Three simultaneous events of the radical left, held on the island, call to prevent the free flow of information internationally
HAVANA.-Certain forces and movements in Latin America They are fearful and worried. The reason for such feelings is the undoubted advance of democratic governments in the region, and the prospects that more countries may soon join this climate of freedoms.
Many voices from that radical left, when looking for the causes of its decline, propose that its communication strategy has failed, and consequently they have taken on the task of finding ways to combat what they call the “hegemonic control” of information by the capitalist West, and especially the United States.
In this context, three events related to the actions of the continental left have been held simultaneously in Cuba these days, plus some guests from other latitudes, in the field of press media and communications.
We are referring to the Network of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, which had been created by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez in 2003; to the Granma Rebelde International Festival, in tribute to the 60th birthday of both Castro newspapers; and to the Third International Meeting of Theoretical Publications of Left Parties and Movements.
Figures known as Ignacio Ramonet and Fernando Buen Abad, as well as the leadership of the Castro leadership, and a good part of its organic intellectuals such as Abel Prieto, Enrique Ubieta, Luis Morlote and even Mariela Castro Espín.
Between speeches and slogans, in which there was no shortage of praise for Chavista Venezuela and Hamas, things were said such as the need to articulate efforts to create or reinforce a network of press media that represent the interests of the global South; advance the digital and ideological “literacy” of Latin American peoples; as well as defending at all times the “truth” of the nations of the region against imperial appetites.
When speaking at one of the sessions of the Meeting of Left Publications, the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez referred to “the way we mobilize awareness, how we not only inform, but how we have strategic political communication that sensitizes us, that has links with the popular, that builds consensus, that sows awareness, and that mobilizes us from everyday life.”
Everything very clear. Through a discourse that aims to be attractive, but that is still misleading, the hierarchy of the left calls to replace information with a political-ideological message that, under the pretext of fighting First World hegemonism, keeps its people oppressed. And in the process, it allows them (the Díaz-Canels, Maduros, Ortega-Murillos and company) to remain in power indefinitely.
But all this speech that attacks freedom of the press and the free flow of information will not finally prevent the truth from making its way in our region. Latin American nations are already tired of empty rhetoric that leads to nothing useful.
On the other hand, it is significant that this offensive against press freedom takes place when, in addition to the already mentioned advance of democracy in the region, pro-dictatorship groups find themselves isolated with their exclusion from the next Summit of the Americas, and at a time when the Nicolás Maduro regime is being questioned for its possible involvement with international drug trafficking.
