Resist Newsletter, Nov. 1991

Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Resist Newsletters Resist Collection 11-30-1991 Resist Newsletter, Nov. 1991 Resist Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/resistnewsletter Recommended Citation Resist, "Resist Newsletter, Nov. 1991" (1991). Resist Newsletters. 238. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/resistnewsletter/238 Inside: Fran White on the Hill/Thomas Fiasco Newsletter #240 A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority November, 1991 Workers' Rights in Honduras CELEO ALVAREZ CASILDO C ilio Casi/do, a Black (Garifuna) Honduran labor leader, was in Boston recently to talk to local labor and Central America activists about his work and to gain support for workers' rights in Hon duras. During an interview with Resist editor Tatiana Schreiber, Casildo spoke of his own development as an activist, the situation for Blacks in Honduras, the struggle for adequate health care, the par ticular concerns of health workers, and larger questions of union power as a force for social change in Honduras. The fol- lowing article is excerpted from that con versation. The interview was conducted in Celeo Casildo (second from left), with Rene Matrid, Mario Benitez and Hector Borja, all Spanish with the assistance of interpreter current or former officers of SITRAMEDHYS, the Honduran health and hospital workers' Cristy Costello (a member of the Comite union. Hondurefw Francisco Morazan in Boston) duras. For example, in 1880, North Ameri ment was very much influenced by the who also translated a transcript of the can companies became involved in miner Communist Party. Its first public mani interview into English. In the course of al exploitation, and in 1910 the banana festo was a clear statement of the problem editing for this article, changes have been companies arrived. As part of an effort to of the class struggle in Honduras, explain made for smoother reading in English. disrupt the Honduran workers' movement, ing the introduction of Black, English Any errors in meaning that may have the banana companies brought large mnn speaking field captains as a strategy to resulted are the responsibility of the editor. bers of Black workers from Jamaica and divide forces in the labor movement. It other parts of the Caribbean to work as helped orient the workers towards unity A Little History field captains in the banana camps. One based on a class perspective. The first Blacks arrived in Honduras important reason for this was that the own Perhaps the most important immi as slaves between 1517 and 1535 to fur ers and managers could communicate with gration of Blacks to Honduras occurred in ther the mineral exploitation of the coun the Jamaican workers - they spoke the 1797, when an African-Caribbean ethnic try. Since that time, Blacks have been same language. This generated the first group, the Garifunas, arrived on the coun incorporated into the life of the country. friction between the mestizo workers and try's northern shores. The Garifunas New waves of immigration have the Black workers. arrived in Honduras after experiencing continued to occur as a result of external But the union movement was very tremendous battles with the English and interests in the natural resources of Hon- alert. We must remember that the move- continued on page five Salvador E. Luria: Tribute We would like to take this opportu When Luria won the Nobel Prize, done. But now he stopped for a moment to nity to remember longtime Resist support Zinn was invited over to the house for a reminisce. It was about the movement er Salvador Luria, who died this past drink. As people sat around, the phone against the war in Vietnam, about February at the age of 78. Born in Turin, ringing off the hook, Luria said, "Well, it's BAFGOPI, his project and ours. And he Italy, Luria graduated from the University good to get the Prize in biology, but I wish said, with just a little catch in his voice: of Turin in 1935 and became a radiologist (and he gave a mischievous smile), I wish 'We did something then, didn't we?' in Rome. He left fascist Italy in 1938 for it was the Peace Prize." According to "Yes. Salva Luria, in all of his life, Paris, and came to New York in 1940. He Zinn, Luria, having grown up under fas with persistent courage and profound com worked at Columbia University, the Uni cism in Italy and sickened by its bloody passion, with occasional grumpiness and versity of Indiana, and MIT before joining victory in Spain, began to think of himself flashes of a comic spirit, with great tender Repligen Corporation, a biotechnology as a socialist while in Paris. After World ness for the human race, did something." firm in Cambridge, in 1984. Founder of War II, in the U.S., he was one of the ini the MIT Cancer Research Center, Luria tial ten signers of a petition pointing to the shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in medicine dangers of radiation poisoning in the con ************************ for research into viruses, and received a tinued testing of atomic bombs. In 1961 he National Book Award for his first non-aca protested the CIA-planned invasion of demic volume, Life: The Unfinished Cuba. Faculty • Students • Staff Experiment. But it was the Vietnam War that This newsletter editor (Tatiana became a central preoccupation of every Help Resist Grow! Schreiber) was touched by Salvador Luria minute Luria could spare from his work. Ask Your Library to Subscribe as a high school student when, fascinated "He was impatient with political theoriz to the by the book Life: The Unfinished Experi ing. He was impatient with apocalyptic ment, I wrote to him, describing how the visions of revolution. He wanted to get Resist Newsletter book had kindled an interest in biology. things done and he was a first-rate orga (Library subs are $15/year) Luria invited me down to his office, where nizer... patiently trying to point out to the Call or write for more details we discussed, among other things, the public the lies of the government, to dra benefits versus the risks of the recently matize the horrors that were taking place banned soap, Physohex (I seem to remem daily in the villages of Vietnam." ************************ ber he had stored a stash of the stuff before "What drove his great energy and it was banned), and he arranged for me to occupied his extraordinary mind," Zinn do a special project at the Cancer Research recalls, "was a profound indignation at the Center. At the time, it seemed kind of existence of injustice in a human society amazing that such a big man, a Nobel he thought capable of marvelous things .... Prize winner, would take a teenager seri When five of us at Boston University were ously and respect my ideas. But that was threatened with being fired because we all in a day's work for Salva Luria. The refused to cross the picket lines of striking rest of these comments include excerpts secretaries, Salva took it on himself, no from remarks delivered by writer, histo one asking it of him, to organize a national rian and activist Howard Zinn, at a memo campaign on our behalf. And we won." rial service last April. We thank Daniel Zinn called Luria last January, when Luria for sending them to Resist. he was quite ill, but "he dido 't want to talk about himself. He wanted to talk about the ILLEGITIMATE AUIIIOR.117 ***********************' ,-,~ WA-./~ ~ "61 war, which was soon to begin, to see if For l• fomi•tlo• •nd ara• I a•kldlaes wrile 10: Zinn came to know Luria 25 years there was something we could do. He Rnil{, One S'ummer SI., Somenllle, MA 021<'3 ago, not as a scientist but as a political asked me to come over, so I did.... I had The Resist Newsletter i~ published ten activist and organizer, the heart and soul of brought cookies but Salva already had times a year by Resist, Inc., One Summer an organization called the Boston Area twelve varieties on the table. He loved sci Street, Somerville, MA 02143 . (617) Faculty Group on Public Issues, ence and politics and literature, but felt 623-5110. The views expressed in articles, other than editorials, are those of the BAFGOPI. "He held it together, he made .that cookies nourished discussion .... His authors and do not necessarily represent the most phone calls, and collected the voice showed his illness, but there was no the opinions of the Resist staff or board. most money, to pay for those full-page ads way of telling he was so close to the end. in the New York Times for which He wanted to organize. He had ideas. Resist Staff: Nancy Wechsler BAFGOPI became known. The first ad Would I call some people? He would call Nancy Moniz was headed in huge letters with those others. He was suddenly full of energy in Tatiana Schreiber words which were the cry of the anti-war the midst of his pain .... Typesetting: Wayne Curtis movement year after year - and· which "He was usually impatient with are still needed: "STOP THE BOMB small talk, with tangents, with interrup Printing: Red Sun Press . ... ING." tions when practical organizing was being Printt1d on Rt1eycltld P1pt1r Page Two Resist Newsletter November, 1991 Will the Real Uncle Thomas Please Stand Up? as to what would speak to black people. because nationalists limit our understand FRANWHITE Only Senator Edward Kennedy could have ing of the tensions between individual provided a real alternative to the picture achievement and uplift of the race. They created by the right wing, but he was could not explain, for example, how Ayone who had an emotional stake silenced by his own sexist contradictions.

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