Hamlet’s words quickly spread through social networks.
To clarify this issue, Cubacine spoke with Tania Delgado, vice president of Icaic, who is responsible for the Institute’s international relations.

Cubacine: Is it true that the ICAIC contacted Lester Hamlet to discuss questions about his stay abroad? Why?

Tania Delgado: It is true that the Icaic Protocol area contacted him, but not exactly because of his travel time, but rather because he traveled with an official passport requested from Icaic.

The use of the official passport is authorized for missions abroad that the institutions assume as their own. This document, unlike the current passport, is only valid within the dates for which it is requested.

Upon returning to Cuba, the bearer must deliver the official passport to the institution, as it is not a personal document.

As more than a month had elapsed from the scheduled date for Lester’s return to the country, the head of the Icaic Protocol area, forced to inquire about the official passport, contacted him in writing using WhatsApp messaging to find out if he was already in our country and request the return of the official passport.

Cubacine: Why did Lester Hamlet leave the country with an official passport?

Tania Delgado: Lester traveled to Mexico with an official passport to participate in the La Isla Residencia Community Project in the state of Quintana Roo.

There he would screen a series of his films and give a script workshop. It is normal practice for ICAIC to support filmmakers in projects or events that are of interest to Cuban cinematography.

Cubacine: Is it true that you were informed that he was sanctioned for exceeding the time of use of the official passport?

Tania Delgado: No. In the exchange of WhatsApp messages between Lester and the Icaic official, the latter asked him if he was already in the country. Lester asked to call him by phone and in the telephone communication, he informed the official that he had not yet returned to Cuba and that his decision was not to do so.

The Icaic official replied that this was a personal decision, but that he had traveled with the official passport and that it should be returned to the institution.

Subsequently, Lester asked if it was true that due to his decision not to return, he could be subject to a sanction of limitation of entry to the country.

At no time was this an idea enunciated by the Icaic official, nor was the reason for the conversation to inform him of any sanction.

Cubacine: Can Icaic withdraw a Cuban filmmaker’s right to enter the country?

Tania Delgado: No. The Icaic is not empowered to take a measure of this nature. As the Minister of Culture and the president of Icaic stated on their Twitter accounts, he can return to the country whenever he wishes.

Cubacine: What is your opinion of this situation?

Tania Delgado: It is painful to say the least that a filmmaker with the career of Lester Hamlet blames Icaic for forcing him to make the decision to stay out of Cuba when it is strictly personal.

(Taken from the Icaic Facebook Profile)

Among those fitting this profile are several highly visible faces and audible voices participating in the reality show produced January 27 outside the Ministry of Culture. If they were seriously interested in addressing artistic or cultural problems, and the functioning of this institution, why did they refuse the opportunity?

In this recent period, I have witnessed complicated, difficult, heated debates among artists, intellectuals and cultural promoters, during which, on more than one occasion, disagreements and divergent opinions emerged. I have attended artistic performances characterized by critical assertions, even highly critical, related to our national reality, and can testify to the fact that via constructive interaction, and analysis that is not exempt from passion, concerns and legitimate disagreements have been addressed.

But this was not the case during the January 27 events, as I observed in the manipulators participating, fishing in muddy waters. The confrontational tone was set well beforehand and the audience that needed to witness the spectacle had been previously arranged. Against the Revolution, everything; with the Revolution, nothing. Zero dialogue, aggressive positions. Vulgar words, common places.

After the planned performance came the summoning of the triangulated media financed by U.S. agencies and institutions; live broadcasts from the site of the events via social networks; the media harassment of the Minister and other authorities; the violation of the right to privacy in communications between the provocateurs and the representatives they targeted.

All this to create an artificial atmosphere of chaos, intolerance and ungovernability, reproduced by the enemy media in collusion. They had even prepared a sort of international panel discussion, offering analysis ready to be consumed, more like a junk food buffet, more from abroad than Cuban, to be used on international platforms.

Silvio Rodríguez unambiguously exposed the falsity of the episode: “I have tried to view the mentioned video of Culture functionaries attacking the artists, but have not been able to do so. I saw one in which the deputy minister Fernando Rojas invites them several times to enter the ministry; then something very confusing occurs, some shouting, and there is a young man saying there are police with pistols present (which cannot be seen either). On two of the opposition’s web sites, to see the video, they request that you approve the cookies. If they are so interested in disseminating the supposed injustice, they should facilitate the process, right?”

The simulation failed. Using culture, one of our greatest strengths, it will be impossible to upset the table of the political system we have freely adopted.

(Taken from Granma)

The show was intended to generate a climate of violence and chaos that would allow them to sell to the world an image of Cuban institutions divorced from the reality of creators and artists, attempting to promote repudiation of our functionaries, presenting them as violent, close-minded individuals who opposed any sort of understanding.

Everything had been rehearsed in advance. The supposed discontented creators had no intention of meeting with anyone at the Ministry, and were actually only a minority of those present, since most were members of the “independent” press in the service of U.S. interests. The repeated requests made by one of the deputy ministers to enter the building, to talk, went entirely unheeded.

The group’s mission, carefully planned beforehand was to provocatively challenge authorities and somehow oblige them to take action. They were looking for a confrontation, escalating the tensions in hopes that someone would lose control.

This is a textbook tactic. The idea is to stay at the site, stage a sit-in to attract attention, use the media, that are part of the plan, to generate supportive public opinion, call for more participants on social networks, and construct a little Maidan outside the Ministry of Culture. This is the old, many times failed, dream of the CIA to repeat the Kiev events in Havana.

The process of staging a soft coup has been outlined by the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (Canvas), the socio-political subversion lab of Srdja Popovic, founder along with Slobodan Dinovic of the Otpor movement that in 2000, on orders from and financed by the CIA, contributed to overthrowing Yugoslavian President Slodoban Milosevic. The Center’s manual states that one of the first tasks is the creation of hotspots of “civil disobedience, violence and chaos,” besieging government institutions, functionaries, and workers, generating anxiety, distrust and fear.

What occurred in front of the Ministry in Havana is part of this “non-violent” war strategy against Cuba, one more attempt to create the detonator needed to make a soft coup possible.

Following U.S. instructions precisely, as projected in Gene Sharp’s manual and by the aforementioned Canvas, a veritable “pack” of mercenaries was launched to provoke, discredit and harass Cuban authorities and present the anti-Cuban protestors as victims.

The version of the events disseminated by the U.S. embassy in Havana on Twitter is so far removed from the reality of what occurred at the Ministry of Culture on January 27, it appears to have been drafted elsewhere. The truth made clear in the manuals of creators, financiers, and promoters of this type of aggression is that such actions are violent, interventionist maneuvers meant to produce coups, that in turn lead to the establishment of “failed states” in the hands of “transitional governments,” incapable of confronting U.S. forces on the battlefield and therefore easy to occupy and subjugate.

As has been denounced on previous occasions, what is sought is the creation of conditions for a direct intervention in Cuba, in the style of 1898, with the United States presenting itself as the “savior” of a country in chaos. Choosing the eve of the anniversary of José Martí’s birth as the date for this disturbance was miscalculated by those who do not know the history of our country. For Cubans, Martí is a symbol of independence, a constant reminder to be true to our ideals, ideas that revolutionaries carry deep in our hearts and that, time and time again, defeat the plans of the empire and its mercenaries.

(Taken from Granma)

The aforementioned statement from the Ministry reaffirmed that the institution would not agree to meet “with persons who have direct contact with and receive financing, logistical support and propaganda support from the U.S. government,” nor “with news media financed by U.S. federal agencies.”

In November, members of the misnamed San Isidro Movement refused to recognize authorities and assumed a threatening posture to attain their demands by force. Many of those who arrived at the Ministry came with the intention of participating in a peaceful demonstration; others, however, had previously received instructions to raise a wide range of concerns, ideas and demands. Citizens involved in acts of vandalism against MLC stores on the island also participated.

January 27, shortly before an online March of the Torches took place on social networks to commemorate the 168th anniversary of the birth of José Martí, the Ministry once again reiterated its principles, in response to another counterrevolutionary provocation, and reaffirmed its willingness to dialogue without conditions or coercion.

The Ministry repeated on Twitter “its willingness to dialogue with honest creators on any issue related to the Cuban Revolution’s cultural policy and reiterates its refusal to accept provocations or dialogue with mercenaries.”

This message was included in a statement from the institution, entitled “They don’t want dialogue and stage provocations to the limit,” which was issued in connection with an incident that occurred the previous morning, when a meeting was scheduled with three spokespeople chosen by a small group of individuals characterized by their provocative attitudes and relationships with media financed by U.S. federal agencies.

Ignoring the agreed-upon plan, some thirty persons congregated in front of the Ministry’s headquarters. They were asked to participate in dialogue or leave, given the health risks involved in such gatherings in public spaces, during the covid-19 epidemic.

Faced with their refusal to cooperate, the Ministry’s workers reacted immediately, gathering in front of the provocateurs and urging them to leave.

Alpidio Alonso, Minister of Culture, said on the occasion: “They do not want any dialogue whatsoever. They were invited to enter several times, but did not care to do so. And we are not going to allow this at the Ministry of Culture. We are working too hard here for them to come here with this kind of provocation. They disrespect the country’s entire artistic movement which is revolutionary…. If they come in a defiant, provocative tone like this, they are going to receive an energetic response from our people.”

Media expert Javier Gómez Sánchez has addressed events such as these, noting that the first thing to make clear in the present situation is “that the first and principal aggression, the principal act of violence, was to surround an institution and create a state of siege for the people who work inside.”

Another behavior repeatedly assumed by the counterrevolution is “to refuse any understanding, to use cell phones and social networks to mobilize more people, to manipulate the media, and do so while receiving money from the country that sustains a cruel economic, financial and commercial blockade against ours, in order to create the worst possible environment, to provoke as much as possible, until they achieve a reaction they can use to their advantage.”

Gomez Sanchez urges all revolutionaries to think clearly about the objectives of the counterrevolutionaries, who seek to obscure the principal act of violence, and attempt to trigger a judgmental response in us, questioning the revolutionaries besieged by provocateurs, instead of supporting them.

Simply noting who were among the first to express “solidarity” with the disruptors is revealing, indicative of the intentions of the “peaceful, patriotic artists disposed to dialogue” who are besieging state institutions. Shortly after the provocation, the U.S. Embassy tweeted its concern for the “demonstrators,” and presumed to advise the Cuban government to listen to those who are paid with the dollars allocated in Washington to finance subversion in Cuba, by the millions.

(Taken from Granma)

In the midst of a scenario nuanced by the insufficiencies of the internal economy, the inhuman pressures of the US blockade and the pause imposed by COVID-19, a discourse that incorporates, along with the claims of a group of honest artists and creators , takes force. attractive symbols and fallacies aimed at distorting the reality of the island.

Is there freedom of expression within Socialism? What role do art and the artist have? For the Doctor in Philosophical Sciences, Anayansi Castellón Jiménez, dedicated for years to studies on the ideology of the Cuban Revolution and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas, answering these questions involves analyzing the current scenario from the solid corpus of Marxist theory.

- How to read the events of the last weeks?

- A general analysis of the current scenario must start from a fundamental idea: this is an essentially political issue. Many times I notice how some people understand it only as an individual matter, given by very particular circumstances, and believe that everything will end if a group of supposed “demands” are fulfilled. I believe that this is not the case and the examination should be done in more depth.

We are talking about political positions. That is an important element. Therefore, it is a matter of class struggle and of the survival of the project of the Cuban Revolution, which is a socialist project. There is a first element to take into account.

The second question lies in the particularities of our country. We must ask ourselves what is Cuba, what does the Revolution represent and how has it been permanently subjected to a siege by the forces of imperialism.

The third issue has to do with the construction of a socialist society that is not perfect, but has proven to be better than the capitalist world, because it guarantees better justice quotas. In this sense, it is a society in permanent formation, with a group of errors – economic solutions, corruption, bureaucracy or conduction of processes – in which we revolutionaries must work permanently.

- You often hear the term “freedom of expression”. What precepts shape it and, above all, what to do with that freedom?

- Freedom will always be restricted, as its limits are determined by the class in power. The idea of ​​total freedom, like that of democracy, is a great fallacy. You always have quotas of it and limits to enjoy it. Now, socialist freedom is more freedom for a greater number of people, but that implies a responsibility with respect to the rest of the citizens and the fulfillment of social norms.

In a small sector of Cuba, a tendency is sometimes noticed, typical of the globalized world, linked to a certain petty-bourgeois spirit. It is seen above all in a group of people who are not in a position to digest or find behind these doctrines their true essence. Because the ideology that capitalism sells us, the notion of its better democracy, its multiparty system and also its freedom of expression, are fallacies.

It is pure ideology, in the Marxist sense of seeing it as false consciousness. It is about “truths” of a social class that they try to construct as the truth of many people.

That is why sometimes one sees claims that are inconsistent or that do not have a direct anchor in our reality. Not because we don’t have freedom of expression, but because our forms of freedom are different; not because we don’t have democracy, but because our democracy is different. That spirit also floats on the platform on which a group of “demands” are raised.

- There is also a lot of talk about Words to intellectuals …

- There are elements decontextualized and not read in their entirety. The best known phrase of that speech is “within the Revolution everything; against the Revolution nothing ”. There Fidel analyzes how the artist is even freer than in Capitalism, because his art is no longer an object for the market. It also establishes the limits of freedom of expression and creation in Socialism, and says that the only border is precisely the life of the Revolution.

During that speech, Fidel speaks of three types of artists or intellectuals. The revolutionary, convinced that the Revolution and Socialism are the roads. He also mentions the one who does not support the ideas of the Revolution, but who is honest and is not bought by anyone or responds to foreign interests.

Finally, it refers to those who are not revolutionaries, and also are not honest. And right there comes the “within the Revolution everything; against the Revolution nothing ”. So, from the discourse, it follows that the Revolution has the duty to include and respect both revolutionary and honest creators. That continues to be the limit of freedom in Cuba today, the survival of the Revolution. And it is precisely that element one of those that is in controversy these days.

- What is the role of art and the creator in Socialism?

- Art is a form of social consciousness. In that sense, it also means reflecting reality through other codes, and it has a strong component of criticism, but also of spirituality. In Capitalism art is produced in a more individual way. In Socialism, on the other hand, as artistic production becomes massive and culture reaches a greater number of people, it acquires a more social character, a greater responsibility.

Art also draws essentially from universal culture. Marx easily clarifies it when he says that history is nothing more than the passing of one generation that rises above the other, and receives from the previous one all the cultural heritage of humanity. Therefore, an art or artist that does not know its cultural past is inconsequential, and is incapable of appropriating it, firstly to respect it, and then to legitimize its new cultural positions.

However, this analysis goes further. It is not possible to create a political platform in Cuba if you do not respect the Cuban flag, which is part of our culture. But also, you cannot invent a model that tries to find in the United States – our historical enemy – a political and economic foothold. If you do that, you are saying that the Cuban is incapable of thinking for himself.

Founding fathers of Cuban nationality, such as José Agustín Caballero, Félix Varela or José de la Luz y Caballero, taught us that we can solve problems on our own. Cuba has enough capacity to articulate a project for an original society and that of no one else, but that is impossible looking north. Then you realize that those who defend an agenda of interference are unaware of the entire history of Cuban thought, all of its cultural heritage.

Anayansi Castellón: “Dialogue is given to Socialism, because it is more democratic as there is greater social justice.” Photo: Yunier Sifonte / Cubadebate.

- Where are the borders between art and vulgarity? Who legitimizes an artist?

- Vulgarity and marginality can never be art, as can offenses either. Cuba has excellent samples of leaders, especially from the labor sector, who were not great intellectuals or possessed a deep theoretical mastery of things, but were educated people, trained in the civic spirit necessary to interact with the world.

It is precisely there that the limit with vulgarity appears, in that domain of culture. A person who disrespects those around him, who shouts expletives or uses obscenities, is not an artist.

An artist is legitimized by his quality work, consistent with his ideas and his time. Nobody else. To the intellectuals of the Republic, key in the movement of ideas that led to the search for a new society, who legitimized them but their own creation?

- Where should the dialogue with those intellectuals who do not compromise their work with the enemies of Cuba lead?

- We must use it to draw lessons about the present and take advantage of the critical vision of young people and honest intellectuals to strengthen the country. As we ourselves have many things well done and of which we are proud, there are also elements to improve. In that we must work, especially to avoid that their permanence creates more difficulties, resentments or fuels the lack of unity. That is another essential matter.

As is the case with the idea of ​​thinking for ourselves, the theme of unity cuts across the thought of the Cuban Revolution, from 1868 to today. This unit also includes dialogue with young people who have just concerns, and together face those who pretend manipulation and have unscrupulous handling in matters of culture or other social aspects.

Along with this, we could remember Antonio Gramsci when he spoke of the construction of hegemony, that ability to build consensus from power. It is an idea to strengthen even more. We cannot be afraid to speak of our problems to solve them in function of Socialism. As Gramsci himself said in one of his newspapers, the truth is always revolutionary.

Another indispensable theorist for current times is Che Guevara, because if anyone advocated timely criticism within the Revolution, it was him. And Socialism is given dialogue, because it is more democratic as there is greater social justice. That is the summary, to put those who want to improve Cuba to talk. To the revolutionaries and those who do not share some of our ideas, but be honest. Just like Fidel said.

- In the recent debate between various creators and authorities of culture in the country, Alpidio Alonso said that “Cuba must be a parliament within a trench.” Is that one of the keys?

- It’s part of the key. We have always been a trench and in it we must ensure the greatest good: the independence of Cuba. We began to be a country on January 1, 1959. We acquired shape on the map of the economic, political and cultural life of the world on that date. But that has cost us a permanent struggle.

Socialism does not eliminate the class struggle at once. It is a present phenomenon. We must know that it is a just system and in constant danger, both from the forces within and from without. And the way of success is to fight against our imperfections and against the external enemy that always haunts us.