Apartheid protesters got it right
Posted on Sunday, 09.20.09Apartheid protesters got it rightBY U.S. REP. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART
Diaz-Balart, a Republican, represents the 21st district of Florida.
Twenty-four years ago, in order to counter the South African Apartheid regime's attempt to lure musicians to a tourist resort known as “Sun City,'' numerous world-famous musicians (including Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Jackson Browne, and many others) came together to record an album with a title song by the same name, Sun City.
The song's lyrics read:
It's time to accept our
responsibility
Freedom is a privilege nobody rides for free
Look around the world baby it cannot be denied
Somebody tell me why are we always on the wrong side,
Ain't gonna play Sun City.
Our government tells us we're doing all we can
Constructive Engagement is Ronald Reagan's plan
Meanwhile people are dying and giving up hope
Well this quiet diplomacy ain't nothing but a joke
We're gonna say
Ain't gonna play Sun City.
The Sun City recording and the solidarity it manifested helped tear down the wall of silence around apartheid for a generation of young people. Horror was exposed, and many artists, musicians and athletes refused to set foot on South Africa until it was free.
Today, a new U.S. administration wants to “constructively engage'' another tyranny, the one that oppresses Cuba. A singer known as Juanes says his upcoming concert in the Castros' private fiefdom will not be political, despite his plan to sing alongside despised dictatorship spokesmen such as Silvio Rodríguez. Juanes also says he hopes the concert will “lessen the tension between Cuba (meaning the totalitarian regime which oppresses Cuba), the exile community, and the United States.'' To confuse Cuba with the oppressors of the Cuban people is an inherently political act.
Even if one were to believe Juanes' repeated professions of apoliticism and “neutrality,'' he should read Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel's words: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.''
I will always stand with those who resist the brutality of the Castros' totalitarian nightmare, such as the leader who is a voice of Cuba's conscience, who spent 17 years as a political prisoner for his nonviolent opposition to the dictatorship, and is a winner of the 2009 National Endowment for Democracy's “Democracy Award'' — Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez). With regard to Juanes, Antúnez said: “For Cubans with dignity, the Juanes concert, appearing on stage alongside a specimen-troubadour of the tyranny, Silvio Rodríguez, will be a grotesque spectacle.''
Some defenders of the upcoming spectacle have engaged in the despicable in order to provide political cover for Juanes, announcing that they have “polled'' political prisoners inside the Castros' gulag who “support the concert.'' How do they have direct access and what exactly are they telling the political prisoners they “poll''? A tragic reality of today's Cuba is that even immediate family members of Cuban political prisoners cannot see them at will to “consult their opinions.''
In the film made during the Sun City recording, one of the participating musicians, Jackson Browne, explained why he and so many others got involved. “Sun City's become a symbol of a society which is very oppressive and denies basic rights to the majority of its citizens. In a sense, Sun City is also a symbol of that society's `right' to entertain itself in any way that it wants to, to basically try to buy us off and to buy off world opinion.'' Browne and the other musicians vowed never to perform at Sun City because to do so would be to condone apartheid.
Browne was right then.
Juanes is not.
Apartheid protesters got it right – Issues & Ideas – MiamiHerald.com (20 September 2009)http://www.miamiherald.com/news/issues_ideas/story/1241189.html
Cuba Undertakes Reforms in Midst of Economic Crisis
Cuba Undertakes Reforms in Midst of Economic Crisis
New America Media, Commentary, Roger Burbach, Posted: Sep 20, 2009 Review it on NewsTrust
Editor's Note: Hit by the global economic crisis, a drop in tourism and the price of nickel, Cuba desperately needs to implement agricultural reforms, writes NAM contributor Roger Burbach.
Carlos picks me up with his dated Soviet-made Lada at the Jose Marti International Airport on a hot sweltering day in Havana. It's been eight months since I've seen him, last January to be precise, when I came to the island on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. "How's it been?" I ask him as we begin the 20 minute drive to central Havana. With a scowl, he replies: "Not so good, nothing seems to get easier." He goes on to say that foodstuffs are as difficult as ever to come by, necessitating long waits in line for rationed commodities.
I am not surprised, as I had been reading in the international press that Cuba has been compelled to curtail its food imports. Hit by the global economic crisis, spending by tourists dropped off while the price of nickel, Cuba's main mineral export, fell by more than half. This meant that Cuba has no choice but to cut agricultural imports from its main supplier, the United States. Credit purchases are not an option, as the U.S. legislation in 2000, opening up agricultural sales to Cuba, requires immediate payment in hard currency.
To add to its woes, devastating hurricanes hit Cuba in 2008, decimating some of the country's sugar plantations, as well as its production of vegetables and staple foods. The only bright light in the midst of this food crisis is the implementation of reforms in the agricultural sector under President Raul Castro, who took office from his brother, Fidel, in February last year.
I am particularly interested in knowing how the distribution of 690,000 hectares of idle lands to 82,000 rural families, in process when I left Cuba in January, has affected the domestic supply of fresh produce. On my second day, I go to one of the open markets in Havana where I talk to Margarita, who is selling undersized tomatoes. She says they come from her father's new farm. "We started cultivating tomatoes, as well as other vegetables," she says. "We even hired workers, which is now allowed. But then, as the crops began to mature, we got very little water from the state-owned irrigation system." Fearing the worst, I ask her if the state is discriminating against the new producers. "No" she says, "the wells and the irrigation system simply didn't have any gas for the pumps."
Later in the day, I meet with Armando Nova, an agricultural economist at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy. I had also talked with him in January and he had then been optimistic about the coming year. I ask him what's gone wrong and he says, "We're caught between the effects of the global economic crisis and the difficulties of implementing the reforms." He goes on to say that there has actually been an increase in fresh produce since the beginning of the year, but it is hardly noticeable in the markets because of the increased demand, a result of the drop in international imports.
As to the economic reforms, Nova says: "The top leadership around Raul is committed to a fundamental shake up of the economy, but change is slow because of bureaucratic obstacles." The very process of distributing idle lands requires 13 steps of paper work submitted to different agencies. And while the government is committed to providing the new farmers with the inputs needed to start up production, many of them are not delivered because they are simply not available due to the economic crisis.
Nova's view that reforms are inevitable is reinforced in a special report on the economy released by Inter Press Service (IPS), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Relations: "There is an ever broadening consensus about the necessity of a profound transformation of the Cuban economic model. … It is recognized that the future strategy should include non-state forms of property — not only in agriculture, but also in manufacturing and services." The publication asserts, "Fifty years of socialism in Cuba have to be re-evaluated," particularly the role of the state and the need to use market mechanisms.
To facilitate this transformation, the government is opening up a 45-day public discussion that includes union centers, schools, universities, community organizations and the base of the Cuban Communist party. According to materials sent out to orientate the discussions, the participants should "not only identify problems, but also suggest solutions…The analysis ought to be objective, sincere, valiant, creative, … carried out in absolute liberty with respect for discrepant opinions."
According to Orlando Cruz of the Institute of Philosophy, whom I met at a conference in Havana on social movements, "socialism is to be re-founded in Cuba. We have to totally discard the Soviet model that so badly served us." I ask whether Cuba will now move towards the Chinese model. Like others in Cuba in the party and the government I have asked the same question. He responds somewhat curtly: "We respect the Chinese model, but we have to follow our own process and history. China is a totally different country." Cruz makes clear that there will be meaningful democratic participation in the new Cuba: "We will not allow the formation of a petit-bourgeoisie to control or distort the process. We want to construct an authentic democratic socialism. It will be deeper and more participatory than that of the social democracies of Europe."
I first went to Cuba in 1969 and have visited the country every decade since then. There have been many challenging moments in the revolution's history, and now we are witnessing another one, as the country embarks on an endeavor to free the economy from the shackles of its bureaucracy. The fate of this move depends on the ability of society at the grass roots to exert a greater role in the country's economic and political institutions. If this effort succeeds, the Cuban revolution will be opening a new path for socialism in the 21st century.
Roger Burbach is the author of "The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice," and the Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas based in Berkeley, Calif. He is working on a new book with Gregory Wilpert, "The Renaissance of Socialism in Latin America."
Cuba Undertakes Reforms in Midst of Economic Crisis – NAM (20 September 2009)http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=46e882352ca97883eb396ce6689728d0&from=rss
Concert `without borders’ not without politics
Posted on Sunday, 09.20.09NEWS ANALYSIS | CUBAConcert `without borders' not without politicsAfter weeks of controversy, pop star Juanes performs Sunday in a country where even entertainment has becomea great divider.BY FABIOLA [email protected]
Colombian rocker Juanes will strap on his guitar to command the stage at 2 p.m. Sunday at Havana's historic Plaza of the Revolution, but the show has been sounding a discordant political tune for months.
Juanes has repeatedly stated that his “Peace Without Borders'' concert “is not political.'' But the event is highly charged with the political baggage that comes with Cuba's 50-year-old regime and its ever-growing exile community. And once again, a seemingly cultural event becomes a window into the role the arts and artists have historically played in promoting the Cuban government's agenda, and, in some cases, challenging it.
“Cuba is a country divided, and everything is affected by politics,'' says Cuba culture watcher Alejandro Ríos, who runs the Cuban Film Series at Miami Dade College. “Juanes himself is political. His songs speak of social causes and issues — he's no Britney Spears and bubble-gum pop.''
The event, expected to attract 500,000 people to the plaza where Pope John Paul II appeared in 1998, is a classic study in how the Cuban government uses the island's cultural elite to discredit dissidents, portray Cuba as a respectful, peace-loving nation and paint Cuban exiles in Miami as war hawks.
In La Jiribilla, a government-sponsored online cultural bulletin read around the world, a series of interviews with artists and combative essays from writers miscast the reaction in Miami to the concert.
To the casual reader, La Jiribilla can seem simply a cultural magazine. But its articles are laced with political invective delivered by intellectuals as they are interviewed about their artistic careers and the concert.
In its latest issue La Jiribilla follows Puerto Rican singer Olga Tañón on a visit to the 100-year-old Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán and quotes her: “Cuba is more alive than ever.''
Tañón, who will sing at the concert Sunday, says she never had a school like the conservatory growing up and that she has been crying since she arrived in Havana because she's so happy she “withstood the pressure to cancel'' her appearance.
In another a headline, La Jiribilla claims that Cubans in Miami “are breaking Juanes' records with hammers.''
“What do they fear?'' the headline says.
Fact: Only the leader of a tiny activist group, Vigilia Mambisa, broke some Juanes CDs in front of television cameras.
“That a concert for peace ignites so much war for the simple reason that it is celebrated in Cuba is totally absurd,'' one of Cuba's top actors, Jorge Perugorría, is quoted as saying in the same issue.
Perugorría's comments have raised eyebrows among those who know him.
He rose to fame in the 1995 Oscar-nominated movie Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry & Chocolate), a groundbreaking film in which Perugorría plays a gay man who openly criticizes Fidel Castro's government for persecuting gays. Many of the film's stars are no longer in Cuba, including the other protagonist, Francisco Gattorno, who played a faithful Communist student. He has lived in Miami for years.
“Why would an artist of Perugorría's stature need to submit himself to something like that? Well, in Cuba defending the government is always rewarded with some goodie,'' Ríos says.
Surely, the concert has commanded headlines since Juanes reportedly mentioned it on Twitter back in June when he was visiting Havana, and has since been the subject of talk shows on radio and television.
But Cubans in Miami and throughout the United States have displayed a wide range of opinions on the concert, including widely favorable views.
“It's significant for them to have this major performance happen, to have their country on people's radars in any way, shape or form,'' says University of Miami religion professor Michelle González-Maldonado, born in Miami of exiled Cuban parents. “In part, it opens their world and it opens the world to them. In Miami, Cuba is always with us, but when I traveled and lived in other parts of the world, it's not a daily presence as it is in South Florida, so anything that draws attention to the island reminds individuals of the Cuban community and their struggles.''
War in Miami?
Not quite, but there's been plenty of debate, criticism, analysis — and support.
“The Cuban exile community in Miami has been a diverse one for quite some time,'' says Lillian Manzor, coordinator of a theater exchange program with Cuba. “It's generational and also has to do with the different waves of exiles and with the Cuban exiles who leave Miami [to live elsewhere and to visit Cuba] and return.''
Manzor left Cuba with her parents in 1968, when she was 10 years old, and has visited the island.
“There have always been and there should always be voices that are not in favor of cultural exchanges nor any kind of dialogue,'' she says. “But opinion has been far from monolithic, and yet the press has for years been focused on only the discordant voices of exile as representative of the majority of exile.''
If anything, the concert already is making history in Miami with unprecedented input from Cuba in the exile media coverage.
For weeks a popular nightly talk show, A mano limpia with Oscar Haza on América TeVé Channel 41, has been discussing the concert with a diverse panel of guests — those who favor contact with Cuba and those who believe nothing short of a militant stand against a totalitarian regime is acceptable, as well as guests with a complex view of the concert and Cuban reality.
“We are going to present and discuss all points of view as is done in a democratic society,'' Haza says.
In an appearance Tuesday night, Amaury Pérez Vidal, a chief coordinator of the Juanes concert and one of Cuba's singers invited to perform, joined the discussion via telephone from Havana.
Pérez said he frequently watched A mano limpia, thanks to a television antenna he bought in Mexico “when it wasn't popular to do so.'' He added that he thought all Cubans should have free access to information. He also said that Pánfilo, a Cuban man arrested for saying Cubans were hungry, should not be in prison. Cuban authorities sentenced Pánfilo, — whose appearance on a video posted on YouTube asking for jama, Cuban slang for food, has been has close to a half-million hits — to two years. (Panfilo was reportedly released the next day and sent to a psychiatric facility for alcohol treatment).
After Pérez's appearance, Haza noted: “We'll now see what happens to him. His presentation in the concert has already been limited to two songs.''
The next night, another guest asked if Peréz had lost his antenna yet. Minutes later, Pérez sent an e-mail to the show's producer so that it could be read on-air, telling Haza that he was watching and still had his antenna. He added that he wanted to make sure people understood that he was defending the right to access information not just for himself, but “for all Cubans.''
It was most remarkable since Pérez and the other concert organizer and participant, Silvio Rodríguez, have been staunch backers of the Cuban government, even when it has cracked down on independent journalists and dissidents. Both signed a document supporting the firing-squad shooting of three men trying to flee Cuba by hijacking Havana's Regla ferry in 2003.
And despite the appearance of openness, the Cuban government continues to crack down.
Four days before the concert, as the stage was being erected and some pinned their hopes that music would lead to positive change — and supporters, including Juanes, spoke of “reconciliation'' — the Cuban government arrested Yosvany Anzardo Hernández, a promoter of Internet access in Cuba who created Red Libertad — Liberty Net — an independent e-mail service on the island.
Those who witnessed the arrest described it as “brutal.''
Concert `without borders' not without politics – Cuba – MiamiHerald.com (20 September 2009)http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/v-fullstory/story/1242162.html
Cuban rocker Gorki Aguila: Juanes concert will be manipulated
Posted on Sunday, 09.20.09CUBA | JUANES CONCERTCuban rocker Gorki Aguila: Juanes concert will be manipulatedCuban dissident musician Gorki Aguila weighed in on the controversy over the Juanes concert in Havana with a press conference in Miami.BY JORDAN [email protected]
Gorki Aguila is that rarest of Cuban creatures, an independent and dissident musician.
It is a lonely thing to be, whether sitting in jail in Cuba, as Aguila once did for more than two years, or playing and recording secretly, with his raucous punk band Porno Para Ricardo, in warehouses and back rooms in Havana.
Or appearing by himself in Miami — albeit before a phalanx of media at a press conference Friday — as Cubans on the island and their counterparts in Miami geared up for Juanes' gigantic Peace Without Borders concert in Havana on Sunday. When word of the Juanes event leaked earlier this summer, many in the Cuban exile community asked why Aguila, whose politically provocative and often obscene songs openly attack the Cuban government, was not invited to perform.
INSINCERITY
Aguila, who is visiting Miami, New York and Washington D.C. to promote his group's fifth album, El Disco Rojo (desteñido) (The Red Album [faded]), shrugged off the significance of the Juanes event. “It seems to me that this concert is going to be manipulated by the Cuban government,'' Aguila said. “I think Juanes' intentions are very ingenuous, to be pretending to do a concert for peace, if you're not going to talk about the problems in Cuba. The evil in my country has a name, and it's Fidel Castro.''
However, Aguila withheld judgment on whether the Juanes-sponsored show, which includes 15 musicians from six countries and is expected to draw more than half a million people to Havana's Plaza de la Revolución on Sunday, would have its intended effect of easing tensions between Cuba and the world. “We'll see,'' he said. “If that happened I'd be very happy. But the Cuban government always finds a way to manipulate things.''
AWAY FROM HOME
The 40-year-old singer, who wore a red T-shirt saying “59 — The Year of the Mistake'' referring to the year Castro took power, has been living in Mexico with his mother and sister since April. In August 2008 he was arrested in Cuba for the second time and charged with “social dangerousness'' and “subverting Communist morality,'' but pressure from international press and human rights groups helped get him released.
His visit to the United States is being sponsored by the Global Cuba Solidarity Movement, a Washington, D.C.-based group which seeks to raise awareness of human rights violations and the pro-democracy movement in Cuba.
A Miami press conference is usually the first step toward defection for a Cuban musician, but Aguila said he planned to return to Cuba, to be with his 13-year old daughter and to continue agitating with his band. “I want to return — if they don't let me in, that's the responsibility of the Cuban government,'' he said.
NOT INTIMIDATED
But he said he was not intimidated by the possibility of reprisals for his visit to the U.S. or his outspoken comments.
“Everything I'm saying here I say in Cuba,'' he said. “I'm always afraid — in Cuba you're always afraid. In Cuba they don't let me speak. But I speak. I consider myself a free man.''
Maintaining his and Porno Para Ricardo's independence is difficult, but essential, he said.
“We've had to renounce all the things the system offers, being on radio, on TV, in festivals,'' he said. “I have my weak moments,'' Aguila said.
“Sometimes I feel like Christ on the cross — `why did you abandon me' . . . But if I don't do what I'm doing I'd lose much of the sense in my life.''
Cuban rocker Gorki Aguila: Juanes concert will be manipulated – Living – MiamiHerald.com (20 September 2009)http://www.miamiherald.com/living/story/1242315.html
Hunger, unsated
Posted on Sunday, 09.20.09PANFILOHunger, unsatedBY MIRTA OJITO
Was it the song? Jama y Libertad. Food and freedom, croons Boris Larramendi.
The Madrid-based Cuban songwriter wrote the tune as part of the campaign to free Pánfilo, imprisoned last month in Cuba after he drunkenly declared in a YouTube video that there is hunger on the island.
Pánfilo was reportedly released Thursday night and sent to a rehab program for 21 days. Then, the government says, he is free to go home, which is not the same as being free.
Veteran human rights activists have long maintained that publicity and pressure work, even in Cuba, one of the few places in the world where a man can go to prison for announcing in an 81-second YouTube video that he is hungry. A campaign to free Pánfilo, www.jamaylibertad.com, was launched on August 26, about three weeks after his arrest, by a group of Cuban exiles with no experience as human-rights activists.
More than 3,000 people — from Paris to Havana and from New Jersey to Chile — signed a letter urging the Cuban government to free Pánfilo and to respect the right to basic freedoms for all its citizens. The letter was delivered Thursday in Miami to a representative of Juanes, the Colombian singer who is scheduled to perform in a pro-peace concert in Havana Sunday.
Was it Juanes? It wouldn't do to have a Latin American star in a government-sponsored concert in La Plaza de la Revolución, while Pánfilo sat in a cell and the international campaign raged on.
We may never know why he was released. What is now apparent is that the Cuban government has quickly — quicker than ever before — rectified a grievous mistake. That is, if Pánfilo is treated as an alcoholic and not as a mentally disturbed patient.
“It must have caught the government by surprise,'' said Enrique Del Risco, a writer and lecturer in New York, and one of the organizers of the campaign. “It was too quick. It moved too fast for them and there was a lot of enthusiasm around. Some people asked me, `Why Pánfilo?' and my answer was, `Why not Pánfilo?'''
Juan Carlos González Marco, 48, who calls himself Pánfilo, became a YouTube sensation in late Spring, when he walked in front of a camera to state a simple but fundamental truth: What we need is food, only he said “jama,'' [pronounced HA-ma], using Cuban slang.
Pánfilo quickly went from being the archetype of the town drunk to a symbol of all that ails the Cuban people. In June, in a second video, a sober Pánfilo asks to be left alone. If it was possible for some people to laugh with the first video, it was impossible not to be moved by the second. You can't ignore the fear in Pánfilo's eyes. He is a man afraid of the state.
And then there is the third video. The spontaneity of the first video is gone, and so is the soberness of the second one. In their place is a grotesque performance of a shirtless drunk ranting about hunger and the police.
Days after the third video was posted on YouTube, on July 28, Pánfilo was arrested and charged with “dangerousness,'' a draconian concept which means that he has the potential of committing a crime, but hasn't yet. He was sentenced initially to two years in prison, which was cruel, short-sighted and absurdly out of step with the modern world.
For years Cuba has reacted to outside pressure to release political prisoners. European presidents, members of the U.S. Congress, famous writers have all interceded on behalf of political prisoners, such as Armando Valladares, Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, and Angel Cuadra, who were brought to their attention by campaigns orchestrated by a handful of human rights activists. Still, it took decades to free most of them.
That was pre-Internet. Pánfilo is a different story. He may have been both doomed and saved by the Internet. His YouTube video was seen by more than half a million. But so was the news of his sentence and imprisonment and, more important, a quick thinking campaign that incorporated the best that technology has to offer.
It took days to collect more than 3,000 signatures on his behalf. Back in the '60s and '70s and even the '80s, when activists like Frank Calzon, now with the Center for a Free Cuba, were campaigning to free political prisoners, communication between Cuba and Washington could take months.
“First we had to hear about the case from someone who brought it to our attention,'' said Calzon. “Pánfilo was known to the world before he was imprisoned.''
He was also the perfect victim. Pánfilo was not a human-rights activist, a dissident or an intellectual. He is, simply, a man. A black man who is hungry and drinks too much. Therein lie his power and his weakness.
The government has always been intolerant of dissent, but it is particularly vicious when the dissenter is black. The most recent victims of execution in Cuba were three young black men attempting to steal a vessel to escape the island six years ago.
Pánfilo has escaped that fate. He's never said he wants to leave Cuba. What he wants is food. What he needs is food, rehab and freedom. But when he walks out of rehab, Pánfilo will still lack food. And freedom.
Mirta Ojito is an assistant professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in New York.Hunger, unsated – Other Views – MiamiHerald.com (20 September 2009)http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1241197.html
Let him sing, but it’s not apolitical
Posted on Sunday, 09.20.09Let him sing, but it's not apoliticalBY DAMIAN PARDO
Pardo is a founder of SAVE Dade, a gay rights organization, and has served on many local boards, including the Dade Community Foundation and the Health Crisis Network.
As a Cuban American I have closely followed the ongoing debate regarding the Juanes concert in Havana.
I appreciate strong positions on both sides of the issue.
In the end, for many this conflict is less about an actual concert taking place and more about the undertow of Cuban politics.
I understand how a concert in Havana might bring awareness, hope and needed solace to families and people downtrodden and repressed by an arcane and barely tolerable system of government.
I further appreciate how people and families who have been prohibited from returning to their homeland, persecuted for speaking their mind, and suffered loss of property and life are outraged by the event.
Perhaps the issue might be less stinging had the concert been staged somewhere other that the Plaza de la Revolucion — the very same plaza where many families were required to turn in the titles to their homes and properties before departing Cuba.
If we step back a minute and consider the debate, we can analyze a similar thread through this concert as with many other events, including our participation in the Olympics when hosted in countries with notorious human rights violations.
The debate in my view is: Should arts/sports/music be disassociated or above politics?
When I was younger I certainly thought so. Then one day I visited the Holocaust Museum.
In a dimly lit stall a reel was running depicting the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee answering calls from the U.S. Jewish community to boycott the Olympics. The protagonist eloquently explained how sport (like art) was above politics and the games would build bridges.
The next shot in the reel was of a beautiful little girl with golden locks handing a large crown of roses to Adolf Hitler in the middle of a packed, crowded stadium hailing the Fuhrer in Berlin.
In the backdrop of the shot, the U.S. Olympic team waving our flag marched behind his image.
Clearly unintentionally, our participation in some way furthered the Nazi agenda of promoting the image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany at a time when Germany was “anything but.''
This subject and debate is not limited to the Cuban community. We have seen the same theme time and time again in conflicts involving East/West Germany, Israel and the Soviet Union. The vast majority of the Cuban community has debated this issue publicly and privately, peacefully and with respect.
Many newer arrivals from Cuba, who were raised in the communist system and have little understanding of the use of such images as the ones in Germany in 1936, associate the debate with opening minds in Cuba and promoting dialogue among the Cuban people.
By contrast, many Cuban Americans focus on an erroneous message, much like that given in the 1936 Nazi Olympics, of supporting the Cuban government's campaign to promote the image of a peaceful, tolerant Cuba at a time when Cuba is “anything but.''
Consequently, the concert is seen by some as a symbol of disrespect to many families and their ancestors who suffered and struggled at the hands of the Cuban government.
I find it striking that the one event closely associated with the fall of another arcane and dysfunctional system — the East German government – was Ronald Reagan's speech at the Berlin Wall demanding Mr. Gorbachev “tear down this wall.''
It was an indignant message calling for greater morality and justice, as well as a decisive call to action. It was not a concert with government-endorsed artists joining hands in Red Square.
Unfortunately, the only victims here, as usual, are the Cuban people. They will have one or two nights of anticipation, excitement and possible hope, only to return to the same oppressive, hostile world where they spend every day trying to survive or escape.
The concert will feed their passive addiction to hope with no real change as has occurred so often in the past amounting to nothing more than cultural exploitation.
I suppose the only “winners'' will be the recipients of the free publicity and the significant corporate interests hoping to expand into new markets.
Those of us (but especially Cuban Americans) who live in Miami will once again feel the burden and darkness of a great divide that while only spanning 90 miles from Key West has lasted longer and is much more impenetrable than the Berlin wall.
As for the “rah rah go concert'' faction and the “stop the concert yesterday'' crowd, I say let the concert go on, but with eyes wide open.
Let him sing, but it's not apolitical – Issues & Ideas – MiamiHerald.com (20 September 2009)http://www.miamiherald.com/news/issues_ideas/story/1241199.html
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