In 2013, President Hugo Chávez was unable to attend the Third Africa-South America Summit due to his cancer treatment, so he wrote this letter to be delivered to the participants in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. In this letter, he draws direct connections between the social and cultural influences Africa had on Latin America, saying, “The depth of the social and political reality of our continent can only be understood, within the womb of the vast African territory, from which I am sure that humanity originates. And from Africa, originate the components and codes that make up the cultural, musical and religious syncretism of our America, creating a unity between our peoples that is not only racial, but also spiritual.”

In 2011, Venezuela’s National Assembly unanimously approved the Law Against Racial Discrimination, which established mechanisms to prevent, respond to, punish and eradicate racial discrimination by any person, group of persons, public authorities, private institutions and private institutions, and civil, economic, political, cultural, and social organizations. The Law also establishes the commemoration of the legacy of José Leonardo Chirinos (see below). Since 2005, this commemoration has been celebrated annually as “Afro-Venezuelan Day.”

Fidel Castro drafted the First Declaration of Havana in 1960 in response to the Organization of American States’s “Declaration of San José,” which was seen as an attempt to align countries in the region against socialist countries of the time, including the Soviet Union and the Chinese Peoples’ Republic. This Declaration points to the hypocrisy of the United States’ perusal of dominance in the region and its treatment of activists and working people in its own country.

Fidel Castro delivered this speech as the keynote address of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001 held in Durban, South Africa. In it, he address colonization and slavery and draws direct connection between this history and the current crisis of imperialism, racism, and underdevelopment of the Third World. This speech presents a clear Marxist analysis and assessment of the history of colonialism.

Mao Zedong delivered this along with his essay “On Practice,” as lectures at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in Yenan. Both were later revised by him and published in 1937. Both were drafted with the purpose of addressing what he believed to be an error of dogmatist thinking in the Chinese Communist Party (see below for more). This text lays out some of the commonly accepted foundational tenets of Maoism.

Hugo Chávez (1954 - 2013) was the former President of Venezuela and leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. He nationalized key industries, used oil revenues for social programs for the poor, and passed important reforms in the fields of health, housing and education.

Danny Glover (1946- ) is a renowned actor and activist. Glover was born to two United States postal workers in San Francisco, California, who organized with the NAACP and steeped him in the culture of workers rights and student organizing. Beyond being a distinguished actor, Danny Glover is a public activist on issues of poverty, economic development, and sovereignty in Latin America and the African continent. In 2004, Glover joined the US-based TransAfrica Forum delegation to Venezuela and met with president Chávez. (Source)

Aristóbulo Istúriz (1946-2021) was a teacher and activist in Venezuela. In 1992, he was elected as Mayor of the Libertador Municipality of Caracas until the end of his post in 1996. In 1997, he was part of founding the Patria Para Todos (PPT) political party, which supported Hugo Chávez in the 1998 presidential election. In 1999, he was elected as a member of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) which changed the Venezuelan Constitution and created new power structures. Chavez appointed him as Minister of Education, a position he held from 2001 to 2007. In 2016, President Nicolas Maduro appointed him as Vice President of Venezuela for one year. (Source)

Bernardo Álvarez (1956-2016) served as Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2010 except from 2008 to 2009 when Venezuelan withdrew its ambassador. Mr. Álvarez was also ambassador to Spain, deputy foreign minister, and the head of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). As a representative of Venezuela, he regularly challenged interventionist policies and imperialist narrative about the country. (Source)

José Leonardo Chirinos (c. 1754-1796) was zambo, a freeborn son of an African slave in Santa Ana de Coro, Venezuela, who led a slave uprising in 1795. He worked for a rich trader named José Tellería, whom Chirino had accompanied on one of his commercial ventures to Haiti. While there, Chirino became aware of the early black rebellions across the Caribbean. After the rebellion was suppressed, he was pursued and sentenced to death in 1796. José Leonardo Chirino Airport is named after him.

Saul Landau (1936-2013) was an American journalist, filmmaker, and teacher. In 1971, Landau released a documentary called Fidel, which contained footage from a weeklong journey he took with Fidel Castro in 1968 throughout the eastern region of Cuba. Landau received a lot of threats and criticism from the right-wing Cuban exile community for this film, which was an unprecedented look into the private life and being of Fidel. (Source)

Mao Zedong 毛泽东 (1893-1976) was the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1935 till his death in 1976 and served as the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic from 1949 to 1959. In 1937, the Japanese empire waged war against the Chinese people, forcing CCP to unite forces with the nationalist Kuomintang. After the defeat of the Japanese, the CCP and KMT resumed full-scale civil war until the Party prevailed and established the People’s Republic. The shifting alliances and antagonisms of these decades serves as one of Mao’s prime examples in “On Contradiction.” (Source)

Sundiata Keita (c. 1210-1255) was the founder and first ruler of the Mali Empire. He founded the empire circa 1235 CE and ruled until his death. His rule brought much of the interior of West Africa under political stability and relative political unity for the first time. The Mali Empire would go on to be one of the largest and most prosperous empires in African History. (Source)

The TransAfrica Forum was formed in 1977 as an advocacy organization that seeks to support and research African and African-descendent communities across Africa and Latin America. The current chairman of the Board of Directors is Danny Glover. In 2004, a delegation of the leading members of the TransAfrica Forum visited Venezuela to inaugurate a school named after Martin Luther King Jr., and open a photo exhibition dedicated to his life and work. (Source, source)

In 2000, La Red de Organizaciones Afrovenezolanas was formed as an organization that seeks to address racism and fight for structural inclusion of Afro-descendent voices in Venezuela. The organization’s main office is in Caracas, Venezuela, but they have bases in 17 of the 24 states of the country, specifically places where Africans settled during colonization. (Source)

Founded in 1993 out of the Afroamerica 92 festival, Fundación AfroAmérica grew with the support of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The foundation's goal is to research the sub-Saharan African presence in Venezuela and the Caribbean. They publish the journal Afroamerica and have developed nine CDs of Afro-­Venezuelan music as a part of the Memoria Musical de Orígen Africana en Venezuela (African Musical Memory in Venezuela) project. (Source, source)

Unión de Mujeres Negras (Black Woman Assembly) was created in 1989 and is the first organization of Black women in Venezuela, which has worked to unify feminist organizing efforts nationally and internationally. (Source)

The Africa-South America Summit (ASA Summit) is a tri-annual diplomatic conference between the state representatives of countries in South America and Africa. The Third Summit was scheduled to be held in Libya in 2011 but was postponed due to the civil war that broke out. It was eventually held in 2013 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. President Hugo Chávez was not able to attend this Summit in person so he sent a letter with his remarks (see above).

In 1990,the Workers Party of Brazil (PT Brazil) invited a number of political parties from Latin America and the Caribbean to address geopolitical conditions of a post-Soviet world and the rise of neoliberalism across the hemisphere. The continued meetings of the São Paulo Forum had the objective of further integration in the region and to build consensus on actions to be taken by the region’s leftist parties and organizations. (Source)

Established in 2011, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is an intergovernmental forum of thirty-three countries around the region for dialogue and political action. CELAC is the successor of the Rio Group and the Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean on Integration and Development (CALC). In 2010, the CELAC selected President Hugo Chávez and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, as co-chairs of the forum to draw up the constitution. (Source)

In 2001, the U.N. General Assembly decided to hold the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. In 2001, the conference was held in Durban, South Africa. The outcome of the conference was the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Many states and organizations around the world are continuing to pursue the goals and principles put forward by the Declaration. (Source)

The Regional Articulation of Afro Descendants Latin America and Caribbean (ARAAC) was founded in 2012 and brings together Afro-descendant social movements across the Americas. ARAAC is a non-governmental organization but promotes local and international policies and initiatives that promote regional integration and cooperation, such as UNASUR, ALBA, and CELAC.

In the context of this episode, Chucho is using “alcabala” to refer to military checkpoints in Venezuela. It’s original usage was to refer to a sales tax imposed by the Spanish crown in its colonial territories.

The literal translation of “cimarron” is “Maroon,” which is a term from the 17th and 18th century that was used to describe someone who had resisted or escaped slavery. The current use amongst Afro-descendent people in Latin America today is seen as a celebration of that history. It typically refers to someone who has been uprooted, but has found grounding and new purpose in completely different context and conditions.

“Machismo” is best translated as “misogyny” and is typically used to refer to its manifestation in the societies and cultures of Latin American-Caribbean countries.

In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, CITGO Petroleum, which is a branch of the state-owned Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, provided a one-time donation of heating oil to Citizens Energy Corporation to distribute amongst low-income households. This one time act of international solidarity has developed into an annual program in which Venezuela donates heating oil to housing organizations across the U.S. to provide heat to millions of Americans. Since the U.S.-attempted coup on Venezuela in 2019, CITGO has been usurped from the legitimate government of Venezuela and sanctions have affected millions of people who were reliant on this program. (Source, source, source)

PetroCaribe is an energy agreement that was signed by 18 countries in the Caribbean. This agreement is a symbol of the geopolitical deployment of Venezuela in the region, with a focus on the shared history, common destiny and the social development of the peoples of the Caribbean. The principal objective is to contribute to energy security, socio-economic development and the integration of Caribbean countries through the sovereign use of energy resources. The program is based on the principles of integration of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) – unity, solidarity, cooperation, complementing, and integration with a view from the South. (Source)

Contradiction refers to the inherent unity and tension of opposites within nature and society. The struggle between two opposing things or a number of opposing things drives the process of development. Mao Zedong 毛泽东 (see above) elaborates on this fundamental Marxist concept in his “On Contradiction,” which he wrote in 1937. He argued that while contradiction and struggle were absolute, the forms of struggle differ based on the nature of a contradiction under certain conditions. For example, when the Chinese Communist Party allied with the Kuomintang, the contradictions between these two entities became non-antagonistic because their shared contradiction with the Japanese imperialists became heightened. After the defeat of the Japanese, the major contradictions between the CPC and the KMT became antagonistic once again and the two groups went to war with each other. (Source, source)

In the early 13th century, the founder of the Mandingo Empire and a group of his leadership drafted this charter as the underlying unifying principles of the empire and the people. The Charter, one of the oldest constitutions in the world, contains a preamble of seven chapters advocating social peace in diversity, the inviolability of the human being, education, the integrity of the motherland, food security, the abolition of slavery by razzia (or raid), and freedom of expression and trade. (Source)