Cuban Members of Parliament Debate about Racial Discrimination

Examples of these negative attitudes and practices were set out taking as a starting point the report of the Commission of Education, Culture, Science and Technology of the ANPP about the workshops on Inequality and Racial Discrimination held so far in five provinces, under the direction of the National Association of Cuban Writers and Artists UNEAC).

Abel Prieto, deputy to the National Assembly and advisor to the President of the councils of State and Ministers, championed to increase, in syllabuses, the approach to prominent figures of black or mixed race and to horrifying historic events, an expression of the profound racism at the time, like the genocide against the Movement of the Independents of Color, which took place in 1912.

Prieto also recalled the words of Miguel Barnet, president of the UNEAC, when he warned about the importance of taking pride in and acknowledge African deities, in the same way the Olympians of Greek mythology are studied.

In this regard he said that art instructors have, among their missions, the preservation of African heritage by way of music, dance, theater and visual arts, aware that this is an essentially cultural phenomenon.

Just when Human Rights Day was celebrated, Cuban parliamentarians went into racial discrimination on the island in depth, and its treatment verifies that this is not an institutional phenomenon, pointed out Heriberto Feraudy, president of the Jose Antonio Aponte Commission of the UNEAC, promoter of the debate among Cuban intellectuals.

The deputies of the ANPP will also meet on Tuesday in 12 permanent commissions, while on Wednesday, in a plenary session, they will examine the reports of the ministries of Computing and Communications and Education, as well as of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute.

The projects of the Plan of the Economy and of the State Budget for 2013, and the progress of the process of implementation of the Economic and Social Guidelines of the Party and the Revolution, approved at the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, will be debated on Thursday, in the 10th Ordinary Period of Sessions of the 7th Legislature.

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