The Dominion - Derrick O'Keefe

¡Salud! tells the story of Cuba's medical internationalism

dru — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:21:36 +0000

Film Review

[This article originally appeared in Seven Oaks Magazine]

Michael Moore’s Sicko, an incendiary expose of the for-profit health care system in the United States, generated some predictable backlash from right-wing pundits. More than anything else in the film, what tended to get them especially enraged was the role of Cuba in the documentary.

After comparing and contrasting the US system with health care in Canada, Britain and France, Moore delivers the coup de grace by taking a number of 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba to get treatment for work-related illnesses that the U.S. system would not cover. These scenes feature friendly Cuban medical professionals providing free, quality care to the sick 9/11 heroes so shamefully neglected by their own government. Contrary to the hysterical claims of Moore’s critics, these acts of generosity were not mere propaganda set-ups; in reality, the provision of free treatment for the 9/11 workers only scratches the surface of Cuba’s exemplary medical internationalism.

Director Connie Field’s Salud! picks up from Moore’s Sicko with a documentary that examines Cuba’s long and elaborate history of exporting the gains of socialized medicine. In addition to telling an inspiring story that has received next to no mainstream media coverage in the western world, Salud! also presents an important debate, counterposing two very different philosophies as to what it means to be a physician.

Field’s documentary begins with some of the basic history of the Cuban revolution. The dire state of health care, especially in the countryside, was a factor in bringing about a mass movement and fuelling support for the guerrilla army that toppled Batista in 1959. In the early 1960s, free health care became a right for all Cubans, and a rapid process of training new health professionals was undertaken. Within only a few years, Cuba began to send brigades of medical volunteers to allies and various needy Third World countries. The extent of Cuba’s “doctor diplomacy,” as it has been called, is truly staggering. Over the past five decades, more than 100 000 Cuban medical professionals have served abroad, often in the most remote, isolated and impoverished locations.

Salud! covers a lot of ground for a medium-length documentary, highlighting the accomplishments of Cuba’s doctors in The Gambia, South Africa, Central America, and Venezuela. To its credit, the documentary lets the story unfold primarily through the observations of the doctors and patients themselves, supplemented by some experts in the field, such as the innovative and tireless internationalist Dr. Paul Farmer.

The segments in Africa are particularly poignant. We see experienced Cuban doctors literally reduced to tears by the extreme poverty and suffering of their patients. In The Gambia, the Cubans have helped to build a basic health care system from the ground up, beginning with simple measures to reduce the scourge of malaria. In many cases, following their community health model, Cuban doctors live in small villages that have never before had the benefit of medical attention.

In South Africa, while many of the local doctors and private practitioners live like kings, the country’s health care system is stressed beyond its limits by the AIDS crisis and a lack of personnel and funding. In one scene, we see a Cuban physician who has “defected” from his compatriots’ team in South Africa. Now in private medicine, the born-again capitalist happily shows off his mansion and boasts of his new lifestyle in “a white neighbourhood”. A Cuban medical official explains that only roughly 2% of all of their internationalist physicians have left to pursue this more lucrative type of medicine. South African and other African health officials, for their part, complain of a much higher percentage of “brain drain” with their graduates, as they watch helplessly as doctors are lured by contracts from North America and Europe.

In Venezuela, too, the film demonstrates the clash of medical philosophies between the Cubans and the local physicians. When the government of Hugo Chavez initiated community health clinics in the poorest barrios, Venezuelan doctors refused to sign on, so the government called in thousands of willing Cubans to do the job. Now, for the first time, the barrios around Caracas have doctors living and working in poor communities.

The last segment of Salud! covers the incredibly ambitious efforts of Cuba to offer free medical training to students from throughout Latin America, Africa, and – believe it or not – even the United States. Some of the most delightful interviews in the film are with these young students. In two notable cases – a young man from rural Honduras and a dynamic young woman from a barrio in Caracas – the students tell of being inspired to become doctors after witnessing the selfless efforts of Cuban doctors in their communities.

The thousands of students receiving medical training in Cuba represent a real hope for developing a ‘New Doctor’ for the 21st century, not driven by a desire for money or social status, but instead motivated to serve those in need and live as an equal with those in his or her community.

Salud! is an important documentary, and not just because it deals with one of the great and almost unknown accomplishments of the Cuban revolution. The film also confronts crucial issues about our collective right to health care in a world where so many still die needless, preventable deaths because of the greed or indifference of others.

» ¡Salud!: Official Site

Images from Salud

Doing Jack for Haiti

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:57:11 +0000

Jack Layton campaigning in Halifax in 2004. photo: Rob Maguire

What would have had to happen in Haiti over the course of the election campaign to have compelled NDP leader Jack Layton to bring up Canada's shameful involvement in the plight of the western hemisphere's poorest country?

A brief summary of critical events in Haiti over the course of the long winter race for Parliament would indicate a foreign policy situation worthy of debate, if not strident denunciation. Haiti's slated January 8 elections were postponed, for the fourth time; the Brazilian commander of the United Nations mission died of an apparent suicide and was replaced by a Chilean general who participated in the overthrow of Allende and was trained at the notorious School of the Americas; Father Gerard Jean-Juste, along with hundreds of other political prisoners held by the de facto Haitian regime, languished in prison even after being diagnosed with leukemia.

Solidarity activists made a concerted effort, in particular, to encourage Jack Layton to use the election spotlight to call for the release of Father Jean-Juste, whom Amnesty International has declared a 'prisoner of conscience'. It is, incidentally, widely believed that Jean-Juste, if he were to be released and allowed to run under the exiled Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas banner, would win anything resembling a 'free and fair' election in Haiti today. At the same time as many progressive and concerned people looked to Layton and the NDP to raise the issue, an energetic campaign was being waged to punish Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew for Canada's support of the coup in Haiti. (Pettigrew was indeed defeated by Bloc Quebecois candidate, Vivian Barbot).

Despite all of this, Haiti did not warrant a mention from the national NDP communications team. Nor did, in fact, the issue of U.S. war resisters seeking sanctuary in the United States – another issue the NDP could have featured in order to both highlight a just cause and expose the hypocrisy of the Liberals' rhetoric against the war in Iraq. Until the last week of the campaign, when Layton made an important call for a debate in the House of Commons about Canada's new, more aggressive role in Afghanistan, the only thing resembling 'foreign policy' on the NDP website was a letter of condolence to the Israeli people regarding Ariel Sharon's failing health.

None of this to say that there are not a number of NDP candidates, members, and supporters who took the issue seriously, with some even joining in challenging Liberal incumbents at all-candidates meetings. Alexa McDonough, as the party's foreign affairs critic, and a handful of Members of Parliament, including the re-elected Libby Davies (Vancouver-East) and Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas), have written letters critical of Canada's involvement in Haiti. With a minority Conservative government that will only, if anything, be more overtly supportive of suppressing Haitian democracy and self-determination, the 10 additional New Democrat MPs elected Monday can hopefully contribute to efforts to raise this and other vital foreign policy issues.

But there's no time like an election campaign to bring matters to public attention, and Layton and his handlers failed to bring up Haiti. And that failure represents a disservice to the people of Canada, a life-threatening disservice to political prisoners like the ailing Father Jean-Juste, and a disservice to the long tradition of movements against war and empire in this country.

Years ago, Tommy Douglas passionately denounced Canadian complicity in the war in Vietnam – which included arms sales and the development of the chemical weapon Agent Orange – and called that conflict "the greatest moral issue of our time."

Jack Layton often said he would hold Paul Martin's 'feet to the fire' on foreign policy matters. The feet may now be Stephen Harper's, but Canada's policy in Haiti remains one of the great issues of our time.

Ordinary people across this country, whose morality – in the real sense of the word, not in the nominal "God Bless Canada" sense of our PM-elect -- includes the principal that all human lives, no matter where they are lived, should matter equally, are voicing their outrage at Canada's involvement in the misery of ordinary Haitians. And, as people continue to learn the grim truth about Canada in Haiti, many more will join in saying loud and clear: Not in our name. One can only hope, perhaps in vain, that Jack Layton will be among them.

Derrick O'Keefe asks what it would take to compel NDP leader Jack Layton to bring up Canada's involvement in Haiti.

Appreciating Steve Nash, basketball's anti-war MVP

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 05:05:07 +0000

This article originally appeared in Seven Oaks Magazine.

Photo: NBA

Despite the fact that his Phoenix Suns – who are trailing the experienced San Antonio Spurs 3 games to 1 in the Western Conference finals – appear destined to be eliminated from the NBA Playoffs this week, Steve Nash has nevertheless put together a truly remarkable season. The Victoria-raised point guard has reached the pinnacle of the basketball world and the height of Canadian sports fame.

Having already become the first player from north of America to win the Most Valuable Player award, Nash's playoff performance – especially his superlative play in eliminating his former team, the Dallas Mavericks – evoked only slightly hyperbolic comparisons to the likes of Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson. In Canadian sports, Nash now stands alone, aided by the NHL season having been put on ice.

In fact, perhaps only retired hockey star Wayne Gretzky eclipses Steve Nash's fame in Canada's sports world today. And while there are some striking parallels between these two compelling athletes, one hopes that they will end when Nash's career does. The Great One, now president and part owner of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, has maintained his post-career profile as a shameless corporate shill, pitching every product imaginable and never missing a shot at self-promotion.

Nash, like Gretzky did during his prime, dominates his sport with unequalled play-making, passing, and vision -- and in spite of his lack of size and power. He also – like the hockey legend during his Edmonton years – is the centre-piece of an exciting, young, offensive-minded team. A final similarity is that Nash checks in at a playing weight well under 200 lbs. (though he's listed at a generous 195 lbs.), which can lead to rather absurd and metaphysical explanations for his greatness, while adding to his underdog mystique.

The boisterous colour commentator Bill Walton, for instance, interjected during a recent virtuoso performance against Dallas that Nash was "one of the least athletic" players in the league. Quickness, balance and stamina, of course, are less glamorous skills than the leaping ability of a Dwayne Wade or the sheer poundage of a Shaquille O'Neal, the runner-up for this year's MVP. (Similarly, for years early in his career, the moronic assertion that Gretzky "couldn't skate" passed for astute observation).

But the analogies to Gretzky's career only go so far, and that could bode well for Nash's performance off the court, which has thus far been pretty exemplary, as much as anyone in the hyper-egomaniacal greed-driven world of professional sports can approximate a normal human being.

While Gretzky was coddled from the age of 11 because of his prodigious talents, Nash only took up basketball at the age of 13. His progress has been gradual, and forged through relentless hard work. He was under the radar of all but a few college recruiters, ending up on a scholarship at Santa Clara. His first years in the NBA were largely disappointing, or at least unspectacular. A handful of average years, mostly as a back-up point guard, first in Phoenix (where he was originally drafted) and then in Dallas, preceded his emergence as an all-star.

This late blooming might be part of the reason Nash appears to have some depth and breadth of character and intellect. During his 2002-2003 season with Dallas, he had the temerity to question the motives for Bush's war with Iraq.

Breaking sharply from tradition, Nash actually used the occasion of the 2003 All-Star Game media session to expound on his criticism of U.S. foreign policy:

I believe that us going to war would be a mistake. Being a humanitarian, I think that war is wrong in 99.9 percent of all cases. I think it has much more to do with oil or some sort of distraction, because I don't feel as though we should be worrying about Iraq. ('Steve speaks out,' SI.com, February 7, 2003)

Gretzky, on the other hand, interviewed a week after the launching of the invasion, showed himself entirely out of sync with public opinion in Canada and Quebec, while promoting the most servile faith in the president and his motives:

I live in the United States right now. I elected the president. I happen to think he's a great leader and a wonderful president, and if he believes that we need to be where we are right now, for the freedom of the world, I back him 100 per cent.

No one likes war, no one wants to see casualties, no one wants to see POWs. Unfortunately, that's a part of war, but we've got to believe in our president and I happen to think he's a great leader. ('Gretzky says he backs Bush on Iraq war,' CTV.ca, March 25, 2003)

Nash refused to back off his opposition to the U.S. war even after being criticized by his owner and other star players. This, remember, from a Canadian playing in Texas.

Now playing in the decidedly Republican state of Arizona, Nash nevertheless felt comfortable mentioning, in a recent interview, that he was reading the Communist Manifesto in order "to get a better perspective" on the biography of Ernesto Che Guevara he had been reading. ('The hectic eclectic,' The San Diego Union-Tribune, January 31, 2005)

Steve Nash, even at the slightly advanced basketball age of 31, seems determined to continue improving himself on and off the court. Surrounded by gifted young players, like his supremely talented 22 year-old pick-and-roll partner Amare Stoudemire, Nash may yet have his best years and even some championships in his future.

Given his performance off the court in the growing spotlight, one might just be forgiven for believing -- amidst all the well-founded cynicism about today's pro sports world – that all of this success won't spoil Steve Nash.

Derrick O'Keefe looks at the career of the Victoria-raised NBA MVP, and his achievements as an off-court human being.

Insisting on Working

Sat, 06 Nov 2004 09:43:20 +0000

An interview with <cite>The Take</cite> Director Avi Lewis

The Take, directed by Avi Lewis and written by Naomi Klein

Avi Lewis is the director of The Take, a documentary about factory occupations in Argentina. The Take opened in Canadian theatres on October 29th. A longer version of this interview originally appeared in Seven Oaks Magazine (sevenoaksmag.com).

What was your initial motivation in making this film?

Avi Lewis: We set out to make a resolutely hopeful film. We wanted to find people constructing real alternatives to corporate capitalism. And we looked all over the world where people were doing interesting things, and it just happened, when we were looking, that in Argentina it was on fire--a laboratory of democracy.

You are from a very well known social democratic family here in Canada. What lessons do you think the movement in Argentina, what's depicted in the film, has for the labour movement here?

I think this film--and this movement--is a real challenge to the traditional labour movement. And an opportunity, I would add. What they do down there is they invert the traditional labour action. Instead of withholding their labour, which--in a globalized era of downsizing and closing of public services--is exactly what they want us to do, they insist on working. A strike is kind of meaningless in that context, when a factory is closing. But insisting on working is an inversion of the traditional labour action. In terms of optics it's incredible because you put the onus on the authorities to stop people from working. And in an economy where people are desperate for work, here and there, that's a very powerful symbolic statement.

There's also a real debate between how much of our energy, as activists and people who want to change the world, we put into electoral politics versus outside the electoral system; and I believe that you don't have to choose. At election time, we should get out there and try to get rid of the worst Campbells and Kleins, and Paul Martins, and try to get the slightly less bad politicians. But not think, in that way that my parents' generation and my grandfather [David Lewis] did, that we're actually going to see real change at the legislative level anytime soon, because all of their hands are tied by the same trade agreements and by the same forces of international capital. And things have gotten dramatically more globalized and more centralized in globalization since my grandpa's day. And so I think that the grassroots movements and the electoral movements have to work together, and I don't think we have to choose. But right now, where we feel the energy [is best used] is outside the political system.

The workers of the Brukman textile factory march in Buenos Aires. The Brukman factory, which was successfully taken over by its workers after the owner closed shop, is one of several hundred such factories in Argentina, which are the subject of Lewis and Klein's The Take. photo: Argentina Indymedia

There's a segment in the film where one of the central characters invites you back to film a sequel, to see the movement's progress. In terms of sequels, are you considering looking at the process in Venezuela, where you have that interplay between government and grassroots, and where there's a growing cooperative sector?

There's a huge amount of autonomous organizing in Venezuela. It's a totally different situation because the space is being created by the state. And there's a lot of debate about how much is being co-opted by the state and how much Chavez is actually creating community media and community services that are autonomously run and are not politically indebted the way the Peronist machine uses all social services to keep people in the service of The Party.

I haven't been [to Venezuela], so I wouldn't be able to weigh in; I know it's a big debate. But in terms of the sequel: I think it's being lived right now all over the world. I'm interested in seeing the sequel in Canada. I'm really interested in seeing what happens as these ideas leak into Canadian communities that are losing work and the increasing number of places where the crisis has arrived in Canada. And where people are fighting back and building things, not just protesting.

In this interview, The Take director Avi Lewis talks about the film, and the implications of "inverting the traditional labour action".