Parameters, Uncertainty and Recognition: The Politics of Culture in Cuba 75
(Cesar López), or collaborator in film production (Jesus Diaz)—perhaps
preferable to inspector of poultry at the Buenos Aires market (Jorge Luis
Borges)...
The 1960s proved to be a fairly oppressive and repressive decade for
Cuban artists, writers and academics. Interestingly, it is rarely presented as
such, even by opponents of the regime, probably because at the time cultural
actors typically strove to redeem their “original sin” (not participating in the
insurgency against Batista). After a period of intense ideological cravings
(bordering on the religious, as Rafael Rojas suggested) and competition for
recognition, many intellectuals were marginalized and censored. The repres-
sion of the following decade, now officially recognized as the only dark
period of cultural repression in Cuba, was more systematic and coherent but
it was probably less extensive than during the 1960s.^13
Within the PCF, competition for recognition between different groups
have emerged periodically. The battles brought to an end publications and
groups like Lunes de Revolución (1959-61), El Puente (1961-65), the cultural
supplement of Juventud Rebelde under the directorship of Jesús Díaz entitled
El Caimán Barbudo (1966-83), Pensamiento Crítico (1967-71), the Centro de Estu-
dios de América, Paideia and Naranja Dulce (Martínez Pérez, 2006; Menton,
1975; Rojas, 2009). They were all ran by writers who thought of themselves
as avant-garde revolutionary intellectuals or artists. Because they were
embracing La Revolución and acted as if they had been recognized as the
new cultural elite, many mistakenly assumed they could be a bit irreverent,
affect an aesthetic detachment, be humorous, even ridiculed their bureau-
cratic superiors (Díaz, 2000; Collmann, 2000). They soon found out that one
can unwittingly stray “outside” La Revolución. None were ever “anti-estab-
lishment” and many of the individuals continued to strive for recognition by
the state after their fall.Guessing the Secondary ParametersAcademics, writers and artists can talk about problems and challenges in
Cuba. Errors can be called as such, if some of the following conditions are
met: 1) they were already identified as such by the political leadership; 2) they- Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez concurs: “the 1970s were in fact kinder than the 1960s.”
In Kirk and Padura Fuentes, 2001: 10.