by Gary Marx
Chicago Tribune
Infosearch
José F. Sánchez
Analyst
Bureau Chief
Cuba
Research Dept.
La Nueva Cuba
February 20, 2007
HAVANA - In early January, Cuban writer Jorge Angel Perez flipped on his
television set and was stunned to see a government tribute to Luis
Pavon, a man long vilified within Cuba's intellectual community for his
Stalinist-like purges of writers and other prominent cultural figures.
"It's impossible," Perez, 43, recalled thinking. "How could a man whose
past was so atrocious for Cuban culture be shown on television like this
without explanation and even with reverence? He was the devil. A lot of
people suffered tremendously because of him."
Before the program ended, Perez fired off an e-mail to several fellow
writers, kicking off an unprecedented debate in cyberspace that has
challenged the limits of free speech in this tightly controlled nation.
The torrent of e-mails expressed outrage over the reappearance of Pavon,
former head of Cuba's National Culture Council who blacklisted dozens of
intellectuals in the 1970s because of their homosexuality, beliefs or
because they were labeled "counter-revolutionary."
Labeled "The Five Gray Years," the era is considered one of most
repressive for Cuban artists and writers since Fidel Castro took power
in 1959.
Perez and other intellectuals feared the re-emergence of Pavon could
signal the start of cultural crackdown at a time of uncertainty after
the transfer of power from an ailing Castro to his brother Raul. At one
time, Pavon was close to Raul Castro, according to intellectuals and
diplomats.
The e-mail campaign involving about 100 intellectuals was designed to
avert another such crackdown while also airing for the first time a
painful chapter in Cuban life that has been largely buried by the
intellectual and political elite.
"We are united in building a type of barrier so that this dark past
doesn't return," said Anton Arrufat, 76, a writer who was persecuted by
government authorities in the 1970s and 1980s.
As part of the e-mail exchange, some intellectuals were emboldened
enough to argue that Cuban authorities should ease Communist Party
control over the state-run me dia.
In one widely circulated e-mail, Enrique Colina, a prominent film
critic, listed 30 Cuban-made movies that have never been broadcast on
Cuban television. The films include such classics as "Strawberry and
Chocolate."
While Colina praised Cuba's state film agency for providing a haven for
creativity, he lamented that most filmmakers acquiesce rather than fight
"censorship that has unwritten taboos and codes of silence."
Ena Lucia Portela, a 34-year-old writer who participated in the e-mail
exchange, dared to suggest that it was time to scrap Cuba's single-party
system.
"My dream is that in Cuba there be a liberal democracy," Portela said.
Last week, poet Cesar Lopez - who also was blacklisted in the 1970s -
delivered a daring speech before Raul Castro, Culture Minister Abel
Prieto and other officials in which he urged authorities to allow the
works of famed exile anti-Castro writers such as the late Guillermo
Cabrera Infante to be circulated on the island.
Diplomats and analysts were encouraged by the candor of Cuba's
intellectual community, which they say is often intimidated into
silence, yet were uncertain if it would result in significant changes.
Dan Erikson, a Cuba expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington
think tank, said Cuban authorities faced three options when the e-mail
debate began: They could ignore it or punish those involved. They also
could open the debate to a wider audience.
"They chose the middle ground," said Erikson. "They are not going to
repress them further as long as they stay within certain guidelines."
In a series of closed-door meetings, Prieto reportedly apologized to
intellectuals for Pavon's appearance and assured them that a crackdown
was not imminent.
But he said there would be no change in Cuba's policy toward writers and
artists, which allows them to travel overseas and live relatively
privileged lives as long as they do not publicly challenge the system.
He also refused to discuss liberalizing Cuba's mass media, according to
participants in the meetings.
Prieto declined to be interviewed, and government officials have
succeeded in keeping the controversy out of the public realm.
Most ordinary Cubans have not been privy to the cyberspace debate
because authorities tightly control e-mail accounts and access to the
Internet.
The only mention of the controversy in the state media was a terse
statement by the Union of Artists and Writers of Cuba, or UNEAC,
published in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party daily.
In the Jan. 18 statement, titled "The Cultural Politics of the
Revolution is Irreversible," UNEAC said it shared the intellectuals'
"just indignation" for the program on Pavon but failed to mention him by
name or explain why the writers and artists were so upset.
UNEAC also warned that some Cuban exiles taking part in the e-mail
debate were "obviously working at the behest of the enemy," by which the
group apparently meant the U.S .
Colina and other writers refer to Fidel Castro's famous 1961 dictum
toward intellectuals in which he said, "Within the revolution,
everything; outside the revolution, nothing." Castro's words placed the
revolution's survival as paramount and empowered authorities to
interpret limits of artistic freedom.
But Colina and others argue that Cuba has changed over the decades and
Castro's words need to be reinterpreted.
"I believe it's the moment that we begin a true national dialogue, where
we question and analyze everything, without fear," wrote Josefina de
Diego, an essayist and daughter of Eliseo Diego, one of Cuba's greatest
poets.
But Armando Hart, a former culture minister and member of Cuba's Council
of State, said in an interview that Castro's 1961 statement to
intellectuals "will be forever relevant."
During his rule, Castro has built some of the finest arts schools in the
Americas, producing world-class photographers, musicians and writers.
But scores of intellectuals have fled into exile because of repression
and censorship.
Many Cuban intellectuals say the situation has improved dramatically in
recent years under Culture Minister Prieto, who stemmed the wave of
defections by allowing writers and artists to travel freely and keep
their literary earnings.
Still, few intellectuals mustered the courage to protest in 2003 when
three Cuban hijackers were summarily tried and executed and Raul Rivero,
a dissident journalist and renowned poet, was sentenced to 20 years in
prison. Rivero was released in late 2004 and now lives in Spain.
"Peoples' fear is part of the system," said Portela.
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