Amistad

                                 

All through our lives, there are always certain things that mark us for good or for bad, in a positive or negative way, things that, due to its relevance, make us reconsider our points of view and behaviour in life. “Amistad” is one of these things, a movie that, produced by Steven Spielberg, a well-known american director, presents in a very real and accurate way the horrors of slavery: a sad period in the history of humanity.

I have not seen  “Amistad”  before, and to tell you the truth, I got really impressed while watching the material, because it makes me remember that period of the history of my country, Cuba, in which slavery became a big business for certain kind of people within the society, without taking into consideration the feelings of those black people, that were taken away from their country and  carried to Cuba, where sadly became slaves.

But talking about the movie indeed, we can observe how it makes reference, in a given moment, to the Havana city, capital of cuba, known since the early XIX as the "Paris of the Caribbean" due to its splendor and the development in the fields of productions of sugar and the export of many supplies. Logically, slavery was absolutly legal in that country, it was necessary for keeping high productions,  so the arrival of spaniers’ ships to the Havana Port, full of slaves, became more and more often, became an usual event where many black people lost their lives due to the terrible conditions they had to endure, while some others died pursuing a dream: “ the freedom that has been denied”.

The slaves’ suffering began exactly since the moment of their capture in Africa, where they were separated from their families, persued and whipped. During the travel, as we saw in the movie, the vicissitudes increased: poor alimentation, no clothes at all, niether places not space enough to be, if one got sick, he had to be hurtled to the sea  and a lot of phisical abuses were practiced. Once in Cuba, they were exposed, as works of arts, in front of rich people, who, after selecting which one was convinient or not, took the slaves to their properties and forced them to work  the whole day under the sun. In this way it is said that an amount of 616.200 slaves arrived in Cuba during 1801 and 1865, slaves that did not have the luck of Cinque, the opportunity of fighting and recovering their freedom.

If it was sad to see Cinque and his fellows suffering, fighting for a right that was yours and was denied, can you think about all the people that did not have the opportunity and died being slaves. The slavery was the worst and biggest humiliation of men.  So, think about the magnitude of this inhuman expression of the human beings....and be with your friend or the person who is near you, as good as you would like that person would be with you. Can we do that?  Sure we can!!!!