A-Infos (en) Cuba: Repudiating obstructions and prohibitions (ca)

This document, originally titled “Letter of repudiation to the current obstructions and 
prohibitions of social and cultural initiatives” reflects the protest arising in Cuba 
against governmental controls that would drown social and cultural expressions built 
autonomously from below. ----  http://observatoriocritico.blogspot.es - Spanish original 
accessible here ---- “When they came for the Jews I didn’t speak up for I wasn’t Jewish; 
when they came for the communists I didn’t speak up for I wasn’t a communist; when they 
came for the syndicalists I didn’t speak up for I wasn’t a syndicalist; when they came for 
me there was nobody left to speak up for me.” --- Niemoller ----  Shortly after exhaustive 
“public” analysis of the “grey” period of our history, a new wave of “re-Pavonization” (1) 
is being felt in Cuba.

With no intention to attribute universal responsibilities to any particular person or 
institution, we take note of a series of events that attest to the climate of increasing 
bureaucratic authoritarian control and obstruction of social initiatives. Each one 
separately reminds us of known practices from the 70’s. Below is a recap of those we have 
good knowledge of:

- Obstructing participation by a group of comrades carrying ecologist and socialist 
self-management slogans during the May Day demonstration of 2008. Some were later fired 
from their jobs.

- Prohibiting a space for students to debate political and social issues of our country 
from socialist perspectives, initially known as the Philosophy Department of the Institute 
of Sciences and Applied Technology (INSTEC), ending with the expulsion of a student from 
the FEU (Federation of University Students) and the firing of a professor from said institute.

- Firing several workers and terminating their membership in the political organizations 
they belonged to for receiving and/or publishing critical proposals in the digital forum 
“Kaos en la Red” (socialist and anti-hegemonic) alleging improper use of the Internet.

- The continuing exclusion of underground hip hop artists from the public spaces, venues 
and the media, as well as police persecution of some of those artists.

- Obstructing the public’s free attendance to the latest sessions of the open debates 
Ultimos jueves sponsored by the magazine “Temas”.

- Obstructions, detentions and impediments after the march-performance against violence 
autonomously called on November 6 2009.

- Applying pressure on the Esquife project, organizers of the Encuentro Teorico Medios 
Digitales y Cultura, controlling the public’s access to the event.

- Attempting an act of repudiation with police and ambulances in attendance, against the 
self-managed project OMNI-Zona Franca and its eviction from the space it occupied for 10 
years at the Fayad Jamis Gallery in Alamar, as well as the denial of support for the 
Festival of Poetry with No End by the bureaucrats of the cultural sector.

- Firing two workers from Granma Television alleging the transmission of “pornographic 
material” (a vanguard opus winner at several events promoted by ICAIC-Cuban Institute of 
Art and Cinematographic Industry) which provoked a declaration of protest by the 
provincial UNEAC (National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists).

All these events share something in common; they are all actions by the “official 
institutionality” against cultural initiatives characterized by their activist commitment 
for autonomy in solidarity.  We worry about the possibility that these misguided and 
chilling acts will become the general tendency. We feel they embody a mode of thinking we 
believed already gone from the cultural life of our country.

We take a stand against the silent repression affecting projects and people whose only 
“error” has been to carry on initiatives that were not “guided from above”.

If capitalism is the power of capital against the common people then we stand against 
capitalism, and if “socialism” is the power of a bureaucracy against the rest of society, 
then we are also against this “socialism”. But socialism doesn’t have to be so, the 
socialism that enlivens us is a project that socializes –shares- all its resources, where 
we all have equal access to power, and let nobody think we’re referring to utopia: there 
are already some homes and collectives that make such practice a reality.

The increasing policy of labeling those who think and act differently from what’s 
prescribed as “dissidents”, “mercenaries” or “counterrevolutionaries” doesn’t affect the 
real counterrevolution in the least, whose image it reinforces by leaving scant space for 
socialist critique with the slogan “with me or against me”. Lacking respect for diversity 
is also destructive to the unity of the revolutionary process.

The only remedy for the lethal consequences we foresee is to promote cultural dialogue, 
respect for autonomy and the self-management and self-organizing abilities of peoples and 
projects that emerge in our society. It is also imperative to acknowledge that the current 
situation demands new types of links among the Cuban political-cultural actors, faced with 
the irreversible appearance of new social facts, such as digital technologies or the 
impossibility to isolate the country in a “glass bowl”.

In the current circumstances it’s essential to try and risk ourselves for whatever effort 
might be necessary to safeguard the content of our project of social liberation. Today the 
words of Martin Luther King are once again relevant: “Cowardice asks, is it safe? 
Convenience asks, is it political? Vanity asks, is it popular? But conscience asks, is it 
right? And the moment comes when each one of us must take a stand that’s neither secure 
nor political nor popular, but must be taken because it is right”.

This declaration repudiates all attempts to silence people and projects that work in the 
search for social transformation towards “a world where other worlds are possible”. 
Revolution and culture make sense only if they are synonyms of critique and creativity.

Havana, December 18 2009

(1) Reference to Luis Pavon who was the director of the National Council of Culture during 
the “grey period” (1970-1975) characterized by rigid censorship and the persecution of any 
expression of dissent.

[List of signatories can be found here http://observatoriocritico.blogspot.es]

If you wish to add your name or your project’s to this letter, you can do so anytime. Send 
an email to suscripcionesahora@gmail.com with your name and your project’s (if you wish), 
your nationality and a brief self-description. Put SUSCRIBO in the subject field.

[Translation: Luis Prat]
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A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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