Received via e-mail:

From Cuba, we initiate this May 5, 2018 a new phase in the process of self-emancipation, with the opening by a group of Cubans of ABRA: Social Center and Libertarian Library. This endeavor of the Alfredo López Libertarian Workshop (an anarchist, anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist initiative launched in 2012, which forms part of the Anarchist Federation of the Caribbean and Central America),  with the effective and vital involvement of allied collectives such as the Cuban Critical Observatory, Guardabosques, as well as some other individual energies, seeks to build an autonomous and sustainable space in today's Cuba.

A space to promote experiences and practices independent of any foreign or national government, or institutions that represent them, it will be based on the capacities of those involved. ABRA will aspire to a practice that prefigures the kind of sociability we dream of, and a harmonious relationship with the environment, translating into a minimum of consumption and a maximum of our own non-polluting solutions.

This new endeavor is essentially anti-capitalist, as capitalism promotes a type of relations between people based on utilitarianism, supremacy, competition and profit—everything that is not conducive to the sociability we aspire to. The prior is sustainable for States, companies and corporations that dominate and depredate the world and our country. Therefore, the Social Center is based in the antipodes of the prior.

In contrast, emancipation is not possible without being based in communities. That is why ABRA exists facing them and within them, not alien from the oppressions they suffer, nor the victories they gain through their struggles. In the same way, we will be involved in the dynamics of resistance and creation of other allied groups, to whom we can offer a place in our Center and our projects. ABRA seeks to provide a space for all those sociabilities, persons and affinity groups that are not limited to the narrow framework of government-opposition conflict, but planted in a self-directed approach to various issues of daily life and creativity in all spheres of reality.

The space is actively opposed to all discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, territory, education level, economic status, or any other category used against personal dignity. Similarly, it recognizes the plurality of thought (political, ideological moral, etc), without renouncing the exercise of our own. 

ABRA is offered as a place of fraternization on a mechanized and monitored city, and offers a space for local, national and international counter-information, autodidactic formations, celebrations and meetings; seeking to encourage the precarious counter-cultural and autonomous scene that exists in Havana and Cuba.

The Social Center is conceived as a space for horizontal social communication to give voice to these national and international experiences that are not of interest to the hegemonic agencies but that pay tribute to an emancipatory and anti-authoritarian perspective that does interest those of us who are struggling in Cuba.

Here, means and enders are not in contradiction: we seek horizontalism, freedom of the individual, and effective participation from direct involvement.

Translation by CounterVortex

Link:  Observatorio Critíco Cubano

Note: ABRA translates as "open" (verb).