By Pete Seidman

MIAMI — An important frontline engagement in the battle of ideas took place on the main campus of Florida International University (FIU) here on Friday, April 12.

About 25 people attended a showing and discussion of the documentary Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change. The event was co-sponsored by the FIU chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America and the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba.

The previous month, these groups had organized an International Women’s Day film showing that highlighted issues of transgender rights and the participation of women in Cuba’s literacy campaign.

The film was made by internationally known scholar Helen Yaffe, a lecturer on economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and a frequent visitor to Cuba who is widely respected for well-known books about the Cuban Revolution. Yaffe’s description on how she produced the movie can be found here.

“Cuba’s Life Task” is an hour-long documentary on the origins and practical application of an April 2017 law defining Cuba’s goals and international commitments to the necessary task of defending life in the face of human-caused climate change.

Cuba is a Caribbean island with some 3,500 miles of coastline located in a zone of the Atlantic prone to the wrath of hurricanes. The country’s water supply, food production, and ability to protect its citizens and vital tourism industry are at risk, largely due to environmental pollution primarily caused by heavily industrialized nations. Increasingly violent hurricanes intensify these dangers.

The film shows the political challenges to the revolution that arose as it began to implement technical programs aimed at addressing such challenges as the safety of some one million Cubans who live in threatened coastal areas.

Yaffe interviews people who grew up in fishing communities and don’t want to leave their homes despite continuing damage due to hurricanes, coastal erosion, and the destruction of protective coral reefs and mangrove swamps.

In the documentary, Cuban  scientists explain that the revolution must convince people of the need to implement the measures outlined in the 2017 law and avoid forcing them to move. There is a need to bring social sciences into the technical work, these Cuban leaders point out. Moreover, there is an awareness that even if Cuba were to fully implement its program of Tarea Vida (“Life Task”), as one scientist explains, “we’ll die unless the whole world succeeds.”

The documentary highlights the roots of this internationalist perspective going back to a 1992 speech by Fidel Castro given at a UN Conference on the Environment and Development.

An enthusiastic discussion followed the film showing. It included remarks by a Puerto Rican activist who highlighted the documentary’s description of how some 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria hit the island compared to just 10 deaths in Cuba. This is an example of why Puerto Rico needs to free itself from being a colonial outpost of Yankee domination, she said.

The Miami Coalition is working to show Yaffe’s documentary at other events taking place here to mark Earth Day, on April 22.

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Granma, Cuba’s main daily, covered the FIU event. “The Cuban strategy to mitigate ecological problems and those caused by climate change was presented to students, professors, and workers at Florida International University,” said an article in the newspaper’s April 15 edition. “The documentary ‘Cuba Life’s Task: Combating Climate Change’ was screened” on FIU’s main campus, it noted. “As Peter Seidman, a solidarity activist, explained to Granma, the film was made by the internationally renowned academic and writer, Helen Yaffe.”

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