constitute actions of continuity of the aggressions against Cuba, carried out systematically through the foreign policy of the US over time, regardless of who was in the White House.

Pedro Pablo Prada compiled in the work a variety of works carried out by Cuban authors who, from the perspective of inhabiting and defending the territory that became the main laboratory for testing this doctrine, address its application and consequences in Cuba. At other times during the day for Cuban culture, there were simultaneous chess games, a tribute discussion for the 120th anniversary of Alejo Carpentier coordinated by Magda Arias, Third Secretary of the Cuban embassy in charge of the cultural area, the conference New Challenges of art and education in the territory: contexts, subjectivities and interventions by the modern and Afro-Cuban dance teacher Marta Bercy, coordinated by Ayelén Cáceres, a photographic exhibition by Paloma García and the book fair of the Caribbean country.
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