Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum: An Appeal

8/9/2019 Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum: An Appeal

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Instituto del Derecho de Asilo - Museo Casa de Len Trotsky, A.C.(IDA-CMLTAC)

Avenida Ro Churubusco No. 410Col. del Carmen Coyoacn

CP 04100 Mxico, DF -- MEXICOTel. 56 58 87 32

[email protected]

Dear Friends in the World

We are writing this letter to invite you to support the effort to preserve and renovate the LeonTrotsky Museum (IDA-MCLTAC) in Mexico City.

Already many of our U.S. supporters -- including Suzi Weissman, Carol Lang and Alan Benjamin --have sent out appeals to their friends urging support for our project. We thank them for theirefforts, and we thank the dozens of you who have already sent in financial contributions to our

fund.

On August 20, at 4 p.m., we will launch the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum at aspecial event in a larger venue than our Museum's auditorium: the Foro Coyoacanense, HugoArgelles, Calle Allende No. 36, in the center district of Coyoacn, in the southern region of MexicoCity.

This event will be part of a three-day series of activities on August 19-21 marking the 70thanniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the 35th anniversary of the opening of theTrotsky Museum, and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Institute on the Right of Asylum.

We would like to invite all our friends and supporters in the United States to join "InternationalFriends" and, if possible, to attend the launching of this group on August 20.

If you would like to join "International Friends," please send us a note to the email address listedabove. We welcome all who support our Museum's six-point "Statement on Social Objectives" andour four-point "Renovation Project" [see below], and who wish to help us raise desperatelyneeded funds to promote these objectives.

Our goal is for International Friends to include the broadest possible regroupment of personalities,democratic rights activists (including supporters of the right to asylum, which is one of the mainthemes of our Museum), political activists, and museologists of different progressive politicaltendencies and backgrounds.

On August 19 and August 20 (until 2 p.m.), we also will be holding in our Museum's auditorium aConference on "Socialism, Democracy and Dissident Movements." There will be presentations byMexican and international speakers. Some of the panels are the following:


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- Trotsky and the Dewey Commission (Prof. Olivia Gall, UNAM and Trotsky Museum),

- Participation and Rights of Latinos in the United States (Prof. Suzanne Oboler, Editor, LatinoStudies, CUNY),

- Dissident Social Movements on the Left and the Right in the United States (Alan Benjamin, Editor,The Organizer),

- The Relevance of Victor Serge (Suzi Weissman, KPFK Radio producer and author),

- Trotsky and the Dissident Movements in Eastern Europe (Prof. Gabriel Garca Higueras,University of Lima, Peru), and

- Victor Serge, the POUM and the "Socialism and Liberty" group (Prof. Claudio Albertini, UACM).

The program of the event launching the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum onAugust 20 (starting @ 4 p.m.) will include presentations by Esteban Volkov (Trotsky's grandson and

president of the board of directors of the museum) and Olivia Gall (director of the museum); atheatrical presentation by Grupo Sol Azul of Moises Mendelewicz titled "Conversations withTrotsky"; a presentation on Political Asylum in Mexico by Pablo Yankelvich (INAH); and a trailerpresentation of the film "Planet Without a Visa" (by David Weiss and Linda Laub), with anintroduction by Linda Laub.

Finally, on August 21, there will be a laying of a wreath of the tombstones of Leon Trotsky andNatalia Sedova, with a presentation by Esteban Volkov.

We invite you to donate to our Museum preservation/renovation fund and to join ourInternational Friends of the Leon Trotsky group and campaign.

If you are a resident or a citizen of the United States, please:

1. Send your checks, payable to Global Exchange (write "Trotsky Museum" on Memo line of your check), to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, SanFrancisco, CA 94140.,

2. Fill out and send, to the same P.O. Box, the following Coupon

TROTSKY MUSEUM DONATION COUPON

[ ] I will contribute $ _____ to the fund to preserve the Leon Trotsky

Museum in Mexico City. My tax-exempt contribution will be made out to Global

Exchange (with Trotsky Museum on Memo line of check) and sent to International

Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.


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DATE

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

STATE

COUNTRY

ZIP

EMAIL

and send it to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco,CA 94140, with a copy to [email protected]]

If you are a citizen of another country and you don t need a tax exemption for your donation tous, please:

1. Wire your donation to us to

-The bank BBVA Bancomer S.A. INSTITUCION DE BANCA MULTIPLE, GRUPO

FINANCIERO BBVA BANCOMER -The account number 0452487284-The number of what is called in Mexico the "Clabe Interbancaria" (a number destined totransfers from one bank to the other) is 012180004524872848-Swift code: BCMRMXMMPYM-The bank's address is Av. Centenario No. 12 Col. Del Carmen Del. Coyoacan C.P. 04100en Mexico D.F.-TEL. (52) 55 56 59 67 17 Ext. 34- FAX (52) 55 56 59 92 63,

2. Fill out and send the following coupon

TROTSKY MUSEUM DONATION COUPON

[ ] I will contribute $ _____, or _______ to the fund to preserve the Leon TrotskyMuseum in Mexico City.


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DATE

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

STATE

COUNTRY

ZIP

EMAIL

and send it Olivia Gall, Instituto del Derecho de Asilo Museo Casa de Len Trotsky A.C., AvenidaRo Churubusco 410, Colonia del Carmen, Coyoacn, Mxico 04100 D.F., Mexico, with a copy [email protected] and to [email protected].

We also hope that you will be able to join us at one or more of our events in Mexico City onAugust 19-21.

Sincerely,

Olivia GallFull Professor, CEIICH-UNAMDirector of the IDA-MCLTAC

* * * * * * * * * *

Appendix No. 1

International Friends of theLeon Trotsky Museum (IFLTM)

(Excerpts)

The IDA-MCLTAC's Social Objectives

The Social Objective of the Institution is:

1. To maintain, protect, preserve, restore, guard and improve in all pertinent and necessary ways,the Leon Trotsky House-Museum, who must offer its visitors the best possible museology services.

2. To maintain, protect, preserve, guard and increase, in all pertinent and necessary ways, theexisting materials in the Rafael Galvn Library and in the association's Documentary Center, whichmust offer its visitors the best possible information and research services.


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3. To promote and develop research, analysis, education and effective communication regardingthe topic of the right of asylum, and, when related to asylum, on those of migration and refuge.

4. To promote and develop the study, analysis, education and effective communication regarding"the defense of public rights and public freedom."

5. To manage the association's assets and resources, as well as those received through donations,contributions, transfers, bequests, wills, liens, trusts, funding, agreements or employmentcontracts, in cash or in kind, coming from individuals or corporations, domestic or foreign, publicor private. These funds and resources will be used exclusively for the purposes of the Association.

6. To establish partnerships through agreements or other legal forms provided by existinglegislation, with any cultural, artistic, social or academic national or international institution, bothpublic and private, which may contribute to the better attainment of its goals.

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Appendix No. 2

Renovation Project

The Directive Council of the Institution has developed a project consisting in graduallytransforming the IDA-MCLTAC into an institution that takes the figure of Leon Trotsky as its centralaxis, but also approaches the different ideological and political currents of socialist thought,actions and debates, the right of asylum and the history of revolutionary and post-revolutionaryMexico, in which Trotsky was admitted as a political refugee. The goal is to create an institutionthat will establish agreements with academics, museums and documentary, visual and

bibliographical archives from all over the world, in order to offer the public:

1. A MODERN MUSEUM

* A well-preserved house-museum that will give its visitors an idea of the real environment inwhich Trotsky, his friends, guards, secretaries and guests lived between May 1939 and August1940: a tense and anguished environment, not always but sometimes joyful, not very prosperous,but of hard work and comradeship.

* Permanent as well as temporary exhibits built on visual, audiovisual, documentary andinteractive materials.

2. A RESEARCH, EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATION CENTER, INTERESTED IN THE ANALYSIS OFHISTORICAL FACTS AND IN THE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS, THROUGH

* Consultation of printed, graphic, audiovisual and interactive materials, in situ or via the web,

* The development of educational and cultural programs, which will consist in conferences,symposia, book presentations, courses and workshops.


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* A small bookstore in which our visitors will find books -in three languages, if possible- related tothe institution's subjects.

3. A CINEMA CLUB

In it, old and new short films, movies and documentaries, organized according to different subjectsof historical, political, intellectual and cultural interest will be shown and discussed.

4. A SPACE FOR ART, ART CRAFTS, CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, CUISINE AND SOCIAL GATHERING

A space that will try to constitute an original, simple, elegant and international cultural option thatwill harbor:

* Diverse cultural expressions of our contemporary world: sculptors, painters, mimes, actors,storytellers, dancers, poets, musicians, etc.

* The house's garden, such as it was kept by Natalia Sedova and by Sieva Volkov's family between

1939 and the early 1970s.

* A cafeteria that will serve very good coffee, tea, pastries and appetizers, and that will offer inCoyoacn a touch of originality given by four combined elements: (a) a simple international menumade by a few Baltic, Jewish, Balkan, Turkish, French, Norwegian and Mexican dishes, typical of the countries where Trotsky lived or was exiled, (b) the access to reading, in situ, someinternational newspapers and magazines, (c) a decoration that will portray the style of Mexicanrestaurants in the thirties, and (d) some music or poetry evenings.

* A shop, selling posters, little boxes, mugs, pens, calendars book markers, agendas, etc., so thatour visitors may take home some of the museum's souvenirs.

Documents

Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum: An Appeal