refreshing change to read Mitchell (SC April 1982) taking up Smith's ludicrous assertion that 'rape has been virtually eliminated in Cuba.
The trouble is that if Socialist Challenge on repeating it often enough, SOne comrades will start to believe it For myself, I prefer the following quote from the recently publishes Women and the Cuban Revolution: 'Rape and violent crimes against women are nowhere near prevalent in Cuba as they are United States. This I can believe.
Even more disturbing was Dave Smith's claim that has been eradicted' Cuba The book quoted above has a more truthtul approach:
'Now racial discrimination alll segregation in jobs, housing, • senooling ana recrea tional facilities is a thing of the past Cuba. racist attitudes still exist, especially among older people, and the effects o legacy of centuries o black oppression have no been fully eradicated. But ine whole revolutionary climate of Cuba — the internationalism, the solidarity with liberation struggles in Africa, and the opposition to racism and chauvinism of any kind helps to counteract this vanguard of the fight azallls. lacisi interna tionally.' The knack that some comrades are developing of bending reality to serve their particular political views is very worrying. It reminds me of a conversation myself and friends has with a Stalinist hack in the Soviet Union: 'What's your position on homosexuality?' 'Pardon?' 'Homosexuality - is it il legal? 'Oh, no, there isn't any problem What do you mean there's no problem?
doesn't exist in the HILARY DRIVER Uxbridge, Middlesex