In huge red capital letters, on the exterior wall of the Ampy Café, in the Havana municipality of Playa, the words “Libertad”, “no + dictatadura”, “patria y vida” appeared. The graffiti lasted several hours until noon this Monday at number 2501 on Calle 30. Due to the size of the poster, it is suspected that several people made it.
The employees of the cafe, a private business, did not want to provide details about the event and limited themselves to saying 14ymedio that the poster was erased a little before noon. Holy remedy for the wall, which showed, like so many others in the capital, the passage of time and neglect, although because it was a particular palate, it was in better condition than most of the facades.
Now, instead of a damp-stained beige, the wall is a salmon pink, still smelling of fresh paint.
A driver in the area told 14ymedio that the poster was not there “not even three hours”. “I saw that around nine in the morning, I took the wheelbarrow for a ride and by the time I passed by at noon it was painted,” he added.
Graffiti on walls and facades have been a frequent practice through which social disagreement is expressed. In the years of the Special Period, when public lighting decreased notably due to lack of fuel, posters – painted at dawn – with phrases in the style of “Down with Fidel” were frequent.
“I saw that around nine in the morning, I took the wheelbarrow around and by the time I passed by at noon it was painted”
Ironically, the neighbors in the vicinity of where they detect one of these graffiti end up commenting that when you want to call the police quickly for a robbery or an assault it is better to communicate with the number of complaints and ensure that someone has put up a “counterrevolutionary poster “in a certain direction. The speed with which the patrols appear proves them right.
After the death of Fidel Castro, these graffiti began to revile his brother Raúl, but it was against Miguel Díaz-Canel that had a greater variety of phrases and insults. They have also incorporated symbols, QR codes and drawings to shorten sentences or camouflage themselves from the eyes of the police.
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