Havana Cuba. — The concept of “cultural decolonization” raised by Castroism acts as a barrier against influences coming from abroad. Twenty-five years after the visit to Cuba of Pope John Paul II —which will take place on January 25th— the Castro rulers continue to ignore one of the Supreme Pontiff’s advice for the island to integrate satisfactorily into the international concert of nations.
The then head of the Catholic Church asked that the world open up to Cuba, but he also suggested that Cuba open up to the world. The latter has never been fulfilled by the Cuban authorities.
In those final years of the 1990s, liberal democracy and the market economy were spreading across the five continents after the failure of the one-party model and centralized economy in the nations that set out to build the so-called “real socialism”. However, Castroism did not follow the example that was making its way in the former Soviet republics. On the contrary, it maintained the tyranny of the Communist Party, continued with the violations of individual liberties, reduced the market space in the economy, and after the rise to power of Chavismo in Venezuela, it undertook the task of encouraging the emergence of Anti-Western Regimes in Latin America.
Now, at a time when the official discourse insists that the “enemy” is intensifying the cultural war against Cuba, the island’s rulers are increasingly closed to influences from abroad. The term “cultural decolonization”, raised among others by the combative president of Casa de las Américas, Abel Prieto, is used to delegitimize any cultural manifestation that is considered incompatible with the national idiosyncrasy.
We had a sample of the above recently, when a group of young people celebrated a Cuban version of Halloween, and the condemnation of the Castro authorities immediately appeared, alleging that it was an activity that had nothing to do with the fundamentals of the cubanía
A recent article appeared in the newspaper Granma (“Hacer del arte militancia”, edition of January 9) reinforces this cultural closure of Castroism. Through the use of belligerent language, in which concepts such as “making museums a nest of anti-colonization conspiracy” stand out, and “making art fight by putting it in schools with a sense of battle”, the writer came to consider art as colonizing. commercial relationship established between a third world nation, producer of raw materials, and a developed nation that offers finished products.
Here it is ignored that such a relationship obeys the principle of economic complementarity that governs a good part of international trade, and that this production of raw materials has provided appreciable levels of economic growth to the nations that develop it, as happened, for example, with several countries Latin Americans in the early years of this century.
Almost at the end of the aforementioned article, it is read that “Halloween in the north is not fought effectively with impotent complaints, it is fought by making the Fiesta del Fuego military throughout the national geography.”
This reduction of what is Cuban to the Fiesta del Fuego, which predominates the cultural relationship of Cuba with the small nations of the insular Caribbean, and therefore highlights the African component of our culture, makes us think that at any moment Castroism disdains the other root of the Cuban cultural ajiaco: the Spanish. Coming from a Western nation, she might be seen as a colonizer by hardliners in the machine of power.
In any case, this pro-government strategy of closing itself off from the world would also be preventing, in a certain way, the world from opening up to Cuba, as that illustrious Pope of Polish origin also requested.
OPINION ARTICLE
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