On the world stage, there are many states of af­fairs that dis­turb me ex­ceed­ing­ly and, in some cas­es, dis­gust me. In no par­tic­u­lar or­der, some of them, which con­tin­ue to this day, are Amer­i­can and French un­der­de­vel­op­ment and im­pov­er­ish­ment of Haiti; Eu­ro­pean, but es­pe­cial­ly French, eco­nom­ic rav­aging of Africa, par­tic­u­lar­ly French co­er­cion of African re­pay­ment of French African-de­rived loans; Amer­i­can pow­er-based con­trol of world cur­ren­cies and the world eco­nom­ic or­der; Amer­i­can vi­o­lent over­throw (via the CIA) of coun­tries with non-cap­i­tal­ist, non-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic (so-la­belled) philoso­phies; Amer­i­can trade and trav­el block­ade of Cu­ba.

The last mem­ber of the list has been go­ing on in the wake of the peo­ple of Cu­ba’s 1959 ouster of the cor­rupt dic­ta­tor Ful­gen­cio Batista. And while Cu­ba has had some ease from an as­so­ci­a­tion with com­mu­nist Rus­sia and from pol­i­cy re­lax­ation dur­ing the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion, Amer­i­can pres­sure on the as­sertive Caribbean coun­try has been un­re­lent­ing, tight­en­ing un­der Num­ber 45.

I thought Pres­i­dent Biden would have al­ready re­moved or, at least, re­laxed some of the block­ages re­tained and im­posed by 45. Af­ter all, Biden was Oba­ma’s Deputy, and Biden’s cam­paign in its em­brace of di­ver­si­ty seemed pro­gres­sive enough to en­cour­age hope that there would be at least a re­turn to Oba­ma’s poli­cies.

But this has not yet ma­te­ri­alised. Which is why David Ab­du­lah of the MSJ has writ­ten an Open Let­ter to Biden, call­ing up­on him to end ‘the il­le­gal and il­le­git­i­mate block­ade against Cu­ba now.’ It is al­so why oth­ers and I have ap­pend­ed our sig­na­tures to the let­ter in a show of sup­port.

The let­ter was dropped off last Thurs­day at the Amer­i­can Em­bassy where it was re­ceived by a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer who in­formed David that no oth­er of­fi­cial was free enough to come to the win­dow to re­ceive it. It was al­so sent to the me­dia for pub­li­ca­tion. In the pages that fol­low I will at­tempt a sum­ma­ry of the let­ter.

It be­gins by ex­press­ing ‘our deep con­cern over the con­tin­u­a­tion of the eco­nom­ic block­ade against Cu­ba and of the Trump era mea­sures tak­en against Cu­ba.’ It re­minds Biden that he has it with­in his pow­er to ‘take cer­tain ac­tions’, which is why he is be­ing ad­dressed ‘very di­rect­ly’. It com­pares the block­ade to 45’s con­struc­tion of a wall at the Unit­ed States-Mex­i­co bor­der to keep Mex­i­cans out of the Unit­ed States and re­minds Biden that both he and the Pope (his faith leader) were against the wall, he, in par­tic­u­lar, hav­ing signed an Ex­ec­u­tive Or­der to stop it. Us­ing ‘wall’ as a metaphor for the block­ade, it re­minds Biden that the Unit­ed States has for more than 60 years put an eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial, and fi­nan­cial wall, made up of var­i­ous pieces of law, around Cu­ba. It notes that, un­ex­pect­ed­ly, the wall/block­ade is not meant to block Cubans from il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing the US but to pre­vent the US and oth­er coun­tries from do­ing busi­ness with Cu­ba, there­by ‘bring[ing] about hunger and des­per­a­tion’ and ‘in­flict­ing pain on the Cuban peo­ple.’

The let­ter re­minds Biden that one of his cam­paign is­sues was to save lives dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and queries his earnest­ness in re­spect of the sal­va­tion of Cuban lives since the wall/block­ade has pre­vent­ed Cu­ba from buy­ing ven­ti­la­tors, sy­ringes, PPE, raw ma­te­ri­als for mak­ing vac­cines, etc from the US and oth­er coun­tries.

It charges that the US acts uni­lat­er­al­ly in the im­po­si­tion of its block­ade laws and the as­so­ci­at­ed penal­ties, which re­late to food, med­i­cines, and plant and equip­ment, among oth­er ne­ces­si­ties. It re­minds Biden that for 29 con­sec­u­tive years the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly has been vot­ing ‘al­most unan­i­mous­ly’ in sup­port of the Res­o­lu­tion to end the wall/block­ade and that, six weeks ago, 184 coun­tries vot­ed for it to be end­ed.

It is ev­i­dent there­fore that the US is a law un­to it­self. It can uni­lat­er­al­ly de­clare Cu­ba to be a state spon­sor of ter­ror­ism and, al­so uni­lat­er­al­ly, pre­vent oth­er na­tions from trad­ing with Cu­ba.

The let­ter re­counts the role of the CIA in the 1976 bomb­ing of a Cubana air­plane in which all 73 peo­ple per­ished. It points to oth­er ‘acts of ter­ror­ism’ in our hemi­sphere over the years spon­sored or sup­port­ed by the US. It laments over Num­ber 45’s 243 mea­sures to re­in­force the wall/block­ade. Then it draws up­on Biden’s vaunt­ed hu­mane­ness and hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism to per­suade him to end the wall/block­ade.

If Biden doesn’t end the wall/block­ade, he must face ques­tions like the fol­low­ing: Is Amer­i­ca re­al­ly back? Is it re­al­ly the leader of the free world? Does the will of the UN mean any­thing to it? Can he with any cred­i­bil­i­ty at all re­pu­di­ate Oba­ma’s poli­cies?

The let­ter ends by re­peat­ing its call to end the wall/block­ade and by invit­ing Biden to join the side of world opin­ion, re­spect the sov­er­eign­ty of Cu­ba and en­gage its lead­ers in re­spect­ful di­a­logue, and stop be­ing self-right­eous and hyp­o­crit­i­cal.

Will Pres­i­dent Biden act in the right way? Should I hold my breath?