The Cuban regime has the shedding battle, it assures with substance Luis Manuel Otero, most seen head of San Isidro Motion (MSI), made up of artists and intellectuals from the island.
It refers to the truth that the song Patria y Vida, launched 15 days in the past on social networks, breaks information of views on YouTube, inside and outdoors the island. However above all “as a result of individuals hearken to the song in the streets, persons are succesful of buzzing it, placing it at the highest quantity of their tools in the streets, they’re placing (portray) ‘Patria y Vida’ on the facades of their homes ».
« No extra lies, my individuals ask for freedom, no extra doctrines /
Allow us to now not shout « Homeland and Demise » however « Homeland and Life » /
And begin to construct what we dream of what they destroyed with their arms … «
The government’s response in opposition to the song, its creators and performers, has been virulent. Accustomed to ignoring social or creative protests in opposition to him, on this event the Cuban regime used all the official media to disqualify the catchy theme, sung to the rhythm of rap and reggaeton.
Even the president himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel, devoted an sudden tweet to him on that social community.
Patria y Vida was composed by Yotuel romero, former member of the group Orishas, who sings it accompanied by the duo Folks of the Zone, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo and El Funky.
Each the title and one of its strongest stanzas allude to the well-known phrase « Homeland or demise » pronounced by Fidel Castro in 1959, and institutionalized as one of the biggest symbols of the Cuban Revolution.
Thus, the island’s cultural opposition has managed to strike an correct blow to the coronary heart of Castro’s ideology, the place the regime least anticipated it.
Did you anticipate this repercussion of the topic, Luis Manuel?
Sure Sure Sure. The figures that seem there are very profitable figures, each nationally and internationally. We’re speaking about Gente de Zona, by Orishas, with Funky Fashion; Figures that have a global influence and many followers on social networks and their movies have loads of visits. When that is mixed with civic and political duty, and particularly the recognition of musicians like Maykel Osorbo or El Funky who’re rebellious artists who elevate their voices for the freedom of Cuba. This mixture was indisputably identified that it could generate loads of happiness on the half of the individuals, the sectors of the opposition and the civil society that have been combating for a very long time.
How do you seem on this video?
Maykel Osorbo and El Funky are private associates, artists that I really like and admire, and they’re members of the MSI. They’ve spoken from the arrests that I’ve suffered, the arrests that Osorbo has suffered. There may be an indeniable connection between these artists of a excessive degree at a global degree and us. And when the video is made, Maykel tells me: ´Brother, you as the essential organizer, as an artist, as the supervisor of all the pieces that, partially, has occurred in Cuba proper now, I feel you must seem in the video. And I gladly accepted and participated and (I’m) tremendous comfortable and grateful that they made me a component of that video.
The response of the Cuban government to discredit them has been very harsh, Luis.
Since final November, after we did that starvation and thirst strike that additionally rang loads and that led to an enormous protest of 600 individuals, 600 younger individuals outdoors the Ministry of Tradition, since that second the regime has are available a repressive avalanche. In actual fact, I’ve a digicam outdoors my home that watches me and persecutes me for 24 hours, we endure home arrest. Particularly in the Cuban broadcast media, tv and radio, they’ve been in cost of tarnishing our photos, with homophobic, racist, macho and different phrases. That is half of that nice escalation that the regime has had, however the most fascinating factor is that the regime misplaced the battle a very long time in the past.
One of the recurring accusations to discredit them is financing. That they’re a motion paid for by the United States or by forces against the regime. How do you reside from artwork in a rustic like Cuba?
In Cuba we’re only a few individuals. Mexico Metropolis has 20 million individuals, we’re 11 million individuals all through the island. And we’ve got all that aura that if the battle with the Individuals, that if we’re a closed nation, and that has an simple attraction amongst the world of artwork at a global degree. Many individuals devour Cuban artwork and they like Cuban artwork, as a result of it’s unique all through the world.
I dwell from my artwork, from some collector in the United States, Miami, Europe, I journey; my artwork has connections. With my artwork I’ve managed to win scholarships, prizes, competitions, exhibit in essential museums, the identical with (Georges) Pompidou (in Paris). That’s what I dwell for. Typically tighter, proper now as a result of of the coronavirus all the pieces is tight, all the pieces is troublesome.
However above all the response to the challenge that the regime all the time accuses us of mercenaries. Think about that everybody in Cuba who has a stance in opposition to the regime is a mercenary. They will’t use one other phrase that is, I don’t know: ‘dangerous particular person’, one thing else. They’re mercenaries. That’s the first time period they use to disqualify. So it’s like: no person in Cuba thinks for himself, we’re so silly. So long as we reply to the pursuits of the regime, we aren’t silly. Typically we reply to curiosity and we’re silly and paid and so on.
It’s loopy, they underestimate us as human beings; however there we proceed combating for freedom and for our love. And the love that I really feel for Cuba was instilled in me, not an enemy energy, no, no, that is an insult and an invention of the 60-year-old regime, that each day individuals imagine much less in it.
We’re artists, we’re sensitivity /
The true story, not the improper one /
We’re the dignity of an entire individuals trampled on /
At gunpoint and with phrases that are nonetheless nothing …
With simply 33 years of age, Otero Alcántara has headed for simply 25 months, a dissident motion that is against the State regulating and controlling creative exercise. Such has been the drive that the MSI has taken that a number of of its members have been detained, imprisoned or held incommunicado a number of occasions. The group takes its identify from the common neighborhood situated southwest of Previous Havana, the place the place José Martí was born, by the means.
For his activism, Luis Manuel Otero has been in and out of Cuban prisons in the final two years.
Artwork or activism?
I feel there isn’t a separation. For me artwork and activism are the identical. I put my artwork in operate of the individuals and fortunately it generates connectivity and generates options to the individuals. Civic options. We dwell in a rustic the place the dictatorship has disrupted civic opposition or civic schooling.
As an artist, on this inflexible actuality, you set a helmet in your head that says: ‘Youngsters have been born to be comfortable, to not die in landslides’ and then comes the father of that woman who died in an accident that may have prevented and that the regime gave a crude reply, and that father makes use of your phrase; you understand that your work works. And what one does merely is day by day artwork, drawing, sculpture, portray, which is the instrument that one is aware of, that one has. And that generates connections, generates all the pieces that is occurring in the thoughts.
Precisely one 12 months in the past you have been arrested 13, 14 days; How was life after that expertise?
Repression and violence have been rising, however greater than violence by the regime, we ourselves as activists, as artists, as cultural actors, received an important victory once they managed to get my associates out of jail and that has generated an important present and an important drive inside the world of tradition dedicated to adjustments in Cuba.
The place is the MSI going?
We are going to proceed working from the place we’re, which is: combating for freedom. We’re artists, many of those that are at MSI have been working from the cultural house for 20 years. That’s what has gotten us right here at this level.
Being in artwork, which is tremendous elitist, connecting it with the duty they’ve earlier than society and that generates connection, generates that the completely different areas of civil society, similar to animalists, the LGBT + neighborhood, those that struggle for racial rights Feminists additionally study instruments to defend your rights.
We’re going to demand the proper to proceed advancing, the proper to have a voice inside Cuba, to be heard with out the should be repressed. And that sooner or later we’re going to daybreak and that is known as democracy.
That the blood doesn’t preserve operating / for eager to suppose in a different way
Who informed you that Cuba belongs to you? / If my Cuba belongs to all my individuals
It’s over, and we’re not afraid / dishonest is over
It’s over, it’s sixty-two hurting …
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