Inter-subjective and Transnational Racial Effects: The Role of the United States in the Formation and Evolution of the Collective Perception and Racial Relations in Cuba, 1898-1902
OF THE DISSERTATION INTER-SUBJECTIVE AND TRANSNATIONAL RACIAL EFFECTS: THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE COLLECTIVE PERCEPTION AND RACIAL RELATIONS IN CUBA, 1898-1902 by Tiffany Yolanda Jimmece Bryant Florida International University, 2010 Miami, Florida Professor Felix E. Martin, Major Professor Since the arrival of the first African slaves to Cuba in 1524, the issue of race has had a long-lived presence in the Cuban national discourse. However, despite Cuba’s colonial history, it has often been maintained by some historians that race relations in Cuba were congenial with racism and racial discrimination never existing as deep or widespread in Cuba as in the United States (Cannon, 1983, p. 113). In fact, it has been argued that institutionalized racism was introduced into Cuban society with the first U.S. occupation, during 1898–1902 (Cannon, 1983, p. 113). This study of Cuba investigates the influence of the United States on the development of race relations and racial perceptions in post-independent Cuba, specifically from 1898-1902. These years comprise the time period immediately following the final fight for Cuban Independence, culminating with the Cuban-SpanishAmerican War and the first U.S. occupation of Cuba. By this time, the Cuban population comprised Africans as well as descendants of Africans, White Spanish people,
The Origins of the Cuban Revolt
For Cubans and Spaniards the Spanish-American War was neither ‘splendid’ nor ‘little’ but a 350 days’ climax to a war of almost thirty years’ duration which in its savagery and destruction presaged the total wars of the twentieth century. Americans may celebrate 1898 in a mood of self-congratulation at having liberated an oppressed people from corrupt and tyrannical rule at the same time celebrating their own emergence as a world imperial power, but for Spaniards and Cubans there is little to celebrate. The war was el Desastre for Spain, leading to decades of painful adjustment to loss of empire culminating in the bitterest civil conflict in a century and a half of domestic turbulence.1 For Cubans there will be regret that the war destroyed Jose Marti’s vision of Cuba Libre, bequeathing a divided society and a devastated country which instead of becoming the republic of a visionary’s dream became a new field for American endeavour now that the continental frontier of Westward expansion had ‘closed’.2 Any celebration in Cuba in 1998 will have been tempered by awareness that there will be Cuban exiles in Florida planning to overthrow the revolutionary regime in much the same way as earlier generations of exiles had planned to overthrow Spanish rule during the half-century before 1898.
Protection of the Marine Environment: The International and National Regulation of Deep Seabed Mining Activities
This chapter provides an overview of the international and national regulatory framework pertaining to deep seabed mining activities. It begins by discussing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the backdrop for all marine activities – be they national or international – and examines the obligations of states to protect the marine environment from the harmful effects arising from deep seabed mining. Next, the chapter examines the international regime for deep seabed mining (i.e. “activities in the Area”), explaining the “common heritage of mankind” status of the Area (i.e. the international seabed); the functions of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the international organization established to govern deep seabed mining in the Area; and the concept of state sponsorship of non-state entities (i.e. private actors) for deep seabed mining in the Area. The chapter follows with a discussion of the development of national legislation to regulate deep seabed mining, examining efforts in the Pacific region where many prospective deep-sea mining sites are located. This includes a look at the legislative regimes of several Pacific Island nations, namely, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and the Cook Islands, for whom deep seabed mining may soon become a reality – as well as New Zealand and Japan, countries with comparatively developed rule of law and legislative regimes that have undertaken or considered deep seabed mining in their national waters. Overall, the chapter critically describes and evaluates the current regulatory status in the international and national seabed areas and highlights some salient gaps that require urgent attention in order to ensure marine environmental protection and mitigate impacts on humans.