A Justice Site
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Created: May 30, 2001
Latest update: June 6, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org.
Review and Teaching Essay by Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata
Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata, May 2001. Fair use "encouraged."
This essay is based on an article from the New York Times and a posting by TR Young of an April 30, 2001 speech of the World Bank President, James Wolfenson:
- In Castro's Changing World, Clashing Voices by David Gonzalez, Ney York Times, p.A1, Wednesday, May 30, 2001. backup
- A Great Job, Cuba and Social Justice James Wolfenson's April 30, 2001, speech. As reported by TR Young. Posted on the Red Feather Institute Site.
- World Bank on Cuba by William Solomon. Newspaper account of James Wolfenson's April 30 speech.
- Re: World Bank on Cuba by Alan Thomas Harrison.
- Re: World Bank on Cuba by Alan Spector.
- James Wolfenson's Speeches: Index Note that the April 30 speech is not listed.
- World Development Indicators 2001 Available as pdf files on World Bank Site. TR Young identifies the James Wolfenson April 30 Speech as introducing this publication.
This essay embodies the principle of knowing both sides of the issue. Traditionally, the phrase "Know thine enemy," (I seem to recall Alice Walker using that phrase in Our Mothers' Gardens.) refers to debate or argument. And debate or argument, in our legal system is dualistic. We have the State and the defendant in criminal law. We have the plaintiff and the respondent in civil law. But, as Martha Minow points out in Making All the Difference: Inclusion and Exclusion in American Law, we tend to label or reason within "yes" / "no" categories.
Today, most of the social problems we face are so complex it's hard to figure out where the barriers are. In that sense, at least, we have been globalized. The Gonzalez article in the NY Times does a good job of bringing you local narratives of people living in the structural context of present day Cuba.
On p. A7, Tony, "a 35-year-old former construction worker . . . is tired . . . of hearing that health and education are great triumphs. . . . "I'm not saying I suffer like in Africa, but Africaa did not have 42 years of a revolution. . . . If you are comparing us for 42 years with the United States only in bad things, why not the good also? Don't compare me with those children who die in Africa. Compare me with the children who go to school in Miami on motorcycles. Compare me with the children who have food in their stomachs."Here is a young man, with relatively little education, voicing a validity claim growing straight out of the theory of relative deprivation, the subject of experimentation in The American Soldier. Just like the men arguing, on the porch of the old country store (in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God), as to whether nature or caution keeps the child from burning its hand on the stove, a lack of formal education doesn't hinder their pondering the great questions. What is the balance between individual achievement and community welfare that serves humankind best? And how can we bring those issues to the populace in general? These were the questions Freire asked. And he found that the peasants he taught could think and reason through these issues just fine when they were allowed the agency to do so.
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Related References
The World Bank Group Is Cuba included? Link to Countries and Regions. James Wolfenson's Speeches: Index The Challenges of Globalization: The Role of the World Bank by James D. Wolfensohn, President, The World Bank Group. Berlin, Germany, April 2, 2001. See graph on empowering women. World Development Indicators Graph in Introduction, about halfway down file. Cuba and Social Justice Red Feather Institute Series on Cuban Sociology.