Celebrating real Cuban culture and the artists defying totalitarian efforts to rewrite it

Let us no longer shout "Homeland and Death" but "Homeland and Life"

 

Artists from the San Isidro Movement celebrating Cuban culture

 "Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth," observed George Orwell in his essay, "The Prevention of Literature" in the journal Polemic, published in January 1946. Writers that refuse to go along with alteration of the past all too often pay a terrible price. This is also true for artists in other fields because totalitarians seek to control the culture.

 

Ángel Cuadra, who passed away on February 13, 2021, was a Cuban lawyer, writer, poet, and actor who in 1967 was sentenced to 15 years in prison and in February 1977 Amnesty International highlighted his case and recognized him as a prisoner of conscience. He was paroled for four months in 1976, but returned to prison to serve out his sentence after a book of his poems were published abroad. Castro could not tolerate independent cultural expression and punished him with another five years in prison followed by forced exile.

 

 

Ángel Cuadra defending Cuban culture and ideas prior to his arrest.

Those who wish to be fooled by the totalitarians fall for their lies time and time again, but facts intrude for those seeking the truth. On February 12, 2021 the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) "described as a mockery against freedom of the press and expression a series of measures of economic opening that the Cuban regime dictated and that leaves out the exercise of independent journalism." No doubt those seeking to legitimize the dictatorship in Havana will want to once again give it the benefit of the doubt.

 

But those who recognize Cuba's past and listen to its authentic cultural expressions in the present have captured truths that point to the regime monstrous nature.  New generations in Cuba today, such as the San Isidro Movement, continue the work of Ángel Cuadra defending the existence of objective truth, and recovering the past the dictatorship in Havana continues trying to erase.

 

Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life)

By Yotuel with Gente De Zona​, Descemer Bueno​, Maykel Osorbo, El Funky

And you are my siren song
Because with your voice my sorrows go away
And this feeling is already stale
You hurt me so much though you are far away

Today I invite you to walk through my building
To show you what your ideals are worth
We are human although we do not think alike
Let's not treat or harm ourselves like animals

This is my way of telling you
My people cry and I feel their voice
You five nine me double two
Sixty years without the dominoes shuffled
Celebrating the five hundred of Havana
While at home, their pots are empty

What do we celebrate if people are hurrying
Trading Che Guevara and Martí for foreign currency
Everything has changed it is no longer the same
Between you and me there is an abyss
Advertising a paradise in Varadero
While mothers cry for their children who left

It's over, you five nine me double two
It's over, sixty years without the dominoes shuffled, look
It's over, you five nine me double two
It's over, sixty years without the dominoes shuffled

We are artists, we are sensitive
The true story, not the fabricated one
We are the dignity of a whole people trampled on
At gunpoint and words that are still nothing

No more lies, my people ask for freedom, no more doctrines,
Let us no longer shout "Homeland and Death" but "Homeland and Life",
And start building what we dream, what they destroyed with their hands ...
That blood not continue to flow, for wanting to think differently,
Who told you that Cuba belongs to you, if my Cuba belongs to all my people

It's over, your time is up, the silence is broken
It's over, the laughter is over and the tears are already running
It's over, and we're not afraid, the deception is over
It's over now, it's sixty-two doing harm

There we live with the uncertainty of the past, planted
Fifteen friends standing, ready to die,
We raise the flag still the repression of the regime to the day,
Anamely Ramos steadfast with her poetry,
Omara Ruiz Urquiola giving us encouragement, of life
They broke down our door, they violated our temple,
And the world is aware that the San Isidro movement continues, since

We continue in the same, security imposing their perspective,
These things make me indignant, the enigma is over
I know your malignant revolution, I’m funky’style here is my signature
You are already left over, no more left, you are already going down,
The people got tired of holding on, we are waiting for a new dawn

It's over, you five nine me double two
It's over, sixty years without the dominoes shuffled, look
It's over, you five nine me double two
It's over, sixty years without the dominoes shuffled

HOMELAND AND LIFE
HOMELAND AND LIFE
HOMELAND AND LIFE
HOMELAND AND LIFE

(SIXTY YEARS WITHOUT THE DOMINOES SHUFFLED)

HOMELAND AND LIFE
HOMELAND AND LIFE
HOMELAND AND LIFE
HOMELAND AND LIFE