78 Chapter 3
told that the main culprit—a single individual named Alberto Batista—now
lives in Miami. What really bothered Rodríguez wasn't the interdiction to
sing: it was the accusation that he had nothing to do with the revolution: “I
was mad, really mad, because nobody—absolutely nobody—had the right to
exclude me from the revolution..." (p.10). About the present, he deplores
“the lack of communication and of information in Cuba” and the lack of
“freedom.” It's worth recalling that in March of 2010 (so many years after he
gave that interview), Rodríguez suggested that the “r” of revolution should
be dropped, that an “evolution” is now in order. It is a very “revolutionary”
perspective in a country like Cuba to renounce the “r.” Nevertheless, his
comments remain vague, the “evolution” appearing to be a way of extending
La Revolución. In February of 2008, he made waves by calling for greater free-
dom to travel. As the most famous singer of the Nova Trova and probably
the best known cultural ambassador for La Revolución in Latin America, no
doubt he can afford a bit more space than the ordinary “cultural worker.”
Significantly, the other famous Trovador, Pablo Milanés, made critical com-
ments around the same time while performing in Spain. He said that “one
must condemn [the government] from the human perspective if Fariñas
dies.”^17 Milanés, who was briefly interned in the UMAP in the 1960s,
affirmed that “ideas must be discussed and engaged in battles of ideas, they
should not be incarcerated.”^18 Affirmations such as these are not explicit
challenges to the primary parameters but they are still meaningful in a coun-
try like Cuba.
Let's look at a few more examples. The case of Antón Arrufat (1935- ) is
well known. For many years he was prevented from publishing and sent to
work at the municipal library in a suburb of Havana, where he wasn’t allowed
to receive visitors or messages, or to write. This lasted nine years. Then, he
“wrote a letter to Fidel.” Twenty-two days later he got a reply and a job as
editor of Revolución y Cultura (though he could not publish for one more
year). In 1981 his novel La caja está cerrada was published. As he puts it: “My
rehabilitation had begun, and it has continued to this day.” He was awarded
the Carpentier Prize by the Cuban government at the Ninth International
Havana Book Fair in February 2000. Arrufat recalls that “... in my case no
leaders ever told me why they objected to my work. Instead, they broke all
- Guillermo Fariñas is a political dissident and Sakharov prize recipient who held two hun-
ger strikes in 2006 and 2010, both to protest against the detention of prisoners of conscience. - In El Nuevo Herald, 13 March 2010.