More than a few noticed the silence of private means of communication and the voices of those who just recently joined an aggressive campaign against gender violence in Cuba, and other individuals who continually post contents supporting freedom of expression, and other rights, raising the question: Where are they now?

Others were not surprised in the least. Their absence only provided further evidence of the double standards of the discourse promoted by forces involved in political propaganda meant to discredit Cuba, which has nothing to do with a real commitment to defending rights or seeking solutions to social problems. I am not referring to the honest voices, not linked to this machinery, expressing concern about gender violence, and other social problems, on previous occasions and at this time.

Violence wielded in this manner is a regular practice used to silence women and men who advocate revolutionary political positions on a virtual media platform where liberal pro-capitalist thinking enjoys hegemony. Silence and differentiated responses to these forms of violence reveal complicity. Selectivity when it comes to what cases of violence are emphasized on digital media, and which ones are glossed over, exposes the agenda of those involved in media manipulation of our social problems.

The existence of a private media network devoted to the fabrication of opinion leaders in alliance with openly right-wing organizations, to produce political propaganda manipulating Cuba’s reality, thinly disguised as theoretical debate, along with media campaigns that suddenly appear online, are examples that reveal the fundamental objective of these forces: undermining the Cuban government and the restoration of capitalism. A structure exists to coordinate the work of these private media and their paid collaborators focused on destroying confidence in Cuba’s political order and its institutions, as well as those who defend them.

These media players are always on the lookout for the latest statistics, events, or anecdotes that they can employ to fabricate contents appealing to readers’ emotions, as opposed to reasoned critical analysis. They present themselves as exponents of critical thinking, when on the contrary they follow the line of the most conservative international currents and the “common sense” they promote.

The goal is to culturally colonize the collective imagination, impose pro-capitalist thinking and create the subjective conditions that could favor regime change and discredit, in virtual territory, any position of resistance that challenges anti-hegemonic values.

This explains the silence evident in the cases of aggression against revolutionary women: such violence serves their purpose, and therefore, they do not oppose it.

Going online today is to become aware that we are in the territory of an important war for control of the symbolic, of subjectivities. The mechanisms employed must be studied in greater depth, from a semiotic point of view. This is the road to be taken by social scientists committed to de-colonized thinking, in addition to the challenge of producing high quality contents on the improvement of our reality.

This is an issue Cuban institutions leave largely unaddressed on the web, or a communicational mistake by their representatives, of which our adversaries take advantage to mobilize and fabricate opposition to the Cuban political system, wherever a critical perspective regarding social media is lacking and where the influence of the avalanche of videos, memes and fake news demonizing Cuba holds sway.

In his remarks presenting the country’s current economic strategy, July 17, 2020, President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned of the ways in which “in the arena of law and society, (our adversaries) have not ceased searching for possible gaps in national unity, magnifying possible disagreement on sensitive issues like egalitarian marriage, racism, violence against women, the mistreatment of animals, to mention a few, on which we are working seriously to resolve centuries-old debts that only the Revolution in power has confronted, making unquestionable progress.”

Herein lies, perhaps, the most important point: the attention afforded the social problems manipulated by groups that see capitalism as the way forward. Denouncing the manipulation does not resolve the problem. Those who are intent on changing the system have no interest whatsoever in resolving these issues, they only use them. Capitalism aggravates every one of these problems. The settling of the debts, to which the President referred, must be seen as an inseparable part of transformative changes currently underway in the country.

Cuban institutions have two tasks, resisting the media offensive, not only reacting to it, but rather developing our own agenda. But they also have the mission of continuing to address social problems with concrete action, which is even more important, not simply to deny our enemies the opportunity to capitalize on our shortcomings, but because, above all, this is the Revolution’s reason for being. In this effort, we have a long record, although some may wish to hide this fact, this has been a historic, difficult battle to meet the demands of those who once had nothing.

Along with Benedetti, “We recognize that the revolution involves mistakes, wrong turns, detours, schematic errors. But we assume the revolution with its good and bad sides, with its light and its shadows, with its victories and its defeats, with its limitation and its breadth. Because, even with all its failures, with all its shortcomings, the revolution continues to be the only option for human beings to recover our dignity and realize our potential; the only possibility (over time or immediately, depending on the situation) to save ourselves from the alienation to which we are subjected by the capitalist order and colonial pressure.”

Given the new challenges and aggression from a virtual civil society which attacks us on orders from the United States, a minority in number but with millions in funding, we must avoid any complacency that could paralyze us.

May the push to move forward, to go for more, prevail – in the virtual world and the concrete.

(Source: Granma)

For 60 years, Cuban women have had a voice and enjoyed rights that many countries can only dream of. “We have been, as Fidel said, a Revolution within the Revolution,” Teresa Amarelle Boué, secretary general of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), told Granma International.

Today, Cuban women represent 53.22% of deputies in the National Assembly of People’s Power, the country’s highest legislative body; and they constitute 48.4% of members of the Council of State. In addition, they make up 60.5% of higher education graduates, and 67.2% of specialists and professionals throughout the nation.

These are not fortuitous achievements, stressed the secretary general of the first mass organization created after the revolutionary triumph of 1959. They are the result of the efforts of Cuban women and the political will of their government. “Therefore, we had a lot to celebrate at the 10th Congress of the Federation,” she noted, which took place March 6-8 in the capital.

WOMEN OF THEIR TIME

Teresa Amarelle explained that on this occasion, the Congress was devised in a different, more dynamic way, closer to the grassroots.

On March 6, four commissions met in different institutions of the city, in which the role of the organization and its mobilizing function in the context of the updating of the Cuban economic model, gender equality in the family and society, and youth as a guarantee of the continuity and functioning of the FMC, were analyzed.

“What to do at the grassroots to be closer to each federation member? How to win the hearts and wills of our young people, so that they continue to love the genuine, authentic, inclusive, united organization that we have created together? These are some of the questions that motivated the debates,” she said.

Reflections regarding gender equality in society and within the family were also a point of discussion, she noted.

Although there has been huge progress on the path to gender equality in Cuba over the last 60 years, sexist patterns continue to predominate, she stressed.

This was demonstrated by results of the National Gender Equality Survey, undertaken in 2016, with the participation of almost 20,000 Cubans. Of them, 28% were aged between 15 and 29 yeas old.

“Although the majority of those surveyed recognized that there is no discrimination on the island,” Amarelle explained, “and 74% stated that each individual’s sexual orientation should be respected, only half of respondents accept that two people of the same sex can be married.”

On the other hand, we must also achieve equal distribution of household chores, both in the social and public spheres. “Thus we avoid women being overburdened with responsibilities that have been socially attributed to them throughout history,” she said.

Such issues were discussed over the three days of the Congress, attended by 360 delegates and 40 guests.

IN THE COMMUNITY, CLOSE TO ALL

Our priority in this new Congress was to reach the communities, Teresa Amarelle explained, which is a huge challenge under the current conditions.

“Today, our women are assuming responsibilities on other fronts of society, they participate actively in the country’s economy; therefore, the majority are not confined to the home.”

Women make up 60.5% of higher education graduates, and 67.2% of specialists and professionals throughout the nation. Photo: Freddy Pérez Cabrera
Working in communities requires a lot of precision and organization. It is not about summoning people just for the sake of it, and nor can the strategy be the same in every community.

“Isabelita Moya, journalist and women’s rights advocate, told us to whom we pay tribute over these days: ‘The FMC, as the song by Silvio Rodríguez goes, is different – to what it was years ago – but is the same.’”

Today, although the tasks are the same, the way to reach new generations must be different, according to their tastes and needs, she acknowledged.

In this sense, the FMC’s Neighborhood Women and Family Guidance Centers play an essential role. As do the multidisciplinary family law teams, which work together with the courts to undertake a more social and humanistic assessment of family conflicts.

We seek that conflicts be resolved without the court having to dictate an administrative or judicial measure. These two tasks are the most beautiful missions the Federation has, she said.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

For Vilma Espín, the eternal president of our organization, the Federation was nothing more than a program for equality, the quest for social justice and support. “We have put all our efforts into maintaining those premises,” Amarelle emphasized.

But much remains to be done. “We need to be more flexible, more dynamic, adapt to the times. The country is updating its economic model, and we must join these changes, adapting our content, to achieve greater participation of women in the life of the organization and the country.”

As part of this effort, she added, we are encouraging the insertion of young women in the voluntary military service; promoting their vocational training, so that they opt for unconventional careers. We are also perfecting the training offered in our Neighborhood Centers, in line with the economic needs of each municipality.

“We must continue, despite all the achievements. Not neglecting the gaps that remain or the challenges that lie ahead. We must analyze what we have achieved as a program of equality; we couldn’t have done so without women committed to their time.”

(Granma)

What is occurring to us, in reality, is that this potential force is superior to what the most optimistic of us could have ever imagined. And that is why we said that, maybe in the background, unconsciously, unconsciously there was some prejudice, or there was some underestimation, since reality is demonstrating, just beginning to march along this path, all the possibilities and all the roles women can play in a revolutionary process (…)

If women believe that their situation within society is optimal, if women believe that the revolution’s function, its revolutionary function within society, has been fulfilled, they would be mistaken.

It seems to us that women must still struggle a great deal, that women must work hard to reach the place they should really occupy (…)

If women in our country were doubly exploited, doubly humiliated, that means simply that, in a social revolution, women must be doubly revolutionary.

And this perhaps explains, or contributes to explaining, and it can be said that it is the social base that allows an explanation as to why Cuban women support the Revolution so firmly, so enthusiastically, so loyally. Simply for this reason:

Because it is a revolution that for women means two revolutions; because it is a revolution that means double liberation for women. Women are a part of the country’s most humble sectors… women face discrimination not only as workers, but as women, as well, within this exploitative society.

That is why the attitude of women in our Revolution, in our country, reflects this reality, reflects what the Revolution has meant for women. And the popular sectors, the popular sectors support the Revolution to the same extent that the Revolution has meant liberation for them (…)

It only remains to say, with all my strength: Long live Cuban women! Long live the revolutionary spirit, the discipline, the devotion of Cuban women!
Long live the female revolution within the socialist revolution!

Source: Speech during the closing session of the Fifth National Plenum of the FMC, December 9, 1966.

New York, September 27, 2015

Mr. President,

Forty years after the First World Conference on Women, and twenty years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Action Program, one out of three women endures physical and sexual violence; 90% of the 2.5 million victims of human trafficking are female; unemployment is higher among women than men, and they receive an average of 60% to 75% of the men’s salary for the same work; millions of women do not enjoy equal rights with respect to inheritance and property; and, women representation in parliaments worldwide is of only 22%.

Nearly 90% of the current victims of war are civilians, most of them women and children, and the same applies to 75% of the people displaced by conflicts or seeking refuge.

Women make up 70% of the 2.7 billion of the world poor, and two thirds of the nearly 800 million illiterate adults; more than 300 thousand women die every year of avoidable complications during childbirth, 99% of them in South countries.

Mr. President,

Today, Cuban women’s life expectancy at birth if 80.45 years of age; direct maternal mortality rate is only 21.4 per one-hundred thousand live births, one of the lowest in the world; they make up 48% of the total number of people working in the state civil sector, and occupy 46% of senior leading positions. They make up 78.5% of healthcare personnel, 48% of scientific researchers and 68.8% of the labor force with the highest technical and professional qualifications. Cuban women, in general, complete their 10,2 grades of schooling and represent 65.2% of higher education graduates.

Additionally, 48.86% of Cuban Parliament members are women, which sets Cuba in second place among countries of the American hemisphere, only surpassed by Bolivia, and fourth in the world.

Nevertheless, we still have much to do. We need to move forward in the modification of cultural patterns, and to make sharing family care by men and women a priority. This would help us to continue increasing the number of women in decision-making positions in the Government, just to mention some aspects.

Mr. President,

We admit that some achievements have been scored in the past decades but they are fragile and insufficient. In order to advance toward the full realization of gender equality and the empowerment of women, it is necessary above all to have a more equitable and just international order that eradicates poverty and hunger, puts an end to military conflicts, favors human beings above capital and preserves the environment.

Thank you.