HAVANA, Cuba.- The acting ability shown by actor Omar Ali failed to convince that he is a free man and that “censorship should not be seen as a terrifying thing.”
It seems that he made these statements in his role as Colonel Silvio, in the police series Following the trail, or as the alter ego of Miguel Barnet, lax and with a mojito in hand, sitting on an armchair at the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).
Apparently, this freedman of the masks assumes his freedom from another version of the fable of the three little monkeys: I do not say what does not suit me; I do not listen to what brings me problems; and I do not see anything that goes against the regime.
Undoubtedly, a very comfortable political and moral position, although degrading due to its cowardice and cynicism, in a country where socio-cultural alarms continue to ring, warning of its collapse and calling for everyone to save themselves.
It is disgusting that an actor so popular among Cuban viewers for his performances in various series, soap operas and films, exposes his credibility in a cowardly and circus-like dialogue between clowns on TV.
While I do not question Omar Ali’s right to feel free, or a rat or a cockroach or whatever he chooses to feel he is, saying that freedom is an individual thing under a regime that has condemned dozens of his colleagues to ostracism and exile exposes his lack of sincerity.
Omar Ali must never forget that for feeling free or risking everything in search of that reason for being that is crucial both in art and in real life, his colleagues with a greater artistic curriculum and results than he can show to this day, such as his colleagues Juan Carlos Cremata and Carlos Lettucehad to flee Cuba because of a censorship that was not at all “terrifying,” according to Ali.
That actors like Ulysses Toirac are banned on national television, or that the works of audiovisual producers are manipulated by the cultural commissioners of the regime, as occurred with the documentary Fito’s Havanaby Juan Pin Vilar, or are excluded from exhibitions and festivals, such as Molina Ferozz, Guilt and Sorimaby filmmaker and actor Jorge Molina, demonstrate that Castro’s censorship is not “a challenge to individual creativity,” as Omar Ali would have us believe, but rather a wall against freedom of creation.
It is also good to remind this gentleman, free to remain silent and obey, that when time passes and he can no longer contribute as an actor, scriptwriter or director, he may end up like two of the sacred cows of national culture, the filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet and the ethnologist and writer Natalia Bolívar, who had to resort to social networks or to their relatives and friends abroad to get them medicines that would help them survive in the midst of government neglect.
A sad fate awaits Cuban totalitarianism for those who remain silent, obey, direct, write or act on and off the stage or set in the scripts imposed or authorized by the regime, in order to ingratiate themselves with those in power and go unnoticed while they watch how the life and work of many of their colleagues burn in the “purifying” flames of the revolution in its crusade against ideological deviations in the sphere of national culture.
Hopefully, in a few years, Omar Ali, having deflated the balloon he invented to impress and look good to the regime, punctured by those censors he now considers friends, will not end up drunk, a failure, looking at holes in a seedy inn, like in the TV movie. Gloom; or worse, asking for medicine from his daughter in Madrid, his brother in Miami, or from Internet users on social networks to help him survive the relentless official neglect.
