Religion and Revolution in Cuba & Nicaragua
by Blase Bonpane (1983)
Transcribed from tape of
speech to a meting at Cal State University, Los Angeles, sponsored by the
Venceremos Brigade and the Antonio Maceo Brigade, broadcast
on Pacifica radio station KPFK, Los Angeles.
Edited by Walter Lippmann, July 2007. There are two places with gaps on the
tape, but it's a terrific commentary which I'm sure you will enjoy thoroughly.
In time I hope to get the audio tape posted to the internet as a sound file.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll enjoy reading this here.
We've just celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the attack on the Moncada
barracks in 1953. Many of you have been to Siboney, and I think that that
experience is something we should think about. Everything was wrong with that
attack. Everything was wrong with it. They didn't exactly know where they were
going. I think some of them started to get lost on the way into Santiago. There
were several young people in cars, very visible, and they actually began to
attack a fortress with walls that are extremely thick, as you know. They didn't
think that the soldiers would be there, or they thought many of them would be
drunk because it was a day of festival.
The point is that it was an attack that would be called naive; it is an attack
that would be called poorly planned; it is an attack that was a failure, and in
the history of social and political change, it is a day of glory for the Cuban
people, and for people interested in liberation all over the world. Because what
it proves to us is that perfectionism is not part of the program. We don't wait
to do the perfect thing before we do something. Those who are waiting for
perfection will live and die without doing anything.
And much of our culture is oriented to being perfect prior to action. And that's
the example, I think, of Moncada, that they began. They made an action; it was a
military failure, and, it remains as an example of revolutionary courage. Those
of you who have visited Moncada have seen the situation there, and what a very
bad scene it was from a military standpoint. I was in Colombia last week, and
one of the Cubans present said, "We don't necessarily consider the attack on the
Moncada barracks as a socialist action. We consider it as an action of a group
of young people who were fed up with the misery of their country."
And that marked the beginning of the 26th of July public actions, la
clandenistinidad, the
example of Frank Pais and others who were involved in the urban, clandestine
action especially emanating from Santiago. Perhaps many of you have visited the
cemetery there, and have seen the large number of teenagers who are buried
there, and who gave their lives in clandestine action in Cuba during those years
of struggle. But if this started in [19]53, thirty years ago, we have to
consider what was going on at that time. Look at it in the context of history.
[The] United States was very busy in 1953. It was extremely busy in overthrowing
the government of Guatemala. It was working very hard to destroy the ten years
of spiritual socialism that began with Jose Arévalo, and it was not paying a
great deal of attention to Cuba militarily at that moment; while it was of
course supporting Batista and supporting the ugliness of the Cuban scene. There
was so much about Cuba that was so ugly, as it remained this large brothel for
the people from the United States to go for $49.50 by ship to spend a weekend in
Havana. So the focus of the United States at the time of Moncada was in the
overthrow of Guatemala. And that overthrow was conducted, to our surprise, from
Honduras; something so reminiscent of what is going on today. The
counterrevolution to destroy Guatemala emanated from Honduras, from the
organization in Honduras ultimately bringing in the puppet, Castillo
Armas to take over and to lead to all these years,
almost thirty years now, of counterrevolution in Guatemala.
There is a tremendous relationship between the Nicaraguan and the Cuban
revolution. And I think it's extremely important
to see this. We have, and we remember perhaps, the relationship between the
church figures in Nicaragua and the Nicaraguan revolution. I think we may fail
to be in touch with the relationship between the progressive church and the
Cuban revolution. I would cite one book, and I was going to bring it with me, but
that's not important. It's an important book; to see this similarity between
the Nicaraguan and the Cuban phenomena, and I would recommend the book
Christianity and Revolution, published in 1963. Published by Herder and Herder,
and authored by Leslie Dewart, the Canadian theologian.
Because he was making it clear that as the Communists of Cuba railed and gave
their tirades against the adventurism of this silly 26th of July movement, and
separated themselves from it, and attacked Fidel; while this went on, certain
individuals were involved in supporting Fidel who were from a Catholic
background. Now some of them behaved very similarly to the high clergy of
Nicaragua. One case in particular would be the archbishop of Santiago, [Enrique]
Pérez Serantes. The only reason that Fidel and his brother are alive is because of
the intervention of the archbishop. This was a class intervention, because
Fidel, as most
of the revolutionaries of the world emanated from the bourgeois class, [and had
a]
bourgeois background.
Where do you get an education in the capitalist world unless you're from a
bourgeois background? And that is certainly true in the case of Che Guevara, in
the case of Fidel Castro, in the case of Lenin, in the case of most of the modern
revolutionaries. In order to understand what was going on in the world, they had
to have some participation in the bourgeois educational system in order to
become conscious and then to get to the level related by Jose Marti, when they
get to the point where they can say, "Con los pobres
de la tierra que no yo me suerte..." ("I'm going to throw in my luck, my
lot, with the poor of the earth") then regardless of where I have come from,
then I'm a revolutionary. When that relationship comes between classes, and
those who have the privilege of education have used their understanding of economics,
of politics, and have literally thrown in their lot with the poor, then you get
this chemistry that is known as revolution taking place. Yes, Pérez Serantes saved
the life of Fidel and Raul principally because of their class. The others that
died in Moncada, nobody much cared. Some of them were murdered after they were
captured. The archbishop intervened. He intervened also to help to get them out
of prison. He was successful in this. Was he a supporter of the movement? No.
Not at all. He was not a supporter of the movement, but someone from the class
that he represented was in prison, and he helped to get them out.
There were priests in the lower clergy in Cuba; I would think especially of Padre [Guillermo] Sardiñas. And as we read the daily accounts of the revolutionary war, we see Padre Sardiñas there in a role that we no longer see priests in much, in revolution; he was actually there as chaplain. This is not Padre Gaspar Garcia la Viana of Nicaragua, who was not chaplain. The modern people are not chaplains. Many of them are simply soldiers or comandantes. Sardiñas was there as chaplain, and Fidel, in his recounting of the early days, said, "Yes, it is true that when we went through the campo of the eastern part of Cuba, when we went through the campo, people would frequently say, 'would you baptize our babies?' And he said 'aye'. Fidel was the godfather. He said, 'no era una farsa'. He said this wasn't meant to be some kind of a joke or a farce.
He said, "I did this. I acted as godfather to the babies when Father
Sardiñas was baptizing, in order to say that our movement was coming out of the
culture of Cuba, out of the religion of Cuba, out of the background of Cuba, and
yes, we had our religious symbols; and we refused to ever have any of the
anti-religiosity of some of the previous revolutions." He felt, and he had
learned much from the Mexican revolution, and perhaps the greatest error, by
hindsight, was an attempt to make the church illegal. This in the history of the
Mexican revolution of 1910, led to the formation of the Cristero movement, a
counterrevolutionary movement which was very much of a Roman Catholic movement,
which was a reaction to the concept that the constitution of 1917 would not
permit religion or the celebration of religion in any form in Mexico. It was a
historical mistake.
You do not attack the culture of a people as you are revolutionizing. You show
your respect for the culture, and you enter into the culture, and you help the
culture to become available to all, so that we never again refer to the
"cultured class", as we used to have an educated class that depended on money,
so prior to revolution, we had a cultured class, which meant you had money.
Culture with revolution belongs to everybody. There is when you see the
explosion of dance, of song, of una mística, the mystique of the movement.
There is no revolution without a mystique. There is no revolution that can't
dance. If it can't dance, it is not revolutionary. If it does not have music, it
is not revolutionary. If it does not have joy, it is not revolutionary. And so
there's a great deal of pseudo-revolution around. There's a great deal of
sickness around. There's a great deal of mental illness around that sometimes
covers itself as revolution. And you see this
sometimes in large groups. I thought maybe it was a phenomenon only visible in
the United States, but here last week in Colombia, to see gathered
representatives from the whole Central American revolution: Ernesto Cardinal was
there, Guillermo Ungo was there, Mendes Arceo was there, the archbishop; and
with hundreds and hundreds of people present, there were probably four people in
the crowd who represented some kind of self-designed super-left approach, that
decided that the four of them were going to teach the Central American
revolution that to participate in the Contadora action was counterrevolutionary.
So they stood up, and they shouted and screamed and stomped, and gave their
demagoguery to the leaders of the
revolution. And everybody listened to them, and then they all stomped out.
And then one of the comandantes of the FMLN said, in typical revolutionary
fashion, which is an extremely low-key and extremely gentle and extremely
understanding approach; he said, "You know, in El Salvador, many of us came from
different groups, and all of our groups thought we were the vanguard." And he
said, "None of us were the vanguard." He said, "All of us had a little
bit of the truth, and when we got to the point that we could work together, then
we became, to understand what revolution which is about, what it's about is the
art of jelling forces, it's the art of uniting forces; it is not the art of
claiming to have the answer. People who have the answer are the problem. And
those who have predetermined answers are going to give us a hell of a hard time
saying that they are the vanguard. They are not. The vanguard is the people in
process, the people themselves of El Salvador; that is the vanguard. It is not
an organization. It is not a club. It
is not a group from outside of the actual experience. It is the total complexus
of all of the people involved in making change, with all of their creativity,
with all of their music, with all of their dance, with all of their culture. And
we find consistently that counterrevolutionary super-leftists can't laugh and
can't dance. And that's one of the signs right there that there's something
wrong with them. (Applause)
The history involved here, as you know, there was a period between 1959 and 1961
where Cuba was in search of its political compass. Fidel was back and forth to
talk to Eisenhower. His points at the time were to refer to the constitution of
1940;
to refer to the importance of bilateral relations with the U.S., sounded so similar to
what the Sandinistas are saying today. Putting it in very simple terms. Saying,
"Look, if we deal with you economically, it's a simple thing. We don't make John
Deere tractors in Cuba, and we would probably really like to have a John Deere
dealership there. We need that. Okay. But we don't want to take the whole thing.
We don't need Coca-Cola. We can make soft drinks out of fruit juice, which are
much better than that belly-wash, so don't give us Coca-Cola. We'll deal with
you point by point on what we need.
Of course we want relations with you. Of course we want trade. We don't want any
broken relations. But it's got to be bilateral. You have to hear us, and hear
our goals and objectives. You can't come in with your Mafia and just stumble all
over us and manipulate us as you did in the past." Well, the last thing, as you
know, that Eisenhower did was to break relations with Cuba. Shortly thereafter,
was in [19]61, where we heard the "I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be to the
ultimate days of my life" speech of Fidel. And then came the very careful
formation
of the party structure, with a few of the old members of the party
participating, but most of the new party being re-established from the guerilleros
of the 26th of July Movement. And that became the structure of the state.
We see some differences now, and no one is more aware of these than Fidel, with
all of his humility, as he came to visit Managua. And he said, "I have not come
here to teach you anything. I am here to learn. We started our program some
twenty years ago, and you are now at another point in history. So I'm visiting
Nicaragua to learn." I take that not as a political statement, but as his actual
point of view, as his gut feeling about the situation; that this is not 1959.
And history does not repeat itself. That is one of the fundamental themes of a
revolutionary. You don't look at life as a broken record. You don't imitate the
Russian revolution. You don't imitate the Cuban revolution. You don't imitate
the Chinese revolution. You create the history of Central America looking at the
past, observing the past, taking from it what is of value, showing reverence for
the past, which includes being willing to change. The religiosity of the
Nicaraguan revolution is much more visible than the ultimate religiosity of the
Cuban revolution. There are reasons for that.
The Cuban church was an urban church. It was one of the weakest churches in
Central and South America, in contrast to the church, say, where it is an
enormous power, as in Colombia, where its power is stereotypical power in
contrast to the marginality of the church in Cuba. The church was marginal after
[19]61,
and to my sadness in my first visits to Cuba in the sixties, I was very upset
with the reality of the churches as centers for counterrevolutionary
organization. I saw it. I went there and
met the people in the churches, and the attitude of counterrevolution in the
churches was amazing and sad. However, the legal approach to the churches was
very open: to teach religion within the churches, freedom of worship, Mass, and
the celebration of religion seven days a week for anyone interested; but
still, that was the center, because the members of the church were from a
bourgeois class. The schools also had a similar history. You had to pay to go
those schools. So the Catholic schools were closed, and the churches remained
open, and the right to teach all religions remained open. Protestant, Catholic,
and Jewish, as all of you have seen who have been there recently. But the
marginality of the church, for some reason, is, I would say, much of it is its
own fault.
I have had discussions with Cuban priests, even recently. And my feeling was to
say, "Why don't you go and spend a few years in Nicaragua, and maybe you'll have
a better understanding of the relationship between the church and revolution."
In speaking to an eleven-year-old girl recently in Nicaragua - it was the
daughter of Margaret Randall - she spent her first ten years in Cuba and her
eleventh year in Nicaragua. And it was very interesting to ask her what were the
differences between the two revolutions. She said, "When I came to Nicaragua,"
she said, "I
was afraid of the church because it was so visible." She said, "In Cuba, it was much
less visible. It was much less part, much less a part of our lives in Cuba than
it is here in Nicaragua." So it was something of a shock to her. But this is a
matter of comparing and contrasting.
We asked the Jesuits at the University of Nicaragua, "What if we compare, say,
the role of Bishop Pérez Serantes in Santiago, Cuba, with the role of Obando y Bravo in Managua." We said,
"Why is it that here you have a bishop that apparently has supported the
Sandinistas during the struggle, and now that it's over, is taking a
counterrevolutionary position. What is that about?" And I think it was the
president of the Jesuit university in Managua, with a very straight face, said,
"Look, when the rich were opposed to Somoza, Obando y Bravo and the bishops
were opposed to Somoza. Now that the rich are opposed to the Sandinistas,
Obando y Bravo is opposed to the Sandinistas." He said, "You know, they're
going wherever the wealth is gone." He said, "What can we do?" But the point is,
this is not the church.
The church is this amazing complexus of people at the base, represented in
Central America today by what had formed since the late sixties, known as the
communities: communities of people who gather and make decisions.
Communities of people who now have a view of primitive Christianity. They don't
see Christianity in the form that it was seen during the days of the Cuban
revolution. And it's not an accident that the fact of the triumph of the Cuban
revolution was before the second Vatican council. [which] had a big impact on the
response of the church. Because the second Vatican council came in the early
sixties, after the victory. Naturally it was Pope John the XXIII, that
friend of socialism, who insisted that relations never be broken with Fidel
Castro from the start, and insisted that a Vatican diplomat be in Havana. And
sent Monsignor Zaki there to represent the church. And Cuban representatives always
be in the Vatican.
And while the United States has not had the relations with the
Vatican, Cuba always has, and has always continued to maintain them.
But the theology was different. With the Vatican II, in the early sixties,
there was a review of what primitive Christianity
was about, and the beginnings of liberation theology reached into Central
America, and formed revolutionary Christians who were more capable of
participating in the changes that were to take place in Central America. It was
there that we saw people realizing that morality had to be collective. That
change had to be collective. That the view of love - the love that we see today
in a place like Cuba: love can be systematized. You can make a motor out of
love. You can make a political system out of love. You can extend love not only
personally, but by virtue of what a state stands for. A state that says that
medical care is a right is systematizing love. A state that says that education
is available to everyone is making a system out of love. It is saying that love
is not simply a personal thing, but it can also be a collective thing; and in
its highest form, it will be seen in a collectiity of the common good.
Now, when Christians began to understand that, then the prophecy of Che Guevara, which was made not until 1966, prior to his death in [19]67, he said, as everybody was looking for him, Che Guevara said the revolution in this continent will begin when the Christians of the continent unite with us for the final organization of the revolution. Because up to now, Christians have allowed their doctrines to be manipulated by reactionaries. He said, "Don't be afraid to say that you're a Christian. Don't pretend that you're like I, Che Guevara. Don't feel that you have to say to me that because I don't believe in God, you don't believe in God. Don't be ashamed of your Christianity, and I won't be ashamed of my Marxism. Let's work together and we'll get along fine!" And that's what began to happen in Central America. An actual bridge of Christians and Marxists began, not in theory, but in fact. Whereas in the past, the church was trying to prove that we also are interested in social justice.
As this developed, the Christians and the Marxists began to work together in a way that we hadn't seen in Cuba because of the class nature of the Christianity, and because of the fact that much of the organi---(dropout of tape here)
spoke of his early reminiscences, that is, even prior to his Jesuit training, in elementary school. He said, you know, he did acknowledge that the church had been principally for the upper classes in Cuba. But he said, "I remember from my earliest years witnessing the conduct of sisters who took care of the sick, who took care of lepers, and who took care of the terminally ill." He said, "I considered this to be perfect communist conduct." Which is what it was, and which is how he defined it. And he never forgot it, and said that this revolution will never be marked by any form of anti-religiosity in any way. And he spoke about the famous priests that were thrown out of Cuba in the Cavadonga incident: many of the Spanish clergy were ordered out. And of course, he said, "They weren't ordered out because they were priests. They were ordered out because they were couras falangistas. He said, "They happen to be fascist clergy." And then he said, "If they're fascists, we don't want them here whether they're clergy or not. And we're not throwing them out because they're clergy, but because they're counter-revolutionaries and they're doing everything possible to overthrow the revolution."
In the period of [19]59 to [19]61, the Cuban revolution Became clearly
Marxist-Leninist ; socialist in its orientation. We have had now, a four years'
period of orientation of the Sandinista
revolution, having finished four years since the victory of July 19th. We see
something that certainly can be categorized -- I think should be categorized --
as democratic socialism. We may see less of the classical Marxist-Leninist
tendencies in it. I think however, it is part of the evolution, and we should
give it our respect, and say that this is the vanguard of 1983. This is where things
are going. There is a difference between Central America and Cuba, and there
will be a difference, as you can see, between Grenada and Nicaragua.
We have to look at the exciting creativity of people around the world as to how
they make change possible. The change is evaluated by the fruits of that change.
When we see the healthy children, and the schools, and the freedom to think, and
the freedom for education, we -- as Jesus said, "by their fruits ye shall know
them." We don't know the effects of the revolution by talk, but by its fruits;
and anyone who's seen the beautiful children of Cuba would say, "Hey, you've
done it. You've put it together." And the same thing is true as you travel
through Nicaragua now, under attack, from the north, the south, the east, and
the west. As you see Grenada, you'll see its unique place there -- trying to put
in a place where jet planes can land for the first time. And the president
almost sounds like Captain Queeg. Have you heard him speaking about Grenada?
Listen carefully, and the last time he spoke about it, he said quote, he said,
"They're not just growing nutmeg down there." He
really sounded like he was cracking up. Just absolutely cracking up. But there
it is, you know. They're not just growing nutmeg. Well, doesn't that prove a
lot?
Anyway, well -- all over, you see this creativity. You look [at] what I saw last
week in Colombia blew me away. They felt, and
what they said was, Farabundo Marti became the personification of the people of
El Salvador, and Cesar Sandino became the personification of the people of
Nicaragua. And now we have decided that our person for Colombia is Father Camilo
Torres. And our movement now, the Camilo Torres movement," which had signed a
declaration that very week. I felt like I was at the signing of the Declaration
of Independence in the United States. To see these people saying, "This is the
movement of Camilo Torres. It is open; we are public. We are here, we are
available; we stand for the overthrow of the oligarchy of Colombia. Total
solidarity with the people of Central America. And at that point, shortly after
that point, Ernesto Cardinal said, "If the gringos start to invade us in
Nicaragua, will you send international brigades?" And there was an immediate
response, a unanimous response of Colombia's desire, not institutionally, but
from the people themselves, to go to aid Nicaragua as requested.
So we see the march of history, as we look at these two revolutions, we even
find some of the sad cases of history. We remember the sad case of Huber Matos
in the Cuban Revolution, one who after victory was feeling, well, you know, now
we've got do do things, kind of get back to business the way it was. We
see that in the position taken by Eden Pastora in Nicaragua. We find people who
are going to start the position of saying that the leadership has betrayed the
revolution. I think that that's unfortunate. These are sad things that happen,
but we have to look at them and see them and understand that the people are
going to move ahead, that this is not an individualistic type of thing, that
this is a movement of all the people.
Possibly some of the differences we could see in the structures of the later revolution, that is, of what has happened in Nicaragua is, of course, the widely-shared leadership. Fidel became the personification of the Cuban Revolution. In Nicaragua they have always enjoyed when someone says, "Who's in charge?", they would say, "In charge of what?" So there has been a wider distribution of leadership. I do think that is progress. I like the idea and I think that it is something that would be looked upon as the future in this type of movement.
Self-criticism is always a part and always should be a part of any movement. The Cubans are very strong on that. Fidel, of course, is always very humble to say we have made many mistakes, we have done many things wrong, and I've found that to be true in the Sandinista leadership as well. They're very quick to say well, maybe we have made some mistakes. I think that we have to see them at this time, which is a moment of crisis, that we're in right now, not only for Cuba, but for Nicaragua and for the One America, as Marti called it. He called it Nuestra America. It is one America and it is under attack, and this is the critical moment for it, with the flotilla there in Central America, ready to move in whatever area, I think we have to have a clear voice of outrage here in the United States, making it clear that we will not accept this kind of attack. There will be no business as usual here at home while these attacks are going on.
During the Vietnam War, there were 264 times when the military of the United States was called out to maintain order domestically. That's 264 times that mayors and governors and other representatives said we can't control it. I remember seeing Washington, D.C., being administered by 10,000 troops of the military. It actually was the night that Martin Luther King [Jr.) was killed. The city was burning and the tanks were in the streets and that was only one example of such domestic unrest. I don't think that there is any way that we can stand to see Central America destroyed and to go on with business as usual at home.
I think we have to understand the seriousness of that and make sure that our government understands the seriousness of that. This is a Latin part of the world, that where we sit was stolen in 1848 from Mexico along with half of that country; that we aren't as illiterate as we used to be. We understand politics a little better today, and that we are going to support the people of Central America with solidarity. We have to point up the level of malice of our own leadership and one of the ways that came to my mind in visiting South America and talking to the South Americans, last week, was the mentality of the conquistadores, who lived there.
They believed, when they came in from Spain, that they had the truth, they were Roman Catholic, the believed in God, and they had a spirit of coming to conquer the Indians, and they believed that no Jew, no protest or no atheist had a right to live. And with the Spanish Inquisition they massacred people. Don't forget that now. If you weren't a true believer, they would kill you, in the Spanish Inquisition. That was no fun and games. That was torture and death because you did not believe in the true God.
Now naturally many of the perpetrators of that massacre didn't believe themselves. They certainly were no saints. They were using it as a way of manipulating the peasants. What I'm saying is that this is the mark of a conquistador, to say "I have the truth. You don't have it. I have a right to kill you." The very same mentality exists today with people who are so crass as to be able to say, "Because you are a socialist, because you are a Communist, I have a right to kill you." What's the difference between that mentality and and the mentality of the Spaniards at the time of the earlier colonial. You have no right, or there is no such right. The sooner we get that point across to the really low level of criminals that are involved in high places in the United States. The sooner we make that point, the better off we're going to be.
People don't have to apologize for being socialists. They don't have to apologize for being Communists. They don't have to apologize for wanting to change the economic system of the world. No apologies are called for unless you support the idea that 40,000 children should die every day of hunger as they do in the rotten system that we have today. Unless you support the fact that as we look at the friends of the United States all around the world, that it's hard to find people that are more vile that we find in the leadership of places like the Philippine Islands, Chile, our other friends in El Salvador. They're called "friends". Guatemala, we call them "friends". What kind of friends to we have?
We have people that have total contempt for their own who live in the country that they represent. And that contempt is necessary. It is not accidental that you have a Rios Montt, or that you had a Batista in Cuba. It is necessary to find someone with total contempt of his own, so that he can allow foreigners in to get the profit from the blood, sweat and tears of their own people, take their profit, give it to the foreigners, participate in the riches for yourself and a few of your cronies and left everybody else go to hell. That's the pattern, and that's the pattern that has no future. It has no future, whether it be in Nicaragua, in Cuba or in the United States as well.
This is what we have to see. That we have a march of history. History does not go backwards. That we have to show respect for the people of the United States, show the same respect for the people that live in this country as you know the Cubans showed to you when you visited there. Show the same respect that revolutionary people all over would show for you. A revolutionary people do not believe in racism. Racism isn't part of it. Ethnic states aren't part of revolutionary change, where we're going to have everybody believing in the same faith, or being a part of the same linguistic background. States that are revolutionary are pluralistic. They have many different religious backgrounds. They have many racial backgrounds. We don't get into the glorification of one racial group, of one ethnic group, of one religious group. Pluralism is the answer.
States are secular by their very nature. The people in the states can be enormously religious, but if they attempt to make their religion a requirement for being part of the state, they do not go beyond the conquistadores of old. That's the scene we're in. There are many comparisons between the Cuba of 1959 and Nicaragua of 1979-1983. Many comparisons and there are many differences. Maybe you would have any questions before we fold up today.
(End of lecture)