MADRID, Spain.- Cries of “Libertad, Libertad!” were heard this Sunday during the concert by renowned musician Carlos Varela, offered at the Coliseum of the Sports City of Havana as part of the Havana World Music Festival.
The Cuban public demanded freedom at different times, but mainly after the singer-songwriter finished his song “La Feria de los Tontos”, premiered last December with the rock group Sweet Lizzy Project.
“Come, come to the fools’ fair. / The circus starts soon. / We have tamers, puppets, magicians and masks. / Come, come to the playhouse. / Where fear is distributed. / And everyone wears a blindfold and a blind man’s cane”, the song begins, making an obvious reference to the system and the repression imposed by the regime on the Island.
Through images shared on Twitter by independent journalists such as Geisy Guia Delis Y Victor M. Duenas It can be seen that the cries of “Libertad” were not isolated demonstrations, but were instead chanted by those attending the concert.
?? | Young Cubans shouted “freedom” at Carlos Varela’s concert in Havana pic.twitter.com/PYvkfvkpJh
— Victor M. Dueñas (@VictorDuenasCU) May 30, 2022
“I don’t know, I came to a Carlos Varela concert at Havana World Music and what I’m experiencing is intense. I don’t think they broadcast it in its entirety on Cuban TV, especially the part in which the public has shouted a couple of times: Freedom, freedom,” said Geisy Guia Delis.
I don’t know, I came to a Carlos Varela concert at the #HWM2022 and what I am experiencing is intense. I don’t think they broadcast it in its entirety on Cuban TV, especially the part in which the public has shouted a couple of times: Freedom, freedom…. pic.twitter.com/T6s0u0tcmA
– Geisy Guia Delis (@GeisyGuiaDelis) May 30, 2022
During his presentation, Varela expressed: “I want to thank you for carrying me for so many years with the same blood as `El lumberjack´”.
It is worth remembering that in “El lumberjack”, one of the artist’s most popular songs, as well as in “Guillermo Tell”, “Como me hace a mí” and “Como los pezes”, among others, Varela expressed his disagreement with the prevailing regime in Cuba.
In 2019, Carlos Varela denounced the censorship of his song “Habáname”, declaimed by the actress Blanca Rosa Blanco during an act for the 500th Anniversary of Havana.
In her presentation, Blanca Rosa Blanco omitted the fragment “My Havana/ if you knew the pain/ that I feel when I sing to you (…) And the years go by/ and we watch with pain/ how each wall of illusion is collapsing”, verses in which the musician referred to the hopelessness of his generation.
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