Assata Shakur on life in socialist Cuba:
"The first thing that was comforting was the politics. It was such a relief. You know, in the States you feel overwhelmed by the negative messages you get & you just feel weird, like you're the only one seeing all this pain & inequality..
"The first thing that was comforting was the politics. It was such a relief. You know, in the States you feel overwhelmed by the negative messages you get & you just feel weird, like you're the only one seeing all this pain & inequality..
[In the U.S.] People are saying, 'Forget about that, just try to get rich, dog eat dog, get your own, buy, spend, consume.' So living here was an affirmation of myself, it was like 'Okay, there are lots of people who get outraged at injustice.'
The African culture I discovered later. At first I was learning the politics, about socialism - what it feels like to live in a country where everything is owned by the people, where health care and medicine are free. Then I started to learn about the Afro-Cuban religions, ...
the Santeria, Palo Monte, the Abakua. I wanted to understand the ceremonies and the philosophy. I really came to grips with how much we - Black people in the U.S. - were robbed of. Whether it's the tambours, the drums, or the dances. Here, they still know rituals preserved from..
slavery times. It was like finding another piece of myself. I had to find an African name. I'm still looking for pieces of that Africa I was torn from. I've found it here in all aspects of the culture..
There is a tendency to reduce the Africanness of Cuba to the Santeria. But it's in the literature, the language, the politics."
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