Lessons from an African, Indigenous, Palestinian Contingent to Cuba

Our intent with the African, Indigenous, and Palestinian contingent of the 53rd Venceremos Brigade was to bring together organizers actively engaged in their own national liberation struggles to build solidarity across movements and learn about the Cuban revolution and the U.S. attempts to destroy it. We knew from the start that we wanted a smaller brigade. This would allow us to go deeper with each other and with the program as we figured out the new logistics of organizing under Trump 2.0. One curveball we didn’t expect? The $200 cost for an additional checked bag on commercial flights to Cuba, the very bag each brigadista would use to bring material aid. They used to be free – gotta love when private corporations fall in line with the escalation of the U.S. blockade.

We ended up with a contingent of 37, majority African with a small but mighty Palestinian and Indigenous contingents. We had a variety of local, national, and international social justice organizations represented and the majority of the group were women or gender expansive people. The vibes were, needless to say, incredible. From jump, people were open to connection, curious, and caring with each other.

We wanted to build a container for joy, vulnerability, growth, and rigorous revolutionary political development. One step was the three brigadista prep sessions. They covered Cuban history from a national liberation perspective, transformative justice, and legal preparation. They also included caucusing within our nations – African, Indigenous, and Palestinian – where we talked through prompts about navigating conflict and contradictions across movements and with each other.

That caucusing during the prep was an adjustment newly made for VB53, based on assessment of VB52. On that brigade we only began caucusing when we were face to face on the island. The impact of this, combined with VB52’s much larger size, was that folks struggled to have intense ideological discussions with relative strangers. Vulnerability and reflection require trust. Without it, those conversations stay surface level. It was only towards the end of the trip, in self-formed caucuses, that the brigadistas began to really dive in with each other. By then we’d missed a lot of opportunities for building connections.

So yes on VB53 we caucused in the prep, on Zoom. The result was a high level of bonding and conscientization. Real pedagogy of the oppressed energy. By the time we got to the island we were all cousins, complete with inside jokes and clear political and strategic intersections and differences, with more waiting to be discovered. Prep built our bond and our discipline and it laid the foundation for a cohesive brigade.

Another step was organizing the brigade into four sub-brigades, each named for either revolutionary fighters in one of our groups’ national liberation struggles: Mambí (Cuba), Fedayeen (Palestine), Cimarrón (African and Indigenous struggles throughout Turtle Island), or a stage in one of our struggles, Chimurenga (Zimbabwe). This served two purposes. First, it made tracking, supporting, and moving the group easier, a pair of responsables (leaders of the brigade) could be responsible for a specific subset of brigadistas. Second, it helped instill in brigadistas a sense of their historic role in their own people’s struggles. It helped them see this brigade as an opportunity to strengthen the connection between Cuba and the struggle of their people.

Mambí

Mambí (or Mambises, plural) were fighters in Cuba’s war of independence against Spain, members of what was known as the Mambí Army or the National Army of Liberation, active from the mid-1800s to the early 20th century. The word is thought to be of Congolese origin, and indeed the fighters were mostly African including the hero of the Cuban Revolution known as the Bronze Titan, Antonio Maceo. The Mambises were fierce and resourceful fighters. They were poorly armed and underfed thanks to Cuba’s underdevelopment under colonialism, but organized and skilled in guerrilla warfare tactics that forced Spain to the negotiating table. Their armed resistance led to the abolition of slavery in Cuba and nearly won Cuba’s independence. It was snatched away at the last moment by U.S. intervention and occupation. Much of the foundation of the glorious 300-year struggle for national liberation that became the Cuban revolution was laid by the resistance of African and Indigenous people like the Mambises to oppression and exploitation under slavery and colonialism on the island.

Fedayeen

Fedayeen are freedom fighters skilled in warfare and committed to the liberation of Palestine from settler-colonialism and Zionism. They are, like most of the best people, considered by occupiers to be terrorists. To those who believe in justice, they are a symbol of the steadfastness, discipline, and fearlessness of the Palestinian national liberation struggle. The Fedayeen emerged from the Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes in 1948 during the Nakba, a wave of systematic settler terrorism and massacres. Refusing to abandon the land of their people, the Fedayeen organized a transnational resistance to the occupation that spanned Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, striking at the heart of the Zionist entity using daring guerrilla tactics. The Fedayeen show us that we must refuse to accept the unacceptable.

Cimarrón

Cimarrón (in English maroon) is a Spanish word meaning feral animal, fugitive, or runaway. Colonizers used it for African and Indigenous people who escaped slavery to form independent settlements resisting colonization across the Americas. Cimarrones were active in all areas where Africans lived, particularly in Florida, Brazil, Jamaica, Suriname, Honduras, and Colombia. In Cuba, Cimarrones founded free communities of African people known as palenques in the eastern regions of Guantánamo and Baracoa. Palenques were African liberated zones: a rejection of the violent colonial society and culture and the base of organized long-term armed resistance to it. The example of the Cimarrón shows us that assimilation is neither mandatory nor irreversible and that a revolutionary culture that is ours can be the most effective weapon. As Amilcar Cabral said, “as long as there continues to exist a part of these people retaining their own cultural life, foreign domination cannot be sure of its perpetuation.”

Chimurenga

Chimurenga is a Shona word which means revolutionary struggle or uprising. It describes a fight for dignity, human rights, and justice and its use was popularized during the centuries-long fight against British settler-colonialism in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s national liberation struggle began in the 1500s with the arrival of European invaders and has undergone three stages, Chimurenga, which continue to this day.

The First Chimurenga (1896–1897) was an uprising by the Ndebele and Shona peoples against the British South Africa Company’s colonial occupation which laid the foundation for revolutionary nationalism. The Second Chimurenga (1964–1979), also known as the Zimbabwe War of Independence, was an armed guerrilla struggle waged by ZANU and ZAPU forces against the settler minority government of Ian Smith, culminating in the Lancaster House Agreement and the internationally recognized independence of Zimbabwe in 1980. The Third Chimurenga, beginning around 2000 and continuing to the present day, refers to the fast-track land reform program aimed at redistributing land from European settlers to the indigenous Africans of Zimbabwe while also confronting ongoing Western sanctions imposed in response. Since taking their land back, Africans in Zimbabwe have worked collectively to make the nation food self-sufficient with a rapidly growing economy, surpassing its neighbors for the past three years. Zimbabwe shows us that with organized protracted resistance and planned development, settler-colonialism can be defeated and economic warfare can be overcome.

Together these sub-brigade names represent African, Indigenous, and Palestinian struggles for liberation that have fiercely crisscrossed the planet, leaving vexed and terrified colonizers, settlers, slave masters, and occupiers in their wake. They are living proof that the oppressed have always fought back and very often we have won. Their example offers us a blueprint rooted in collective strength, discipline, and an irreversible commitment to be free. These are the lessons that ground us, the resistance that unites us, and the strategies that will lead us forward. In Cuba, they reminded us who we are and what we’re fighting for.