A common conviction

Brian Roper explains the value of academic collaboration with Cuba, based on a shared understanding about the role of education in society

The origin of London Metropolitan University's relationship with Cuba actually predates the creation of the current University. It goes back at least 20-25 years when some humanities scholars, at what was then the Polytechnic, subsequently to become University of North London, were working in the field of Cuban studies. But in terms of the collective engagement with the island, our involvement is more recent.

About eight years ago, rather interestingly, there was a British Council-sponsored delegation to Britain from the Cuban Ministry of Higher Education that had been provided with an extensive tour of British higher education institutions, including some of our most illustrious centres of learning. This followed from a British Council UK higher education exploratory visit to Cuba the previous year, on which the then University of North London was also represented. The visitors were very impressed and taken with what they had seen. Scientifically, in terms of facilities and research prowess, they had seen some very eminent institutions, but, in the Cuban sense, they were not simpático. I believe the message was that they had not identified any institution with whom they had felt empathetic, there was no common ground in terms of values, and, wanting to identify an institution that might be more interesting in that regard, they lighted on what was then the University of North London.

We hosted several delegations, with members who by the time they reached us had often been rather "toured out" (they had seen the best of the best and so on) but still had this feeling in their hearts that there was something missing.

We hit it off immediately. We talked about shared values, we talked about the humanitarian objectives of education, we talked about education as a vehicle for social change, we talked about education as a vehicle for social empowerment and mobilisation of communities, and we found fertile common ground. It was from that time that we began working with Cuban Vice-Minister Rodolfo Alarcón, who continues to be a close friend of the University, and we started mapping out areas of collaboration.

Now, eight years later, I am delighted to report that we have active collaboration with Cuban partners in fields as diverse as science, medical education, tourism and information technology, as well as the bedrock of history, literature, film, and Spanish and Latin American Studies and Caribbean Studies, where the links and student and staff exchanges with Cuba began. As the readers of the journal will know, we have been pleased to be hosting the International Institute for the Study of Cuba which has already established itself as a leading platform in this hemisphere for the better understanding of the Cuban experience.

So for us it has been a matter for great interest and genuine, sincere and mutual support. I believe that we correctly adopted a non-imperialistic stance. We would never think that we had the monopoly of insights into any issue, and we have always wanted to learn from the Cuban experience.

The question, as readers of the journal will know, is whether this Cuban 'experiment', or project if you like, is replicable or not. Under what circumstances might the ideas be transferable, particularly the ideas in the field of education where the achievements are very considerable, not just in the regional context but against any yardstick, and, of course, in healthcare where the medical statistics demonstrate outstanding achievement despite nearly fifty years of isolation.

We have learnt a great deal from our Cuban friends about inventiveness, resourcefulness, about determination and tenacity. But the main point is the shared realisation that without a common conviction around the human condition and the role of education, one cannot progress.

We have that shared conviction. I cannot think that anyone in or outside Cuba or Britain is entirely uncritical of things the way they are and we all look for improvements in our lives, but I believe that the Cuban model is one which we should study dispassionately, objectively and with recourse to evidence. We should be prepared to learn from Cuba, and we certainly do not have a monopoly of truth in these areas.

Looking forward, I think that the platform we have built is now very strong and very extensive. We have identified a coalition of people within the University, more than 50 active scholars who, in their various fields, are already working with Cuban partners or propose to do so. We see the Cuban experience as important in and of itself.

What has been particularly heartening in the last two years, after a necessary foundation period, is to see the preparedness of the Cuban scholars and their Government to endorse our work to their friends. Our existing links with the University of West Indies in the English-speaking Caribbean, for example, have been strengthened by virtue of their encouragement of our joint work, and the same holds as we look at collaborations with Venezuela and the coastal Latin American states.

We have targeted that region as an area of international development for the University. In that region the educational achievements of Cuba are highly regarded. With Cuban support and endorsement we are seen to be trusted and can be relied upon to deliver on our undertakings.

Of course, many of the countries concerned don't suffer the isolation that Cuba has suffered and some of them are rather better resourced in terms of natural resources. But I think what they are seeking to do in a Bolivarian sense is to not to make the mistakes of the Northern hemisphere but rather to keep always to the fore social objectives and the notion that the good society is not just about a good economy (whatever that means) and markets but actually a more profound and humanitarian concern.

So I believe that working together with Cuba, the whole of coastal Latin America and the Caribbean islands, we will and can do further work. We are already discussing the extent to which we shall expand there. We have been able to strengthen our links with Argentina and Peru, Ecuador and so on, and, for reasons that will be familiar to the readers of the journal, this is actually where the demography is helpful.

Where we sit today in London we are in the Northern hemisphere, with an ageing population and a welfare system that is clearly not sustainable. We are in a country that is now threatened rather seriously by a financial crisis, the end of which is not yet clear. Meanwhile, Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin America is an area of 480 million people with a young and growing population, and we as a University serve many of their diaspora communities in London and the UK on our programmes. It makes obvious sense for us to want to be part of their growth and development. So it is a key platform for our international development. It is about business of course, it is about economics of course, but, I repeat, it is also about social purpose. Wherever we find people who share the Cuban view about what matters, we are likely to be productive together, because that is our shared view.

In Western Europe, particularly when we talk about scholarship, we can become somewhat detached. There is a role, of course, always and everywhere for profound enquiry, for so called blue skies research, most clearly expressed by some in the experimental sciences who argue with conviction that they don't need to ask the question "why am I doing this, what is it for, who is going to benefit?" I think human nature is such that you will always have leading thinkers who need to be free and need to be resourced to think unthinkable things without any utilitarian objective at all. This is an aspect of academic enquiry that has always had merit, but in my view, it does not address the fundamental problem.

If you believe, as I do, and I believe this University does, that whatever our differences of opinion may be from time to time, there are things wrong in the world and that the role of a university is not simply to observe from afar and to comment in a dispassionate manner but to be actively involved, in the community, in the schools, in the work places, to really bring advanced scholarship to bear on issues that matter to ordinary people. If you believe that, as I do, then you will want to do this kind of work.

In Cuba, you have a practical and moral partner. Cuba has had to deal with those realities. A country which few others could emulate in terms of resistance to external threat, whilst finding its own way in the world and now gaining recognition. Applauded by fair-minded commentators for its demonstrable achievements made with very little by way of resources.

For me, it is the application of advanced scholarship to the needs, especially the material needs, of people that universities should be about. Some universities take a different view. That is for them, and I agree that we need a plurality of institutions, but the key point is that there is a place for both. Our University is about the application of advanced scholarship to things that matter to ordinary people. That is why we are with Cuba.

This article was written in March 2009, shortly before Brian Roper stepped down as Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University.

Copyright

Copyright for this work is held jointly between Brian Roper and the International Journal of Cuban Studies under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative 3.0 Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

IJCS Volume 2 Issue 1 June 2009