Alma mater, the Cuban university magazine, has been left without Armando Franco Senén, its director until this Tuesday, by decision of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), in a clear interference of the partisan organization in the university publication.
The news was given by the editorial staff of Alma mater in your facebook channel, where he released the brief statement, which has been known little by little to the almost 900 users who have thrown themselves on top of the measure. “By decision of the National Bureau of the Union of Young Communists, Armando Franco Senén was released from his duties as director of the magazine.”
Franco, a journalism graduate in 2016 and a professor at the Faculty of Communication in Havana, took charge of Alma mater in 2019. The publication had won the favor of many people, close or not, to the ruling party for a more modern treatment of information, openness to a type of subject little addressed by other media and, in recent times, for its 11J coverage.
The magazine had given a very unusual approach to the information about the detained protesters, many of them students, to be a means of the regime
The magazine had taken a very unusual approach to the information about the detained protesters, many of them students, to be a means of the regime. Alma mater He clearly advocated, in some cases, for the release of those arrested or the cancellation of the judicial processes to which they were being subjected.
On Tuesday, the magazine published an interview with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Padilla, very focused on the immigration issue and relations with the United States on that subject. Some have pointed out as coincidental that Franco’s departure occurs just after, but there seems to be no reason to link them, since the questions do not generate any discomfort for the minister, who has enough space to place his speech.
Although there is no shortage of people who point out that perhaps it is the journalist himself who has left the island, the reasons for the dismissal are attributed more to that timid revolution in form and content that Franco had brought to the magazine.
Alma mater celebrates its centenary this year and is one of the oldest publications in Cuba. The magazine has always been characterized by its independence and reflecting the feelings of university students. After the arrival of Fidel Castro to power, it gradually lost autonomy, but even then it tried to maintain its mark. The decision to dismiss its director has caused perplexity because it reflects the control that the youth organization of the Cuban Communist Party would have over the magazine.
“And how the organization that represents the revolutionary youth dismisses without explanation the director of the magazine and example of the most revolutionary journalism that I have read in a long time?”
“He revitalized something that in years no university student read and others didn’t even know existed. I will proceed to withdraw my like to the page, because I already know what’s coming!!!!”, said one of the hundreds of readers who have expressed their rejection of the news.
Another commentator, who met Franco in high school, praises his character since he was a boy and defended the causes. “A leader is born, not made, and he was born with that quality, which he also developed throughout his life. Years later, he became the director of the magazine Alma mater and it gave me back a habit that I had lost a long time ago, reading news; but this time, I was reading something very different than usual and that is appreciated, that is what we need, that is what we have to promote, that is what we have to defend, “he adds.
“I don’t know the reasons, but considering the journalism I was doing Alma mater under the direction of Armando Franco they should analyze the Bureau of the UJC. Will they know what journalism Cuban youth needs? Speechless. It hurts,” lamented a third.
The majority have demanded that the reasons be clearly stated and that the magazine’s autonomy be returned: “And how does the organization that represents the revolutionary youth dismiss without explanation the director of the magazine and an example of the most revolutionary journalism I have read in long time?”.
With his fine satirical humour, the lumpen He has not been able to let the comparison pass and has spread the news with the images of the former director of the media and the Spanish dictator headlining: Alma Mater rectifies and Franco is back.
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