Word: erikson
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Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence, by Erik H. Erikson...
...consider Mahatma Gandhi to be the most remarkable and most important human being of the last millennium, and so I think students should know about him—and not just from the movie about him starring Ben Kingsley. Erik Erikson was my undergraduate tutor at Harvard in the early 1960s. He was a psychoanalyst with a deep understanding of youth who had a profound influence on me and many others in my cohort. By reading Gandhi's Truth, students will secure insights into two persons well worth knowing about...
...itself noted afterward, there was "no political manipulation of cultural expression ... just a vote for human understanding." And while that's to the Castros' credit, the truth is that the long-term effects of that sort of nondogmatic fiesta don't always favor systems like Cuba's. Says Daniel Erikson, a senior associate at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington and author of The Cuba Wars: "These kinds of cultural exchanges bring alternative voices that diminish the government's monopoly on information and expression...
...promote democracy on the island. Though he favors keeping intact the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, he eliminated restrictions on travel to Cuba for Cuban-American families, and his Administration is now in talks with Havana about improving immigration and postal service between the two countries. Erikson says the concert by Juanes, who lives in Miami, was a reminder of the "soft power tool kit" the U.S. should wield more often. "Obama needs to bring more of that kind of cultural diplomacy back into the arena," he says, "but so far it's taking a backseat...
Still, in his book, Erikson describes how increased cultural-exchange activity at the end of the 20th century led to more robust public discussion and independent journalism in Cuba by the start of the 21st century - enough so, he writes, that an alarmed Fidel Castro cracked down with sweeping arrests of dissidents and writers in 2003. Despite that setback, exchange advocates feel it's time to start again. The point, they say, is that even if Juanes meant nothing by shouting "Cuba libre!," it was enough if he got some of those 1 million Cubans wondering what he did mean...